You have to bear in mind that although it has seen it, Sony hasn't seen piracy on quite the scale with the PSP that Nintendo has with the DS and again this seems to be down to slightly more effective anti-piracy measures.
Sony is of course also a Japanese company whose market has historically been the same as Nintendos.
Interestingly though, I'm not sure either company really has Asia as it's primary market anymore. Have a look here:
Then compare the total hardware sales for Japan, the US and Others where Others is almost entirely European sales figures. Both Europe and the US now appear to be bigger markets than Japan by quite a sizable amount. This is possibly partly to do with population/wealth where the US is wealthy with 300million people, Europe has some wealthy countries but not quite at the level of the US with 800million people and Japan has high wealth on roughly the level of the US but with only 120million people. China of course beats all on population, but the wealth simply isn't there for any reasonable sales figures- the same goes for India, Indonesia and so on.
So I think Europe/US are the biggest markets, Europe will almost certainly become the biggest in the near term due to increasing wealth (particularly in Eastern Europe) and a very big population. China/India probably will eventually, but it will take it decades to reach the wealth levels of Europe, Japan and the US.
I really do think the DS' problems are down to ease of piracy. A colleague here has one with one of those cards with the micro-SD card in and the fact you can just download what a bunch of ROM files ripped off of catridges to a standard interface card and just plug them in and play is light years ahead of any other modern console in terms of ease to do- no hardware modifications required or anything, literally just a case of copy games to a micro SD card and play.
"Pluriphobe would be a better description, for want of a better word. In Holland we would use the phrase "more pious than the pope", but I know of no English expression that can explain his thickheadedness."
How about dickhead? nobend? tosspot? Here in England we've mastered our language to produce plenty of simple yet effective and widely applicable words for situations and for people like this. For additional effect you may prefix a language construct which could only be defined as a pre-offensive such as "fucking".
Hopefully we will soon update our finest Oxford dictionaries to include these useful and flexible language constructs and terms.
"FUD - Anti-piracy laws already exist in the US and China."
Irrelevant, laws don't stop the problem existing so it still has to be factored into any business model. It's naive not to do so.
"Companies are not allowed to enforce these, the police must enforce these. Companies are begging police TO enforce these."
Depends on whose doing it. There's a different between civil and criminal infringement but I don't expect you to understand that. Police also have limited resources and when it comes to a choice between chasing up a serial rapist and someone selling pirated copies of pokemon on a street corner it's obvious which deserves priority but again, this is why companies must plan for and take some responsibility for piracy themselves. How many people do you think would rather have the police spend tax payers money chasing up the pokemon seller vs. the rapist? If piracy is a problem for a company then why should even citizens who have never even ever used a console pay to protect their profits whilst more serious criminals roam free?
But you'd never have a situation where they'd sell no games on any console- the people who buy games for their consoles still far outweight those who pirate games for their consoles at least on the latest gen systems.
The point is that if they sell consoles at a loss then they have to accept that those who do pirate are going to cause them a loss. They could just not sell at a loss and ensure that they don't ever make any loss to pirates (who wouldn't buy games anyway) but still maintain a profit off those who do buy games.
I agree they'd have a major problem if everyone pirated and they never sold a single title, but their profits are still record breaking year on year even in the recession so it's hard to suggest piracy has any real effect.
Seeing as your entire post is based on the delusion that Nintendo makes an effort to protect their software then please explain why it is an issue that primarily effects Nintendo's consoles and not Microsoft or Sony's?
The fact is, Microsoft and Sony put much better protection in place with their latest batch of consoles whilst Nintendo did very little.
I'm sorry if you can't accept that but it's fact, it's far more trivial to crack Nintendo's systems than it is Microsoft and Sony's and this is purely down to the amount of time and money spent on anti-piracy measures. Nintendo fucked up here, end of.
Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps the reason as in the articles you posted that those countries listed haven't carried out any prosecutions is because they've not actually broken any laws in those countries? Silly question I suppose, because the answer is an obvious no.
Oh and regarding the idea they're just trying to push enforcement of laws they already have you're wrong there too. In Spain personal copying isn't illegal and in China creation of modchips etc. aren't illegal, but in both territories Nintendo is trying to turn these laws around, so you're not even correct on that account.
This is true, but MPs are elected by people in certain areas.
For example, if a bunch of people vote in a constituent in say Leeds then he should have equal say to the constituent voted in in say, Bristol. Because Straw has made this decision by himself, or at least without a full parliamentary vote, he has basically ignored the democractic process by suggesting he and what his constituents are more important than potentially the rest of the country and that's assuming his constituents were even happy with him doing what he did of course!
This is why it's unacceptable for a single MP or group of MPs to make decisions like this without going through parliament because it is simply not democratic. As you quite rightly state the theory is good, but in practice it doesn't work out all the time which is exactly why we should be challenging situations like this where it hasn't worked out due to the selfishness of a single MP or small group of MPs.
"Nintendo are not the only ones who make software for their systems. Third-party developers depend on sales of their software. It hardly matters to them whether Nintendo makes a profit on the hardware or not."
So then they need to complain to Nintendo for not producing a system that protects their games.
"Nintendo stuck with cartridges a generation longer than anyone else and used a non-standard format for their first disc-based system. Just because they don't take the same approach as other manufacturers doesn't mean they're not trying to prevent piracy."
