One drop of water does not make a waterfall... it is but the start.
The RIAA has plenty of other cases out there they are pursuing with zest, and still more cases where people are simply caving and paying them their blood money. Until the tide truly turns in the courts, this is only a small victory. I suspect it's going to take one of these getting to the Untied States Supreme Court before the RIAA will be forced to call off their dogs.
I'm betting this is anouther in a long line of Sun articles designed to sell newspapers which is based on gossip, when the BBC says there will be no more Doctor Who I'll believe them. As it standard Doctor Who is the BBC's most popular show so even if Davies were to quit I doubt they would axe the show.
Perhaps. But they could kill it, ala the Berman & Piller destruction of the Star Trek franchise. All they have to do is hire someone who has no real interest in the show or is such a raving fanatic that they make changes which strangle the show's unique qualities (pink Daleks anyone?).
Theoretically... but this is science fiction television... if it keeps the show going, rules were made to be broken.
That said, this is a severe kick in the head. The original series leaving the air was bad enough, but this remake series was just as good if not better. Hey, if they need fresh talent to keep it going, I'll volunteer!
But you'd have to agree it would be very difficult and socially tricky for MySpace to attempt to operate under those precepts. MySpace does not bill itself as a club or a restrictive organization. If they were too restrictive, they would be going against their billing as a social site and there would certainly be negative publicity that would prove detrimental. I think the Internet casts the differences between small groups and the world in general in much sharper relief. Of course, they could potentially avoid such a trap by simply hosting their service in a country that wouldn't care about the restrictiveness of their rules.
MySpace is a service and as such they have terms of service and just about every TOS under the sun has a clause saying "we reserve the right to dump you at any time for any reason." You don't necessarily have a "right" to use MySpace, anymore than you have a "right" to use Mobil or Starbucks. If they choose to exclude you for whatever reason, your only recourse is legal action. Mind you, they can refuse you service, but they can't necessarily get away with publicly slandering/defaming you, and they certainly cannot discriminate against you based on purely physical factors (race, sex, etc.).
Another culprit would certainly be if any of these folks used public terminals to log in and check their portfolios, or even Wi-Fi in public places that a hacker could sniff out. Trading needs to be done in the privacy of your own home, behind an excellent firewall, through a physical connection or encrypted Wi-Fi.
I can see people blocking DoubleClick... Google's another story. It's ubiquity means that even if the average user has some idea how to go about blocking them, they'll hesitate to.
Then again, is this just another case of patent whoring? again, news?
Until the nightmare that is patenting computer technology/software is fixed/destroyed, these kinds of things will not be news, just a common occurrence/nuisance.
The whole idea of the "free market" is suspect in this day-and-age anyway. Even if the government does not regulate a market, some other organization will. Oil prices?!? That's not supply and demand causing those price spikes -- its the commodities markets. Every time Hugo Chavez says "boo" or Iran does something naughty, the price shoots up, and so does the price at the pump.
If it's an out-bound tax, could it be used to make SPAM economically unrewarding?
Well, they could conceivably not pay the tax. Of course then they stand to get the Al Capone treatment from the Treasury Department and the IRS for tax evasion. I'll admit, it's the only real upside I could find to this idea.
This whole thing should come as no shock. The Internet was not built with security in mind. I don't think anyone imagined the degree to which it would become a method of commerce. Certainly when the first websites were given the ability to accept and process credit cards, the card companies had been dealing with fraud for years, in terms of lost/stolen/duplicated cards. I remember working in a convenience store in the 80's and getting small booklets in the mail from the credit card companies with lists of fraudulent numbers. Like I was going to look them up!
Credit cards could be made much more secure. It would be expensive, no doubt, as it would require fundamental changes to the system, but compare that to the price of all the fraud currently committed and I'm pretty sure the ROI is pretty good.
Agreed. This is the kind of marketing Linux has needed for a while to begin to impinge on the consciousness of the average user. As long as they had to call their geeky neighbor and have him/her install it on their box then spend weeks getting acquainted with the differences, Linux was not going to get any respect. Now, there may be a chance.
Therein lies the problem though -- we're trying to compare an operating system (Linux), to companies (Microsoft/Apple). There is no true "Linux Corporation". There are of course distros from people like Red Hat, but how many average users have even heard of them? Unless we start seeing a series of "Hi, I'm a Mac... Hi, I'm a PC... Hey there, I'm a PC running Linux", where the Linux PC is played by some buxom playgirl, I don't think Linux will make headway with the average computer user.
