1) So TPB is a website that contains a user-editable index of links people wish to share with others? Sounds like Yahoo! to me, which is how the Internet functioned before Google came along. I can see TPB morphing into the Google of torrents.
Google responds politely to takedown notices, whether legal or not, as it's a business beholden to their shareholders and public image can affect share price. It's harder to blackmail TPB as they aren't responsible to anybody. Politics aside, this doesn't change the nature that technically they do the same thing.
2) So what percentage of legal/illegal content should there be that tips you from completely innocent to doing jail time?
3) Google is based in the USA and subject to US law. TPB is based in Sweden and is under Swedish law. TPB is quite under its rights to refuse US take-down notices and understandable to be rude to US companies trying to bully it with false legal threats.
These days it seems if it's a big games publisher that the magazine wants to cozy up to the game automatically gets 90%+. I don't run pirate games so these days for me no demo = no sale. Vendetta Online has the right idea. You can download the client freely on any platform, set up an account for free and play for a few hours, and if you are happy then subscribe for $10/month. Very fair imho.
I am in the same position. I run Linux and only free software, and the only commercial thing I really want to download is Match of the Day. It's blocked from outside the UK and there isn't even any way of purchasing it. As far as I know then ONLY way for any expat to watch it is to download it illegally. Or, as one friend does, wait for their parents to post a videocassette from the UK, which is still illegal.
Copyright is different for each media. A musician can make a living playing without record sales. He can make additional money by taking a small percentage of recording sales but it's not obligatory. A good film will make a profit at the box office without DVD sales or TV rights, hence can survive if distribution costs drop to zero.
With a novel or with computer software money can only be made through distribution. Of the two with software you can entice sales through free software upgrades, support, allowing users to request new features, etc. Software is usually a productive yet dynamically evolving tool and it's not in the users best interests for it to fail. Hence you will get a reasonable percentage of users paying even if there is a cracked version available. Novels on the other hand can take years to write yet once published there is no incentive to take the purchased one over the free copy, quite the opposite the DRM copy is a PITA and actively pushes people towards the free version.
If you see a cracked version of your software on Piratebay, I wouldn't worry too much. Unless it's abandonware and you never intend to improve it, it's probably more good publicity than anything else. If it's any good people usually upgrade to the commercial version if they were in the market to buy it in the first place.
There is copyright that is being used to stop distribution to others, and then there is copyright enforced through DRM to stop you using your bought single on your mp3 player, or in your car, or transferring from your CD to your hard-drive jukebox, or any other method until now considered fair use. Copyright is being continually extended, expanded, and thoroughly abused.
I know plenty of talented musicians in my town that make good money but have never released a single CD.
Lord of the Rings cost $300M to make and took over a billion dollars at the box office EXCLUDING DVD and TV. So even if everybody in the world had simultaneously switched to pirating instead of buying the DVD or recording off the telly it would have still made a 300% profit.
I can't see who is going to buy this. A moped is a fraction of the price and easy to ride. There are 3-wheeled scooters also available. This looks like an under-powered over-engineered expensive toy. The Segway has it's niche, especially patrolling pedestrian zones (for instance handing out flyers). As another poster says, it's a cross between a car and a bike with the disadvantages of both.
A number of people have pointed out the pollution free bike as a more sensible transport. Last week I was in Lyon and every single road has a bike rack with bikes in it. You can walk up to any one, wave a smart card to unlock one of them, and cycle off. When you get to the other end you just park it in the nearest rack and you're done. I saw plenty of people using the service, and as an additional plus it probably slightly cuts down on drink driving. Sometimes simplicity is best.
Why? Android is nothing like OpenMoko. The former is a limited rip-off of the iphone, the latter is a truly free (though incompetently implemented) platform. We need another version of OpenMoko but with a more focused dev team. Why should I have to jailbreak my phone to run my own software?
Odd, where are the mods on the retarded AC post above? Especially on Apple allowing "free" development for everybody on their iPhone. What a joke. Please bury the troll in case anybody is in danger of wasting their time.
Why would Linux developers care about going the extra mile to make 'it' work for the other person? What's in it for them?
If somebody wants to promote Linux then they can do their own fixes for whoever their target market is. They can call themselves Red Hat, Canonical, or IBM, and provide a commercial service with support.
At the end of the day if their stupid video card doesn't work they have a number of choices, the most obvious one being getting a new video card that *is* supported as most cards now cost less than a copy of Windows.
