It kills me how the industry blames their own customers for piracy and decreased revenues and forces these kinds of protection schemes on them. We are paying them. What incentive is there for us to just give away copies of something we spent our own hard-earned money on? If we, as customers, want to make copies, it's probably for a legitimate reason, like making a backup for your kids who are prone to break stuff, or ripping it to a computer to use on a portable MP3 player.
The real piracy problem is with people mass-producing illegitimage copies of CDs and DVDs and passing them off as genuine. It's the discs that end up for sale at the corner of Nevins St and Flatbush Ave that are really hurting them, not the paying customers. Instead of directing all this energy and money towards DRM, lawsuits against filesharers, and Sony's defense, maybe they should focus more on helping the police crack down on illegal production and warehousing of ripoff CDs/DVDs and lobby the government to do something more aggressive about China.
A lot of those pop-up ads that appear despite having a pop-up blocker are triggered by flash or java, which the popup blockers generally do not mess with (they usually only affect Javascript). Also, it could be due to spyware/adware on the machine. But I've found that most, if not all, of the popups I still get using Firefox are due to flash.
IMHO Flash is seriously overused on the web. I'd love to just get rid of flashplayer, but too many sites are built around it.
I actually bought my TiVo Series2 from them. They were selling a 140-hour for what the 80-hour cost elsewhere. I have to admit that their aggressive advertising turned me off to even considering buying from them, regardless of price... but in the end, I'm glad I overcame my prejudice and did business with them. There was a problem with my card and their customer service was very quick to let me know, and was very courteous and understanding about the situation.
However, I did let them know that their ads tend to be very obnoxious and intrusive and they almost lost me as a potential customer because of it (they asked how I'd heard of X10-- who hasn't heard of X10 that's used a web browser??!). It's a shame when good companies alienate potential customers in that way. And it wasn't even one of their ads that got me, anyway. It was PriceGrabber or MSN Shopping or something like that. They happened to have the best price. My purchase was actually in spite of their ads, not because of them.
besides, Jerry Sanders is a lot more likable than Gordon Moore. I mean, what would you rather give your kid-- a plush Jerry Sanders doll or a plush Gordon Moore?:-)
It's interesting that TFA doesn't seem to offer any actual evidence, but I suppose this will come out in the trial, if it ever goes to one.
It's a shame that these two in particular are being singled out (no pun intended). I used to use Match.com when they were still free and went out on a couple of dates.. and I swear they were not employees of Match.com.
Besides, I met my wife on Yahoo! Personals. And she definitely was not on the payroll. We've been happily married for 6 years. I'll be the first to admit, I'm not prime dating material, but come on.. if I can actually get dates on these services, then surely this guy can! I mean, seriously, what is his profile called? "Serial murderer seeks meek co-ed with no connections to community for brutal rape and dismemberment"?
I can't wait for the conspiracy paranoics to start putting up websites blaming Sony for everything from the Spanish flu to the Hindenburg disaster. Sony started the war in Iraq! Sony shot Reagan! And on and on... Maybe someone will just resurrect the "Bert is evil" website and put the CEO of Sony in there instead of Bert. You know it's coming, though...
The record companies just won't let go. They want the model that puts them in control. Pricing control where they get to say which track sells for what amount, giving them leverage over the artist - bundleing, where trash tracks have to be purchased, whether the consumer wants them or not - consumer habit tracking, where they get first dibs on mining all that data...it goes on and on. The record companies just need to die, it's that simple.
Right on! This is just another manifestation of the fact that CD's cost on average $17. I remember when CDs first came out, they cost about $15-17 and usually came in bulky cardboard packaging (ostensibly to discourage theft). Cassette tapes at the time ran $9-13. The dirty little secret in the industry was that CDs were much cheaper to manufacture than cassettes. So, why then was the consumer paying twice as much for CDs? You could say that if they sold them for the same price or lower than cassettes, that no one would buy cassettes because they are lower quality. Everyone would go out and buy a CD player. Well, now everyone in the world has a CD player and it's incredibly hard to even find releases on cassette anymore, yet the price of a CD has not gone down a single cent on average in the last 15 years. Mind you, the record companies are no longer paying to produce cassettes, no longer paying for producing those bulky packages that CDs used to come packaged in. If anything, CDs ought to be less expensive to produce. But... the industry is very powerful. The RIAA and its associate members are a cartel of sorts, like OPEC, and can set whatever prices they like and gouge the hell out of consumers. And they can get away with it because Congress not only allows them to, but they even protect them!
