Deal with it. If you are too stupid to not get taken in, then you probably deserve it.
Trying to stop it is like trying to stop panhandling. It may be disgusting and annoying but there isn't really anything that can be done about it. Educated people know not to pass out money to people on the street. Sympathatic folks that have a good heart make sure these people keep coming back for more.
Just like the people that buy stuff from spam and click links in emails.
There is no fair use exemption for redistributing content. There is nothing that allows you to "build" on another's property to make your own in this context.
For example, no matter how cute I think it might be to overlay Neil Diamond's "Heartlight" with the word "head" everywhere Neil is singing "heart", all I can legally do is play the result for myself. Should I take this "derivative work" and publish it in any form - including just making it available for download on the Internet - I will (rightfully) get sued. I don't get any points for it being a parody, for some kind of fair use, for it being some kind of "sampling" or anything else.
Are EULAs legal? Absolutely. Every time one has come up in court it has been ruled enforceable. At no time has a EULA ever been struck down. Good thing that the EULA known as GPL v2 is built on solid ground, isn't it?
As for your idea that somehow including a public performance of a ringtone is "fair use", I'm afraid you are very, very wrong. There is no such thing as fair use when it comes to redistribution in any form - and including casually recorded sounds is certainly redistribution. And a public performance of that material certainly isn't covered by fair use. If I record your speech and play it in a public performance you have considerable rights to stop me, collect punative damages and collect substantial license fees for use in a public performance. Same thing would go for a recording of you playing the kazoo.
You seem to have a lot of interesting ideas about how you would like things to be. Too bad this doesn't correspond very well to the real world.
So far, every EULA that has come up in court has been upheld. I believe the last time this happened was in California and the precedent does not apply outside of the 9th Circuit but it is still something that can be pointed to. So much for "notoriously unenforcable".
Another EULA that seems to not be having much difficultly is GPL v2.
There are two groups of people out there today: those that will pay for your software and those that will not. There are some fence-sitters that might pay or might not depending on who gets to them first.
The people that are going to pay may try to cheat you a little on the number of machines it is installed on. This needs to be guarded against as the difference between selling 10 units or 10,000 units is quite a bit. You will find this sort of thing pretty common, even with companies that officially decry any use of pirated software. They may think they aren't really doing anything wrong until you tell them and/or make it difficult.
The people that aren't going to pay are not going to pay you no matter what you do. They will find some way of getting the software for free. Obviously, you would like to prevent that. It is probably a waste of time. They have far more resources than you do and they aren't going to give up, ever. Hope for legitimate customers that pay.
The fence sitters are difficult to identify. If your software ends up on the "OEM Software Sales" web sites this eases everone's mind - it isn't stealing when you pay for it. This would be something to avoid at all costs because it makes the fence sitter's mind up for them. If you have any kind of customer outreach you need to make it clear that the only real source for the software is to buy it from you. Buy. Not steal. I don't believe in any community there are more than 10-15% of "fence sitters". The rest fall into the two groups described above.
The comments about making the software too difficult to use without support and training is pretty funny. The people doing that aren't doing themselves, their customers, or anyone involved with software a favor. They give the whole software development community a black eye.
Maybe QNX would like to survive as a software company rather than just a collection of hobbists.
That way, users of QNX needing hardware support for new platforms and processors will have it rather than hoping for something to come along.
I'm still waiting for WPA on Linux to be common to maybe be able to leave WEP behind. Of course, the hardware manufacturers that have limited budgets are choosing Linux and often leaving WPA support out.
Unfortunately, what you would like to mandate is at the same time a mandate for Chinese domination of the hardware market.
Today the hardware is almost immaterial to a "hardware" product - it is the inner workings of the firmware, the driver and such that are where both the bulk of the engineering time and bulk of the "value" are. There are few, if any, secrets in silicon today.
So a manufacturer puts a lot of effort into developing a new product in the US or EU. If the functionality of the hardware/firmware is then required to be disclosed it is trivial to make the same hardware product elsewhere and compete head-to-head without any real R&D cost. Sure the Linux community and a few hackers might be better off, but at what price?
Today, the only effective way to compete against Chinese manufacture is to have the hardware, firmware and software talking behind the scenes. The firmware interface to the hardware isn't disclosed and the driver that talks to the firmware isn't disclosed. Absolutely, the hardware can be duplicated but without the firmware and driver the device requires an equivalent amount of development effort.
