No, but he couldn't have returned it to the store either, since it had already been opened.
Caveat emptor.
As far as I'm concerned the moment you hack your console to do homebrew or whatever else, you forfeit the expectation that purchased software released in the future will work or be compatible.
Next time rent the game before buying it. Or check on the net if there are issues with you 'homebrew' stuff before buying a title.
Plus, at least with the case of MK:Wii he can sell it easily.... MK:Wii in particular probably sell quickly... its been sold out every time I've tried getting one in the last month.
Basically you want to lend your games as easily as lending CDs.
More or less. But I don't consider my wife playing a game I've bought to be a case of 'lending'.
You can't do that because on the Steam platform they have to be tied to an account. Meantime, Valve is trying to minimize so-called piracy, and maximize their profits, by requiring you to tie into an account.
That's not an inherent limitation of what they've done. Its an implementation detail that has been solved in many other situations.
There is no technical reason why I couldn't add my wife's steam account as 'household' to my steam account and when she logs in she'd have access to all her games and then whichever games I had permitted for her. And steam could enforce that only one copy of any game may run at once. There could be some limit like 10 for the number of 'household' you were permitted per steam account.
And it could enforce a web so that each 'cluster' of households doesn't exceed 5. (This would prevent me from putting 5 random friends as household, and them putting 5 random friends of theirs as household etc etc...for example --- it would enforce that a household is 'isolated' not a web spanning the planet. And it could put a 48 hour waiting period between adding/removing/changing household members to prevent it from being 'gamed' effectively.
Or it could support game transfers from one account to another. That alone would resolve pretty much all the problems I have. If there is conflict between two household members, just shuffle things around.
The point is, there are all kinds of **solutions**.
If steam wanted solutions.
As has come up in this thread, I can just put each game into its own account when I buy it, and this works around all the issues. Everyone can play any game, and I can even lend them out easily or give them away when I've finished with them. All I give up is the convenience of using a single account but that seems a pretty small price to pay if you ask me.
You seem to assume that both persons will buy their own copy of the game. We are talking about the situation you borrow a game from another person in the household.
Precisely. Although, in a normal family, the sense of the word 'borrow' is already pretty alien in a lot of circumstances. I mean, I bought a Wii and a bunch of games for the family. Practically and probably legally they belong to my wife and I jointly. And in any case there is NO WAY she'd ever think of playing one of our Wii titles as 'borrowing it from me'.
(But apparantly this has changed so two PCs can now be logged in to the same account simultaneously.)
This is what I'm trying to sort out. Is that actually true? I hear people saying that when you do it it kicks the other user into offline mode, or that its only tolerated if you are behind the same ip address, etc. To me it sounds more like just glitches in the steam enforcement system, not an actual relaxation of the terms.
The EULA itself is extremely restrictive and appears to not even allow a husband and wife to access the same account. Nevermind access different games at the same time.
... Nor why you shouldn't be able to play Portal while she's playing DM. The two accounts are completely independent.
But what if *I* own Portal and DM, and SHE DOESN'T. If I'm playing portal she can't play DM? That doesn't seem right!
Steam is like like buying 10 books and while I read any one of them, nobody can read the other 9. Sure nobody can read the one I'm reading; I don't have a problem with that. But if I'm reading 20000 Leagues under the See my wife can't read my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray?
A separate steam account for my wife and I doesn't accomplish anything, because I own both 20000 Leagues and Dorian Gray. Sure she can read her copy of Moby Dick while I read 20000 Leagues, and if she happens to own a copy of 20000 Leagues she can read her copy of that too. But she can't read Dorian Gray... To use your words: There's no reason on God's green Earth she should have to buy her own copy of Dorian Gray to read simply because I'm reading 20000 Leagues.
I don't understand how this translates into needing one Steam account per game; you just need one per person. Just like it works for everybody else.
Its the only way I can ensure anyone can read Dorian Gray or any other book while I'm reading one of my MANY other books. Otherwise, if I'm reading anything, EVERYTHING else I own is blocked.
My wife and I own hundreds of books, at any given moment, the only one I can't read is the one in her hands. (And if I wanted it that badly I could buy a 2nd copy). But the rest are on the shelf available. With 'steam', if she's reading any of her books, ALL of her books are off limits... and if she happens to be reading one of 'mine', then ALL my books are off limits.
How is that acceptable?
(And really, 'mine' and 'hers' don't even apply to most of our books. They are simply 'ours'.)
OK, I just re-read and re-thought this. It sounds like you want to own ONE COPY of each game between you. And moreover you're complaining that this disallows you both from playing the same game simultaneously? Yes?
No.
Suppose I buy myself a copy of Unreal Tournament and Lost Planet(*). And someone else in my family wants to play Lost Planet while I'm playing UT, they should be able to do so.
I agree that if I want to play Lost Planet at the same time as someone else playing Lost Planet that its not really unreasonable for me to have two copies. But if I have a 'bunch' of steam games on my account, and I'm playing one of them, I expect other people to be allowed to play the other games without restriction. But if someone else logs in to a different game, It sounds like I'll be kicked off the one I'm playing.
(*I don't know if these are on steam, just assume any titles I mention are.)
But Valve isn't likely to want to spend a lot of resources trying to support this rather unusual edge case: two accounts, one shared game.