RMS doesn't like the UN being able to track where he is using RFID technology.. but he doesn't think it's pretty easy for them to track his location by looking out for the one idiot in the tin-man costume among a bunch of suits?
before I get flamed some more.. I can feel the heat rising.. I just wanted to point out that I was referring to emerging technologies, not to new consumer products. The point was that Sony's tech has done very well where there was no viable alternative product. Ultimately, what will probably decide Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD is which one the porn industry embraces. HD-DVD will be cheaper to mass produce. I see that as being an enticement for the porn industry and the consumer. Blu-ray will probably become a niche product for techno-snobs the same way that laserdisc was.
Sony is like King Midas, except that everything they touch turns to shit instead of gold...
Come on, now. What has Sony done that wasn't a flop? The only thing I can think of is the compact disc. The CD did not have any real alternatives, so it was a safe bet. However, look at Beta... VHS killed it. MiniDisc? Couldn't overtake the CD. Memory stick.. this one's a real laugher..:-) The point is, that Sony is an innovative company, you have to give them credit for that. The problem is that they aren't good at getting others to share in their vision and then they try to be the only player in the game. They overprice their merch and offer to license their tech for exorbitant fees. In the meantime, their competitors develop cheaper, more user-friendly alternatives which consumers see as a better value, and the Sony product fails. We've seen this time and again. Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD is just the same thing all over again. Blu-ray may very well be technically superior to HD-DVD, but it will be more expensive, and HD-DVD will be good enough for consumers that they won't pay the Sony tax for Blu-ray. Add to that that HD-DVD guarantees at least some possibility of making backups, which is a big step towards user friendliness. Anyone who has kids who watch DVDs knows this already!
yeah.. seriously, I almost wasn't even going to comment on this.. but.. someone at Sony should probably realize that no matter what they do right now, it's going to be colored by the whole XCP scandal.. they might just want to stay out of the press for a while until things aren't so hot...
...all it would translate when going from Arabic to English was "Die, Zionist-loving infidel imperialists!"
At least they got the English-to-Arabic working though. It was stuck in beta for the longest time while they tried to figure out why "Dick Cheney" kept getting translated as "Allah."
Gee, I hope that no one was able to see that I store my SS#, CC#, and username/passwords for every site that I use. This could really be bad! The last time I checked, this was Beta software anyway, and if it was a concern, realize that most people weren't concerned when they got google eyed for a 2GB account. Get serious, who in the their right mind would send sensitive information over e-mail anyway???
Up until today, I was including that info in my sig!!
seriously, this has been spiraling so badly for Sony that I wouldn't be surprised if the next headline about them is that their entire corporate board of directors committed harakiri..
You're absolutely wrong. The first thing we learned in Army basic training was our chain of command. Guess who was right up there in it? A certain guy named "Rumsfeld"... wonder who he could be!
There was a time when Sony was considered to be top-quality bar none. There was Sony, and then there was everything else. You would pay a little more for it, but in general, almost without exception, the Sony product was quantifiably better than the competitors' products. This was true when I was growing up in the 80's and even into the early 90's.
Funny, I seem to recall Sony's decline beginning probably around the same time as their introduction to the video game console market. I, for one, was particularly dumbfounded when I first saw the PlayStation and thought to myself "how can they compete against Sega with this crap?" The jaggies and just AWFUL chiclet-style controllers were just garbage compared to Saturn. Looking back, that was probably the point at which Sony marketing and branding overtook their prior commitment to quality.
Nosuchnews reports that a backdoor was discovered in the NetWalkman that allows Sony to turn them on simultaneously and take total control of them, wherever they may be.