Yes, that put the Chinese manufacturer on an equal footing with the US or EU manufacturer. Instead of how they would much prefer it where all the "hard" problems are solved in the US and they Chinese get to just make cheap knock-offs.
Where was development for USB hubs done? Where are they made today? Compare this to video cards - how many 3D cards are distributed by Chinese manufacturers? Sure, they are all imported with "Made in China" stickers but they are made for US, EU and Canadian manufacturers that own the firmware and drivers.
You have one flawed assumption at the core of your argument. You assume that other cultures value life on Earth as much as you do.
Purely as an intellectual exercise, you might think about how utterly vain that is. Can you not put your culture ahead of your personal well-being? Can you understand that both your beliefs and the generations to come could possibly be of more value than your life?
Well, some pretty couragous people outside the US believe that their individual lives do not count for much of anything and are clearly willing to sacrifice them in order to achieve goals which may not be realized for generations. You think you can negotiate with these people? Your petty self-centered world view isn't going to change their minds.
The threat of economic sanctions, war, and even nuclear destruction is immaterial to people with beliefs. They will achieve their goals without question if people aren't willing to stand up for what they believe in. Apparently you believe in your life and expect others to have the same courtesy. I expect you to have but one expression on your face when they kill you - astonishment.
The problem now is the value of recorded music is zero. Nobody I know pays. Why would they? Safety? Convenience? When a small bit of common sense will protect you from the robbers and thugs out there and everything you want is available?
No, the crash is going to come pretty soon I think. Anyone "selling" music is doomed, as is their entire infrastructure. If you create graphics for bands who pay you from music sales, better find a new job. If your job is supplying plastic for jewel cases used by CD manufacturers for music CDs, better find a new job. If you are a network admin for a advertising agency used by bands or record companies, better find a new job.
How far will this spread? Far. Really far. And I don't see any way to avoid it. No matter what the RIAA would like to do, they can't stop people outside the US sharing stuff into the US. And they can't stop everyone with a computer in the US taking advantage of the sharing. Today elementry school children learn how to use sharing software for what they want. Pay for it? They have no money. But they learn it is all out there for free and no need to pay by 4th grade. There is no way you are going to convince these children when they grow up they have to pay for something that is clearly available for free.
Why do you think this is illegal? What country did it originate in and what country is it controlled in? Just because the US might have a law that makes this activity illegal does not mean anyone else cares.
This might be a significant portion of the economy for some Eastern European country.
Digital sales? Why would anyone pay for digital materials they can (a) copy from their friends and (b) download from the Internet for free?
It's over. Face it, music as a revenue stream is over and done with. Nobody is going to make money from recorded music. Live music, maybe. Although paying $150 a ticket for some concert is just about over as well.
Sure, it is all low-quality compressed stuff that is being passed around. Just about right for the earbuds that are all the fad today. The sound reproduction capability of the hardware has been matched against the sources of music available.
The store ends up holding the bag no matter what. The problem is that a lot of people - around 10% from what I understand - aren't showing much courtesy because they are stealing. So the store tries to do as much as they can to discourage this behavior.
As it turns out, it doesn't work all that well. They are still spending as much as 25% of their profits on "loss prevention".
Face it, 10% of the "other" people at Fry's are stealing and the loss prevention systems aren't perfect and are absolutely not preventing these people from stealing.
So the losses continue. You, it seems have, have enough respect for the store not to steal. If everyone else was like that all this would be unnecessary. But most people get away with it and the penalties are very small when compared to the rewards. So nothing is going to stop it.
So the truth is, you are in the company of criminals even if you aren't one yourself.
In the US shoplifting is so prevalent that no, there isn't any other way. Look around at the cameras. Look at the undercover (sometimes obvious) store employee checking you out. Look at the machines at every exit point to check the tags in the merchandise. Do you think this is all free?
The US is probably the shoplifting capital of the world. 10% of the people do it or so and the store loss prevention guys nail someone about once an hour. The cameras, the undercover people and other checks further reduce the loss. It is still costing the store as much as 25% of their revenue either in direct "shrinkage" or paying for all this security.
Maybe in your country people are more respectful of the store's profits. They certainly aren't in the US.