Sticking with cartridges is only relevant if they actually put effort into the hardware design to protect it. Over the years people have shown it doesn't matter what physical shape a media format is, if the hardware inside is standard stuff it doesn't take much to attach it to a standard interface and read it. What it does allow though is for you to introduce additional hardware features to protect the data on those cartridges (features that say, you couldn't put on a standard DVD because DVDs have to be standard), this is what Nintendo haven't done.
There is evidence for this in that both Microsoft and Sony this generation use standard media formats but still suffer piracy a lot less worse than Nintendo. The fact is Nintendo aren't investing in the technology required to prevent piracy, simply using a non-standard media format isn't enough if it's still readable by standard hardware and if no encryption is used or if it's weak and so on. Nintendo probably stuck with cartridges because they're easier on battery life than spinning discs and because of course spinning discs are usually going to be bigger and noisier. Using cartridges is an opportunity to have greater security and have those benefits, but Nintendo chose to only invest in the latter- some may say why should they have to invest in the former, but that's their choice. They either decide if it's cheaper to invest in preventing piracy or cheaper to not invest and maybe lose a few sales because of it. Microsoft/Sony decided upon the former whilst Nintendo didn't seem to bother even thinking about it but are whining now it's come back to bite.
I don't know why you keep posting a thread that is mere speculation and is in fact factually incorrect as Microsoft aren't making a loss on the 360 anymore and haven't been for a while (thanks partly to the cost savings in the new v2 console).
No one's going to go to a court of law because they're not contesting their right to pirate, they know they have no right to pirate.
I wont respond to the rest of your ramblings because I already covered them in response to your other post. The crux of it is though that you're missing the point completely. Piracy is a problem companies have to deal with themselves, not expect everyone else to deal with for them.
FWIW, I have a DS, a Wii and a 360, I have over 150 legitimately purchased games (around 60 are live arcade titles) for my 360 and around 30 legitimately purchased DS games, so I am a consumer of these systems and I do pay for them. I only have about 5 games for the Wii because frankly I find most of them piss boring. As mentioned in a post I made a few days ago however I will no longer buy PC games as each time I do I get burnt by draconian DRM or software that is simply unacceptably buggy, as such whilst I don't pirate PC games- I stick to console gaming now I fully support those that do because with that treatment of legit customers PC games developers frankly deserve the problem and bring it on themselves.
I'm not so much defending piracy as stating it's idiotic to build a business model around assuming piracy wont exist, then when it does, trying to force law changes that effect people in more ways than just preventing piracy in countries where Nintendo doesn't even add to their economy.
If Nintendo does make a loss on the DS without putting any real anti-piracy measures in it and then people pirate games for it then that's their own fault for being so utterly naive in the first place, it is not the fault of the citizens of Spain, China or wherever.
The point is, Nintendo is trying to punish citizens of countries, many of whom have never ever even had a Nintendo product because they couldn't be bothered to even try and do anything about the problem themselves because they were naive enough to think that no one would actually do it.
That's not defending piracy, that's pointing out corporate idiocy and greed at the expense of people many of whom not only have never pirated, but who have probably not even ever so much as touched a Nintendo product. The point is, if Nintendo has such a problem with piracy then why did it not put better safeguards in against it? this is particularly prominent when they have a proprietary cartridge type in proprietary hardware where they could've hence easily have done much to prevent it. They fucked up and they're expecting everyone else to clean up for them so they can reap the profits without ever putting any money back to cover their fuckup.
It's available in all countries where there is worthwhile profit to be made compared to the costs of distribution and localisation though so where piracy is going to happen and MS' anti-piracy technology is going to be worthless there's no real money to be made anyway for the most part.
"Not at all. I'm not arguing for an unprecedented release of what has always been confidential and secret information."
But this is the whole point of the problem with the veto. The ICO ruled that it wasn't material fit to be protected as confidential and secret, it never actually was fit to have that label.
"If you want to change something in our democracy, then vote for it. You are welcome to express your opinions about what should be done, and persuade others to take it seriously enough to sway their vote, and perhaps be persuasive enough to change the minds of the politicians, that's all fair game in a free speech democracy."
We already did and got what's called the Freedom of Information Act, and that's what's being defied here by a single minister covering his own arse.
"I'm just saying that it isn't necessarily un-democratic for cabinet meeting discussions to stay secret until all those involved have left office,"
Until they've left office? So you're basically saying even if say, for example, a minister decides to pursue and illegal war that leaves hundreds of thousands dead who otherwise wouldn't be there should be no come back and no repercussions until it's pretty much too late? You do realise you're effectively advocating ministers to be able to do what they want no matter how wrong and be allowed to cover it up until it's far too late to act right? The whole reason FOIA exists is to ensure people spending our money - tax payers money are accountable for what they do with it. If they decide to spend it on waging a war that serves their self interests and not in fact the interests of the population you really don't think citizens should have a way to find out?