Today's 2000-era generation thinks it's perfectly okay to tap into their neighbor's wireless internet, even though it's costing their neighbor extra money.
It does?
I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, a period where people were fed up of getting ripped off by telecoms companies. The cost of switching had dropped to fractions of the cost, yet the cost of calls kept getting higher. We were fleeced making international calls whilst the telecoms companies raked in billions. We paid through the nose for Internet access over slow modems. The monopoly deliberately held back cheap broadband in the form of ADSL as they didn't want to cannibalise their rip-off ISDN service. SMS was added as an after-thought to GSM and used to be free for everybody via numerous gateways. I used to have it so people could message my mobile via my web site. Then once the big mobile operators saw a cash cow they blocked the free operators by creating a cartel and charging an inter-operator penalty. The digital revolution is starting to open a few holes in the old monopolies and good thing too. The resentment, much like with the record industry and their restrictive practices, are coming back to bite them.
It's the "you don't have an entitlement" generation, and it's going out to the telecoms companies, the RIAA, Microsoft, large drugs companies, foreign oil powers, and anybody else that things they have a license to print money whilst sitting on their asses and doing very little.
As another poster mentioned in a previous thread, the ISPs know perfectly well people download movies and profit from this so shouldn't they also be prosecuted? If you can successfully prosecute TPB then you can do the same to anywhere which allows user submitted content, whether they know what they are hosting or not. This will affect all directories, forums, search engines, whether using http, ftp, usenet, gopher, torrent, or the next protocol to pop up.
TPB may be flagging this up in a way that is irritating to many, but the alternative that potentially makes anybody that hosts user submitted links potentially a criminal is just as unpalatable. Content producers need to be protected but current business models are broken and current laws are not adequate. There is no point trying to knock a square peg into a round hold. We just have to admit we don't yet know what the future holds and slowly move forwards to a consensual model that is best for everybody.
The French used to have a complete ban on encryption until recently. The UK in the mid-90s were pushing for a key escrow system, where all individuals would have to lodge a copy of their private key with the government, and were very close to succeeding. Instead we now have the RIPA, where you have to disclose your key when asked or go to jail. The only way to safely store a stranger's data on your machine is if it's encrypted and you have no access to the key. Even then ISPs are monitoring what you are downloading.
There can be plenty of reasons for allowing people to ssh through your machine, but I also would only do it for friends. I did it for one of my friends who wanted to be able to job search during lunch time but didn't want his employer to know he was looking. He wasn't breaking any laws or company rules, but wanted his privacy protected. However, like Idiomatick I would be happy to help anybody that had a good and convincing reason (though they would be in chroot).
iTunes doesn't work with Linux, as jopsen says Hulu is US only (and the BBC iPlayer is UK only), and Moonlight is never going to gain any traction under Linux. Even Flash has only just arrived for 64-bit computers recently. The only reliable cross-platform and international way to watch movies is to download them via file-sharing.
This is an academic that is being *asked* to give up his valuable time to help the State in a case. Trying to destroy his reputation is completely unacceptable. To the professor, giving evidence in this trial is just a brief inconvenience whilst he pursues his career. Instead it turns out he was very brave to take on an organisation that acts like the mafia. His wife deserve those flowers, and the Pirate Bay have scored a massive victory in swinging public opinion in their favour.
Valve's Steam has DRM but they've slowly earned the trust they have. I go through computers at quite a high rate, and just with my username and password have managed to have my bought games up and running within minutes on every PC I have ever used, whether on Windows or Linux. I've been running Counterstrike off there for a decade, and never once have I been restricted in how many installs, or what operating system I can install on. The prices are reasonable on there too. Steam is the only instance that springs to mind of DRM done right.
First that's a pretty poor and petty reason to hate the OpenMoko. Why do I need originality when I just want a mobile phone to make calls from? The less original a phone is, the more usable it is from a UI viewpoint.
Second, who cares? My phone is on 24/7 and is only off if I accidentally run out of battery (in which case there is no turning it on to make a 911 call).
I don't think there is anything wrong with those ideas above. The problem seems to me is a lack of focus. The only thing that stopped me from buying one is from reading the forums and seeing how unstable it was. I don't care about 99% of features, the only important thing is that it can make calls. Unfortunately this appears to be its main failing, with the handset falling over regularly and failing to lock onto carrier cells. I quote the following from the CEO: "We tried to refocus the company around these ideas. This led to an application called Diversity. The basic idea is the following:
Neos talk to other Neos using a self-creating, self-healing, global free (WiFi) network. The software system, code named Diversity, consists of many clients (Neos) talking to servers and, at a later time, self-connecting, using mesh-like interactions." http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td2103754|a2103754
It seems to me their priorities aren't really in order.