70 years ago or so shoplifting was considered a crime and something no respectable citizen would do. To shoplift would result in arrest, detention, possible loss of a job and a great amount of embarrassment. Nobody in their right mind did it. This of course led to the psycological assessment of "kleptomania" which is a translation of "shoplifting regardless of the consequences".
Today, there is no such loss of respect. People shoplift all the time. Celebreties. Soccer moms. Republicans. Democrats. Pretty much everybody. As much as 25% of a store's operating expenses are tied up in loss prevention and covering "shrinkage". Therefore, stores in general - all stores - are extremely sensitive to this and take lots of steps to ensure loss doesn't occur or occurs at a much lower rate than it would otherwise.
So in steps Michael whatever. He is offended at having his package examined. He better never set foot in a Sam's Club where they check every shopping cart leaving the store against the receipt. He fails to understand that the chances of one of the next 10 people leaving the store is a thief is about 100%. He considers that he is being treated as a criminal, when in fact shoplifting is far, far too prevalent to be considered as anything more than a ticketable offence in most jurisdictions. Stores in general don't really call the police - they just prevent the loss and tell you not to come back. It isn't worth their time.
But Michael the privacy advocate has to play the driver's license game as well. Of course, this gets in the way of the policeman doing his job - or at least how he views his job. This guy is going to have some big legal bills and never serve a day in jail. He will feel pretty stupid at the end of this adventure and isn't going to come away with anything except a feeling that things didn't go quite right. No, I don't see how he can "win" in any sense of the word.
There is certainly a market for "Internet radio" in some form. It just isn't a market that pays anything meaningful yet.
This leaves the content owners in somewhat of a quandry. They can allow "Internet radio" (whatever that means) to skate by without paying anything and try to convince the rest of their market that the music is worth paying for, or they can pretty much say "everybody pays!" Obviously, "everybody pays!" is more lucrative but it also doesn't start the worrying notion that the music is worthless. There are enough sources for that idea today as it is.
By forcing everyone to pay they may indeed be shutting the door on a possible future paying market. But they may also be preserving the current source of their revenue. I don't think the music industry is ready to go to an ad-supported business model, and I don't think you want to hear ads for Pepsi at the end (or in the middle!) of every song.
Problem is, depending on where this Scribd website is hosted they can simply ignore such requests. Suing them is less than useless because you need to have a name and an address to sue someone. Does Scribd have a valid WHOIS record with a correct name and address? (just checked and it isn't anonymous...)
So, according to WHOIS records, this site might pay attention to a DMCA notice. Or maybe not. They may be immune from being sued for other reasons, such as no assets in the US or other such stuff. Still, maybe they just don't care. The hosting company may not care either - if it is hosted outside of the US they probably do not care at all.
No, DMCA takedown isn't anywhere near as simple a process as you would like it to be. If everyone is operating above board, in the US and with valid contact information then, yes, it can be pretty simple. A break in this chain anywhere results in such notices going in the trash.
In reading many of the postings it is clear that people do not understand the concept of a false flag operation.
What if the Iranian teenager is simply a photograph and the people contributing and benefiting from the project are really the Iranian government, blocked by sanctions and other means from otherwise acquiring other UAV equipment.
We see this in the US all the time with people posing as sexually curious teens to entrap adults. Why wouldn't a government do this if there was some benefit to it?
Yes, there is a great deal of similarity between a RC model airplane and a UAV. An Iranian living in the US buying a RC airplane is not a cause for concern. Modifying the airplane to carry a payload starts to be a cause for concern. But that isn't the point. The point is there are governments that will use any and all available tools for oppressing the people that reside within their borders. And beyond oppressing, there are other tactics such as those being used in Sudan.
How would you feel if there was an article in an Arabic newspaper about the use of a new device to further the goals of the Sudanese government in clearing out the Christian vermin that infest parts of their country? And it was made clear that this device was only possible because of some Americans that clearly must want to further the gains of the Islamic forces in Sudan.
Sure, it is all nice and fun to believe that we are all working towards the same goals and that happiness and prosperity are things that we can all agree on and strive towards. Helping people to achieve their goals is fine when you understand that the goals are the same as yours. Helping people to achieve their goals when you do not understand their goals or know their goals are quite different from yours is very, very different.