Again you seem to be forgetting ministers are there to serve the people and not vice versa, if they are serving us then we have the right to know how well they are serving us. We have the official secrets act for things that could expose undercover investigations and so on which is one of those things we can't really do much about, anything outside of that that isn't personal or private information but is instead public information exists for this purpose. What Straw has done is removed all accountability for something which has been determined internationally as illegal. You may suggest international rulings are irrelevant to national happenings but that's not the case, these events were international not national events- we can't take action internationally and ignore reaction internationally. The fact is, the decisions made in those meetings were wrong, lives both foreign and British and billions of tax payers money was wasted and the people responsible need to be brought to account for it. We need to know how or why those decisions were made, if not only so the mistake isn't repeated.
Yep, I know people who bought DS' only because they could buy a cart with a micro SD card in and copy games to it.
These are people who I know definitely wouldn't have got one if they had to pay an additional £20 for each game on top of £100 for the device itself. Piracy has been one of the reasons the DS has been so succesful.
As you say providing Nintendo makes money on the device itself then they've really got nothing to complain about and aren't really acting any better than the RIAA/MPAA trying to force their ideal laws on foreign nations. Even if they didn't make money on the device I'm inclined to say more fool them for pursuing such a silly business model.
The other point is it's not like they even seemed to try hard to prevent piracy. Their systems are some of the most easily hackable out there so if they don't even invest in anti-piracy measures like Sony and Microsoft do then why should they expect anyone to help them if they wont help themselves? At least pirating XBox 360 games means goodbye to your warranty, can't be done on live arcade games means saying goodbye to XBox live with your system forever too so Microsoft at least tried to solve the problem through technology than just whining to foreign governments to enforce stricter laws on their citizens.
"Microsoft does nothing to stop this or prevent it, but instead sides with the homophobes. No one will help me get the word out about Microsoft's anti-gay policy. Not even the HRC who says Microsoft has a positive image with them. Not to me it doesn't!"
Sorry but if even the HRC (www.hrc.org) don't support her view then frankly I think there probably is more to it. Quite a few of Microsoft's top people are homosexual so it is also unlikely management would support a homophobic view.
I think there is more to this story than is being let on, all we have is one person claiming what happened, no evidence provided, no verification from anyone else and so on.
Her story just doesn't add up as someone who has been victimised when even the HRC sound like they basically told her to FO.
If she really has been victimised and the world is out to get her she could at least post e-mails from Microsoft but it's not like she's even done that.
There's a decent possibility that the Liberal Democrats will hold the balance of power this time though as whilst Conservatives will almost certainly be the majority party, they wont have a big enough majority to do whatever they want by outnumbering the other two parties put together like Labour currently does.
Of course, on evil things Labour and the Tories may end up just banding together and ignoring the Lib Dems altogether but taking ID cards for example- right now Labour can go ahead and vote for them regardless of what the opposition thinks but in the scenario described above and if it was the Tories proposing the law and Labour opposed it just as the Tories oppose ID cards then the Lib Dems could side with the opposition to overthrow it.
It's not ideal still but at least it'd be a whole lot better than now where one party can push their entire agenda regardless of what the Tories and Lib Dems put together think. Right now for the Lib Dems and Tories to defeat a Labour proposal they need to manage to get support from some of Labour as well so it only works for as long as Labour's proposal is so bad that even half their own party wont support it, but seeing as most their party do support ID cards then we're talking about something pretty damn bad!
This is why I hope people that are considering voting Lib Dem do so, not because there's any hope of them getting power, but because there is at least hope of them holding the balance of power which is a major step forward on the last couple of decades. This is going to be a really important election for people to learn to vote for the party they want rather than voting tactically to avoid the party they don't want (which inevitably ends up in the situation we have now!).
I'm not sure what your point is really. I never said my opinion outweighs yours but in this particular context no one has been given the choice anyway so even if I had said that then it's still be irrelevant. Of course, if you're defending his action then it's actually you who is effectively saying your opinion is more important than anyone who disagrees, because you're suggesting that anyone opposing your view should be ignored which is effectively what Straw has done.
But there's also the argument to be made that the FOIA was implemented as a democratic action which was voted on by all of cur elected representatives and as such defying such a democractically created act automatically goes against democracy if the defiance of that act was performed by a single person or small group of people, rather than as a result of the majority opinion of the people or their representatives.
But I'm not even sure you understand the point of a democracy, it's not about what a single individual wants, it's to enable each individual to have their say and the result being based on what the majority wants so even ignoring all the above what you want doesn't really matter if what you want is an absolute minority opinion. I believe where everyone can have, act on and enforce their opinion as you seem to be pursuing with your focus of the ideas of individuals you would have anarchy, not democracy.
The only thing wrong with his comment is the way he phrased it, the sentiment is spot on. As you say, to infer one from the other is wrong, but to suggest they're linked is right.
Both are about increasing government power over citizens and removing surveillance and improving freedom of information are both steps that would increase the power of citizens over their government. It is no suprise then with the current Labour government power grab over it's citizens that the two go hand in hand then as both increased surveillance and supression of freedom of information fill their goal of further strengthening their hold over the citizens they are supposed to serve and not control.
This is the same Straw that rather than filing a legal challenge to the information commissionars ruling that the Iraq war documents be leaked decided to just outright make the first use ever of ministerial veto against FOIA requests.
His reasons for vetoing were, from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7907991.stm) and I shit you not:
"Releasing the papers would do "serious damage" to cabinet government, he said, and outweighed public interest needs."
