I haven't read this case specifically, but most of the suits deal with people sharing music, not downloading. So even given the realistic cost of $1/song, they could claim that you shared that song in part or full with 750 people over a bit torrent. The $1/song argument does not apply to distribution.
Going on 30 it is easy to see the mistakes I made at 20.
Going on 20 it was easy to see the perfection I lived my life as.
In a perfect world, yeah, everyone would turn 18 and become a perfect citizen. Responsible, with forethought and concern... In reality, we all learn a lot after becoming 'adults'.
Everyone on/. will agree, Their backup plan was retarded.
The fact that a young, non-professional, pre-entry level peon was left to decide for himself the best plan of action regarding these tapes when he has little or no possible recourse with out risking his internship should be more than enough to excuse him.
This was the end result of a long chain of management screw-ups.
I would bet that the peon has learned something from all of this. But the real question is, what is the department's backup plan NOW?
And I share the concerns about the abuse of this potential drug.
But there are mental illnesses that deal with crippling fears, where extreme fear of seemingly insignificant things can prevent a person from interacting with society in a meaningful way. For those people, this drug could bring relief, and a chance for a normal life. But control is paramount, and I'd need to see a LOT of clinical trial and years in the open market before it gets into military use. Fear will keep you alive on a battle field, but crippling fear will get your unit killed. Not only that, but being in a war zone isn't 24x7 guns blazing and shells falling. It's minutes of near death experiences followed by minutes, hours, days, even weeks of no activity. Knowing that at any second an explosion could rip you to shreds, or small arms fire could light you up. That is the stress that kills, the constant fear tearing at the back of your mind. Some people have even described the start of an attack as a relief, as they no longer do they have to sit in anticipation of the attack. If this drug could help prevent soldier from locking up in high stress moments, and relieve the pressure from the tedium of war, then I could have a solid benefit for the military.
If on the other hand, it takes away their fear of bullets, reprisal, and other control mechanisms... then it is nothing we want to give to anyone with a gun.
I don't know... I don't think it's that bad of an idea.
I mean, last week I went to a party. A friend of a friend put a comp CD in and it was some good tunes. Standing in the shade of gray area, I could claim fair use and ask him for a copy of his CD. Or, I could go out and buy 9 CDs to get all of the singles/albums, or I could go to iTunes and buy the 9 songs.
None of these options have an immediate option for me to acquire a copy of the must. With the first option, I have to count on a guy who has likely drank too much to remember to burn a CD for me, who he will likely never see again in his life, so he will have to give the CD to a friend of his who might know that he is suposed to give it to me.
The second and third options both require me to either memorize or write down all of the content of the CD... not to likely while drinking...
The second option also requires me to track down all of the CDs either online or at local stores.
The third option requires me to dedicate my bandwidth to downloading lossy copies from iTunes.
In short, those options all suck. He has the music there, if we have similar playing devices, when not let me cherry pick a few songs off his immediately, then 3 days later when I'm syncing ask if I want to buy them? I get the music legally, after a few days free use, the IP holder gets their due, and even my buddy gets a nickle for pimping a few songs out. Everything sounds reasonable to me. Only thing I don't like about the situation is that some RIAA affiliate is likely getting a bigger percent than the original author. So long as it doesn't block the transfer of non-licensed songs, I've got no objection to adding functionality.
FTA:
Mr. Mackey's post continued: "The views articulated by rahodeb sometimes represent what I actually believed and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes I simply played 'devil's advocate' for the sheer fun of arguing. Anyone who knows me realizes that I frequently do this in person, too."
-Rick
AT&T also said an open-access network would deprive taxpayers of billions of dollars, and inhibit the growth of wireless broadband in the country. Yes, it would deprive us tax payers billions of dollars paid out by companies that we have little/no choice about buying services from, which they will just bill us for anyways. 6 one way, 1/2 dozen the other, either way the average Joe citizen will pay for it, the only question is which company will profit from it. And right now the choices appear to be AT&T, or everyone else. Personally, I'm willing to bet we will see more competition, better products and services, and lower prices if we let everyone else fight for it instead of giving it to AT&T to sit on and prevent competition.