People are not the same the world over. All people do not have the same goals and aspirations. Not understanding this is where some of the biggest mistakes in human history have come from.
This is going to be the case more and more with government... and anybody else with any sense.
"Reporters" (and I use the term loosely) are trained by large newspapers, journalism programs and the like to qualify sources and to confirm things.
Now we have a bunch of "journalists" that publish whatever comes into their heads, don't bother to confirm anything and will print nonsense. This isn't just bloggers, this is major publications.
Can you believe that organizations would like to limit the damage that can be caused by some stray remark that is published?
I keep seeing this discussed as if it applies to online poker games only. That would seem to be silly. Why wouldn't every sort of computer game simply have a monetary reward associated with it? It would seem to be perfect to translate the video poker machine to online. And slot machines. And blackjack as well. Roulette. Keno. It all would be fair game.
Do you know someone that would play an online slot machine hoping for a big jackpot? I certainly do - I live with someone that would. She has friends that would do it too.
Vegas and Atlantic City are strictly regulated with payouts determined by the state gaming commissions. Indian casinos are a little more free to set payouts, but they are regulated as well. Online gaming would throw all of that regulation out the window and it would be wide open. It would cost almost nothing to "build" an online casino that offered hundreds of different games. You could easily pay off enough to have lots of testamonials about how great this is.
It would rake in billions a year. Americans have utterly no self-control when it comes to getting rich via gambling. Make it easy enough to get to and pay into and you would have a money machine that wouldn't quit. All you really need is a way to allow people to pay with food stamps. Houses would be good. Or take children. You would have people wanting to "spend" all of those.
Although there is little evidence of this on the Internet, from my association with gaming I believe the complete ban on online gaming is not just due to taxation but also regulation. Once you open the door to online gaming you have a low barrier to entry into potentially the most lucrative criminal enterprise possible.
Las Vegas was the Fort Knox and money printing machine for the mob in the US in the 1950's. The guys at the top had some brains and understood they had to play reasonably fair with the suckers or they wouldn't come back and the suckers had to have a "good time" while they were there. This put limits on what could and could not be done.
I don't see any limits when you move it online. How do you know if you are being cheated? You wouldn't. You get to hear from people praising their big wins. And believe me, there is plenty of money going around so people can win big. The difference between a 98% payout and a 95% payout is incredible. Bring that down to 50% and you have something that wouldn't be legit in the US but would bring in billions.
Why couldn't it be 50%? Online it certainly could and nobody would be looking at the annual reports from a site run from either some small Carribean country or Russia.
I do not see how it could be regulated. With the current grab-all-you-can philosophy in the US players would flock to sites offering the opportunity to win big. And you would have TV ads running with extremely happy big winners. Even if such ads were illegal on TV, you would have them on YouTube.
Sorry, I just see it as a new and better way to part dollars from suckers at a faster pace.
The problem is will anyone pay attention to a voluntary flag. History would indicate they will not. Therefore, something stronger is needed.
Today, the situation in most places there is no implied responsibility for use of an Internet connection. That pretty much means that whatever is done with an Internet connection there is no responsibility whatsoever. Phishing, spamming, sending threatening email, etc. can all be traced back to a meaningless IP address - in no way does it indicate an individual. This is likely to change.
Should there be a law in the US (or elsewhere) that you are responsible for whatever happens on the account you pay for this would mean leaving any sort of anonymous open access available would subject you to virtually unlimited liability.
I feel the current situation is untenable. It encourages illegal and unethical behavior.
Welcome to the new creativity. It is just like the old creativity, except with less... creativity!
Really, if the only "good" content is stolen content what is the point? Are we so culturally inept that we have to have people carving clips out of existing music to make new music? When will "sampling" come to video productions?
Three reasons why an automated system is needed in the US:
Handicapped people. People incapable of seeing, walking, holding a pen, etc. Yes, they can have helpers which remove whatever shred of dignity they have left but in some areas there are shortages of these "helpers". Then, this being the US, the handicapped people get to sue the county and state for both discrimination and their loss of dignity.
Rapid results are a huge problem. You point this out yourself. Either official results are released quickly or they are made up by the news services so they have something to announce. Remember that Gore was announced as the winner in 2000 by ABC (I think) who then had to retract their declaration of a winner. An election that has false results announced isn't going to go over very well, especially when the news anchors often appear to have more credibility than the people running for office.