I'm not sure why he'd think it's in public interest to keep a corrupt, incompetent, totalitarian regime in power?
And:
"There is a balance to be struck between openness and maintaining aspects of our structure of democratic government,"
Sorry, I thought the whole point of democracy was that we get to decide that balance, not those in power? His decision flies in the very face of democracy.
So quite why anyone as per the summary would think Straw cares in the slightest about FOIA I don't know. He's just like Jacqui Smith and nearly all the others in the Labour party right now- a wannabe dictator who oppresses freedom of information to cling on to power.
"What makes you think for a second that I was advocating they be shot?"
I'd wager a bet it has something to do with the first question you asked, the one that went like this:
"Why not just shoot them?"
But regardless I shall answer the question. For the same reason we can't just shoot people like you - many of us realise the value of life in even the most simple life forms.
Oh and:
"PS: Please don't swear, it serves little purpose but to hurt people's feelings."
Yes, I think that's generally the idea when someone says "Fuck you". Please note, if swearing offends you then the internet may not be the best place for you.
No I'm wondering why they'd use a seemingly irrelevant metric to suggest their browser is better because an irrelevant metric wont have that effect.
For example, when Firefox 3 came out, I didn't download it because it's Javascript engine was 10x faster or whatever, I downloaded it because it had lots of useful bookmarking and tagging features for managing my sites.
"The Government clearly have the power to make things happen - when they say "We'd like to see it", that pretty much implies that they are looking at ways of making it happen."
I'd say this is where my point lies, not that the government couldn't make it happen, but the fact that they said this 2 years ago and have made no actual action since.
So I don't think it does imply they're necessarily making any serious ways at making it happen, or at least they haven't been so far else they'd have done so by now. In this case it sounds more like the government just saying they're doing something to shut them up. Of course if pressure grows from the think of the children crowd then yeah this could certainly change, right now though? I'd concentrate on making the think of the children crowd shut up by pointing out how idiotic and ignorant their requests are before they do get their way.
It's a contrast to other things the government has threatened legislation over- piracy for one which unlike this, they are actually making steps towards. That's why I don't think the government care too much about this and just don't want to say "Actually we don't care about the children and we're not doing anything".
Of course our government is impressively inept, so may prove me wrong but this is something they haven't actually made any steps towards legislating over yet and so I'm more worried about the things they are busy legislating or solidly planning to legislate over right now from ID cards to their copyright adjustments to their anti-piracy stuff to their interception modernisation program plans.
Meanwhilst, focus on the ignorant charities, tell them why they're wrong and hopefully the government wont be forced into a corner and it'll be one less battle to be fought. Right now, on this, they really don't seem to be the problem as I said originally and it's rare I'll defend either Labour or the Conservatives even in the UK.
It's like all those things but in a contest that doesn't even matter, like the kid who can eat the most worms or something.
Okay, maybe I'm just being ignorant, I guess there are people who it matters to but personally I've never come across a website that I couldn't "run" because my browser wasn't optimised enough. Even IE7, the supposed slowest of the bunch has run every website I've ever been too fine although I nowadays always use Firefox.
I guess it's more about future potential though? as Javascript performance improves then maybe we can see it become more useful for more things too.
Anyone know why Javascript performance is repeatedly mouthed off as such a big deal? Is it to do with future hopes for Javascript or is it about making existing sites work on even the most low end of systems- would that even matter to Apple when they don't really even sell particularly low end systems?
Maybe it's the mentioned control scheme and I couldn't find the option to change it but my god was it annoying only being able to walk at roughly half the speed of a geriatric cripple.
The graphics were fantastic but the zombies were less than scary, they just looked like equally geriatric, crippled African men. Then there were these flying imps that seemed completely out of place, I wasn't sure if maybe I'd stumbled into a level from Dungeon Keeper or something.
The aiming system was quite horrible too.
So it has potential but I'd agree, the controls are the biggest killer. It's not fun being forced to play like a slow moving grandad.
The difference here is that this situation has been ongoing for almost a decade and it has been the same for 2 years since the government said that.
The summary is not news, thus far the government hasn't acted on their comments and has so far shown no sign of doing so either so it's silly to compare to something like ID cards right now that they are actually pursuing and forcing into place.
It took the government over 2 years from stating that they'll legislate to even get half a report out on file sharing prevention. Even if the government does announce plans to legislate to 100% it wont happen until after the elections at which point they almost certainly wont be in a position to legislate anyway.
You have to remember who funds the IWF- it is the ISPs so I don't think the government has as much control over it as you think. The IWF is itself registered as a charity also.
I would gladly see the IWF disbanded, don't get me wrong, but my complaint was more about the article summary. I think it's wrong to focus on the government in this case because they're not the primary problem here it's the childrens charities that have both raised and are pushing the issue hard.
We already know the government wants full control and logs of our entire lives but it's also coming under a lot of fire over this lately so is either going to have to change it's ways or lose the next election spectacularly. After the government has gone however, these charities wont have, they'll still be a problem unless we point out what they're proposing- punishment of the entire population for a problem that is only caused by a very, very few rather than putting the effort in to deal with those few.
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You have to bear in mind that although it has seen it, Sony hasn't seen piracy on quite the scale with the PSP that Nintendo has with the DS and again this seems to be down to slightly more effective anti-piracy measures.
