A bit off topic for this thread but I wanted to address it:
The letter makes note of your deposition and claims that the RIAA's methods of determining the identity of the infringer are laughably unreliable. While I believe this to be true, I didn't really see that in the transcript (and yes, I read the whole log). Of course I am not a lawyer so I have no idea what a deposition is supposed to be like.
It seemed like any time you asked Jacobson a question about how the whole process comes together (paraphrasing: "How do you know the ISP didn't screw up", "How do you know mediasentry functioned properly", etc.), he would defer to another authority rather than speculate, even if the answer seemed fairly obvious, since it was nonetheless outside his domain. But everyone else seems to read that and think that they have no real answers and no viable case, whereas I read it and see how mundane and drawn out the legal process is.
What I'm saying is that if Jacobson was the only witness the RIAA and labels were prepared to offer at trial, then they would indeed have an extremely weak case. But wouldn't they also get testimony from mediasentry, verizon (or whatever the ISP was), and the other parties involved, to fill in the gaps in the witness's area of expertise? Were any other experts deposed in that case?
One thing I always wondered about KDE 4.0 was whether the window manager itself will be ported, or if it's just the applications and the libraries needed for platform compatibility. Because I would love get the look and feel of KDE, from the kicker to the konsole to the mouse gestures, on Windows.
It's not just Vista, as far as zips go. I noticed that unzipping a large file with XP's built in utility took an amount of time that was not proportional to the file's size, but concave up like O(n^2) or O(n*log n). Using a command line version (not sure if it came with Cygwin or Windows) was much more reasonable.
I don't understand how this is different from fiber optics as we know it. I was under the impression that you generally had two big-ass expensive routers miles apart, some optical cable between them, and some pricey interface hardware on either side to send and receive information at gigabits a second. From this article it sounds like IBM just invented light.
From someone who is not a coolant expert but likes to think of himself as not being an idiot:
The last time I had to install a CPU/heatsink, I found those instructions pretty ambiguous. It didn't help that they seemed to conflict with the CPU installation instructions. I ended up with a dead CPU and no idea if it was a result of the coolant touching the contacts, something screwy with the ethol alcohol, or some static mishandling on my part. In the end I exchanged for another CPU and left it alone with the stock wax pad.
I showed Wii Tenis to my mom. She seemed interested but quit after a little while because she felt it was tiring. The shock was that now my dad wants to know about Wii Bowling.
> "The war on drugs has been as absurd as the DMCA and the **AA's war in copyrights/fair use."
Wow. Reading that actually made me start to care about non-electronic injustice and incompetence. Now purging that from my mind so I can resume my life of apathy.
If you are a member of the ACLU there is a good chance you're a pedophile. If you do not like the Patriot Act then you condone terrorism. If you have nothing to fear then you don't mind a little intrusion to confirm your morality.
The primary reason I would not do this is the liability involved. Unless I could somehow track and hold accountable every passer-by I give access to, I would be left responsible for any illegal activity stemming from their use. How would you handle an RIAA lawsuit or accusations of child porn hosting?
... Why is it good that CD sales are dropping? All that means is more online music sales and more DRM.
But to quote Eben Moglan:
"Now if you leave [the RIAA/MPAA] alone to buy more congressmen, in this very corrupt time of ours, they will survive for a little while longer but all of this talk is about the technicalities of the adjustment of the terms of their demise. When we want to start talking about something that matters, we would do better to begin from some basic social propositions. Everybody is connected to everybody else, all data that can be shared will be shared: get used to it."
With any luck, it will only be a matter of time, but I'm not convinced that this is a sign of their apocalypse.
No, you're not. I do not understand the attraction to Doctor Who - unless you're going to riff it, it has no entertaining value. Case and point: the episode that introduced Rose, and moreover the agony that was the actress who played her mother.
I didn't catch Babylon 5 or a lot of other sci-fi shows, but I thought both the Battlestar Galactica movie and Firefly were vastly overrated.
And everyone knows JRR wasn't a real writer. He allowed the story to end half way through the last part of the trilogy, leaving no material to fill the rest of the book except for an anticlimactic confrontation with Sauruman.
It's the same with Star Trek - there's a lot of suck in those episodes. But I do enjoy watching it anyway. I guess it's just a matter of suspending your taste long enough to get hooked.
> "Recently when someone submitting a movie to the MPAA for ratings, the MPAA made and distributed copies against their wishes, and the court found the MPAA could do what it wants."
That was "This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated". It was a publicity grab, it's doubtful that the guy didn't know exactly what was going to happen. This isn't to say that the MPAA wasn't being hypocritical.
Forget reverse psychology, if it were me I would try to work some variation of the Liar's Paradox into it. If I'm going to get modded down I'd at least like to cause someone's head to expload.
How many songs do you purchase? Because with $20,000 worth of CDs and records, the difference between paying album prices and download prices is quite significant.
Actually, that particular quote seemed fabricated and led me to doubt the tone of most of the article. But yes, the sentiment behind it is completely accurate and is why I will not purchased mainstream online music.