If the Apple/Windows market positions were reversed (or Linux/Windows for that mater) Windows would still be less secure. Unlocked doors and windows are still less secure even though there are fewer of them (or in our case more of them).
True. However, if things were reversed, Windows would have a tiny market share and its relative insecurity would doom it to obscurity. No one would care about Windows and hackers would be having a field day trying to crack Mac OS X. Don't kid yourself - when the kid the bullies pick on gets wise and stops reacting, the bullies don't dance with him/her anymore and go on to pick on someone else. Microsoft's presence/absence has little to do with the larger issue of Internet/OS security.
The threat to sue comes after several months of negotiations with the company. In December, Bill Lockyer, then California's attorney general, met with a majority of the nine journalists in an attempt to get settlement talks started; the journalists' lawyers were at the meeting, as were lawyers for some of the news organizations they represented.
The original plan was to seek an amount equal to about $250,000 for each journalist to be donated to an agreed-upon cause, like a journalism school program, Mr. Lockyer had said at the time.
...
In an April meeting with H.P.'s outside law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius of Philadelphia, the seven journalists requested an amount equal to several million dollars each, paid to them directly with their promise that most of the money, though not all, would be donated to charity. Hewlett-Packard's offer was closer to $10,000 per reporter, roughly enough to cover the reporters' legal bills, according to several people involved in the talks.
I think the reporters are probably looking to cash in while they can. The CA attorney general seemed to have the right idea and most of the reporters bought into it. This group is apparently out for something more, whether it's the money or just to continue shaming HP, it's hard to say. I think both sides are pretty much missing the point: HP can't believe that simply throwing a paltry sum at someone will get them to go away, and the reporters shouldn't get it in their head that it's their job to punish HP more or cash in on HP's misfortune.
Re:Things like this are easy to fix.
on
Google's Evil NDA
·
· Score: 1
The fact is, if they want you, they want you, and they'll put up with whatever to get and keep you if they can. If you'd be nice to have but not necessarily essential, they'll cast your résumé into deep storage and pull the enxt one off the stack. Ultimately it's futile: signing it, not signing, modifying it, accepting it as is... they're a big company and you can think you're pulling a good one on them but they have billions of dollars in the bank and polished lawyers. They really wouldn't be afraid of any changes you might make.
Slashdot Mirror
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
"Major combat operations in Iraq are now over.
"KITT, scan the inside of the building."
Anything Rosie O'Donnell says.
One drop of water does not make a waterfall... it is but the start.
The RIAA has plenty of other cases out there they are pursuing with zest, and still more cases where people are simply caving and paying them their blood money. Until the tide truly turns in the courts, this is only a small victory. I suspect it's going to take one of these getting to the Untied States Supreme Court before the RIAA will be forced to call off their dogs.
Now we can begin planning the full-scale invasion of Mars! We'll give them pesky green-skins what fer!!
Yes, yes... I have a great candidate for you... guy named I. P. Freely... let me get you his number...
Perhaps. But they could kill it, ala the Berman & Piller destruction of the Star Trek franchise. All they have to do is hire someone who has no real interest in the show or is such a raving fanatic that they make changes which strangle the show's unique qualities (pink Daleks anyone?).
Theoretically... but this is science fiction television... if it keeps the show going, rules were made to be broken.
That said, this is a severe kick in the head. The original series leaving the air was bad enough, but this remake series was just as good if not better. Hey, if they need fresh talent to keep it going, I'll volunteer!
But you'd have to agree it would be very difficult and socially tricky for MySpace to attempt to operate under those precepts. MySpace does not bill itself as a club or a restrictive organization. If they were too restrictive, they would be going against their billing as a social site and there would certainly be negative publicity that would prove detrimental. I think the Internet casts the differences between small groups and the world in general in much sharper relief. Of course, they could potentially avoid such a trap by simply hosting their service in a country that wouldn't care about the restrictiveness of their rules.
MySpace is a service and as such they have terms of service and just about every TOS under the sun has a clause saying "we reserve the right to dump you at any time for any reason." You don't necessarily have a "right" to use MySpace, anymore than you have a "right" to use Mobil or Starbucks. If they choose to exclude you for whatever reason, your only recourse is legal action. Mind you, they can refuse you service, but they can't necessarily get away with publicly slandering/defaming you, and they certainly cannot discriminate against you based on purely physical factors (race, sex, etc.).
Another culprit would certainly be if any of these folks used public terminals to log in and check their portfolios, or even Wi-Fi in public places that a hacker could sniff out. Trading needs to be done in the privacy of your own home, behind an excellent firewall, through a physical connection or encrypted Wi-Fi.