The FBI is investigating activities senior officials knew were occurring for years. The only reason they are investigating is because enough people turned whistle blower that Congress is on the verge of launching their own investigation. By starting their own internal investigation, they can use the Neo-Con party line when questioned by Congress: "Sir, I am not at liberty to discuss the matters of an on going investigation."
In the end, the election year will distract Congress, the FBI will conclude their investigation, give out a few wrist slaps, and the new oversight committee will require more signatures on things.
The truly scary part though, is that the investigation is not looking at the legality of the data collection, but at the process that was followed to collect the data. Had Gonzo sat down and signed all of those subpoenas, everyone would be in the clear and the FBI would still be kicking out requests in droves.
Someone said that they think a few people who were probably working for the FBI may have done something that could have been construed as illegal, and that there may, or may not be an investigation, and that if there were an investigation it could possibly be of a criminal investigation nature, all of which may be rendered moot because someone thought they heard someone else say that the people that someone thought might have committed a crime may have already been granted immunity?
I'm all for the investigation of the allegations, removal of the perpetrators from the FBI, as well as imprisonment for any of them that are convicted of committed criminal offenses. But how about we wait 15 minutes before printing this story and figure out what the hell is actually going on first?!?
Now, maybe I'm just not keen on the latest batch of synergistical leet speak, but aren't Digg and YouTube user contribution driven aggragators? Isn't the key feature of a Mashup that it uses functionality from different web services to create a new set of functionality? Say like tieing CNN's RSS feed to Google Maps to Flicker to get an interactive graphical, geographical, news browsing interface.
I agree, I think it is a good idea. But I don't think the idea has the will of the American people at it's heart. It is a business decision, and the hope is that it will lead to more innovation, IP, jobs, sales, and taxes.
Uhg, do we have to choose between the Republicrat and the Neo-Con? Can't we just get Nader or someone to drop a loaf on the spectrum and call it a day?
In all seriousness though, spectrum auctions cut both ways. Getting rid of NTSC over UHF/VHF will open up tons of new opportunities. But at the same time the cost to each and every station has been millions of dollars. A lot of the smaller/NFP organizations (like PBS stations) have had a hell of a time pulling off the change over, and a number of stations are just closing rather than dealing with the financial risk. Tack on to that the direct cost to the consumer of HD tuners, converters, or new TVs, and the indirect cost through advertising and taxes. Personally, I agree with the auctions to some extent. I do not have the knowledge to make a well qualified statement on the decision, but there are many trade offs between licensed and open frequencies. Just imagine if you had to file with the FCC just to plug your WiFi router in.;)
And feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the initial move to retire NTSC start under Clinton's presidency?
I believe he is actually concerned with the effects on other businesses the spectrum lock is having. He sites technological advancement and sales as his concern, not the well being of the people. He believes that there is more of a profit to be made by opening the door, between new competition, new sales, and new taxes. And I agree. As an added bonus, the American people might get to see some new technology and alternative wireless communication devices.
Actually he is a Bush appointee. He was one of the lawyers/advisers to Bush and Chenney in the 2000 election. He was then coat tailed into the White House as a legal aid working with the FCC and on some other telecomm/technology groups. He worked in the FCC under the previous FCC Chair before Bush nominated/appointed him to the Chair in 2005. His wife is one of Chenney's aids to boot.
My first thought is that Haliburton is getting into the wireless device industry and doesn't want to have to play nice with the existing heavily stacked market. Remember, the only thing better than big business to a Neo-Con is a big business that the Neo-Con has investments in.
The ROM-mark is a red herring. It will all come down to the VM. If you can root kit the VM, it doesn't matter what is on the disk, or even if the data stream is coming from a disk.
The ROM-mark will reduce the likelihood of mass reproduction (for a short time frame), but after the new burners hit the black market China will be pumping out just as many bogus disks as valid disks.
And once the security is cracked from the software side, the disks won't matter anymore. Although I have no desire what so ever to attempt to bit torrent a 15GB file.