Sony is of course also a Japanese company whose market has historically been the same as Nintendos.
Interestingly though, I'm not sure either company really has Asia as it's primary market anymore. Have a look here:
http://www.vgchartz.com/
Then compare the total hardware sales for Japan, the US and Others where Others is almost entirely European sales figures. Both Europe and the US now appear to be bigger markets than Japan by quite a sizable amount. This is possibly partly to do with population/wealth where the US is wealthy with 300million people, Europe has some wealthy countries but not quite at the level of the US with 800million people and Japan has high wealth on roughly the level of the US but with only 120million people. China of course beats all on population, but the wealth simply isn't there for any reasonable sales figures- the same goes for India, Indonesia and so on.
So I think Europe/US are the biggest markets, Europe will almost certainly become the biggest in the near term due to increasing wealth (particularly in Eastern Europe) and a very big population. China/India probably will eventually, but it will take it decades to reach the wealth levels of Europe, Japan and the US.
I really do think the DS' problems are down to ease of piracy. A colleague here has one with one of those cards with the micro-SD card in and the fact you can just download what a bunch of ROM files ripped off of catridges to a standard interface card and just plug them in and play is light years ahead of any other modern console in terms of ease to do- no hardware modifications required or anything, literally just a case of copy games to a micro SD card and play.
"Pluriphobe would be a better description, for want of a better word. In Holland we would use the phrase "more pious than the pope", but I know of no English expression that can explain his thickheadedness."
How about dickhead? nobend? tosspot? Here in England we've mastered our language to produce plenty of simple yet effective and widely applicable words for situations and for people like this. For additional effect you may prefix a language construct which could only be defined as a pre-offensive such as "fucking".
Hopefully we will soon update our finest Oxford dictionaries to include these useful and flexible language constructs and terms.
"FUD - Anti-piracy laws already exist in the US and China."
Irrelevant, laws don't stop the problem existing so it still has to be factored into any business model. It's naive not to do so.
"Companies are not allowed to enforce these, the police must enforce these. Companies are begging police TO enforce these."
Depends on whose doing it. There's a different between civil and criminal infringement but I don't expect you to understand that. Police also have limited resources and when it comes to a choice between chasing up a serial rapist and someone selling pirated copies of pokemon on a street corner it's obvious which deserves priority but again, this is why companies must plan for and take some responsibility for piracy themselves. How many people do you think would rather have the police spend tax payers money chasing up the pokemon seller vs. the rapist? If piracy is a problem for a company then why should even citizens who have never even ever used a console pay to protect their profits whilst more serious criminals roam free?
But you'd never have a situation where they'd sell no games on any console- the people who buy games for their consoles still far outweight those who pirate games for their consoles at least on the latest gen systems.
The point is that if they sell consoles at a loss then they have to accept that those who do pirate are going to cause them a loss. They could just not sell at a loss and ensure that they don't ever make any loss to pirates (who wouldn't buy games anyway) but still maintain a profit off those who do buy games.
I agree they'd have a major problem if everyone pirated and they never sold a single title, but their profits are still record breaking year on year even in the recession so it's hard to suggest piracy has any real effect.
Seeing as your entire post is based on the delusion that Nintendo makes an effort to protect their software then please explain why it is an issue that primarily effects Nintendo's consoles and not Microsoft or Sony's?
The fact is, Microsoft and Sony put much better protection in place with their latest batch of consoles whilst Nintendo did very little.
I'm sorry if you can't accept that but it's fact, it's far more trivial to crack Nintendo's systems than it is Microsoft and Sony's and this is purely down to the amount of time and money spent on anti-piracy measures. Nintendo fucked up here, end of.
Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps the reason as in the articles you posted that those countries listed haven't carried out any prosecutions is because they've not actually broken any laws in those countries? Silly question I suppose, because the answer is an obvious no.
Oh and regarding the idea they're just trying to push enforcement of laws they already have you're wrong there too. In Spain personal copying isn't illegal and in China creation of modchips etc. aren't illegal, but in both territories Nintendo is trying to turn these laws around, so you're not even correct on that account.
This is true, but MPs are elected by people in certain areas.
For example, if a bunch of people vote in a constituent in say Leeds then he should have equal say to the constituent voted in in say, Bristol. Because Straw has made this decision by himself, or at least without a full parliamentary vote, he has basically ignored the democractic process by suggesting he and what his constituents are more important than potentially the rest of the country and that's assuming his constituents were even happy with him doing what he did of course!
This is why it's unacceptable for a single MP or group of MPs to make decisions like this without going through parliament because it is simply not democratic. As you quite rightly state the theory is good, but in practice it doesn't work out all the time which is exactly why we should be challenging situations like this where it hasn't worked out due to the selfishness of a single MP or small group of MPs.
"Nintendo are not the only ones who make software for their systems. Third-party developers depend on sales of their software. It hardly matters to them whether Nintendo makes a profit on the hardware or not."
So then they need to complain to Nintendo for not producing a system that protects their games.
"Nintendo stuck with cartridges a generation longer than anyone else and used a non-standard format for their first disc-based system. Just because they don't take the same approach as other manufacturers doesn't mean they're not trying to prevent piracy."