(Understand that I'm assuming there are more than two games. My account, for example, has a bunch. It's not my intention to split hairs.)
And that's the problem. Even if my wife and I each had separate accounts there is still overlap on the titles we play. If we had 30 games between us, and my wife is playing a game, then that would still block me out of half the titles we own.
It actually seems the only practical solution is one game per steam account, which is a royal hassle, but it ensures that each steam game is always available, regardless of what is going on with our other steam games. And secondly, if I want to lend or give away a game I can just hand over that steam account for that game to the recipient.
I've tried connecting to my Steam account from two different places at once (stay connected at home, go to a friends house, come back), and about the worst thing that happens is that I get disconnected from my friends lists, so no, they won't ban your account just for simultaneous access.
I'd read that the account banning only occured if the IPs were 'far enough apart' and accessed closely enough together... so you and your friends house, in the same city, with the login attempts separated at least by the length of time it would take you to get home would not trigger the account.
But if my brother and I both tried to login within minutes of eachother from different cities. (Think distances like Vancouver to Toronto, New York to L.A., London to Dubai...) then that could (would?) trigger an account ban.
using piracy as a term for copyright infringement has been around for several hundred years
- the english language is interesting like that, one word can have several meanings.
Sure, but by THAT argument, there was nothing wrong with calling it "theft" in the first place, which is what the OP objected to. After all, we've been calling it "theft" for a LONG time too.
Steam is convenient; it reinstalls my games for me if I replace my hardware, prevents me from needing to keep track of physical media and CD keys and whatnot, and (ever since I've had it, at least -- I didn't get on the bandwagon at first release) Just Works; the only thing I worry about is whether I'll be able to fire up my old games and go for a trip down nostalgia lane 20 years from now when the good folks at Valve have gone on to other things.
I have a question about steam... how does it work if you have two computers (or more)? I mean if I buy Bejeweled, on my steam account, can my wife play it while I'm playing Civ?
I don't really object to being prevented from playing a given purchased game on two different computers at the same time... but being prevented letting my wife or kids play play ANY OTHER steam game is unacceptable... if that's how it works.
Currently I have 1 steam title (Portal) and I'm happy enough with the service but I'm hesitant to buy any more due to this fact.
Its also apparently impossible to give other people your games when you are finished with them. I've lent purchased games to my brothers on many occasions, and I've got games I've borrowed from them.
I realized this when I wanted to lend Portal to one of my brothers, and realized I couldn't because it was tied to my steam account... which isn't the end of the world, he's my brother and I trust him, and I could give him the userid/password for my steam account (in violation of the steam agreement of course)...
but that means, that while my brother is playing portal, I wouldn't be abe to play any of my steam games? Again I could live with not being able to play it while he was, but I wouldn't be able to play ANYTHING?
And worse... apparently they use some sort of ip tracking so if a steam account is accessed from widely different locations they'll ban the account -- so now if I 'lend' my brother my copy of portal, I'm locked out while he's using it and risk getting banned if we try to access the account at the same time. (as both my brothers live in different cities?)
Is this correct? Or have I misunderstood how steam works?
and I said that's why some people want net neutrality, so their ISP won't throttle websites that won't pay extra.
And I'm already all for net neutrality on that score, so there is nothing to debate there.
i>Same here, but only after ISPs either build out their network infrastructure or give the subsidies the government gave them to build it out back. The government gave them more than $200 million of taxpayer money.
What precisely do you think it will cost to lay out fiber to everyone? 200M won't even do a major city. Just what sort of return do you expect to see on that?
You can't control what programs on your computer has access to the internet? When I used Windows I also used the ZoneAlarm firewall which allowed me to do just that. I didn't get around to installing a firewall on my Linux PC but I have one on my Mac as well.
What percentage of WoW players even know its running a p2p distribution network? What percentage know that means or how to turn it off?
-That- is the reason ISPs don't really want to mess with their consumers. The cost of educating and explaining everything is currently greater than the cost of just saying "Here, its unlimited. Don't worry."
Fortunately that's a vendor problem, not a Linux problem, so we don't have to worry about it.
Unless you want that hardware. In which case your freedom to use OSS is crippled by the fact that OSS won't work. Call it a 'vendor problem' all you like but that still doesn't give you your freedom. The proprietary software that supports the hardware on the other hand... well...even though its encumbered crappy licensing terms... but it actually works.
Again, ones 'freedom' with OSS isn't worth much if you can't exercise it in practice.
So what exactly were you trying to say above? Because I missed it. If you want something that supports current, bleeding edge hardware and software, Linux is the only way to go.
But that "Linux" isn't Linux 2.0 now is it?
To run the current stuff you need a current Linux. So you are still on the upgrade treadmill. Its not as forced as windows, but in practice its very similar.
Want to run Linux 2.0 (not that you'd want to)? Sure no probs.
No 'probs' with licensing maybe, but beyond that, you can expect plenty of 'probs' running anything modern in terms of hardware or software on it. Being able to do something legally isn't worth much if you can't really do it in practice.
I'm not saying Windows is superior. I'm just highlighting that either way you are going to be on an upgrade treadmill to keep up with security updates, hardware updates, feature updates, and so on.
