You're wasting your time. A college professor who taught freshman English once said, "If someone has reached the age of 18 or older utterly convinced that the possessive form of the pronoun 'it' is formed with an apostrophe, nothing you say or do will ever be able to disabuse them of the notion."
I just checked out a couple of the new YouTube sites (Brazil and France). I tried a few searches on those plus the U.S. site, in English, Portuguese, and French, and it returned the exact same videos regardless of which site is used. Basically, it looks like the same exact damn site, only with instructions and links translated into the appropriate language. I guess that's the extent of "country-specific" content.
Just how obvious does the corruption in the White House have to be before you demand a change of government?
You don't get it, do you? The fact is, most Americans don't give a flying fuck. OK, I'm by nature a cynic, but I think there is not much hope left for us. These are just a FEW of the factors that have sold us down the garden path:
A public school system focused on cramming factoids into young heads just long enough to pass tests and keep the federal money flowing. No interest in whether children actually learn anything or develop the mental skills to look at the world in any sort of rational fashion.
An economic system increasingly making it necessary for middle-class families to focus more and more time and attention on just simply keeping solvent and paying the bills. When you're working two jobs and juggling mortgages and loans and barely keeping your head above water, occasionally grabbin a few hours of sleep in-between, you don't focus on much beyond making it to the next paycheck.
The increasing emphasis on celebrity fluff and scandal. A society in which people are more concerned about a blonde slut with no discernable talents or values going to jail than about an administration which daily guts the Constitution.
The plethora of entertainment and time-wasting devices keeping us focused on meaningless drivel instead of critical issues. As long as we have our iPods to listen to tunes, our cellphones and Blackberrys to maintain a constant stream of blather with others, and our flat-screen TVs to watch endless reality shows, we think we already have the good life. And it all keeps us well-distracted and complacent. (Baaaaaah!)
An increasingly pervasive "us vs. them" mentality. Democrat/Republican, gay/straight, red/blue. You're either with us or with the terrorists. Christians good, Muslims bad, atheists unspeakable. Everything is A or B, chocolate or vanilla, smoking or non-smoking. There's no middle ground anymore; no place for compromise, no corner for subtlety, no reason to think individually. Shades of gray no longer exist.
A news media increasingly unwilling to challenge authority and ferret out corruption. Ratings and ad sales matter, not journalistic integrity. Something loud, stimulating, and visually exciting (preferably with blood involved) will carry your channel for many hours on end. Anything subtle, the least bit pedantic, or requiring a viewer to actually think a little and learn something is a show-killer.
The growing realization that what affects the average citizen is of no interest to the powers that be. That lobbyists, special interests, ego, the thirst for power and (above all) money are what motivate our "leaders." Voting is rigged, democracy is a sham, and we're damned whether we vote or not.
And, no, none of this happened overnight -- it's been growing for a long time. But we have reached a critical point where I honestly believe there is no turning back. The things that you and I and others who hang out here care about are meaningless to the vast majority of Americans. The U.S. is in for a fall -- and it's going to be a big one. I'm at the age where I hope and pray I'll be dead before the ultimate collapse.
So far, one method tried was to post the summons on the message board itself and ask the defendants to step forward.
Wow! What a GREAT idea -- why didn't anyone think of this before? Just politely ask the bad guys to turn themselves in! Maybe they should try this with Osama! "Osama, dude, listen...we can't find you, so could you please just step forward and show yourself? If it's not too much trouble..."
Every time I think these dinosaurs have reached an unsurpassable level of outrageousness and chutzpah, they keep topping themselves. Do they not realize that every time they open their yaps, they lose more and more credibility and probably make downloaders and file sharers even more determined to persevere?
You know, you can argue about copyright law and the industry's legal tactics until you're blue in the face, but the fact is that the world has changed and these suits are going to have to eventually adapt or die. There's a whole generation of young people out there for whom file sharing, if it carries any "moral" weight at all, is looked upon as, at worst, a "sin" on a par with speeding or jaywalking. Rightly or wrongly, millions are growing up freely sharing their music as they see fit, and they scoff at being compared with hardened criminals for doing so. You're not getting this genie back in the bottle -- a "law" that is routinely and easily ignored by a significant proportion of the populace has no teeth.