Sticking with cartridges is only relevant if they actually put effort into the hardware design to protect it. Over the years people have shown it doesn't matter what physical shape a media format is, if the hardware inside is standard stuff it doesn't take much to attach it to a standard interface and read it. What it does allow though is for you to introduce additional hardware features to protect the data on those cartridges (features that say, you couldn't put on a standard DVD because DVDs have to be standard), this is what Nintendo haven't done.
There is evidence for this in that both Microsoft and Sony this generation use standard media formats but still suffer piracy a lot less worse than Nintendo. The fact is Nintendo aren't investing in the technology required to prevent piracy, simply using a non-standard media format isn't enough if it's still readable by standard hardware and if no encryption is used or if it's weak and so on. Nintendo probably stuck with cartridges because they're easier on battery life than spinning discs and because of course spinning discs are usually going to be bigger and noisier. Using cartridges is an opportunity to have greater security and have those benefits, but Nintendo chose to only invest in the latter- some may say why should they have to invest in the former, but that's their choice. They either decide if it's cheaper to invest in preventing piracy or cheaper to not invest and maybe lose a few sales because of it. Microsoft/Sony decided upon the former whilst Nintendo didn't seem to bother even thinking about it but are whining now it's come back to bite.
I don't know why you keep posting a thread that is mere speculation and is in fact factually incorrect as Microsoft aren't making a loss on the 360 anymore and haven't been for a while (thanks partly to the cost savings in the new v2 console).
No one's going to go to a court of law because they're not contesting their right to pirate, they know they have no right to pirate.
I wont respond to the rest of your ramblings because I already covered them in response to your other post. The crux of it is though that you're missing the point completely. Piracy is a problem companies have to deal with themselves, not expect everyone else to deal with for them.
FWIW, I have a DS, a Wii and a 360, I have over 150 legitimately purchased games (around 60 are live arcade titles) for my 360 and around 30 legitimately purchased DS games, so I am a consumer of these systems and I do pay for them. I only have about 5 games for the Wii because frankly I find most of them piss boring. As mentioned in a post I made a few days ago however I will no longer buy PC games as each time I do I get burnt by draconian DRM or software that is simply unacceptably buggy, as such whilst I don't pirate PC games- I stick to console gaming now I fully support those that do because with that treatment of legit customers PC games developers frankly deserve the problem and bring it on themselves.
I guess you didn't really read my post.
I'm not so much defending piracy as stating it's idiotic to build a business model around assuming piracy wont exist, then when it does, trying to force law changes that effect people in more ways than just preventing piracy in countries where Nintendo doesn't even add to their economy.
If Nintendo does make a loss on the DS without putting any real anti-piracy measures in it and then people pirate games for it then that's their own fault for being so utterly naive in the first place, it is not the fault of the citizens of Spain, China or wherever.
The point is, Nintendo is trying to punish citizens of countries, many of whom have never ever even had a Nintendo product because they couldn't be bothered to even try and do anything about the problem themselves because they were naive enough to think that no one would actually do it.
That's not defending piracy, that's pointing out corporate idiocy and greed at the expense of people many of whom not only have never pirated, but who have probably not even ever so much as touched a Nintendo product. The point is, if Nintendo has such a problem with piracy then why did it not put better safeguards in against it? this is particularly prominent when they have a proprietary cartridge type in proprietary hardware where they could've hence easily have done much to prevent it. They fucked up and they're expecting everyone else to clean up for them so they can reap the profits without ever putting any money back to cover their fuckup.
It's available in all countries where there is worthwhile profit to be made compared to the costs of distribution and localisation though so where piracy is going to happen and MS' anti-piracy technology is going to be worthless there's no real money to be made anyway for the most part.
"Not at all. I'm not arguing for an unprecedented release of what has always been confidential and secret information."
But this is the whole point of the problem with the veto. The ICO ruled that it wasn't material fit to be protected as confidential and secret, it never actually was fit to have that label.
"If you want to change something in our democracy, then vote for it. You are welcome to express your opinions about what should be done, and persuade others to take it seriously enough to sway their vote, and perhaps be persuasive enough to change the minds of the politicians, that's all fair game in a free speech democracy."
We already did and got what's called the Freedom of Information Act, and that's what's being defied here by a single minister covering his own arse.
"I'm just saying that it isn't necessarily un-democratic for cabinet meeting discussions to stay secret until all those involved have left office,"
Until they've left office? So you're basically saying even if say, for example, a minister decides to pursue and illegal war that leaves hundreds of thousands dead who otherwise wouldn't be there should be no come back and no repercussions until it's pretty much too late? You do realise you're effectively advocating ministers to be able to do what they want no matter how wrong and be allowed to cover it up until it's far too late to act right? The whole reason FOIA exists is to ensure people spending our money - tax payers money are accountable for what they do with it. If they decide to spend it on waging a war that serves their self interests and not in fact the interests of the population you really don't think citizens should have a way to find out?
Again you seem to be forgetting ministers are there to serve the people and not vice versa, if they are serving us then we have the right to know how well they are serving us. We have the official secrets act for things that could expose undercover investigations and so on which is one of those things we can't really do much about, anything outside of that that isn't personal or private information but is instead public information exists for this purpose. What Straw has done is removed all accountability for something which has been determined internationally as illegal. You may suggest international rulings are irrelevant to national happenings but that's not the case, these events were international not national events- we can't take action internationally and ignore reaction internationally. The fact is, the decisions made in those meetings were wrong, lives both foreign and British and billions of tax payers money was wasted and the people responsible need to be brought to account for it. We need to know how or why those decisions were made, if not only so the mistake isn't repeated.
