Does no one actually bother to check things out before they post? The 10 cents is for the ability to stream the song from their site as many times and as often as you want (as long as they are in business). For a dime, you have access to the song online as much as you want. For the extra 79 cents, you can then download it and keep it on your MP3 player (just like iTunes or Amazon).
To me, this seems like a damn good idea. The more be become connected, the more there isn't much difference between online and offline. Except for my MP3 player (which gets used about once a week) and the MP3 cds I play in the car, there is no difference between playing something off my HD and streaming it. I have an always on internet connection at both work and home, so to me, paying 10 cents to be able to have the songs I want always available seems like a good deal.
I find it interesting that everyone always says the record companies should come up with new ideas, but when they do, people complain because it isn't a simple "give me mp3 for incredibly low price". The only idea people are interested in is free (or close to free) music.
While I see what you are driving at, wouldn't these very same situations apply to other countries as well? What if Spain finds out a group is using MySpace to plan bombings in Spain or a group is using MSN to track German troop movement for an attack? Why shouldn't they be allowed to request the same censorship? Why should it be okay for us to censor these things but illegal for other countries to censor them?
And what happens when this ability is abused (as it will be)? Is there any oversight to ensure that what the president is censoring is actually national security related and not just national embarrassment related? Or is it yet another "well, we have to take the president at his word" case, because those always turn out so well.
Actually, this stays right in line with their previous views. They were not anti-P2P. They said that if people want to have their music shared that way, they have every right to. But they also said they did not want their music traded for free, and that was their right as musicians. They went after Napster not because it was sharing music in general, but it was sharing Metallica songs that they didn't want shared. Now they have decided that they may want to put their songs out there for trading, which is their right. I'm not a Metallica fan so I wouldn't bother to download their stuff anyway, but they have completely within their rights to put this out there.
Simply put, they aren't hypocritical with this. They always said if other people want to do it, they had no issue with it. Now they are the "other people".
One year I sent an email to everyone telling them that because of continuing complaints about the line quality of the phones, a company was coming in to clean the phone lines. I advised everyone that they should place a tissue over the mouthpiece and earpiece of the phones, as they would be blowing compressed air through the phones lines, and dust could be ejected through the handsets. It was fun walking around at the end of the day to count up the number of people with the handsets covered with tissues.
While it's true that he may be biased, asking people who have turned down MS won't tell you anything, because they have no knowledge of what happens when MS buys you. What this guy is trying to get across (for either his own personal reasons or as an MS employee)is that a lot of the fears and FUD you hear about MS taking over a company (they will just fire everyone and keep the tech, they will totally assimilate you and change your culture, they will just buy you and bury your tech and push theirs, etc)are not true. Asking someone who didn't get taken over by MS what MS does when they take someone over is just silly, as they don't know. If you want to know if something is true, you ask people who have been through it, not someone who avoided it because of the rumours.
He acted on the information because wikileaks didn't bother to dispute any of it (why they didn't is up for debate). He had one side showing up and claiming they were being horribly harmed by a website and it would kill their business and kick puppies and whatever else they claimed. The judge looked to the other side to ask if any of this was true, and there was no one there to tell him it wasn't, so he had believed the only information in front of him and acted on it.
This just shows that if you are being sued, simply hiding and avoiding it is not usually a good course of action, especially if you think the case has no merit. IF the judge only has 1 side talking to him, he is going to listen to them.
It's not very hard to come up with a different number. You are basing your number as if the RIAA was suing people for having MP3s they didn't pay for. In that case, the correct fine would be somewhere close to what it would cost to purchase the MP3s (plus some punitive damages I would assume). The thing is though, none of these suits has anything to do with having MP3s that weren't purchased, but about distributing MP3s that your don't have the rights to distribute. If the makers of those crappy Now! cds contact the RIAA (or more specifically the record company) and ask what it would cost to license the newest hit song to put on their CD, do you think that it would cost the same as to purchase the song via iTunes? Even if they say they are going to give away the CD for free, the cost is still going to be huge, because they are acquiring the rights to distribute the song. So when you distribute the song via P2P, you are not acquiring a copy of the song, but you are assuming the right to distribute the song, which is worth a lot more.
Is the 1.5 million for CD too much? Yes, I think that is outrageous. But so is saying the distribution rights for a CD are only worth $15 total. I actually think what they are usually suing for (a couple thousand per song) is probably around the right range for the rights to most songs.