While legal, it would probably be exceedingly impractical to actually get PostgreSQL 8.2 running to take advantage of the latest features and fixes on Redhat 4. (from 1996, kernel 2.0.18 according to wikipedia)
. So, to keep the spirit of that alive, the Internet must remain neutral. The Joe Schmoes of the world need to be given the same treatment as the Googles of the world in terms of unfettered access to their sites.
I am actually FOR network neutrality. You are preaching to the choir. However, I thik people need to accept that net neutrality is going to cost them $$. If we want to consume vast quanities of bandwidth, and we don't want the cost pushed back onto the content provider, then we will have to pay for it. And that's all I'm saying.
However, a more insidious issue was raised elsewhere, where if the corporations shift to p2p distribution like blizzard does for patches, that effectively will shift the content providers bandwidth cost to the consumers. (Which since the consumers are paying for unlimited flat-rate broadband, effectively shifts the bandwidth cost to the ISP -- which is a serious problem.)
And it means the ISP can either:
a) raise costs of the bandwidth that the consumer is using to distribute content for blizzard. or b) go after blizzard to cover the cost of that bandwidth in what is perversely a 'good' application of non-net-neutrality. After all why should I (or my ISP) have to pay for the bandwidth to cover blizzards distribution to a 3rd party?
Even so, I am in favor of a), if consumers want to upload and seed for blizzard, then consumers can pay for that bandwidth themselves, and they can bitch at blizzard about it if they object to the cost. And hopefully the free market will sort it out.
However, I certainly don't agree with the status-quo... where blizzard is effectively substantially offloading the cost of distributing its patches to the consumers ISPs. And I can see why consumers ISPs would want to get blizzard to cover the cost, rather than raise rates on their customers. What do you think?
..Has this Administration NOT had 'Substantial Independent Authority'?? Haven't Bush & Co. been arguing that they have since the beginning?
The FOIA only applies to offices that are substantially independant FROM the executive (ie Bush & Co). Obviously the executive is NOT substantially independant from itself, so the FOIA doesn't apply to them. The judge probably ruled correctly, according to the FOIA.
Not that the White house has ever given a damn what any judge has said anyway. If any backups of those emails had been made, they would have disappeared long ago. This administration sickens me when I think about it...
That is an entirely different issue, not related to FOIA, on which I completely agree with you.
Ah well then here I'd contend that it's the iPod that isn't working with Amarok, not vice-versa
They don't work with each other. What difference does it make who you want to blame for it?
As for dropping the ipod to use something that does work with Amarok? Forget it.
I tried mp3 players that acted purely as FAT32 usb/mass storage devices when attached to a PC. That sucked so much ass it wasn't funny. iTunes meta-data tracking, and smart playlists based on that meta-data are features I like enough to put up with ipods not behaving like that.
Not to mention that I like iPods as hardware devices far more than any other mp3 player I've laid hands on. Regardless of the software to load them, and I've owned or trialed Samsungs, Sansas, Sonys, Xens, and others.
iTunes has plenty of short comings. I'll be the first to admit that. (the ones that bug me most related to multi-user/shared library issues, and multi-computer sync issues). But despite that I find the iTunes/iPod solution to be infinitely better than any otherdevice/amarok solution I've ever seen or tried.
Huh... you missed the phrase "but to be Devil's advocate". I'd recommend looking this up before trying to start an emotional flame-war. It means I'm endorsing opinions I don't necessarily agree with, to explore other sides of the issue.
I'm well aware of what it means. And so I responded with an explanation of why the 'opinions you endorsed for the sake of argument' are idiotic. And thus, it wasn't personally directed at you, it was directed at anyone who did agree with those opinions.
They do, Google pays for it's own bandwidth as do Amazon, Apple, and eBay.
This isn't really about net neutrality, its about something much more subtle.
Did you even read his post. He specifically mentioned blizzard not apple or google for a reason. And he's right. By using p2p blizzard has REDUCED the amount of bandwidth BLIZZARD needs, by offloading it onto their customers. Suppose blizzard for example, seeded an expansion at high speed for a couple hours until a bunch of customers had the file, and then cut their own speed down to zilch, and let the remaining 10 million customers download most of the patch from other users, without using a dime of their own bandwidth. Blizzard saves a bundle of money on bandwidth. Shareholders are happy. Yet those patches still need get around... so who is paying for it?
The consumers? Sort of... but they're all currently on flat rate broadband plans, so while they technically pay for it, the actual cost of the bandwidth blizzard is 'saving' is being reflected in the cost of the additional bandwidth that the ISP provides to its customers. Meaning essentially, the ISP is eating the cost. So for them, this isn't a case of double-dipping like they would be with net-neutrality... but a more subtle case where Blizzard as literally shifted its own bandwidth costs onto its consumers ISPs.
Now you can argue that if WoW players are willing to accept providing patch bandwidth to blizzard as part of their terms for playing the game and that its really none of the ISPs business. The WoW player is paying for their bandwidth, and if they want to use it to upload blizzard patches to other players then that is their prerogative. And that is a FAIR argument.
But OBVIOUSLY that isn't sustainable. Apple will start doing p2p distribution for itunes hd movies, google for hd youtube, etc, etc. And the ISPs will be required to provide its own consumers MORE and MORE bandwidth so that they can provide their consumers bandwidth to ultimately provide distribution for Apple / Google / Blizzard, etc.