A lot of people seem to take this kind of opportunity to promote emusic for its anti-DRM stance. I do not understand this phenomenon. Emusic only abstains from DRM as a business strategy to gain market share. They offer no other ideological benefits, and were Apple to suddenly license FairPlay, they would most likely switch over to that immediately, unless they judged that their customer base would react too negatively.
I am a fan of Magnatune.com, for their outstanding policies that allow me to consume commercial music without feeling unclean. They offer decent quality full length previews of all their tracks, are open format friendly (absolutely NO DRM), split the profits 50% with the artist, and even license all their tracks under Creative Commons Non-commercial. Seriously, it's a geek's dream come true. See more here: http://magnatune.com/info/attribs
Supposedly there was an email exchange between Thompson and an actual fourteen year old, where it did in fact boil down to that in a quite literal way, minus the spelling. It was not the child that sunk to name-calling.
I understand what you mean. I too wondered if it was even possible for a real man who exists in the real world to be so diametrically opposed to everything we respect, even the rules of adult discourse. Thompson does an excellent job of reducing many of the complexities of the real world back down to the black and white realm we knew as children.
In answer to your question, having known of and followed Jack Thompson's exploits since Hot Coffee, I believe that he really is the man he appears to be at face value. Don't ask me how this is possible in the civilized world, because I honestly don't know. What I do know is that his antics will always be a source of great indignation, directed unifying hatred, and comedy. For me, this effect peaked when he accused Will Wright of conspiring with the porn industry in an attempt to corrupt our youth.
As for the self-righteousness, I learned a thing or two about him by listening to a particular radio interview (Sorry, I don't have the link handy; it was around one and a half hours long and took place after hot coffee). In it, you can hear quite clearly his conviction that he will succeed against the industry. The interesting thing is that he focuses on this at least as much as the actual argument he makes. When he believes his enemies have acted in a manner that will destroy them, he makes it a point to not just present his case, but to also reiterate just how bad it is for them. There is no question that he elevates rhetoric to a new level.
Slashdot Mirror
A bit off topic for this thread but I wanted to address it:
The letter makes note of your deposition and claims that the RIAA's methods of determining the identity of the infringer are laughably unreliable. While I believe this to be true, I didn't really see that in the transcript (and yes, I read the whole log). Of course I am not a lawyer so I have no idea what a deposition is supposed to be like.
It seemed like any time you asked Jacobson a question about how the whole process comes together (paraphrasing: "How do you know the ISP didn't screw up", "How do you know mediasentry functioned properly", etc.), he would defer to another authority rather than speculate, even if the answer seemed fairly obvious, since it was nonetheless outside his domain. But everyone else seems to read that and think that they have no real answers and no viable case, whereas I read it and see how mundane and drawn out the legal process is.
What I'm saying is that if Jacobson was the only witness the RIAA and labels were prepared to offer at trial, then they would indeed have an extremely weak case. But wouldn't they also get testimony from mediasentry, verizon (or whatever the ISP was), and the other parties involved, to fill in the gaps in the witness's area of expertise? Were any other experts deposed in that case?
Primarily in that last paragraph. I was about to copy and paste that one in myself. I'm pleased to see a lawyer using the word "Wintel".
One thing I always wondered about KDE 4.0 was whether the window manager itself will be ported, or if it's just the applications and the libraries needed for platform compatibility. Because I would love get the look and feel of KDE, from the kicker to the konsole to the mouse gestures, on Windows.
It's not just Vista, as far as zips go. I noticed that unzipping a large file with XP's built in utility took an amount of time that was not proportional to the file's size, but concave up like O(n^2) or O(n*log n). Using a command line version (not sure if it came with Cygwin or Windows) was much more reasonable.
I don't understand how this is different from fiber optics as we know it. I was under the impression that you generally had two big-ass expensive routers miles apart, some optical cable between them, and some pricey interface hardware on either side to send and receive information at gigabits a second. From this article it sounds like IBM just invented light.
From someone who is not a coolant expert but likes to think of himself as not being an idiot:
The last time I had to install a CPU/heatsink, I found those instructions pretty ambiguous. It didn't help that they seemed to conflict with the CPU installation instructions. I ended up with a dead CPU and no idea if it was a result of the coolant touching the contacts, something screwy with the ethol alcohol, or some static mishandling on my part. In the end I exchanged for another CPU and left it alone with the stock wax pad.
Amen. Now we just have to wait for their next Gamecube so we can sell.
I showed Wii Tenis to my mom. She seemed interested but quit after a little while because she felt it was tiring. The shock was that now my dad wants to know about Wii Bowling.
I think you might be giving the DMCA a little too much credit. As evil as it is, it is but a symptom of the war on Fair Use, not the catalyst.
> "The war on drugs has been as absurd as the DMCA and the **AA's war in copyrights/fair use."
Wow. Reading that actually made me start to care about non-electronic injustice and incompetence. Now purging that from my mind so I can resume my life of apathy.
If you are a member of the ACLU there is a good chance you're a pedophile. If you do not like the Patriot Act then you condone terrorism. If you have nothing to fear then you don't mind a little intrusion to confirm your morality.