So, the article states "The all new Apple TV software delivers an entirely new user experience centered around iTunes Movie Rentals, allowing movie fans to rent and watch movies right from their widescreen TV, with no computer required." Can someone please explain how exactly you run the Apple TV software without a computer? Does is magic run on my widescreen tv? Did they invent a new way for my current TV to connect to the internet and download, save, and play a movie automagically? Or is this just blatant bullshit?
I think the main point isn't that something bad happened to these character (whether permanent or temporary) but why it happened. These things happened generally to further define/motivate a male character. The majority of time, these women were used as designated victim to motivate a male character. The things that happened didn't help define these women as characters, they helped to show why the man was upset and wanting revenge.
When Batman's back was broken, it lead to him coming back stronger and help define his character more. When Black Canary was beaten to a pulp in the Longbow Hunters, it lead not to her coming back even stronger and helping to further define her character, but to Green Arrow coming in and killing the perpetrators, thus showing more about his character. If Black Canary had come back from the beating like Batman did, we wouldn't be talking about it. But instead of using it to further her character, it happened to further the male character.
When writers never (or extremely rarely) take a male friend and kill them to anger the male character. They always use a female as the designated victim. The injury to the women are used not to push forward their own story, they are used solely to enhance the males in the story and give them a reason to do something.
While you are technically correct, they award could be based (I haven't read the decision in depth) on the fact that she basically claimed distribution rights to the song herself and the penalty should be based on what that would cost. If I went to a record label and said "I am going to put out a CD and I want to put song X on it" it would cost me much more than what it would cost me to purchase the song from iTunes, because I am purchasing the right to redistribute it. She basically has claimed this right for herself by distributing the song without permission, so it would be logical if the penalty is based on what it would cost to license the song to distribute not on the fact an individual can buy the song for 99 cents. She was not sued for downloading the song herself, so what she (or any individual) would have paid is irrelevant.
I have yet to find a station as good at introducing me to new music as WOXY. They started as a college radio station and made the jump to the internet a few years ago. They are constantly praised as being one of the best stations around, and I believe it. They still have DJs that select all the music they plan on their own, without any rules on what they must play. And the playlist is in constant rotation, with new bands being added all the time.
The jury decided the penalty, and it's plain ridiculous.
Let's assume we agree that the defendant was, as this juror said, an obvious liar, and guilty on all counts. Should she really lose her house or retirement savings over this?
I'm personally against stealing copyrighted music. But this penalty is waaaaay out of proportion to the crime, IMHO. The woman had an opportunity to settle out of court for a much lower amount. She chose to pass up the opportunity to settle and instead decided to push the issue knowing what the possible outcomes were (anywhere from her winning to around $150000 per song). She lost and got a smallish fine compared to what it could have been.
Whether you agree or not with how the RIAA is going about this, I have a hard time feeling bad for the woman. She had her opportunity to settle out of court and she decided not to, knowing what the possible outcomes were. It is fairly obvious she was guilty, as her defense was a joke. Part of the purpose of the monetary award is punitive, which means it can be a lot of money. She took a gamble and lost.
Another interesting thing is that, averaged out, this adds up to $9250 per infringement. At that price the defendant could have physically stolen about 600 copies of each work (assuming around $15 per work). So it pays to remember that the fines for physically stealing copyrighted works are much less than infringing on them. I really hate this lame comparison. She was not sued for downloading songs, but for distributing songs. Was it too much? Probably. But comparing it to stealing physical CDs is meaningless, since they are 2 completely different activities. If you really want a comparison, it would be closest to her making and selling physical CDs, since she was distributing songs (and no, I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison, but it's probably the closest).
It may be a chicken and egg problem from your perspective, as someone who wants more software and users for Linux, but it's no problem at all from their perspective at all. Their goal is to sell their product and make money. They don't care if more companies having software for Linux will get more people to use Linux, they care that most people use Windows/OSX, so that is where they target their software.
When selling ad's on your channel it does not matter. saying "Discovery Rome lite" is available on 3500 cable networks is all that matters.
you have to justify to the guy buying your Ad air time why he is not wasing money on a channel that is probably not going to get viewed. While the amount of homes a channels is available may play a factor, the actual ratings and demographics of the ratings plays a much larger factor. You may sell some extremely low cost ads based on the number of homes the channel is available in, you won't get the good ads unless you can show not only decent ratings (i.e. how many people are actually watching a show) but also the right demographics (i.e. Girls Gone Wild ads want young male viewership, they won't advertise on Lifetime no matter how many eyes they can get). They want to bundle the niche channels because that way they are available and can get viewership. If they are ala carte, only the people who are really interested in them will pay for them, but if it is already there on your guide, you may see a show that sounds interesting and tune into it. It's the same concept of having your product available in big chain stores. The more stores your product is in, the better chance someone may stumble upon it and buy it.