It's uncertain what purpose was intended by this, but one anonymous source within Sony was quoted as saying, "Picture Reggie Jackson in the Naked Gun. 'I must kill the Queen.' Now imagine over a million of those, all NetWalkmans." Then the Sony employee grinned sinisterly and said, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! YOU ARE SO PWNED!"
He's going to be running for governor, and is already widely considered to be the leading candidate. Something like this would only be another feather in his consumer protection cap, but it will only help him more. Honestly, the excellent consumer rights laws we have on the books here and having an AG that aggressively defends those rights are really the only reasons I still have for living in New York (that and the fact that it's so ridiculously expensive, that if I ever left I'd never have enough money to return)..
Wow.. here where I live, the cabs refuse to go to ATMs because of robberies. My wife does not drive and works late nights at Taco Bell, and I always have to make sure I take out cash for her ahead of time because the cab drivers absolutely refuse to stop at an ATM because they're afraid to get robbed. And it's not like she works in the city. It's a small town at the edge of the suburbs, just before you get to the more rural area where we live.
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The real piracy problem is with people mass-producing illegitimage copies of CDs and DVDs and passing them off as genuine. It's the discs that end up for sale at the corner of Nevins St and Flatbush Ave that are really hurting them, not the paying customers. Instead of directing all this energy and money towards DRM, lawsuits against filesharers, and Sony's defense, maybe they should focus more on helping the police crack down on illegal production and warehousing of ripoff CDs/DVDs and lobby the government to do something more aggressive about China.
IMHO Flash is seriously overused on the web. I'd love to just get rid of flashplayer, but too many sites are built around it.
However, I did let them know that their ads tend to be very obnoxious and intrusive and they almost lost me as a potential customer because of it (they asked how I'd heard of X10-- who hasn't heard of X10 that's used a web browser??!). It's a shame when good companies alienate potential customers in that way. And it wasn't even one of their ads that got me, anyway. It was PriceGrabber or MSN Shopping or something like that. They happened to have the best price. My purchase was actually in spite of their ads, not because of them.
Yes, and Dell will also rename their MP3 player "iPod," and Apple will begin calling theirs "Digital Jukebox," thus completing the role reversal.
besides, Jerry Sanders is a lot more likable than Gordon Moore. I mean, what would you rather give your kid-- a plush Jerry Sanders doll or a plush Gordon Moore? :-)
It's a shame that these two in particular are being singled out (no pun intended). I used to use Match.com when they were still free and went out on a couple of dates.. and I swear they were not employees of Match.com.
Besides, I met my wife on Yahoo! Personals. And she definitely was not on the payroll. We've been happily married for 6 years. I'll be the first to admit, I'm not prime dating material, but come on.. if I can actually get dates on these services, then surely this guy can! I mean, seriously, what is his profile called? "Serial murderer seeks meek co-ed with no connections to community for brutal rape and dismemberment"?
I can't wait for the conspiracy paranoics to start putting up websites blaming Sony for everything from the Spanish flu to the Hindenburg disaster. Sony started the war in Iraq! Sony shot Reagan! And on and on... Maybe someone will just resurrect the "Bert is evil" website and put the CEO of Sony in there instead of Bert. You know it's coming, though...
Right on! This is just another manifestation of the fact that CD's cost on average $17. I remember when CDs first came out, they cost about $15-17 and usually came in bulky cardboard packaging (ostensibly to discourage theft). Cassette tapes at the time ran $9-13. The dirty little secret in the industry was that CDs were much cheaper to manufacture than cassettes. So, why then was the consumer paying twice as much for CDs? You could say that if they sold them for the same price or lower than cassettes, that no one would buy cassettes because they are lower quality. Everyone would go out and buy a CD player. Well, now everyone in the world has a CD player and it's incredibly hard to even find releases on cassette anymore, yet the price of a CD has not gone down a single cent on average in the last 15 years. Mind you, the record companies are no longer paying to produce cassettes, no longer paying for producing those bulky packages that CDs used to come packaged in. If anything, CDs ought to be less expensive to produce. But... the industry is very powerful. The RIAA and its associate members are a cartel of sorts, like OPEC, and can set whatever prices they like and gouge the hell out of consumers. And they can get away with it because Congress not only allows them to, but they even protect them!
