CNET says: "Federal law allows people to make personal copies of songs but does not require record companies to stand aside so consumers can do so."
IANAL, but this sounds very dubious. If a law upholds my right to perform an action, surely a record company (or anyone) must stand aside to let me do so. Failing to comply is deliberately obstructing the law and infringing my rights. What am I missing here?
CNET also says "Label executives note that music CDs are the only mainstream entertainment medium that does not have some kind of copy protection built in."
They have to be kidding. What copyright protection is built into audio tapes? TV? VHS? None that I know of, or at least, none that isn't trivial to bypass and probably is bypassed by every copying consumer without them even knowing it. For all I know, VCD may have anti-piracy mechanisms on the disc, but they sure as hell copy easily enough. I'm told. Last time I checked, the video out on my VCR worked pretty good on the video in on another too, for all CNET mentions VHS protection.
This is such an utterly pointless fight. If I can see it, I can copy it. The only way to prevent this is to ensure that I am seeing it at reduced quality, which is a step I doubt consumers will leap to embrace.
Spending millions on pointless technology protecting an indefensible model or spending millions reinventing the business model to find new revenue sources that accomodate a changing market. Why is this such a hard choice?
The business health of Ximian (or any other OSS company) IS important, a fact that escapes many users. It's not "all about the SOFTWARE", it's also about the future development of the software, the support, the advocacy, the integration.
Users don't need to care about that stuff because it's usually being taken care of, but too many OSS projects stick at the "it works" stage, and ignore the rest. So long as you're only serving the users who want the raw features, great, but OSS is moving into bigger markets, and needs to grow up.
The likes of Sun and IBM use Linux and OSS software because it gives value to their customers. They will (hopefully) pay companies like Ximian to do all the background work on software to maximise that value, and the value is NOT just in a checklist of features.
Historically, OSS developers have done an inconsistent, sometimes-but-not-always-adequate job of the soft issues I mentioned. Customers (especially enterprise customers) want Consistent, and they want Good. Business health is one indicator that a customer can use to gauge whether they'll get that or not.
I thought the Microdrive was CF2 - not compatible with CF. For instance, I have a Microdrive demo unit (non-functional, just the shell) from IBM, and it doesn't fit in the CF slot on my Psion5. Is there definitely going to be a CF version that will fit the Palm/Psion/various digital cameras?
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL, but this sounds very dubious. If a law upholds my right to perform an action, surely a record company (or anyone) must stand aside to let me do so. Failing to comply is deliberately obstructing the law and infringing my rights. What am I missing here?
CNET also says "Label executives note that music CDs are the only mainstream entertainment medium that does not have some kind of copy protection built in."
They have to be kidding. What copyright protection is built into audio tapes? TV? VHS? None that I know of, or at least, none that isn't trivial to bypass and probably is bypassed by every copying consumer without them even knowing it. For all I know, VCD may have anti-piracy mechanisms on the disc, but they sure as hell copy easily enough. I'm told. Last time I checked, the video out on my VCR worked pretty good on the video in on another too, for all CNET mentions VHS protection.
This is such an utterly pointless fight. If I can see it, I can copy it. The only way to prevent this is to ensure that I am seeing it at reduced quality, which is a step I doubt consumers will leap to embrace.
Spending millions on pointless technology protecting an indefensible model or spending millions reinventing the business model to find new revenue sources that accomodate a changing market. Why is this such a hard choice?
The business health of Ximian (or any other OSS company) IS important, a fact that escapes many users. It's not "all about the SOFTWARE", it's also about the future development of the software, the support, the advocacy, the integration.
Users don't need to care about that stuff because it's usually being taken care of, but too many OSS projects stick at the "it works" stage, and ignore the rest. So long as you're only serving the users who want the raw features, great, but OSS is moving into bigger markets, and needs to grow up.
The likes of Sun and IBM use Linux and OSS software because it gives value to their customers. They will (hopefully) pay companies like Ximian to do all the background work on software to maximise that value, and the value is NOT just in a checklist of features.
Historically, OSS developers have done an inconsistent, sometimes-but-not-always-adequate job of the soft issues I mentioned. Customers (especially enterprise customers) want Consistent, and they want Good. Business health is one indicator that a customer can use to gauge whether they'll get that or not.
I thought the Microdrive was CF2 - not compatible with CF. For instance, I have a Microdrive demo unit (non-functional, just the shell) from IBM, and it doesn't fit in the CF slot on my Psion5.
Is there definitely going to be a CF version that will fit the Palm/Psion/various digital cameras?