Too many elections. Making a mark on a piece of paper is fine, but the last election in Arizona that I participated in there were 30-40 different sets of people to choose from. This gets very confusing for many people. It doesn't help that the ballot design is changed frequently because someone has a better idea of how to cater to the handicapped, the illiterate and the bored, careless folks that make up the voters.
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Deal with it. If you are too stupid to not get taken in, then you probably deserve it.
Trying to stop it is like trying to stop panhandling. It may be disgusting and annoying but there isn't really anything that can be done about it. Educated people know not to pass out money to people on the street. Sympathatic folks that have a good heart make sure these people keep coming back for more.
Just like the people that buy stuff from spam and click links in emails.
There is no fair use exemption for redistributing content. There is nothing that allows you to "build" on another's property to make your own in this context.
For example, no matter how cute I think it might be to overlay Neil Diamond's "Heartlight" with the word "head" everywhere Neil is singing "heart", all I can legally do is play the result for myself. Should I take this "derivative work" and publish it in any form - including just making it available for download on the Internet - I will (rightfully) get sued. I don't get any points for it being a parody, for some kind of fair use, for it being some kind of "sampling" or anything else.
Are EULAs legal? Absolutely. Every time one has come up in court it has been ruled enforceable. At no time has a EULA ever been struck down. Good thing that the EULA known as GPL v2 is built on solid ground, isn't it?
As for your idea that somehow including a public performance of a ringtone is "fair use", I'm afraid you are very, very wrong. There is no such thing as fair use when it comes to redistribution in any form - and including casually recorded sounds is certainly redistribution. And a public performance of that material certainly isn't covered by fair use. If I record your speech and play it in a public performance you have considerable rights to stop me, collect punative damages and collect substantial license fees for use in a public performance. Same thing would go for a recording of you playing the kazoo.
You seem to have a lot of interesting ideas about how you would like things to be. Too bad this doesn't correspond very well to the real world.
So far, every EULA that has come up in court has been upheld. I believe the last time this happened was in California and the precedent does not apply outside of the 9th Circuit but it is still something that can be pointed to. So much for "notoriously unenforcable".
Another EULA that seems to not be having much difficultly is GPL v2.
There are two groups of people out there today: those that will pay for your software and those that will not. There are some fence-sitters that might pay or might not depending on who gets to them first.
The people that are going to pay may try to cheat you a little on the number of machines it is installed on. This needs to be guarded against as the difference between selling 10 units or 10,000 units is quite a bit. You will find this sort of thing pretty common, even with companies that officially decry any use of pirated software. They may think they aren't really doing anything wrong until you tell them and/or make it difficult.
The people that aren't going to pay are not going to pay you no matter what you do. They will find some way of getting the software for free. Obviously, you would like to prevent that. It is probably a waste of time. They have far more resources than you do and they aren't going to give up, ever. Hope for legitimate customers that pay.
The fence sitters are difficult to identify. If your software ends up on the "OEM Software Sales" web sites this eases everone's mind - it isn't stealing when you pay for it. This would be something to avoid at all costs because it makes the fence sitter's mind up for them. If you have any kind of customer outreach you need to make it clear that the only real source for the software is to buy it from you. Buy. Not steal. I don't believe in any community there are more than 10-15% of "fence sitters". The rest fall into the two groups described above.
The comments about making the software too difficult to use without support and training is pretty funny. The people doing that aren't doing themselves, their customers, or anyone involved with software a favor. They give the whole software development community a black eye.
Maybe QNX would like to survive as a software company rather than just a collection of hobbists.
That way, users of QNX needing hardware support for new platforms and processors will have it rather than hoping for something to come along.
I'm still waiting for WPA on Linux to be common to maybe be able to leave WEP behind. Of course, the hardware manufacturers that have limited budgets are choosing Linux and often leaving WPA support out.
Unfortunately, what you would like to mandate is at the same time a mandate for Chinese domination of the hardware market.
Today the hardware is almost immaterial to a "hardware" product - it is the inner workings of the firmware, the driver and such that are where both the bulk of the engineering time and bulk of the "value" are. There are few, if any, secrets in silicon today.