While this sounds like a good idea, it would ultimately mean the death of a lot of good programming and channels. Yes, you may only watch 10 channels, but are those the most popular 10 channels? If they aren't, they may not make enough money to survive in an ala carte setup. Something like G4 (which yes, is nowhere near as good as it was but still has some good shows like X-Play) probably would never make it if it was subscriber only, as it is a niche channel. There just wouldn't be enough people willing to pay $3 a month (or however much) to get the channel. Same thing with VH1Classic, Discovery Science, and many other niche channels that have some good programming. Ala carte means every channel must cater to the lowest common denominator, as they survive on getting as many people to order their channel as possible. That means lots of things like MTV and less things like SciFi.
Ala carte sounds great for my pocketbook, but I'm not willing to give up the good, niche programming that would die off to save a couple extra bucks a month.
They advertise the speed their service runs at. No where does it say you can use the service at max speed at all times. If I advertise a car that can go up to 100 MPH, is it false advertising because you can't always run the car at 100 MPH because you have to stop for gas, get the oil changed, etc?
The speed on the connection is completely separate from the amount you can download via the connection. Granted, they should spell out the limit if there is one, but just because they tell you the possible download speed doesn't mean the limit is the theoretical maximum you could download.
My question is why the sudden change of heart about commercial use? It is stated that the site has had advertising, so why is it okay for the old site owner to put advertising on the site, but not okay for the new owner to put advertising on the site? The older owner may not have made a lot of money of the site (at least he claims he didn't, I doubt anyone but him really knows) but his intention was obviously commercial, as shown by his selling of the site and cashing in. It seems to me the license of being broken before and no one cared about it, so why is okay for the former owner to break the license bu not okay for the new owner?
Except that isn't what is happening at all. This is not a case of someone purchasing something and downloading it and then it stops working. This was a streaming video site, people never downloaded anything. If they paid for this, they had to watch the video streamed from Google. There was no DRM because there was nothing to DRM, it was all streamed. It certainly sucks that people paid for a supposedly infinite right to stream these shows and now won't be able to, but that is not DRM at all. IF I paid for a lifetime movie ticket to my local theatre and they closed, I would be in the same boat as these people.
DRM is doing it's job
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 4, Informative
No one ever expected DRM to stop all copying. That was never it's purpose. The purpose of DRM was to curb copying, which it has done. Everyone realizes there will always be a way to get around DRM (or anything else really) if you really want to. But if you can implement DRM and stop 50% or 75% of copying, that is a big improvement. That is exactly what they did. They implemented a solution that will reduce copying by the average person, which means more money in their pockets since less people are copying CDs and giving them to friends (and no, I'm not claiming every person who copied a CD would go and buy it, but certainly some of them will).
DRM works under the same concept as locking your car. IF someone really wants in, they will get in. But it certainly cuts down on the casual person who will take an easy opportunity, but doesn't care enough to put in the effort to get around the measures you put in place.
While this may be true, I bet if the ATM shorted you money, you would certainly make the time to do this to get your money. If you would expect them to give you money if they screwed up and didn't give you enough, why should you not be expected to tell them if they gave you too much?
It really annoys me the way people think it is okay to screw people as long as it is a company getting screwed. If you expect them to be fair and not screw, why would you not do the same for them? It's not wrong only when you get screwed.
Well, the first thing is that they can not get the URL, only the web site address. So they can find out you went to Slashdot.org, but not that you went to a specific article. And while there is often a 1-1 correlation between the web address and figuring out the content, the same can be said for phone numbers. If I know you called Planned Parenthood, I know just as much as if I know you went to their web site. All I know is you have some interest in something they do. It does narrow it down a bit, but is far from conclusive, especially since I don't know what exactly you looked at on the page.
I'm not a fan of the pen register rule, but this seems like a completely logical and fair expansion of the rule to cyberspace.