Hello, I'm a lazy American. If I were planning on doing something questionable with the media, sure I'd take the time to strip it out. But if I were using the media only in the desired way, why would I waste my time going through gigs of music stripping off identifying tags?
Did you grind off all of the VINs on your car too?
Although the leap to Bush is a bit tedious to make this many times in one day... he does have a point.
How do we prepare our youth for their adult lives when they see society's role models, government officials, sports superstars, members of the church, etc... committing breaches of ethics on a daily basis?
I would be much more worried about my MP3 folder now. With iTunes' DRM-free codec, you are linked to those files. So if some Geek adding memory snags a couple gigs of your music and throws it up on a P2P, it's going to be your name on them.
How much would it suck to get sued for thousands by the RIAA because some highschool/college punk snagged a copy of your iTunes folder? They have files with your digital signature sitting on a P2P server, and they only have to show that given a preponderance of the evidence you are likely guilty.
You'd still wind up with the same problem. The Supreme Court has already refused to hear cases based on the same merit, if you can prove you (the plaintiff) were effected, you have no case to present.
Now, if the legislature was to subpeona the records of those wire taps from the NSA, and those lists were either leaked, or shared with some of the targeted subjects, THEN you would have a damn good shot.
Technically, the court is following the letter of the law. Short of an activist judge, all courts would likely find the same.
And that's why we have three branches of government (unfortunately, we only have about 1 3/4 branches at the moment). Checks and balances. The legislative branch has the power to correct this situation.
After the dot com burst (right as I got out of the military) I picked up a few odd jobs. One was working 3rd shift in the local state of the art theater. People do some weird crap in theaters, the weirdest though: One guy brought a miniature microwave oven in to a movie and popped his own pop corn.
Other tidbits:
*Snowday was the WORST movie to clean up after. I have no idea what that movie is about, but every f'ing night it looked like someone started a popcorn fight.
*Crossroads (the Britney Spears movie) had the most used condoms left behind.
*LotR, after week 10, had the highest alcohol consumption.
-Rick
PS: Ever since that job, I've been a big fan of watching movies at home.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't read this case specifically, but most of the suits deal with people sharing music, not downloading. So even given the realistic cost of $1/song, they could claim that you shared that song in part or full with 750 people over a bit torrent. The $1/song argument does not apply to distribution.
-Rick
Going on 30 it is easy to see the mistakes I made at 20.
/. will agree, Their backup plan was retarded.
Going on 20 it was easy to see the perfection I lived my life as.
In a perfect world, yeah, everyone would turn 18 and become a perfect citizen. Responsible, with forethought and concern... In reality, we all learn a lot after becoming 'adults'.
Everyone on
The fact that a young, non-professional, pre-entry level peon was left to decide for himself the best plan of action regarding these tapes when he has little or no possible recourse with out risking his internship should be more than enough to excuse him.
This was the end result of a long chain of management screw-ups.
I would bet that the peon has learned something from all of this. But the real question is, what is the department's backup plan NOW?
-Rick
And I share the concerns about the abuse of this potential drug.
But there are mental illnesses that deal with crippling fears, where extreme fear of seemingly insignificant things can prevent a person from interacting with society in a meaningful way. For those people, this drug could bring relief, and a chance for a normal life. But control is paramount, and I'd need to see a LOT of clinical trial and years in the open market before it gets into military use. Fear will keep you alive on a battle field, but crippling fear will get your unit killed. Not only that, but being in a war zone isn't 24x7 guns blazing and shells falling. It's minutes of near death experiences followed by minutes, hours, days, even weeks of no activity. Knowing that at any second an explosion could rip you to shreds, or small arms fire could light you up. That is the stress that kills, the constant fear tearing at the back of your mind. Some people have even described the start of an attack as a relief, as they no longer do they have to sit in anticipation of the attack. If this drug could help prevent soldier from locking up in high stress moments, and relieve the pressure from the tedium of war, then I could have a solid benefit for the military.
If on the other hand, it takes away their fear of bullets, reprisal, and other control mechanisms... then it is nothing we want to give to anyone with a gun.