The ONLY possible outcome of that is that ISPs will HAVE to raise prices to their consumers, because if the ISPs customers are going to consume vast amounts of bandwidth to upload patches for blizzard, youtube content for google, itunes content for apple, etc, etc, etc, then the ISP is going need to get paid for that bandwidth.
Sooner or later the ISP is going to have to either seek more money from Blizzard et al, or from its own subscribers. Logically I think ISPs should be raising prices to their own consumers, because I believe firmly in net-neutrality. And am very much against the sort of double dipping that not having net-neutrality would allow.
However, at the same time, in the case of p2p distribution, if I download a movie 'from' apple (and apple is using p2p), then I am not only going to consume the bandwidth to download the movie (which is fine), I am ALSO going to consume considerable EXTRA upload bandwidth to seed that movie to others. And the ISP will be billing ME for that extra upload.
WHY THE HELL SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY FOR BANDWIDTH FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO DOWNLOAD MOVIES 'from' APPLE?
'from' is in quotes, of course, because that upload bandwidth is being provided by ME, at MY expense, not Apples.
That strikes me as wrong on many levels. And my ISP isn't the the bad guy here for charging me. Apple is.
Now Apple might argue that by offloading distribution to me and reducing their costs, that they are able to reduce the prices of their content, so for me its a zero sum game... if Apple had to pay for the bandwidth the movies would go up, and my bandwidht costs would go down. But in reality-land, apple can buy bandwidth cheaper than I can. The ability to add bandwidth supply to Apple's NOCs the the backbone etc is much greater than the ability to add bandwidth supply on the 'last mile' to my home.
This is a major storm waiting to erupt, and its whole different can of worms than net-neutrality is. Sadly the two are inevitably going to be confused and conflated.
I see what your getting at, but to be Devil's advocate; couldn't this been seen as a service, since person with the compromised address would then know that it was compromised?
A service of WHAT exactly? Telling me spammers are forging messages using my address? Do I REALLY need to be reminded of that 60,000 times per month? What do you want me to do about it? Change my addresses?
1) Sorry, I'm not cutting of my customers access to sales@mydomain and support@mydomain simply because spammers are forging messages from those addresses.
2) Even if I did change them, the spammers could keep using them. Or they could just start using the new ones.
My email addresses aren't 'compromised' in the sense that someone is fraudulently using my accounts, or even relaying mail through my mail servers. They are just sending messages with the "from" address set to my email address. There is NOTHING I can do to prevent that.
I suppose this isn't true in all cases... but...
But NOTHING. I receive literally 1000s of 'bounce' messages per week for mail I didn't send, from people running servers configured like yours.
The only current defense you have against a spammer sending email with YOUR email address as its "from" address is setting up a strict SPF record for your domain. And that ONLY works if you've set up your SPF record correctly, and EVERYONE ELSES mail servers are setup to use SPF, and REJECT and DISCARD messages that do not pass.
If you are checking SPF, and you aren't rejecting/discarding messages that are being relayed through servers that are not authorized by the domain then you are being a complete ASS!
And even SPF isn't foolproof... if your address is @cox.net, bot's sending through cox.net servers would pass validation. But at least SPF has the potential to stem the flow of spam from 'elsewhere'.
I don't know if you misread or you were saying it would be easy for the layman to be confused, but that download is a document...
LMAO. You're right. I completely misread it. I've seen so many service pack downloads from MS and Adobe amongst others that are half a megabyte or less, but are really just wizard + download managers for the 'real' download that I didn't even blink at the number, and didn't realize I was looking at an actual document.
I will happy pay for my bandwidth by the gigabyte if it is sold at market value. If they set up their pricing to reward lighter use or off-peak use, I will change my downloading habits to take advantage of it.
Just be aware that you are probably paying for your bandwidth through very hard to upgrade pipes, that are already near saturation. The price you pay per GB will be MUCH higher than the price you pay per GB for a server colocated in a NOC where it is comparatively easy to attach more fibre.
Actually I've come to see the value of DRM, as long as you consider it to be very weak protection it works fine, granted its unnecessary in most cases but there are a few valid uses for it, like digital rentals.
Really? I -still- rent DVDs, and rarely bother to make a copy of them, despite that its trivially easy and takes only a few minutes.
If you rent a movie in itunes and it deletes it after its been watched, that will be enough for most people in most cases, even if the file isn't 'protected' beyond that. And if people DO keep a copy of it? So what? If you -could- buy the DVD in 'file form' without packaging, media, distribution, warehousing, and the end user took responsibility for making their own copy... it should really probably cost in the same ballpark as a rental anyway.
I have 500+ DVDs, but since buying a PVR, I buy and rent very few. The PVR I have makes it something of a pain to keep movies that I've recorded, but you know what, I couldn't care less...even if I could easily copy them the odds of me 're-watching' them is almost nil anyway -- there is always something new on the PVR.
Now I realize and agree that this model won't work for music because people will make and use copies. But then 'renting' music has NEVER been a successful business model.
Bottom line DRM doesn't really add anythign to the equation except make pirated media more usable than legally acquired media.
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No, but he couldn't have returned it to the store either, since it had already been opened.
Caveat emptor.
As far as I'm concerned the moment you hack your console to do homebrew or whatever else, you forfeit the expectation that purchased software released in the future will work or be compatible.
Next time rent the game before buying it. Or check on the net if there are issues with you 'homebrew' stuff before buying a title.