Slashdot Mirror
Does no one actually bother to check things out before they post? The 10 cents is for the ability to stream the song from their site as many times and as often as you want (as long as they are in business). For a dime, you have access to the song online as much as you want. For the extra 79 cents, you can then download it and keep it on your MP3 player (just like iTunes or Amazon).
To me, this seems like a damn good idea. The more be become connected, the more there isn't much difference between online and offline. Except for my MP3 player (which gets used about once a week) and the MP3 cds I play in the car, there is no difference between playing something off my HD and streaming it. I have an always on internet connection at both work and home, so to me, paying 10 cents to be able to have the songs I want always available seems like a good deal.
I find it interesting that everyone always says the record companies should come up with new ideas, but when they do, people complain because it isn't a simple "give me mp3 for incredibly low price". The only idea people are interested in is free (or close to free) music.
While I see what you are driving at, wouldn't these very same situations apply to other countries as well? What if Spain finds out a group is using MySpace to plan bombings in Spain or a group is using MSN to track German troop movement for an attack? Why shouldn't they be allowed to request the same censorship? Why should it be okay for us to censor these things but illegal for other countries to censor them?
And what happens when this ability is abused (as it will be)? Is there any oversight to ensure that what the president is censoring is actually national security related and not just national embarrassment related? Or is it yet another "well, we have to take the president at his word" case, because those always turn out so well.
Actually, this stays right in line with their previous views. They were not anti-P2P. They said that if people want to have their music shared that way, they have every right to. But they also said they did not want their music traded for free, and that was their right as musicians. They went after Napster not because it was sharing music in general, but it was sharing Metallica songs that they didn't want shared. Now they have decided that they may want to put their songs out there for trading, which is their right. I'm not a Metallica fan so I wouldn't bother to download their stuff anyway, but they have completely within their rights to put this out there.
Simply put, they aren't hypocritical with this. They always said if other people want to do it, they had no issue with it. Now they are the "other people".
One year I sent an email to everyone telling them that because of continuing complaints about the line quality of the phones, a company was coming in to clean the phone lines. I advised everyone that they should place a tissue over the mouthpiece and earpiece of the phones, as they would be blowing compressed air through the phones lines, and dust could be ejected through the handsets. It was fun walking around at the end of the day to count up the number of people with the handsets covered with tissues.
While it's true that he may be biased, asking people who have turned down MS won't tell you anything, because they have no knowledge of what happens when MS buys you. What this guy is trying to get across (for either his own personal reasons or as an MS employee)is that a lot of the fears and FUD you hear about MS taking over a company (they will just fire everyone and keep the tech, they will totally assimilate you and change your culture, they will just buy you and bury your tech and push theirs, etc)are not true. Asking someone who didn't get taken over by MS what MS does when they take someone over is just silly, as they don't know. If you want to know if something is true, you ask people who have been through it, not someone who avoided it because of the rumours.
He acted on the information because wikileaks didn't bother to dispute any of it (why they didn't is up for debate). He had one side showing up and claiming they were being horribly harmed by a website and it would kill their business and kick puppies and whatever else they claimed. The judge looked to the other side to ask if any of this was true, and there was no one there to tell him it wasn't, so he had believed the only information in front of him and acted on it.
This just shows that if you are being sued, simply hiding and avoiding it is not usually a good course of action, especially if you think the case has no merit. IF the judge only has 1 side talking to him, he is going to listen to them.
It's not very hard to come up with a different number. You are basing your number as if the RIAA was suing people for having MP3s they didn't pay for. In that case, the correct fine would be somewhere close to what it would cost to purchase the MP3s (plus some punitive damages I would assume). The thing is though, none of these suits has anything to do with having MP3s that weren't purchased, but about distributing MP3s that your don't have the rights to distribute. If the makers of those crappy Now! cds contact the RIAA (or more specifically the record company) and ask what it would cost to license the newest hit song to put on their CD, do you think that it would cost the same as to purchase the song via iTunes? Even if they say they are going to give away the CD for free, the cost is still going to be huge, because they are acquiring the rights to distribute the song. So when you distribute the song via P2P, you are not acquiring a copy of the song, but you are assuming the right to distribute the song, which is worth a lot more.
Is the 1.5 million for CD too much? Yes, I think that is outrageous. But so is saying the distribution rights for a CD are only worth $15 total. I actually think what they are usually suing for (a couple thousand per song) is probably around the right range for the rights to most songs.
Last time I checked, Apple TV is just Apple version of a media PC, which means it's a computer.