So a manufacturer puts a lot of effort into developing a new product in the US or EU. If the functionality of the hardware/firmware is then required to be disclosed it is trivial to make the same hardware product elsewhere and compete head-to-head without any real R&D cost. Sure the Linux community and a few hackers might be better off, but at what price?
Today, the only effective way to compete against Chinese manufacture is to have the hardware, firmware and software talking behind the scenes. The firmware interface to the hardware isn't disclosed and the driver that talks to the firmware isn't disclosed. Absolutely, the hardware can be duplicated but without the firmware and driver the device requires an equivalent amount of development effort.
Yes, that put the Chinese manufacturer on an equal footing with the US or EU manufacturer. Instead of how they would much prefer it where all the "hard" problems are solved in the US and they Chinese get to just make cheap knock-offs.
Where was development for USB hubs done? Where are they made today? Compare this to video cards - how many 3D cards are distributed by Chinese manufacturers? Sure, they are all imported with "Made in China" stickers but they are made for US, EU and Canadian manufacturers that own the firmware and drivers.
You have one flawed assumption at the core of your argument. You assume that other cultures value life on Earth as much as you do.
Purely as an intellectual exercise, you might think about how utterly vain that is. Can you not put your culture ahead of your personal well-being? Can you understand that both your beliefs and the generations to come could possibly be of more value than your life?
Well, some pretty couragous people outside the US believe that their individual lives do not count for much of anything and are clearly willing to sacrifice them in order to achieve goals which may not be realized for generations. You think you can negotiate with these people? Your petty self-centered world view isn't going to change their minds.
The threat of economic sanctions, war, and even nuclear destruction is immaterial to people with beliefs. They will achieve their goals without question if people aren't willing to stand up for what they believe in. Apparently you believe in your life and expect others to have the same courtesy. I expect you to have but one expression on your face when they kill you - astonishment.
The problem now is the value of recorded music is zero. Nobody I know pays. Why would they? Safety? Convenience? When a small bit of common sense will protect you from the robbers and thugs out there and everything you want is available?
No, the crash is going to come pretty soon I think. Anyone "selling" music is doomed, as is their entire infrastructure. If you create graphics for bands who pay you from music sales, better find a new job. If your job is supplying plastic for jewel cases used by CD manufacturers for music CDs, better find a new job. If you are a network admin for a advertising agency used by bands or record companies, better find a new job.
How far will this spread? Far. Really far. And I don't see any way to avoid it. No matter what the RIAA would like to do, they can't stop people outside the US sharing stuff into the US. And they can't stop everyone with a computer in the US taking advantage of the sharing. Today elementry school children learn how to use sharing software for what they want. Pay for it? They have no money. But they learn it is all out there for free and no need to pay by 4th grade. There is no way you are going to convince these children when they grow up they have to pay for something that is clearly available for free.
Why do you think this is illegal? What country did it originate in and what country is it controlled in? Just because the US might have a law that makes this activity illegal does not mean anyone else cares.
This might be a significant portion of the economy for some Eastern European country.
Digital sales? Why would anyone pay for digital materials they can (a) copy from their friends and (b) download from the Internet for free?
It's over. Face it, music as a revenue stream is over and done with. Nobody is going to make money from recorded music. Live music, maybe. Although paying $150 a ticket for some concert is just about over as well.
Sure, it is all low-quality compressed stuff that is being passed around. Just about right for the earbuds that are all the fad today. The sound reproduction capability of the hardware has been matched against the sources of music available.
The store ends up holding the bag no matter what. The problem is that a lot of people - around 10% from what I understand - aren't showing much courtesy because they are stealing. So the store tries to do as much as they can to discourage this behavior.
As it turns out, it doesn't work all that well. They are still spending as much as 25% of their profits on "loss prevention".
Face it, 10% of the "other" people at Fry's are stealing and the loss prevention systems aren't perfect and are absolutely not preventing these people from stealing.
So the losses continue. You, it seems have, have enough respect for the store not to steal. If everyone else was like that all this would be unnecessary. But most people get away with it and the penalties are very small when compared to the rewards. So nothing is going to stop it.
So the truth is, you are in the company of criminals even if you aren't one yourself.
Absolutely. Move to Japan.
In the US shoplifting is so prevalent that no, there isn't any other way. Look around at the cameras. Look at the undercover (sometimes obvious) store employee checking you out. Look at the machines at every exit point to check the tags in the merchandise. Do you think this is all free?