Plus, at least with the case of MK:Wii he can sell it easily.... MK:Wii in particular probably sell quickly... its been sold out every time I've tried getting one in the last month.
I had to install an update to my console the first time I played Mario Kart.
You didn't have to play Mario Kart.
Basically you want to lend your games as easily as lending CDs.
More or less. But I don't consider my wife playing a game I've bought to be a case of 'lending'.
You can't do that because on the Steam platform they have to be tied to an account. Meantime, Valve is trying to minimize so-called piracy, and maximize their profits, by requiring you to tie into an account.
That's not an inherent limitation of what they've done. Its an implementation detail that has been solved in many other situations.
There is no technical reason why I couldn't add my wife's steam account as 'household' to my steam account and when she logs in she'd have access to all her games and then whichever games I had permitted for her. And steam could enforce that only one copy of any game may run at once. There could be some limit like 10 for the number of 'household' you were permitted per steam account.
And it could enforce a web so that each 'cluster' of households doesn't exceed 5. (This would prevent me from putting 5 random friends as household, and them putting 5 random friends of theirs as household etc etc...for example --- it would enforce that a household is 'isolated' not a web spanning the planet. And it could put a 48 hour waiting period between adding/removing/changing household members to prevent it from being 'gamed' effectively.
Or it could support game transfers from one account to another. That alone would resolve pretty much all the problems I have. If there is conflict between two household members, just shuffle things around.
The point is, there are all kinds of **solutions**.
If steam wanted solutions.
As has come up in this thread, I can just put each game into its own account when I buy it, and this works around all the issues. Everyone can play any game, and I can even lend them out easily or give them away when I've finished with them. All I give up is the convenience of using a single account but that seems a pretty small price to pay if you ask me.
You seem to assume that both persons will buy their own copy of the game. We are talking about the situation you borrow a game from another person in the household.
Precisely. Although, in a normal family, the sense of the word 'borrow' is already pretty alien in a lot of circumstances. I mean, I bought a Wii and a bunch of games for the family. Practically and probably legally they belong to my wife and I jointly. And in any case there is NO WAY she'd ever think of playing one of our Wii titles as 'borrowing it from me'.
(But apparantly this has changed so two PCs can now be logged in to the same account simultaneously.)
This is what I'm trying to sort out. Is that actually true? I hear people saying that when you do it it kicks the other user into offline mode, or that its only tolerated if you are behind the same ip address, etc. To me it sounds more like just glitches in the steam enforcement system, not an actual relaxation of the terms.
The EULA itself is extremely restrictive and appears to not even allow a husband and wife to access the same account. Nevermind access different games at the same time.
... Nor why you shouldn't be able to play Portal while she's playing DM. The two accounts are completely independent.
But what if *I* own Portal and DM, and SHE DOESN'T. If I'm playing portal she can't play DM? That doesn't seem right!
Steam is like like buying 10 books and while I read any one of them, nobody can read the other 9. Sure nobody can read the one I'm reading; I don't have a problem with that. But if I'm reading 20000 Leagues under the See my wife can't read my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray?
A separate steam account for my wife and I doesn't accomplish anything, because I own both 20000 Leagues and Dorian Gray. Sure she can read her copy of Moby Dick while I read 20000 Leagues, and if she happens to own a copy of 20000 Leagues she can read her copy of that too. But she can't read Dorian Gray... To use your words: There's no reason on God's green Earth she should have to buy her own copy of Dorian Gray to read simply because I'm reading 20000 Leagues.
I don't understand how this translates into needing one Steam account per game; you just need one per person. Just like it works for everybody else.
Its the only way I can ensure anyone can read Dorian Gray or any other book while I'm reading one of my MANY other books.
Otherwise, if I'm reading anything, EVERYTHING else I own is blocked.
My wife and I own hundreds of books, at any given moment, the only one I can't read is the one in her hands. (And if I wanted it that badly I could buy a 2nd copy). But the rest are on the shelf available. With 'steam', if she's reading any of her books, ALL of her books are off limits... and if she happens to be reading one of 'mine', then ALL my books are off limits.
How is that acceptable?
(And really, 'mine' and 'hers' don't even apply to most of our books. They are simply 'ours'.)
OK, I just re-read and re-thought this. It sounds like you want to own ONE COPY of each game between you. And moreover you're complaining that this disallows you both from playing the same game simultaneously? Yes?
No.
Suppose I buy myself a copy of Unreal Tournament and Lost Planet(*). And someone else in my family wants to play Lost Planet while I'm playing UT, they should be able to do so.
I agree that if I want to play Lost Planet at the same time as someone else playing Lost Planet that its not really unreasonable for me to have two copies. But if I have a 'bunch' of steam games on my account, and I'm playing one of them, I expect other people to be allowed to play the other games without restriction. But if someone else logs in to a different game, It sounds like I'll be kicked off the one I'm playing.
(*I don't know if these are on steam, just assume any titles I mention are.)
But Valve isn't likely to want to spend a lot of resources trying to support this rather unusual edge case: two accounts, one shared game.
(Understand that I'm assuming there are more than two games. My account, for example, has a bunch. It's not my intention to split hairs.)
And that's the problem. Even if my wife and I each had separate accounts there is still overlap on the titles we play. If we had 30 games between us, and my wife is playing a game, then that would still block me out of half the titles we own.