Yep, I know people who bought DS' only because they could buy a cart with a micro SD card in and copy games to it.
These are people who I know definitely wouldn't have got one if they had to pay an additional £20 for each game on top of £100 for the device itself. Piracy has been one of the reasons the DS has been so succesful.
As you say providing Nintendo makes money on the device itself then they've really got nothing to complain about and aren't really acting any better than the RIAA/MPAA trying to force their ideal laws on foreign nations. Even if they didn't make money on the device I'm inclined to say more fool them for pursuing such a silly business model.
The other point is it's not like they even seemed to try hard to prevent piracy. Their systems are some of the most easily hackable out there so if they don't even invest in anti-piracy measures like Sony and Microsoft do then why should they expect anyone to help them if they wont help themselves? At least pirating XBox 360 games means goodbye to your warranty, can't be done on live arcade games means saying goodbye to XBox live with your system forever too so Microsoft at least tried to solve the problem through technology than just whining to foreign governments to enforce stricter laws on their citizens.
FTA:
"Microsoft does nothing to stop this or prevent it, but instead sides with the homophobes. No one will help me get the word out about Microsoft's anti-gay policy. Not even the HRC who says Microsoft has a positive image with them. Not to me it doesn't!"
Sorry but if even the HRC (www.hrc.org) don't support her view then frankly I think there probably is more to it. Quite a few of Microsoft's top people are homosexual so it is also unlikely management would support a homophobic view.
I think there is more to this story than is being let on, all we have is one person claiming what happened, no evidence provided, no verification from anyone else and so on.
Her story just doesn't add up as someone who has been victimised when even the HRC sound like they basically told her to FO.
If she really has been victimised and the world is out to get her she could at least post e-mails from Microsoft but it's not like she's even done that.
There's a decent possibility that the Liberal Democrats will hold the balance of power this time though as whilst Conservatives will almost certainly be the majority party, they wont have a big enough majority to do whatever they want by outnumbering the other two parties put together like Labour currently does.
Of course, on evil things Labour and the Tories may end up just banding together and ignoring the Lib Dems altogether but taking ID cards for example- right now Labour can go ahead and vote for them regardless of what the opposition thinks but in the scenario described above and if it was the Tories proposing the law and Labour opposed it just as the Tories oppose ID cards then the Lib Dems could side with the opposition to overthrow it.
It's not ideal still but at least it'd be a whole lot better than now where one party can push their entire agenda regardless of what the Tories and Lib Dems put together think. Right now for the Lib Dems and Tories to defeat a Labour proposal they need to manage to get support from some of Labour as well so it only works for as long as Labour's proposal is so bad that even half their own party wont support it, but seeing as most their party do support ID cards then we're talking about something pretty damn bad!
This is why I hope people that are considering voting Lib Dem do so, not because there's any hope of them getting power, but because there is at least hope of them holding the balance of power which is a major step forward on the last couple of decades. This is going to be a really important election for people to learn to vote for the party they want rather than voting tactically to avoid the party they don't want (which inevitably ends up in the situation we have now!).
I'm not sure what your point is really. I never said my opinion outweighs yours but in this particular context no one has been given the choice anyway so even if I had said that then it's still be irrelevant. Of course, if you're defending his action then it's actually you who is effectively saying your opinion is more important than anyone who disagrees, because you're suggesting that anyone opposing your view should be ignored which is effectively what Straw has done.
But there's also the argument to be made that the FOIA was implemented as a democratic action which was voted on by all of cur elected representatives and as such defying such a democractically created act automatically goes against democracy if the defiance of that act was performed by a single person or small group of people, rather than as a result of the majority opinion of the people or their representatives.
But I'm not even sure you understand the point of a democracy, it's not about what a single individual wants, it's to enable each individual to have their say and the result being based on what the majority wants so even ignoring all the above what you want doesn't really matter if what you want is an absolute minority opinion. I believe where everyone can have, act on and enforce their opinion as you seem to be pursuing with your focus of the ideas of individuals you would have anarchy, not democracy.
The only thing wrong with his comment is the way he phrased it, the sentiment is spot on. As you say, to infer one from the other is wrong, but to suggest they're linked is right.
Both are about increasing government power over citizens and removing surveillance and improving freedom of information are both steps that would increase the power of citizens over their government. It is no suprise then with the current Labour government power grab over it's citizens that the two go hand in hand then as both increased surveillance and supression of freedom of information fill their goal of further strengthening their hold over the citizens they are supposed to serve and not control.
So he wasn't totally out with his comment.
This is the same Straw that rather than filing a legal challenge to the information commissionars ruling that the Iraq war documents be leaked decided to just outright make the first use ever of ministerial veto against FOIA requests.
His reasons for vetoing were, from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7907991.stm) and I shit you not:
"Releasing the papers would do "serious damage" to cabinet government, he said, and outweighed public interest needs."
I'm not sure why he'd think it's in public interest to keep a corrupt, incompetent, totalitarian regime in power?