Obviously you don't live in the US.
The US is probably the shoplifting capital of the world. 10% of the people do it or so and the store loss prevention guys nail someone about once an hour. The cameras, the undercover people and other checks further reduce the loss. It is still costing the store as much as 25% of their revenue either in direct "shrinkage" or paying for all this security.
Maybe in your country people are more respectful of the store's profits. They certainly aren't in the US.
70 years ago or so shoplifting was considered a crime and something no respectable citizen would do. To shoplift would result in arrest, detention, possible loss of a job and a great amount of embarrassment. Nobody in their right mind did it. This of course led to the psycological assessment of "kleptomania" which is a translation of "shoplifting regardless of the consequences".
Today, there is no such loss of respect. People shoplift all the time. Celebreties. Soccer moms. Republicans. Democrats. Pretty much everybody. As much as 25% of a store's operating expenses are tied up in loss prevention and covering "shrinkage". Therefore, stores in general - all stores - are extremely sensitive to this and take lots of steps to ensure loss doesn't occur or occurs at a much lower rate than it would otherwise.
So in steps Michael whatever. He is offended at having his package examined. He better never set foot in a Sam's Club where they check every shopping cart leaving the store against the receipt. He fails to understand that the chances of one of the next 10 people leaving the store is a thief is about 100%. He considers that he is being treated as a criminal, when in fact shoplifting is far, far too prevalent to be considered as anything more than a ticketable offence in most jurisdictions. Stores in general don't really call the police - they just prevent the loss and tell you not to come back. It isn't worth their time.
But Michael the privacy advocate has to play the driver's license game as well. Of course, this gets in the way of the policeman doing his job - or at least how he views his job. This guy is going to have some big legal bills and never serve a day in jail. He will feel pretty stupid at the end of this adventure and isn't going to come away with anything except a feeling that things didn't go quite right. No, I don't see how he can "win" in any sense of the word.
There is certainly a market for "Internet radio" in some form. It just isn't a market that pays anything meaningful yet.
This leaves the content owners in somewhat of a quandry. They can allow "Internet radio" (whatever that means) to skate by without paying anything and try to convince the rest of their market that the music is worth paying for, or they can pretty much say "everybody pays!" Obviously, "everybody pays!" is more lucrative but it also doesn't start the worrying notion that the music is worthless. There are enough sources for that idea today as it is.
By forcing everyone to pay they may indeed be shutting the door on a possible future paying market. But they may also be preserving the current source of their revenue. I don't think the music industry is ready to go to an ad-supported business model, and I don't think you want to hear ads for Pepsi at the end (or in the middle!) of every song.
Problem is, depending on where this Scribd website is hosted they can simply ignore such requests. Suing them is less than useless because you need to have a name and an address to sue someone. Does Scribd have a valid WHOIS record with a correct name and address? (just checked and it isn't anonymous...)
So, according to WHOIS records, this site might pay attention to a DMCA notice. Or maybe not. They may be immune from being sued for other reasons, such as no assets in the US or other such stuff. Still, maybe they just don't care. The hosting company may not care either - if it is hosted outside of the US they probably do not care at all.
No, DMCA takedown isn't anywhere near as simple a process as you would like it to be. If everyone is operating above board, in the US and with valid contact information then, yes, it can be pretty simple. A break in this chain anywhere results in such notices going in the trash.
In reading many of the postings it is clear that people do not understand the concept of a false flag operation.
What if the Iranian teenager is simply a photograph and the people contributing and benefiting from the project are really the Iranian government, blocked by sanctions and other means from otherwise acquiring other UAV equipment.
We see this in the US all the time with people posing as sexually curious teens to entrap adults. Why wouldn't a government do this if there was some benefit to it?
Yes, there is a great deal of similarity between a RC model airplane and a UAV. An Iranian living in the US buying a RC airplane is not a cause for concern. Modifying the airplane to carry a payload starts to be a cause for concern. But that isn't the point. The point is there are governments that will use any and all available tools for oppressing the people that reside within their borders. And beyond oppressing, there are other tactics such as those being used in Sudan.