Jack Straw is in favour of freedom of information... for himself. "It has been claimed that information gathered by companies including hotel registrations, bank details and telecommunications data could be transferred to the Government if the bill is passed." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4796788/Big-brother-data-sharing-bill-to-be-watered-down-as-Jack-Straw-retreats.html
He wants to be able to access any information about anybody at will with no warrant, just "minister approval".
Is your data SAFE in a non-Microsoft format? How's that new version of ReiserFS coming along? You're spreading the very FUD people complain about going the other way.
You are completely wrong Saleen. Your data will be fine in ReiserFS format as it's open source and unpatented, hence nobody will be able to hold your data hostage. Which is effectively what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft aren't the only scumbags around that allow a format to gain widespread acceptance before launching widescale blackmail. Remember Unisys and the LWZ patent affecting GIF images?
Simple. because one is being sold and the other isn't. You might as well ask, why can't I do the following.
1) buy one copy of the print version. 2) record an actor reading it 3) sell as many copies of the recording as I please and not pay the author a dime.
That's totally bogus. According to your logic, why can't I do the following: 1) buy one copy of the print version 3) sell as many copies as I please and not pay the author a dime
The answer to both is you can but it's illegal. If there is no actor reading it then I don't see where the added value of the audio version is. The TTS is simply a different output device to an ebook reader, the material for which a license has already been paid.
A counter-argument to yours is that if a separate license is needed for a TTS version of copyrighted text, this means deaf people will need to pay for a separate license for every web page that has copyright on it.
Slashdot Mirror
1) So TPB is a website that contains a user-editable index of links people wish to share with others? Sounds like Yahoo! to me, which is how the Internet functioned before Google came along. I can see TPB morphing into the Google of torrents.
Google responds politely to takedown notices, whether legal or not, as it's a business beholden to their shareholders and public image can affect share price. It's harder to blackmail TPB as they aren't responsible to anybody. Politics aside, this doesn't change the nature that technically they do the same thing.
2) So what percentage of legal/illegal content should there be that tips you from completely innocent to doing jail time?
3) Google is based in the USA and subject to US law. TPB is based in Sweden and is under Swedish law. TPB is quite under its rights to refuse US take-down notices and understandable to be rude to US companies trying to bully it with false legal threats.
Phillip.
These days it seems if it's a big games publisher that the magazine wants to cozy up to the game automatically gets 90%+. I don't run pirate games so these days for me no demo = no sale. Vendetta Online has the right idea. You can download the client freely on any platform, set up an account for free and play for a few hours, and if you are happy then subscribe for $10/month. Very fair imho.
Phillip.
I am in the same position. I run Linux and only free software, and the only commercial thing I really want to download is Match of the Day. It's blocked from outside the UK and there isn't even any way of purchasing it. As far as I know then ONLY way for any expat to watch it is to download it illegally. Or, as one friend does, wait for their parents to post a videocassette from the UK, which is still illegal.
Phillip.
Copyright is different for each media. A musician can make a living playing without record sales. He can make additional money by taking a small percentage of recording sales but it's not obligatory. A good film will make a profit at the box office without DVD sales or TV rights, hence can survive if distribution costs drop to zero.
With a novel or with computer software money can only be made through distribution. Of the two with software you can entice sales through free software upgrades, support, allowing users to request new features, etc. Software is usually a productive yet dynamically evolving tool and it's not in the users best interests for it to fail. Hence you will get a reasonable percentage of users paying even if there is a cracked version available. Novels on the other hand can take years to write yet once published there is no incentive to take the purchased one over the free copy, quite the opposite the DRM copy is a PITA and actively pushes people towards the free version.
If you see a cracked version of your software on Piratebay, I wouldn't worry too much. Unless it's abandonware and you never intend to improve it, it's probably more good publicity than anything else. If it's any good people usually upgrade to the commercial version if they were in the market to buy it in the first place.
Phillip.
There is copyright that is being used to stop distribution to others, and then there is copyright enforced through DRM to stop you using your bought single on your mp3 player, or in your car, or transferring from your CD to your hard-drive jukebox, or any other method until now considered fair use. Copyright is being continually extended, expanded, and thoroughly abused.
Phillip.