And:
"There is a balance to be struck between openness and maintaining aspects of our structure of democratic government,"
Sorry, I thought the whole point of democracy was that we get to decide that balance, not those in power? His decision flies in the very face of democracy.
So quite why anyone as per the summary would think Straw cares in the slightest about FOIA I don't know. He's just like Jacqui Smith and nearly all the others in the Labour party right now- a wannabe dictator who oppresses freedom of information to cling on to power.
"What makes you think for a second that I was advocating they be shot?"
I'd wager a bet it has something to do with the first question you asked, the one that went like this:
"Why not just shoot them?"
But regardless I shall answer the question. For the same reason we can't just shoot people like you - many of us realise the value of life in even the most simple life forms.
Oh and:
"PS: Please don't swear, it serves little purpose but to hurt people's feelings."
Yes, I think that's generally the idea when someone says "Fuck you". Please note, if swearing offends you then the internet may not be the best place for you.
No I'm wondering why they'd use a seemingly irrelevant metric to suggest their browser is better because an irrelevant metric wont have that effect.
For example, when Firefox 3 came out, I didn't download it because it's Javascript engine was 10x faster or whatever, I downloaded it because it had lots of useful bookmarking and tagging features for managing my sites.
"Alligators in Florida! Crocodiles in Africa, Asia, Australia."
And er... the Americas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Crocodile
"There was still all the porn you could imagine though."
There was also all the porn I couldn't imagine too.
"The Government clearly have the power to make things happen - when they say "We'd like to see it", that pretty much implies that they are looking at ways of making it happen."
I'd say this is where my point lies, not that the government couldn't make it happen, but the fact that they said this 2 years ago and have made no actual action since.
So I don't think it does imply they're necessarily making any serious ways at making it happen, or at least they haven't been so far else they'd have done so by now. In this case it sounds more like the government just saying they're doing something to shut them up. Of course if pressure grows from the think of the children crowd then yeah this could certainly change, right now though? I'd concentrate on making the think of the children crowd shut up by pointing out how idiotic and ignorant their requests are before they do get their way.
It's a contrast to other things the government has threatened legislation over- piracy for one which unlike this, they are actually making steps towards. That's why I don't think the government care too much about this and just don't want to say "Actually we don't care about the children and we're not doing anything".
Of course our government is impressively inept, so may prove me wrong but this is something they haven't actually made any steps towards legislating over yet and so I'm more worried about the things they are busy legislating or solidly planning to legislate over right now from ID cards to their copyright adjustments to their anti-piracy stuff to their interception modernisation program plans.
Meanwhilst, focus on the ignorant charities, tell them why they're wrong and hopefully the government wont be forced into a corner and it'll be one less battle to be fought. Right now, on this, they really don't seem to be the problem as I said originally and it's rare I'll defend either Labour or the Conservatives even in the UK.
It's like all those things but in a contest that doesn't even matter, like the kid who can eat the most worms or something.
Okay, maybe I'm just being ignorant, I guess there are people who it matters to but personally I've never come across a website that I couldn't "run" because my browser wasn't optimised enough. Even IE7, the supposed slowest of the bunch has run every website I've ever been too fine although I nowadays always use Firefox.
I guess it's more about future potential though? as Javascript performance improves then maybe we can see it become more useful for more things too.
Anyone know why Javascript performance is repeatedly mouthed off as such a big deal? Is it to do with future hopes for Javascript or is it about making existing sites work on even the most low end of systems- would that even matter to Apple when they don't really even sell particularly low end systems?
Maybe it's the mentioned control scheme and I couldn't find the option to change it but my god was it annoying only being able to walk at roughly half the speed of a geriatric cripple.
The graphics were fantastic but the zombies were less than scary, they just looked like equally geriatric, crippled African men. Then there were these flying imps that seemed completely out of place, I wasn't sure if maybe I'd stumbled into a level from Dungeon Keeper or something.
The aiming system was quite horrible too.
So it has potential but I'd agree, the controls are the biggest killer. It's not fun being forced to play like a slow moving grandad.
The difference here is that this situation has been ongoing for almost a decade and it has been the same for 2 years since the government said that.
The summary is not news, thus far the government hasn't acted on their comments and has so far shown no sign of doing so either so it's silly to compare to something like ID cards right now that they are actually pursuing and forcing into place.
It took the government over 2 years from stating that they'll legislate to even get half a report out on file sharing prevention. Even if the government does announce plans to legislate to 100% it wont happen until after the elections at which point they almost certainly wont be in a position to legislate anyway.
You have to remember who funds the IWF- it is the ISPs so I don't think the government has as much control over it as you think. The IWF is itself registered as a charity also.
I would gladly see the IWF disbanded, don't get me wrong, but my complaint was more about the article summary. I think it's wrong to focus on the government in this case because they're not the primary problem here it's the childrens charities that have both raised and are pushing the issue hard.
We already know the government wants full control and logs of our entire lives but it's also coming under a lot of fire over this lately so is either going to have to change it's ways or lose the next election spectacularly. After the government has gone however, these charities wont have, they'll still be a problem unless we point out what they're proposing- punishment of the entire population for a problem that is only caused by a very, very few rather than putting the effort in to deal with those few.