So the feds are going to tell a few million residents of these states that suddenly as of such and such a date they can no longer fly? Sure, like that's going to happen. We're already at or near the tipping point on this -- if even a few more states say "no thanks" it could hopefully sabotage the whole thing. This could turn into a major federal power vs. states rights battle -- after all, licensing is a function traditionally assigned to the state level.
Realistically, though, I think sooner or later the Real ID monster will be unleashed, but after some additional delays and perhaps a grace period tacked on. At the very least, I want to see this debacle delayed until after July 2010. Cos that's the earliest that *I* can renew my license by mail for another seven and a half years (I can renew 18 months prior to expiration plus 6 full years beyond that). Then I'm set until January 2018, by which time I'll be 60 and too old to give a shit any longer.....
...unfortunately, the video was copied to several other sites.
This is why in the digital age, policing these things will be nigh unto impossible. A sufficiently interesting or controversial video can literally circle the globe in a matter of minutes or hours, and by the time YouTube takes anything down, chances are it's already been posted on dozens of other sites anyway. And while they try to get it taken down on those sites, it continues to spread. (And there are more little video sharing sites popping up every day, not to mention getting put in people's blogs, e-mailed around, possibly put on torrent sites, etc.).
Imagine you go out into your yard, and there's a bear. You shoot the bear, but now there a dozen more bears. And every time you shoot one of them, more show up. That's kind of what trying to contain this stuff is like -- it's an exercise in futility. Information spreads too rapidly to be contained in the Internet age.
Here in Florida, most communities are enacting completely unconstitutional laws barring exactly where "sex offenders" can live. In one community in the Tampa Bay area, they set the distance limit to something like 2,500 feet from *any* bus stop, church, school, library, etc. There were a few small areas in the town left over, which the city promptly added school bus stops despite there being no demand for them, effectively chasing out every sex offender, regardless of actual offense.
So, what happens to the really dangerous offenders? If they stay in the city, they end up homeless and wandering, probably eventually losing access to any medication or counseling they might have been receiving, and end up cold, hungry, and very angry. And all of that is supposed to make them LESS likely to offend? If they leave the city, and more and more communities pass laws like this, it will just shunt the problem out into the rural areas (where there are still children and lots of densely wooded areas and isolated buildings and no one nearby to hear the victims' cries). No, laws like this don't solve the problem, and the people who favor them are less interested in "solving" the problem than in merely making it "go away."
Yes, and no. There are three levels of intensity when it comes to being in the public eye.
(1)Being seen -- OK....this is the most obvious, pervasive, and unavoidable level. If I am in public, I can be seen. Until someone develops a working personal cloacking device, this is a given. If I am walking down the street, and you are walking the other way, you will see me and I will see you. If there is a camera, and I am in its field of view, I will be seen.
(2)Being watched -- This is the intermediate level in which not only are you seen, but some person or persons focuses on you for a period of time. Like the weird guy on the bus who keeps staring at you, or the construction worker whose lecherous eyes follow that cute blonde as she passes him. Again, to a degree unavoidable, although social custom deems it very rude.
(3)Being tracked -- This is where I have a problem. To be tracked means to be watched beyond your immediate surroundings, as you physically move from place to place over a period of time. On a direct social level, this is the equivalent of someone following you on foot on in their car.
(1) is totally unavoidable, (2) is annoying, but is best handled by social taboos. But (3) is where my right to privacy really kicks in. Unless I am an established suspect in some crime, or fit the description of someone who has just committed a crime, or am doing something utterly and obviously suspicious, then I don't expect you, the police, or anyone else to track me, watching me to see if I might at some point do something wrong.
The problem (for the media industries) with DRM is that, if you are going to allow non-profit fair use under copyright law (or for that matter format-shifitng, which is under even more attack by the corporations), it really cannot be done in such a way as to prevent misuse for for-profit piracy. Fair use is already an endangered species -- I fully expect this to eventually get into the legislature and an attempt made to severely restrict, if not eliminate, fair use.
This is part and parcel with the increasing attitude amongst politicos (and the cattle who elect them) that anything, ANYTHING that MIGHT be misused by ANYONE for criminal purposes must be severely restricted or criminalized. (Example: millions play violent video games with no ill effects; one deranged dude plays violent video games and then shoots up a university; therefore NO ONE should have the right to play violent video games.)