Bleck.
The primary reason I would not do this is the liability involved. Unless I could somehow track and hold accountable every passer-by I give access to, I would be left responsible for any illegal activity stemming from their use. How would you handle an RIAA lawsuit or accusations of child porn hosting?
I can't muster much sympathy for a company known for spyware-based advertising.
Damnit. That's a new one for me, I actually replied not to the wrong thread, but to the wrong discussion altogether.
There should be a rule against linking to old discussions from current ones.
... Why is it good that CD sales are dropping? All that means is more online music sales and more DRM.
But to quote Eben Moglan:
"Now if you leave [the RIAA/MPAA] alone to buy more congressmen, in this very corrupt time of ours, they will survive for a little while longer but all of this talk is about the technicalities of the adjustment of the terms of their demise. When we want to start talking about something that matters, we would do better to begin from some basic social propositions. Everybody is connected to everybody else, all data that can be shared will be shared: get used to it."
With any luck, it will only be a matter of time, but I'm not convinced that this is a sign of their apocalypse.
No, you're not. I do not understand the attraction to Doctor Who - unless you're going to riff it, it has no entertaining value. Case and point: the episode that introduced Rose, and moreover the agony that was the actress who played her mother.
I didn't catch Babylon 5 or a lot of other sci-fi shows, but I thought both the Battlestar Galactica movie and Firefly were vastly overrated.
And everyone knows JRR wasn't a real writer. He allowed the story to end half way through the last part of the trilogy, leaving no material to fill the rest of the book except for an anticlimactic confrontation with Sauruman.
It's the same with Star Trek - there's a lot of suck in those episodes. But I do enjoy watching it anyway. I guess it's just a matter of suspending your taste long enough to get hooked.
> "Recently when someone submitting a movie to the MPAA for ratings, the MPAA made and distributed copies against their wishes, and the court found the MPAA could do what it wants."
_ Rated
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet
That was "This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated". It was a publicity grab, it's doubtful that the guy didn't know exactly what was going to happen. This isn't to say that the MPAA wasn't being hypocritical.
Forget reverse psychology, if it were me I would try to work some variation of the Liar's Paradox into it. If I'm going to get modded down I'd at least like to cause someone's head to expload.
It also happened to be the best episode of Family Guy that was ever produced, yet it somehow got the lowest ratings of the initial run.
How many songs do you purchase? Because with $20,000 worth of CDs and records, the difference between paying album prices and download prices is quite significant.
Actually, that particular quote seemed fabricated and led me to doubt the tone of most of the article. But yes, the sentiment behind it is completely accurate and is why I will not purchased mainstream online music.
A lot of people seem to take this kind of opportunity to promote emusic for its anti-DRM stance. I do not understand this phenomenon. Emusic only abstains from DRM as a business strategy to gain market share. They offer no other ideological benefits, and were Apple to suddenly license FairPlay, they would most likely switch over to that immediately, unless they judged that their customer base would react too negatively.
a nne/) and Thursday Group (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/thursdaygroup -unclemean/).
I am a fan of Magnatune.com, for their outstanding policies that allow me to consume commercial music without feeling unclean. They offer decent quality full length previews of all their tracks, are open format friendly (absolutely NO DRM), split the profits 50% with the artist, and even license all their tracks under Creative Commons Non-commercial. Seriously, it's a geek's dream come true. See more here: http://magnatune.com/info/attribs
I actually happen to be listening to a stream from them right now. I'd highly recommend Drop Trio (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/droptrio-cez
(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with magnatune.com, etc, etc, I'm just a very satisfied customer.)
Yes, because academic Fair Use requires mass distribution to torrentors across the world.
Supposedly there was an email exchange between Thompson and an actual fourteen year old, where it did in fact boil down to that in a quite literal way, minus the spelling. It was not the child that sunk to name-calling.
c id=13810762
It doesn't seem to be online anymore but I'm sure it's on an archive page somewhere. Mentioned in this thread.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=165566&
I understand what you mean. I too wondered if it was even possible for a real man who exists in the real world to be so diametrically opposed to everything we respect, even the rules of adult discourse. Thompson does an excellent job of reducing many of the complexities of the real world back down to the black and white realm we knew as children.
In answer to your question, having known of and followed Jack Thompson's exploits since Hot Coffee, I believe that he really is the man he appears to be at face value. Don't ask me how this is possible in the civilized world, because I honestly don't know. What I do know is that his antics will always be a source of great indignation, directed unifying hatred, and comedy. For me, this effect peaked when he accused Will Wright of conspiring with the porn industry in an attempt to corrupt our youth.
As for the self-righteousness, I learned a thing or two about him by listening to a particular radio interview (Sorry, I don't have the link handy; it was around one and a half hours long and took place after hot coffee). In it, you can hear quite clearly his conviction that he will succeed against the industry. The interesting thing is that he focuses on this at least as much as the actual argument he makes. When he believes his enemies have acted in a manner that will destroy them, he makes it a point to not just present his case, but to also reiterate just how bad it is for them. There is no question that he elevates rhetoric to a new level.