Way to go, RMS! :P
before I get flamed some more.. I can feel the heat rising.. I just wanted to point out that I was referring to emerging technologies, not to new consumer products. The point was that Sony's tech has done very well where there was no viable alternative product. Ultimately, what will probably decide Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD is which one the porn industry embraces. HD-DVD will be cheaper to mass produce. I see that as being an enticement for the porn industry and the consumer. Blu-ray will probably become a niche product for techno-snobs the same way that laserdisc was.
Come on, now. What has Sony done that wasn't a flop? The only thing I can think of is the compact disc. The CD did not have any real alternatives, so it was a safe bet. However, look at Beta... VHS killed it. MiniDisc? Couldn't overtake the CD. Memory stick.. this one's a real laugher.. :-) The point is, that Sony is an innovative company, you have to give them credit for that. The problem is that they aren't good at getting others to share in their vision and then they try to be the only player in the game. They overprice their merch and offer to license their tech for exorbitant fees. In the meantime, their competitors develop cheaper, more user-friendly alternatives which consumers see as a better value, and the Sony product fails. We've seen this time and again. Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD is just the same thing all over again. Blu-ray may very well be technically superior to HD-DVD, but it will be more expensive, and HD-DVD will be good enough for consumers that they won't pay the Sony tax for Blu-ray. Add to that that HD-DVD guarantees at least some possibility of making backups, which is a big step towards user friendliness. Anyone who has kids who watch DVDs knows this already!
yeah.. seriously, I almost wasn't even going to comment on this.. but.. someone at Sony should probably realize that no matter what they do right now, it's going to be colored by the whole XCP scandal.. they might just want to stay out of the press for a while until things aren't so hot...
Yes, indeed. And this is why Apple is abandoning PPC and going with Intel. Intel does not have an eieio instruction.
At least they got the English-to-Arabic working though. It was stuck in beta for the longest time while they tried to figure out why "Dick Cheney" kept getting translated as "Allah."
Up until today, I was including that info in my sig!!
Don't we live in scary times when security professionals give themselves names like "Anal Chaos?"
bcrowell, is that really you?! We really missed you over at alt.hackers.geriatric. It's been a real long time, my friend. How's the hip replacement?
seriously, this has been spiraling so badly for Sony that I wouldn't be surprised if the next headline about them is that their entire corporate board of directors committed harakiri..
You're absolutely wrong. The first thing we learned in Army basic training was our chain of command. Guess who was right up there in it? A certain guy named "Rumsfeld"... wonder who he could be!
it's not the Brotherhood of NOD32.. we could use some to defend ourselves against the onslaught of viruses the Sony rootkit made possible..
Funny, I seem to recall Sony's decline beginning probably around the same time as their introduction to the video game console market. I, for one, was particularly dumbfounded when I first saw the PlayStation and thought to myself "how can they compete against Sega with this crap?" The jaggies and just AWFUL chiclet-style controllers were just garbage compared to Saturn. Looking back, that was probably the point at which Sony marketing and branding overtook their prior commitment to quality.
It's uncertain what purpose was intended by this, but one anonymous source within Sony was quoted as saying, "Picture Reggie Jackson in the Naked Gun. 'I must kill the Queen.' Now imagine over a million of those, all NetWalkmans." Then the Sony employee grinned sinisterly and said, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! YOU ARE SO PWNED!"
Sony didn't just screw the pooch, my friend.. this is more than that.. straight-up goatse!!
He's going to be running for governor, and is already widely considered to be the leading candidate. Something like this would only be another feather in his consumer protection cap, but it will only help him more. Honestly, the excellent consumer rights laws we have on the books here and having an AG that aggressively defends those rights are really the only reasons I still have for living in New York (that and the fact that it's so ridiculously expensive, that if I ever left I'd never have enough money to return)..
Wow.. here where I live, the cabs refuse to go to ATMs because of robberies. My wife does not drive and works late nights at Taco Bell, and I always have to make sure I take out cash for her ahead of time because the cab drivers absolutely refuse to stop at an ATM because they're afraid to get robbed. And it's not like she works in the city. It's a small town at the edge of the suburbs, just before you get to the more rural area where we live.