So, the article states "The all new Apple TV software delivers an entirely new user experience centered around iTunes Movie Rentals, allowing movie fans to rent and watch movies right from their widescreen TV, with no computer required." Can someone please explain how exactly you run the Apple TV software without a computer? Does is magic run on my widescreen tv? Did they invent a new way for my current TV to connect to the internet and download, save, and play a movie automagically? Or is this just blatant bullshit?
I think the main point isn't that something bad happened to these character (whether permanent or temporary) but why it happened. These things happened generally to further define/motivate a male character. The majority of time, these women were used as designated victim to motivate a male character. The things that happened didn't help define these women as characters, they helped to show why the man was upset and wanting revenge.
When Batman's back was broken, it lead to him coming back stronger and help define his character more. When Black Canary was beaten to a pulp in the Longbow Hunters, it lead not to her coming back even stronger and helping to further define her character, but to Green Arrow coming in and killing the perpetrators, thus showing more about his character. If Black Canary had come back from the beating like Batman did, we wouldn't be talking about it. But instead of using it to further her character, it happened to further the male character.
When writers never (or extremely rarely) take a male friend and kill them to anger the male character. They always use a female as the designated victim. The injury to the women are used not to push forward their own story, they are used solely to enhance the males in the story and give them a reason to do something.
While you are technically correct, they award could be based (I haven't read the decision in depth) on the fact that she basically claimed distribution rights to the song herself and the penalty should be based on what that would cost. If I went to a record label and said "I am going to put out a CD and I want to put song X on it" it would cost me much more than what it would cost me to purchase the song from iTunes, because I am purchasing the right to redistribute it. She basically has claimed this right for herself by distributing the song without permission, so it would be logical if the penalty is based on what it would cost to license the song to distribute not on the fact an individual can buy the song for 99 cents. She was not sued for downloading the song herself, so what she (or any individual) would have paid is irrelevant.
I have yet to find a station as good at introducing me to new music as WOXY. They started as a college radio station and made the jump to the internet a few years ago. They are constantly praised as being one of the best stations around, and I believe it. They still have DJs that select all the music they plan on their own, without any rules on what they must play. And the playlist is in constant rotation, with new bands being added all the time.
We don't have flying cars because some people aren't willing to sacrifice for it.
The jury decided the penalty, and it's plain ridiculous.
Let's assume we agree that the defendant was, as this juror said, an obvious liar, and guilty on all counts.
Should she really lose her house or retirement savings over this?
I'm personally against stealing copyrighted music. But this penalty is waaaaay out of proportion to the crime, IMHO.
The woman had an opportunity to settle out of court for a much lower amount. She chose to pass up the opportunity to settle and instead decided to push the issue knowing what the possible outcomes were (anywhere from her winning to around $150000 per song). She lost and got a smallish fine compared to what it could have been.
Whether you agree or not with how the RIAA is going about this, I have a hard time feeling bad for the woman. She had her opportunity to settle out of court and she decided not to, knowing what the possible outcomes were. It is fairly obvious she was guilty, as her defense was a joke. Part of the purpose of the monetary award is punitive, which means it can be a lot of money. She took a gamble and lost.
Another interesting thing is that, averaged out, this adds up to $9250 per infringement. At that price the defendant could have physically stolen about 600 copies of each work (assuming around $15 per work). So it pays to remember that the fines for physically stealing copyrighted works are much less than infringing on them.
I really hate this lame comparison. She was not sued for downloading songs, but for distributing songs. Was it too much? Probably. But comparing it to stealing physical CDs is meaningless, since they are 2 completely different activities. If you really want a comparison, it would be closest to her making and selling physical CDs, since she was distributing songs (and no, I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison, but it's probably the closest).
It may be a chicken and egg problem from your perspective, as someone who wants more software and users for Linux, but it's no problem at all from their perspective at all. Their goal is to sell their product and make money. They don't care if more companies having software for Linux will get more people to use Linux, they care that most people use Windows/OSX, so that is where they target their software.
When selling ad's on your channel it does not matter. saying "Discovery Rome lite" is available on 3500 cable networks is all that matters.
you have to justify to the guy buying your Ad air time why he is not wasing money on a channel that is probably not going to get viewed.