It actually seems the only practical solution is one game per steam account, which is a royal hassle, but it ensures that each steam game is always available, regardless of what is going on with our other steam games. And secondly, if I want to lend or give away a game I can just hand over that steam account for that game to the recipient.
I've tried connecting to my Steam account from two different places at once (stay connected at home, go to a friends house, come back), and about the worst thing that happens is that I get disconnected from my friends lists, so no, they won't ban your account just for simultaneous access.
I'd read that the account banning only occured if the IPs were 'far enough apart' and accessed closely enough together... so you and your friends house, in the same city, with the login attempts separated at least by the length of time it would take you to get home would not trigger the account.
But if my brother and I both tried to login within minutes of eachother from different cities. (Think distances like Vancouver to Toronto, New York to L.A., London to Dubai...) then that could (would?) trigger an account ban.
using piracy as a term for copyright infringement has been around for several hundred years
- the english language is interesting like that, one word can have several meanings.
Sure, but by THAT argument, there was nothing wrong with calling it "theft" in the first place, which is what the OP objected to. After all, we've been calling it "theft" for a LONG time too.
(it's not stealing unless you pick a box off a shelf in a store)
;)
And its not piracy either. (Unless you take a ship at sea.)
What you evidently meant to say is that "There will always be those that choose to infringe copyrights."
If you are going to be pedantic about definitions then be pedantic about definitions
Steam is convenient; it reinstalls my games for me if I replace my hardware, prevents me from needing to keep track of physical media and CD keys and whatnot, and (ever since I've had it, at least -- I didn't get on the bandwagon at first release) Just Works; the only thing I worry about is whether I'll be able to fire up my old games and go for a trip down nostalgia lane 20 years from now when the good folks at Valve have gone on to other things.
I have a question about steam... how does it work if you have two computers (or more)? I mean if I buy Bejeweled, on my steam account, can my wife play it while I'm playing Civ?
I don't really object to being prevented from playing a given purchased game on two different computers at the same time... but being prevented letting my wife or kids play play ANY OTHER steam game is unacceptable... if that's how it works.
Currently I have 1 steam title (Portal) and I'm happy enough with the service but I'm hesitant to buy any more due to this fact.
Its also apparently impossible to give other people your games when you are finished with them. I've lent purchased games to my brothers on many occasions, and I've got games I've borrowed from them.
I realized this when I wanted to lend Portal to one of my brothers, and realized I couldn't because it was tied to my steam account... which isn't the end of the world, he's my brother and I trust him, and I could give him the userid/password for my steam account (in violation of the steam agreement of course)...
but that means, that while my brother is playing portal, I wouldn't be abe to play any of my steam games? Again I could live with not being able to play it while he was, but I wouldn't be able to play ANYTHING?
And worse... apparently they use some sort of ip tracking so if a steam account is accessed from widely different locations they'll ban the account -- so now if I 'lend' my brother my copy of portal, I'm locked out while he's using it and risk getting banned if we try to access the account at the same time. (as both my brothers live in different cities?)
Is this correct? Or have I misunderstood how steam works?
and I said that's why some people want net neutrality, so their ISP won't throttle websites that won't pay extra.
And I'm already all for net neutrality on that score, so there is nothing to debate there.
i>Same here, but only after ISPs either build out their network infrastructure or give the subsidies the government gave them to build it out back. The government gave them more than $200 million of taxpayer money.
What precisely do you think it will cost to lay out fiber to everyone? 200M won't even do a major city. Just what sort of return do you expect to see on that?
You can't control what programs on your computer has access to the internet? When I used Windows I also used the ZoneAlarm firewall which allowed me to do just that. I didn't get around to installing a firewall on my Linux PC but I have one on my Mac as well.
What percentage of WoW players even know its running a p2p distribution network? What percentage know that means or how to turn it off?
-That- is the reason ISPs don't really want to mess with their consumers. The cost of educating and explaining everything is currently greater than the cost of just saying "Here, its unlimited. Don't worry."
Fortunately that's a vendor problem, not a Linux problem, so we don't have to worry about it.
Unless you want that hardware. In which case your freedom to use OSS is crippled by the fact that OSS won't work. Call it a 'vendor problem' all you like but that still doesn't give you your freedom. The proprietary software that supports the hardware on the other hand... well...even though its encumbered crappy licensing terms... but it actually works.
Again, ones 'freedom' with OSS isn't worth much if you can't exercise it in practice.
There is no such thing as "Linux 2.0", now is there?
The OP referred to linux 2.0 before I did. But he clearly was referring to the kernel, and so I responded in kind.
I don't know of any distribution of Linux bearing that title. Can you point me to one?
The specific example I gave was RedHat 4 which ran kernel 2.0.18.
This was all in my original post.
So what exactly were you trying to say above? Because I missed it. If you want something that supports current, bleeding edge hardware and software, Linux is the only way to go.
But that "Linux" isn't Linux 2.0 now is it?
To run the current stuff you need a current Linux. So you are still on the upgrade treadmill. Its not as forced as windows, but in practice its very similar.
Want to run Linux 2.0 (not that you'd want to)? Sure no probs.
No 'probs' with licensing maybe, but beyond that, you can expect plenty of 'probs' running anything modern in terms of hardware or software on it. Being able to do something legally isn't worth much if you can't really do it in practice.