-Rick
I don't know... I don't think it's that bad of an idea.
I mean, last week I went to a party. A friend of a friend put a comp CD in and it was some good tunes. Standing in the shade of gray area, I could claim fair use and ask him for a copy of his CD. Or, I could go out and buy 9 CDs to get all of the singles/albums, or I could go to iTunes and buy the 9 songs.
None of these options have an immediate option for me to acquire a copy of the must. With the first option, I have to count on a guy who has likely drank too much to remember to burn a CD for me, who he will likely never see again in his life, so he will have to give the CD to a friend of his who might know that he is suposed to give it to me.
The second and third options both require me to either memorize or write down all of the content of the CD... not to likely while drinking...
The second option also requires me to track down all of the CDs either online or at local stores.
The third option requires me to dedicate my bandwidth to downloading lossy copies from iTunes.
In short, those options all suck. He has the music there, if we have similar playing devices, when not let me cherry pick a few songs off his immediately, then 3 days later when I'm syncing ask if I want to buy them? I get the music legally, after a few days free use, the IP holder gets their due, and even my buddy gets a nickle for pimping a few songs out. Everything sounds reasonable to me. Only thing I don't like about the situation is that some RIAA affiliate is likely getting a bigger percent than the original author. So long as it doesn't block the transfer of non-licensed songs, I've got no objection to adding functionality.
-Rick
Read this story, and regain your Friday cheer: http://www.siliconglen.com/jokes/tandemstory.html
-Rick
-Rick
The FBI is investigating activities senior officials knew were occurring for years. The only reason they are investigating is because enough people turned whistle blower that Congress is on the verge of launching their own investigation. By starting their own internal investigation, they can use the Neo-Con party line when questioned by Congress: "Sir, I am not at liberty to discuss the matters of an on going investigation."
In the end, the election year will distract Congress, the FBI will conclude their investigation, give out a few wrist slaps, and the new oversight committee will require more signatures on things.
The truly scary part though, is that the investigation is not looking at the legality of the data collection, but at the process that was followed to collect the data. Had Gonzo sat down and signed all of those subpoenas, everyone would be in the clear and the FBI would still be kicking out requests in droves.
-Rick
Someone said that they think a few people who were probably working for the FBI may have done something that could have been construed as illegal, and that there may, or may not be an investigation, and that if there were an investigation it could possibly be of a criminal investigation nature, all of which may be rendered moot because someone thought they heard someone else say that the people that someone thought might have committed a crime may have already been granted immunity?
I'm all for the investigation of the allegations, removal of the perpetrators from the FBI, as well as imprisonment for any of them that are convicted of committed criminal offenses. But how about we wait 15 minutes before printing this story and figure out what the hell is actually going on first?!?
-Rick
-Rick
Are there any servers that are able to stream 1500 HDTV channels to 2 users simultaneously?
-Rick
Damn it. Not again!
-Rick
Now, maybe I'm just not keen on the latest batch of synergistical leet speak, but aren't Digg and YouTube user contribution driven aggragators? Isn't the key feature of a Mashup that it uses functionality from different web services to create a new set of functionality? Say like tieing CNN's RSS feed to Google Maps to Flicker to get an interactive graphical, geographical, news browsing interface.
Or am I just out of touch?
-Rick
I agree, I think it is a good idea. But I don't think the idea has the will of the American people at it's heart. It is a business decision, and the hope is that it will lead to more innovation, IP, jobs, sales, and taxes.
-Rick
Uhg, do we have to choose between the Republicrat and the Neo-Con? Can't we just get Nader or someone to drop a loaf on the spectrum and call it a day?
;)
In all seriousness though, spectrum auctions cut both ways. Getting rid of NTSC over UHF/VHF will open up tons of new opportunities. But at the same time the cost to each and every station has been millions of dollars. A lot of the smaller/NFP organizations (like PBS stations) have had a hell of a time pulling off the change over, and a number of stations are just closing rather than dealing with the financial risk. Tack on to that the direct cost to the consumer of HD tuners, converters, or new TVs, and the indirect cost through advertising and taxes. Personally, I agree with the auctions to some extent. I do not have the knowledge to make a well qualified statement on the decision, but there are many trade offs between licensed and open frequencies. Just imagine if you had to file with the FCC just to plug your WiFi router in.
And feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the initial move to retire NTSC start under Clinton's presidency?
-Rick
I believe he is actually concerned with the effects on other businesses the spectrum lock is having. He sites technological advancement and sales as his concern, not the well being of the people. He believes that there is more of a profit to be made by opening the door, between new competition, new sales, and new taxes. And I agree. As an added bonus, the American people might get to see some new technology and alternative wireless communication devices.
-Rick
Actually he is a Bush appointee. He was one of the lawyers/advisers to Bush and Chenney in the 2000 election. He was then coat tailed into the White House as a legal aid working with the FCC and on some other telecomm/technology groups. He worked in the FCC under the previous FCC Chair before Bush nominated/appointed him to the Chair in 2005. His wife is one of Chenney's aids to boot.
My first thought is that Haliburton is getting into the wireless device industry and doesn't want to have to play nice with the existing heavily stacked market. Remember, the only thing better than big business to a Neo-Con is a big business that the Neo-Con has investments in.
-Rick
His statements remind me of the Pot offering to paint the Kettle black.
-Rick
The ROM-mark is a red herring. It will all come down to the VM. If you can root kit the VM, it doesn't matter what is on the disk, or even if the data stream is coming from a disk.
The ROM-mark will reduce the likelihood of mass reproduction (for a short time frame), but after the new burners hit the black market China will be pumping out just as many bogus disks as valid disks.
And once the security is cracked from the software side, the disks won't matter anymore. Although I have no desire what so ever to attempt to bit torrent a 15GB file.
-Rick
Most theaters have power outlets distributed around the room for the cleaning crew to be able to plug in vacuums and buffers.
-Rick
Hello, I'm a lazy American. If I were planning on doing something questionable with the media, sure I'd take the time to strip it out. But if I were using the media only in the desired way, why would I waste my time going through gigs of music stripping off identifying tags?
Did you grind off all of the VINs on your car too?
-Rick
Although the leap to Bush is a bit tedious to make this many times in one day... he does have a point.
How do we prepare our youth for their adult lives when they see society's role models, government officials, sports superstars, members of the church, etc... committing breaches of ethics on a daily basis?
-Rick
I would be much more worried about my MP3 folder now. With iTunes' DRM-free codec, you are linked to those files. So if some Geek adding memory snags a couple gigs of your music and throws it up on a P2P, it's going to be your name on them.
How much would it suck to get sued for thousands by the RIAA because some highschool/college punk snagged a copy of your iTunes folder? They have files with your digital signature sitting on a P2P server, and they only have to show that given a preponderance of the evidence you are likely guilty.
-Rick
You'd still wind up with the same problem. The Supreme Court has already refused to hear cases based on the same merit, if you can prove you (the plaintiff) were effected, you have no case to present.
Now, if the legislature was to subpeona the records of those wire taps from the NSA, and those lists were either leaked, or shared with some of the targeted subjects, THEN you would have a damn good shot.
Technically, the court is following the letter of the law. Short of an activist judge, all courts would likely find the same.
And that's why we have three branches of government (unfortunately, we only have about 1 3/4 branches at the moment). Checks and balances. The legislative branch has the power to correct this situation.
-Rick
After the dot com burst (right as I got out of the military) I picked up a few odd jobs. One was working 3rd shift in the local state of the art theater. People do some weird crap in theaters, the weirdest though: One guy brought a miniature microwave oven in to a movie and popped his own pop corn.
Other tidbits:
*Snowday was the WORST movie to clean up after. I have no idea what that movie is about, but every f'ing night it looked like someone started a popcorn fight.
*Crossroads (the Britney Spears movie) had the most used condoms left behind.
*LotR, after week 10, had the highest alcohol consumption.
-Rick
PS: Ever since that job, I've been a big fan of watching movies at home.