How would you feel if there was an article in an Arabic newspaper about the use of a new device to further the goals of the Sudanese government in clearing out the Christian vermin that infest parts of their country? And it was made clear that this device was only possible because of some Americans that clearly must want to further the gains of the Islamic forces in Sudan.
Sure, it is all nice and fun to believe that we are all working towards the same goals and that happiness and prosperity are things that we can all agree on and strive towards. Helping people to achieve their goals is fine when you understand that the goals are the same as yours. Helping people to achieve their goals when you do not understand their goals or know their goals are quite different from yours is very, very different.
People are not the same the world over. All people do not have the same goals and aspirations. Not understanding this is where some of the biggest mistakes in human history have come from.
This is going to be the case more and more with government ... and anybody else with any sense.
"Reporters" (and I use the term loosely) are trained by large newspapers, journalism programs and the like to qualify sources and to confirm things.
Now we have a bunch of "journalists" that publish whatever comes into their heads, don't bother to confirm anything and will print nonsense. This isn't just bloggers, this is major publications.
Can you believe that organizations would like to limit the damage that can be caused by some stray remark that is published?
I keep seeing this discussed as if it applies to online poker games only. That would seem to be silly. Why wouldn't every sort of computer game simply have a monetary reward associated with it? It would seem to be perfect to translate the video poker machine to online. And slot machines. And blackjack as well. Roulette. Keno. It all would be fair game.
Do you know someone that would play an online slot machine hoping for a big jackpot? I certainly do - I live with someone that would. She has friends that would do it too.
Vegas and Atlantic City are strictly regulated with payouts determined by the state gaming commissions. Indian casinos are a little more free to set payouts, but they are regulated as well. Online gaming would throw all of that regulation out the window and it would be wide open. It would cost almost nothing to "build" an online casino that offered hundreds of different games. You could easily pay off enough to have lots of testamonials about how great this is.
It would rake in billions a year. Americans have utterly no self-control when it comes to getting rich via gambling. Make it easy enough to get to and pay into and you would have a money machine that wouldn't quit. All you really need is a way to allow people to pay with food stamps. Houses would be good. Or take children. You would have people wanting to "spend" all of those.
Although there is little evidence of this on the Internet, from my association with gaming I believe the complete ban on online gaming is not just due to taxation but also regulation. Once you open the door to online gaming you have a low barrier to entry into potentially the most lucrative criminal enterprise possible.
Las Vegas was the Fort Knox and money printing machine for the mob in the US in the 1950's. The guys at the top had some brains and understood they had to play reasonably fair with the suckers or they wouldn't come back and the suckers had to have a "good time" while they were there. This put limits on what could and could not be done.
I don't see any limits when you move it online. How do you know if you are being cheated? You wouldn't. You get to hear from people praising their big wins. And believe me, there is plenty of money going around so people can win big. The difference between a 98% payout and a 95% payout is incredible. Bring that down to 50% and you have something that wouldn't be legit in the US but would bring in billions.
Why couldn't it be 50%? Online it certainly could and nobody would be looking at the annual reports from a site run from either some small Carribean country or Russia.
I do not see how it could be regulated. With the current grab-all-you-can philosophy in the US players would flock to sites offering the opportunity to win big. And you would have TV ads running with extremely happy big winners. Even if such ads were illegal on TV, you would have them on YouTube.
Sorry, I just see it as a new and better way to part dollars from suckers at a faster pace.
I want to secure my DHCP to prevent exactly what you are describing. Any suggestions?
The problem is will anyone pay attention to a voluntary flag. History would indicate they will not. Therefore, something stronger is needed.
Today, the situation in most places there is no implied responsibility for use of an Internet connection. That pretty much means that whatever is done with an Internet connection there is no responsibility whatsoever. Phishing, spamming, sending threatening email, etc. can all be traced back to a meaningless IP address - in no way does it indicate an individual. This is likely to change.
Should there be a law in the US (or elsewhere) that you are responsible for whatever happens on the account you pay for this would mean leaving any sort of anonymous open access available would subject you to virtually unlimited liability.
I feel the current situation is untenable. It encourages illegal and unethical behavior.
Welcome to the new creativity. It is just like the old creativity, except with less ... creativity!
Really, if the only "good" content is stolen content what is the point? Are we so culturally inept that we have to have people carving clips out of existing music to make new music? When will "sampling" come to video productions?
So it is in the US.