I'm not saying Windows is superior. I'm just highlighting that either way you are going to be on an upgrade treadmill to keep up with security updates, hardware updates, feature updates, and so on.
While legal, it would probably be exceedingly impractical to actually get PostgreSQL 8.2 running to take advantage of the latest features and fixes on Redhat 4. (from 1996, kernel 2.0.18 according to wikipedia)
. So, to keep the spirit of that alive, the Internet must remain neutral. The Joe Schmoes of the world need to be given the same treatment as the Googles of the world in terms of unfettered access to their sites.
I am actually FOR network neutrality. You are preaching to the choir. However, I thik people need to accept that net neutrality is going to cost them $$. If we want to consume vast quanities of bandwidth, and we don't want the cost pushed back onto the content provider, then we will have to pay for it. And that's all I'm saying.
However, a more insidious issue was raised elsewhere, where if the corporations shift to p2p distribution like blizzard does for patches, that effectively will shift the content providers bandwidth cost to the consumers. (Which since the consumers are paying for unlimited flat-rate broadband, effectively shifts the bandwidth cost to the ISP -- which is a serious problem.)
And it means the ISP can either:
a) raise costs of the bandwidth that the consumer is using to distribute content for blizzard.
or
b) go after blizzard to cover the cost of that bandwidth in what is perversely a 'good' application of non-net-neutrality. After all why should I (or my ISP) have to pay for the bandwidth to cover blizzards distribution to a 3rd party?
Even so, I am in favor of a), if consumers want to upload and seed for blizzard, then consumers can pay for that bandwidth themselves, and they can bitch at blizzard about it if they object to the cost. And hopefully the free market will sort it out.
However, I certainly don't agree with the status-quo... where blizzard is effectively substantially offloading the cost of distributing its patches to the consumers ISPs. And I can see why consumers ISPs would want to get blizzard to cover the cost, rather than raise rates on their customers. What do you think?
..Has this Administration NOT had 'Substantial Independent Authority'?? Haven't Bush & Co. been arguing that they have since the beginning?
The FOIA only applies to offices that are substantially independant FROM the executive (ie Bush & Co). Obviously the executive is NOT substantially independant from itself, so the FOIA doesn't apply to them. The judge probably ruled correctly, according to the FOIA.
Not that the White house has ever given a damn what any judge has said anyway. If any backups of those emails had been made, they would have disappeared long ago. This administration sickens me when I think about it...
That is an entirely different issue, not related to FOIA, on which I completely agree with you.
Ah well then here I'd contend that it's the iPod that isn't working with Amarok, not vice-versa
They don't work with each other. What difference does it make who you want to blame for it?
As for dropping the ipod to use something that does work with Amarok? Forget it.
I tried mp3 players that acted purely as FAT32 usb/mass storage devices when attached to a PC. That sucked so much ass it wasn't funny. iTunes meta-data tracking, and smart playlists based on that meta-data are features I like enough to put up with ipods not behaving like that.
Not to mention that I like iPods as hardware devices far more than any other mp3 player I've laid hands on. Regardless of the software to load them, and I've owned or trialed Samsungs, Sansas, Sonys, Xens, and others.
iTunes has plenty of short comings. I'll be the first to admit that. (the ones that bug me most related to multi-user/shared library issues, and multi-computer sync issues). But despite that I find the iTunes/iPod solution to be infinitely better than any otherdevice/amarok solution I've ever seen or tried.
Huh... you missed the phrase "but to be Devil's advocate". I'd recommend looking this up before trying to start an emotional flame-war. It means I'm endorsing opinions I don't necessarily agree with, to explore other sides of the issue.
I'm well aware of what it means. And so I responded with an explanation of why the 'opinions you endorsed for the sake of argument' are idiotic. And thus, it wasn't personally directed at you, it was directed at anyone who did agree with those opinions.
They do, Google pays for it's own bandwidth as do Amazon, Apple, and eBay.
This isn't really about net neutrality, its about something much more subtle.
Did you even read his post. He specifically mentioned blizzard not apple or google for a reason. And he's right. By using p2p blizzard has REDUCED the amount of bandwidth BLIZZARD needs, by offloading it onto their customers. Suppose blizzard for example, seeded an expansion at high speed for a couple hours until a bunch of customers had the file, and then cut their own speed down to zilch, and let the remaining 10 million customers download most of the patch from other users, without using a dime of their own bandwidth. Blizzard saves a bundle of money on bandwidth. Shareholders are happy. Yet those patches still need get around... so who is paying for it?
The consumers? Sort of... but they're all currently on flat rate broadband plans, so while they technically pay for it, the actual cost of the bandwidth blizzard is 'saving' is being reflected in the cost of the additional bandwidth that the ISP provides to its customers. Meaning essentially, the ISP is eating the cost. So for them, this isn't a case of double-dipping like they would be with net-neutrality... but a more subtle case where Blizzard as literally shifted its own bandwidth costs onto its consumers ISPs.
Now you can argue that if WoW players are willing to accept providing patch bandwidth to blizzard as part of their terms for playing the game and that its really none of the ISPs business. The WoW player is paying for their bandwidth, and if they want to use it to upload blizzard patches to other players then that is their prerogative. And that is a FAIR argument.