Mind you, they failed to mention the imminent destruction of all life on Earth by the asteroid headed this way...
Hey, hey... let's not go out on a limb here...
It is frankly a cool thing. Mind you I can just see my 2-year-old daughter messing with it and launching WWIII...
The penguin couldn't see over the dashboard.
I can see people blocking DoubleClick... Google's another story. It's ubiquity means that even if the average user has some idea how to go about blocking them, they'll hesitate to.
This is news?
Then again, is this just another case of patent whoring? again, news?
Until the nightmare that is patenting computer technology/software is fixed/destroyed, these kinds of things will not be news, just a common occurrence/nuisance.
The whole idea of the "free market" is suspect in this day-and-age anyway. Even if the government does not regulate a market, some other organization will. Oil prices?!? That's not supply and demand causing those price spikes -- its the commodities markets. Every time Hugo Chavez says "boo" or Iran does something naughty, the price shoots up, and so does the price at the pump.
Well, they could conceivably not pay the tax. Of course then they stand to get the Al Capone treatment from the Treasury Department and the IRS for tax evasion. I'll admit, it's the only real upside I could find to this idea.
This whole thing should come as no shock. The Internet was not built with security in mind. I don't think anyone imagined the degree to which it would become a method of commerce. Certainly when the first websites were given the ability to accept and process credit cards, the card companies had been dealing with fraud for years, in terms of lost/stolen/duplicated cards. I remember working in a convenience store in the 80's and getting small booklets in the mail from the credit card companies with lists of fraudulent numbers. Like I was going to look them up!
Credit cards could be made much more secure. It would be expensive, no doubt, as it would require fundamental changes to the system, but compare that to the price of all the fraud currently committed and I'm pretty sure the ROI is pretty good.
Agreed. This is the kind of marketing Linux has needed for a while to begin to impinge on the consciousness of the average user. As long as they had to call their geeky neighbor and have him/her install it on their box then spend weeks getting acquainted with the differences, Linux was not going to get any respect. Now, there may be a chance.
Therein lies the problem though -- we're trying to compare an operating system (Linux), to companies (Microsoft/Apple). There is no true "Linux Corporation". There are of course distros from people like Red Hat, but how many average users have even heard of them? Unless we start seeing a series of "Hi, I'm a Mac... Hi, I'm a PC... Hey there, I'm a PC running Linux", where the Linux PC is played by some buxom playgirl, I don't think Linux will make headway with the average computer user.
Hmmmmmm... wonder if Bill gates has any contraband on his machine...
True. However, if things were reversed, Windows would have a tiny market share and its relative insecurity would doom it to obscurity. No one would care about Windows and hackers would be having a field day trying to crack Mac OS X. Don't kid yourself - when the kid the bullies pick on gets wise and stops reacting, the bullies don't dance with him/her anymore and go on to pick on someone else. Microsoft's presence/absence has little to do with the larger issue of Internet/OS security.
Spare cycles power Slashdot...
From the article:
The threat to sue comes after several months of negotiations with the company. In December, Bill Lockyer, then California's attorney general, met with a majority of the nine journalists in an attempt to get settlement talks started; the journalists' lawyers were at the meeting, as were lawyers for some of the news organizations they represented.The original plan was to seek an amount equal to about $250,000 for each journalist to be donated to an agreed-upon cause, like a journalism school program, Mr. Lockyer had said at the time.
...
In an April meeting with H.P.'s outside law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius of Philadelphia, the seven journalists requested an amount equal to several million dollars each, paid to them directly with their promise that most of the money, though not all, would be donated to charity. Hewlett-Packard's offer was closer to $10,000 per reporter, roughly enough to cover the reporters' legal bills, according to several people involved in the talks.
I think the reporters are probably looking to cash in while they can. The CA attorney general seemed to have the right idea and most of the reporters bought into it. This group is apparently out for something more, whether it's the money or just to continue shaming HP, it's hard to say. I think both sides are pretty much missing the point: HP can't believe that simply throwing a paltry sum at someone will get them to go away, and the reporters shouldn't get it in their head that it's their job to punish HP more or cash in on HP's misfortune.
...the Hackademic. Ba-dum-bum. I'm here all week.
The fact is, if they want you, they want you, and they'll put up with whatever to get and keep you if they can. If you'd be nice to have but not necessarily essential, they'll cast your résumé into deep storage and pull the enxt one off the stack. Ultimately it's futile: signing it, not signing, modifying it, accepting it as is... they're a big company and you can think you're pulling a good one on them but they have billions of dollars in the bank and polished lawyers. They really wouldn't be afraid of any changes you might make.