I know plenty of talented musicians in my town that make good money but have never released a single CD.
Lord of the Rings cost $300M to make and took over a billion dollars at the box office EXCLUDING DVD and TV. So even if everybody in the world had simultaneously switched to pirating instead of buying the DVD or recording off the telly it would have still made a 300% profit.
Phillip.
This makes every ISP in the world complicit. Is any judge going to believe ISPs are offering 20Mbp/s to download email or surf the web?
Phillip.
I can't see who is going to buy this. A moped is a fraction of the price and easy to ride. There are 3-wheeled scooters also available. This looks like an under-powered over-engineered expensive toy. The Segway has it's niche, especially patrolling pedestrian zones (for instance handing out flyers). As another poster says, it's a cross between a car and a bike with the disadvantages of both.
A number of people have pointed out the pollution free bike as a more sensible transport. Last week I was in Lyon and every single road has a bike rack with bikes in it. You can walk up to any one, wave a smart card to unlock one of them, and cycle off. When you get to the other end you just park it in the nearest rack and you're done. I saw plenty of people using the service, and as an additional plus it probably slightly cuts down on drink driving. Sometimes simplicity is best.
Phillip.
Why? Android is nothing like OpenMoko. The former is a limited rip-off of the iphone, the latter is a truly free (though incompetently implemented) platform. We need another version of OpenMoko but with a more focused dev team. Why should I have to jailbreak my phone to run my own software?
Phillip.
Odd, where are the mods on the retarded AC post above? Especially on Apple allowing "free" development for everybody on their iPhone. What a joke. Please bury the troll in case anybody is in danger of wasting their time.
Phillip.
Why would Linux developers care about going the extra mile to make 'it' work for the other person? What's in it for them?
If somebody wants to promote Linux then they can do their own fixes for whoever their target market is. They can call themselves Red Hat, Canonical, or IBM, and provide a commercial service with support.
At the end of the day if their stupid video card doesn't work they have a number of choices, the most obvious one being getting a new video card that *is* supported as most cards now cost less than a copy of Windows.
Phillip.
Any Symbian phone can record calls without beeping.
Phillip.
Can you point to any examples of civilizations (either now or in history) where there is or has been no murder?
Phillip.
Today's 2000-era generation thinks it's perfectly okay to tap into their neighbor's wireless internet, even though it's costing their neighbor extra money.
It does?
I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, a period where people were fed up of getting ripped off by telecoms companies. The cost of switching had dropped to fractions of the cost, yet the cost of calls kept getting higher. We were fleeced making international calls whilst the telecoms companies raked in billions. We paid through the nose for Internet access over slow modems. The monopoly deliberately held back cheap broadband in the form of ADSL as they didn't want to cannibalise their rip-off ISDN service. SMS was added as an after-thought to GSM and used to be free for everybody via numerous gateways. I used to have it so people could message my mobile via my web site. Then once the big mobile operators saw a cash cow they blocked the free operators by creating a cartel and charging an inter-operator penalty. The digital revolution is starting to open a few holes in the old monopolies and good thing too. The resentment, much like with the record industry and their restrictive practices, are coming back to bite them.
It's the "you don't have an entitlement" generation, and it's going out to the telecoms companies, the RIAA, Microsoft, large drugs companies, foreign oil powers, and anybody else that things they have a license to print money whilst sitting on their asses and doing very little.
Phillip.
As another poster mentioned in a previous thread, the ISPs know perfectly well people download movies and profit from this so shouldn't they also be prosecuted? If you can successfully prosecute TPB then you can do the same to anywhere which allows user submitted content, whether they know what they are hosting or not. This will affect all directories, forums, search engines, whether using http, ftp, usenet, gopher, torrent, or the next protocol to pop up.
TPB may be flagging this up in a way that is irritating to many, but the alternative that potentially makes anybody that hosts user submitted links potentially a criminal is just as unpalatable. Content producers need to be protected but current business models are broken and current laws are not adequate. There is no point trying to knock a square peg into a round hold. We just have to admit we don't yet know what the future holds and slowly move forwards to a consensual model that is best for everybody.
Phillip.
The French used to have a complete ban on encryption until recently. The UK in the mid-90s were pushing for a key escrow system, where all individuals would have to lodge a copy of their private key with the government, and were very close to succeeding. Instead we now have the RIPA, where you have to disclose your key when asked or go to jail. The only way to safely store a stranger's data on your machine is if it's encrypted and you have no access to the key. Even then ISPs are monitoring what you are downloading.