While the amount of homes a channels is available may play a factor, the actual ratings and demographics of the ratings plays a much larger factor. You may sell some extremely low cost ads based on the number of homes the channel is available in, you won't get the good ads unless you can show not only decent ratings (i.e. how many people are actually watching a show) but also the right demographics (i.e. Girls Gone Wild ads want young male viewership, they won't advertise on Lifetime no matter how many eyes they can get). They want to bundle the niche channels because that way they are available and can get viewership. If they are ala carte, only the people who are really interested in them will pay for them, but if it is already there on your guide, you may see a show that sounds interesting and tune into it. It's the same concept of having your product available in big chain stores. The more stores your product is in, the better chance someone may stumble upon it and buy it.
While this sounds like a good idea, it would ultimately mean the death of a lot of good programming and channels. Yes, you may only watch 10 channels, but are those the most popular 10 channels? If they aren't, they may not make enough money to survive in an ala carte setup. Something like G4 (which yes, is nowhere near as good as it was but still has some good shows like X-Play) probably would never make it if it was subscriber only, as it is a niche channel. There just wouldn't be enough people willing to pay $3 a month (or however much) to get the channel. Same thing with VH1Classic, Discovery Science, and many other niche channels that have some good programming. Ala carte means every channel must cater to the lowest common denominator, as they survive on getting as many people to order their channel as possible. That means lots of things like MTV and less things like SciFi.
Ala carte sounds great for my pocketbook, but I'm not willing to give up the good, niche programming that would die off to save a couple extra bucks a month.
They advertise the speed their service runs at. No where does it say you can use the service at max speed at all times. If I advertise a car that can go up to 100 MPH, is it false advertising because you can't always run the car at 100 MPH because you have to stop for gas, get the oil changed, etc?
The speed on the connection is completely separate from the amount you can download via the connection. Granted, they should spell out the limit if there is one, but just because they tell you the possible download speed doesn't mean the limit is the theoretical maximum you could download.
My question is why the sudden change of heart about commercial use? It is stated that the site has had advertising, so why is it okay for the old site owner to put advertising on the site, but not okay for the new owner to put advertising on the site? The older owner may not have made a lot of money of the site (at least he claims he didn't, I doubt anyone but him really knows) but his intention was obviously commercial, as shown by his selling of the site and cashing in. It seems to me the license of being broken before and no one cared about it, so why is okay for the former owner to break the license bu not okay for the new owner?
Except that isn't what is happening at all. This is not a case of someone purchasing something and downloading it and then it stops working. This was a streaming video site, people never downloaded anything. If they paid for this, they had to watch the video streamed from Google. There was no DRM because there was nothing to DRM, it was all streamed. It certainly sucks that people paid for a supposedly infinite right to stream these shows and now won't be able to, but that is not DRM at all. IF I paid for a lifetime movie ticket to my local theatre and they closed, I would be in the same boat as these people.
No one ever expected DRM to stop all copying. That was never it's purpose. The purpose of DRM was to curb copying, which it has done. Everyone realizes there will always be a way to get around DRM (or anything else really) if you really want to. But if you can implement DRM and stop 50% or 75% of copying, that is a big improvement. That is exactly what they did. They implemented a solution that will reduce copying by the average person, which means more money in their pockets since less people are copying CDs and giving them to friends (and no, I'm not claiming every person who copied a CD would go and buy it, but certainly some of them will).
DRM works under the same concept as locking your car. IF someone really wants in, they will get in. But it certainly cuts down on the casual person who will take an easy opportunity, but doesn't care enough to put in the effort to get around the measures you put in place.
While this may be true, I bet if the ATM shorted you money, you would certainly make the time to do this to get your money. If you would expect them to give you money if they screwed up and didn't give you enough, why should you not be expected to tell them if they gave you too much?
It really annoys me the way people think it is okay to screw people as long as it is a company getting screwed. If you expect them to be fair and not screw, why would you not do the same for them? It's not wrong only when you get screwed.
To steal from Joel McHale, who would have thought Hermione was a dude? I certainly didn't see it coming!
Well, the first thing is that they can not get the URL, only the web site address. So they can find out you went to Slashdot.org, but not that you went to a specific article. And while there is often a 1-1 correlation between the web address and figuring out the content, the same can be said for phone numbers. If I know you called Planned Parenthood, I know just as much as if I know you went to their web site. All I know is you have some interest in something they do. It does narrow it down a bit, but is far from conclusive, especially since I don't know what exactly you looked at on the page.
I'm not a fan of the pen register rule, but this seems like a completely logical and fair expansion of the rule to cyberspace.