But OBVIOUSLY that isn't sustainable. Apple will start doing p2p distribution for itunes hd movies, google for hd youtube, etc, etc. And the ISPs will be required to provide its own consumers MORE and MORE bandwidth so that they can provide their consumers bandwidth to ultimately provide distribution for Apple / Google / Blizzard, etc.
The ONLY possible outcome of that is that ISPs will HAVE to raise prices to their consumers, because if the ISPs customers are going to consume vast amounts of bandwidth to upload patches for blizzard, youtube content for google, itunes content for apple, etc, etc, etc, then the ISP is going need to get paid for that bandwidth.
Sooner or later the ISP is going to have to either seek more money from Blizzard et al, or from its own subscribers. Logically I think ISPs should be raising prices to their own consumers, because I believe firmly in net-neutrality. And am very much against the sort of double dipping that not having net-neutrality would allow.
However, at the same time, in the case of p2p distribution, if I download a movie 'from' apple (and apple is using p2p), then I am not only going to consume the bandwidth to download the movie (which is fine), I am ALSO going to consume considerable EXTRA upload bandwidth to seed that movie to others. And the ISP will be billing ME for that extra upload.
WHY THE HELL SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY FOR BANDWIDTH FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO DOWNLOAD MOVIES 'from' APPLE?
'from' is in quotes, of course, because that upload bandwidth is being provided by ME, at MY expense, not Apples.
That strikes me as wrong on many levels. And my ISP isn't the the bad guy here for charging me. Apple is.
Now Apple might argue that by offloading distribution to me and reducing their costs, that they are able to reduce the prices of their content, so for me its a zero sum game... if Apple had to pay for the bandwidth the movies would go up, and my bandwidht costs would go down. But in reality-land, apple can buy bandwidth cheaper than I can. The ability to add bandwidth supply to Apple's NOCs the the backbone etc is much greater than the ability to add bandwidth supply on the 'last mile' to my home.
This is a major storm waiting to erupt, and its whole different can of worms than net-neutrality is. Sadly the two are inevitably going to be confused and conflated.
I see what your getting at, but to be Devil's advocate; couldn't this been seen as a service, since person with the compromised address would then know that it was compromised?
A service of WHAT exactly? Telling me spammers are forging messages using my address? Do I REALLY need to be reminded of that 60,000 times per month? What do you want me to do about it? Change my addresses?
1) Sorry, I'm not cutting of my customers access to sales@mydomain and support@mydomain simply because spammers are forging messages from those addresses.
2) Even if I did change them, the spammers could keep using them. Or they could just start using the new ones.
My email addresses aren't 'compromised' in the sense that someone is fraudulently using my accounts, or even relaying mail through my mail servers. They are just sending messages with the "from" address set to my email address. There is NOTHING I can do to prevent that.
I suppose this isn't true in all cases... but...
But NOTHING. I receive literally 1000s of 'bounce' messages per week for mail I didn't send, from people running servers configured like yours.
The only current defense you have against a spammer sending email with YOUR email address as its "from" address is setting up a strict SPF record for your domain. And that ONLY works if you've set up your SPF record correctly, and EVERYONE ELSES mail servers are setup to use SPF, and REJECT and DISCARD messages that do not pass.
If you are checking SPF, and you aren't rejecting/discarding messages that are being relayed through servers that are not authorized by the domain then you are being a complete ASS!
And even SPF isn't foolproof... if your address is @cox.net, bot's sending through cox.net servers would pass validation. But at least SPF has the potential to stem the flow of spam from 'elsewhere'.
I don't know if you misread or you were saying it would be easy for the layman to be confused, but that download is a document ...
LMAO. You're right. I completely misread it. I've seen so many service pack downloads from MS and Adobe amongst others that are half a megabyte or less, but are really just wizard + download managers for the 'real' download that I didn't even blink at the number, and didn't realize I was looking at an actual document.
-cheers
I will happy pay for my bandwidth by the gigabyte if it is sold at market value. If they set up their pricing to reward lighter use or off-peak use, I will change my downloading habits to take advantage of it.
Just be aware that you are probably paying for your bandwidth through very hard to upgrade pipes, that are already near saturation. The price you pay per GB will be MUCH higher than the price you pay per GB for a server colocated in a NOC where it is comparatively easy to attach more fibre.
Actually I've come to see the value of DRM, as long as you consider it to be very weak protection it works fine, granted its unnecessary in most cases but there are a few valid uses for it, like digital rentals.
Really? I -still- rent DVDs, and rarely bother to make a copy of them, despite that its trivially easy and takes only a few minutes.
If you rent a movie in itunes and it deletes it after its been watched, that will be enough for most people in most cases, even if the file isn't 'protected' beyond that. And if people DO keep a copy of it? So what? If you -could- buy the DVD in 'file form' without packaging, media, distribution, warehousing, and the end user took responsibility for making their own copy... it should really probably cost in the same ballpark as a rental anyway.
I have 500+ DVDs, but since buying a PVR, I buy and rent very few. The PVR I have makes it something of a pain to keep movies that I've recorded, but you know what, I couldn't care less...even if I could easily copy them the odds of me 're-watching' them is almost nil anyway -- there is always something new on the PVR.
Now I realize and agree that this model won't work for music because people will make and use copies. But then 'renting' music has NEVER been a successful business model.
Bottom line DRM doesn't really add anythign to the equation except make pirated media more usable than legally acquired media.