There can be plenty of reasons for allowing people to ssh through your machine, but I also would only do it for friends. I did it for one of my friends who wanted to be able to job search during lunch time but didn't want his employer to know he was looking. He wasn't breaking any laws or company rules, but wanted his privacy protected. However, like Idiomatick I would be happy to help anybody that had a good and convincing reason (though they would be in chroot).
Phillip.
iTunes doesn't work with Linux, as jopsen says Hulu is US only (and the BBC iPlayer is UK only), and Moonlight is never going to gain any traction under Linux. Even Flash has only just arrived for 64-bit computers recently. The only reliable cross-platform and international way to watch movies is to download them via file-sharing.
Phillip.
This is an academic that is being *asked* to give up his valuable time to help the State in a case. Trying to destroy his reputation is completely unacceptable. To the professor, giving evidence in this trial is just a brief inconvenience whilst he pursues his career. Instead it turns out he was very brave to take on an organisation that acts like the mafia. His wife deserve those flowers, and the Pirate Bay have scored a massive victory in swinging public opinion in their favour.
Phillip.
Valve's Steam has DRM but they've slowly earned the trust they have. I go through computers at quite a high rate, and just with my username and password have managed to have my bought games up and running within minutes on every PC I have ever used, whether on Windows or Linux. I've been running Counterstrike off there for a decade, and never once have I been restricted in how many installs, or what operating system I can install on. The prices are reasonable on there too. Steam is the only instance that springs to mind of DRM done right.
Phillip.
The review misses one of the most important things in a home media device which is: is it fan-less and how noisy is it?
It also mentions MythTV but doesn't do any form of comparison to the main alternative.
Finally it mentions Hulu as the main media portal... and fails to mention this isn't accessible outside of the USA.
Phillip.
First that's a pretty poor and petty reason to hate the OpenMoko. Why do I need originality when I just want a mobile phone to make calls from? The less original a phone is, the more usable it is from a UI viewpoint.
Second, who cares? My phone is on 24/7 and is only off if I accidentally run out of battery (in which case there is no turning it on to make a 911 call).
Phillip.
I don't think there is anything wrong with those ideas above. The problem seems to me is a lack of focus. The only thing that stopped me from buying one is from reading the forums and seeing how unstable it was. I don't care about 99% of features, the only important thing is that it can make calls. Unfortunately this appears to be its main failing, with the handset falling over regularly and failing to lock onto carrier cells. I quote the following from the CEO:
"We tried to refocus the company around these ideas. This led to an application called Diversity. The basic idea is the following:
Neos talk to other Neos using a self-creating, self-healing, global free (WiFi) network. The software system, code named Diversity, consists of many clients (Neos) talking to servers and, at a later time, self-connecting, using mesh-like interactions."
http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td2103754|a2103754
It seems to me their priorities aren't really in order.
Philip.
Jack Straw is in favour of freedom of information... for himself.
"It has been claimed that information gathered by companies including hotel registrations, bank details and telecommunications data could be transferred to the Government if the bill is passed."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4796788/Big-brother-data-sharing-bill-to-be-watered-down-as-Jack-Straw-retreats.html
He wants to be able to access any information about anybody at will with no warrant, just "minister approval".
Phillip.
Is your data SAFE in a non-Microsoft format? How's that new version of ReiserFS coming along? You're spreading the very FUD people complain about going the other way.
You are completely wrong Saleen. Your data will be fine in ReiserFS format as it's open source and unpatented, hence nobody will be able to hold your data hostage. Which is effectively what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft aren't the only scumbags around that allow a format to gain widespread acceptance before launching widescale blackmail. Remember Unisys and the LWZ patent affecting GIF images?
Phillip.
Simple. because one is being sold and the other isn't. You might as well ask, why can't I do the following.
1) buy one copy of the print version.
2) record an actor reading it
3) sell as many copies of the recording as I please and not pay the author a dime.
That's totally bogus. According to your logic, why can't I do the following:
1) buy one copy of the print version
3) sell as many copies as I please and not pay the author a dime
The answer to both is you can but it's illegal. If there is no actor reading it then I don't see where the added value of the audio version is. The TTS is simply a different output device to an ebook reader, the material for which a license has already been paid.
A counter-argument to yours is that if a separate license is needed for a TTS version of copyrighted text, this means deaf people will need to pay for a separate license for every web page that has copyright on it.
Phillip.