RIAA Sues Pregnant Mom and Unborn Child Claims Both Were Present at Times of Alleged Infringment Seeking Double Normal Settlement Fee
RIAA Files Suit Against Family Dog Says Pooch Was Alone in House All Day -- Had Ample Time and Opportunity to Download Suspect Responds "Arf! Arf! Grrr....."
RIAA Traces IP Address to Long-Vacant House Hires "Ghostbusters" to Flush Out File-Sharing Ghosts Spokesman: "Just Because Someone is a Disembodied Spirit Doesn't Let Them Off the Hook"
.....or it's just that I never had kids, and have no idea of their developmental schedule but, geez, the alleged infringment took place when she was seven? Hey, I know kids are very computer and Web savvy these days, but does the average 7 year old even have the skills to do any serious filesharing? When I was 7, I couldn't even tune in UHF on the family TV.
This is kinda OT (off the specific topic of this case, but not the general topic of **AA extortion), and maybe naive on my part, but I wonder how cost-effective these efforts really are. I mean, even while trying to do an end run around due process (remember when we used to have that in our legal system?), they still have to patrol the P2P nets to find infringing files, determine who is downloading them, trace IP addresses and try to match them up with individuals, determine which files on their computers correspond to specific copyrighted works, then strong-arm those individuals, etc. Has anyone done a study to determine how many man-hours (and at what cost) the RIAA expends per alleged infringer vs. how large of a "settlement" they offer? Is all of this really a major cash cow for them, or are they more interested in the deterrence factor -- i.e., knowing they will never catch all of the file sharers, or even a majority, but believing that for every nastygram they send out and every settlement they extort, they think that through publicity (press and personal word of mouth) they will "scare" X number of additional infringers into abandoning their activities?
...then they are just looking for a big payday from Google's deep pockets, and are using the suit to force them into some sort of deal the way some other content providers have done. Realistically, there is no way to effectively police millions of clips uploaded on a daily basis for copyright violations any more than Slashdot could police every single post on its site to see if there is anything infringing, libelous, or somehow illegal. And don't forget, YouTube is NOT the only game in town -- they may be the biggest and most popular such site, but many times I have seen a clip that was killed on YT simply turn up on a dozen other smaller video sites -- I don't see Viacom going after them. If you had a physical product that was being sold illegally, you're going to sue Wal-Mart, not Bob's General Store -- you go where the money is.
BUT, sometimes these things depend more on the attitudes and personalities of the rights holders than anything else. I can give an example of that on a much smaller sale. I have an acquaintance who had been providing short, out of context clips of some obscure TV shows that (a) are not being rebroadcast anywhere and (b) are not likely to be offered commercially in any form because there is simply not a big enough market for the material, and it would not have been profitable for them to do so. His efforts appealed to a very small, narrow group of fans. Nonetheless, he received a C&D letter, a threat of a lawsuit, and a demand for compensation from the holder of the rights to these shows. His argument that the owner was not making a dime off the material, and indeed had no intentions of doing so, and that therefore he was causing no financial harm to them, fell on deaf ears. Because, basically, you can own a copyrighted work, and lock it away in a vault never to be seen again, and still demand that no one else make use of the material. He said that the responses he got from their legal eagles were almost petulant -- we don't care that we have no intentions of making any money off this stuff -- we don't want YOU to do so either. (Even though his compensation in this case amounted to a handful of small donations that users sent to help support his site.)
So, clearly, this was a case in which attitude and a strict adherence to the letter of the law were far more important than the money involved, which was, on the rights holder's part, nothing, and on the infringer's part, pocket change. While this is hardly directly analogous to the Viacom-YouTube situation, it does demonstrate how it's not always about the money. To repeat, if Viacom was smart, they would just seek a big licensing payout from Google and be done with it. But, for all we know, Viacom's masters may be anal, set in their ways, and motivated by the notion of an affront more than anything -- this is OUR material -- how DARE they use it -- we're not going to be forced into a deal with them even if it means a big profit for us -- WE will control who uses our stuff.
(And the Feeding of the N-thousand, of course; if Jesus is going to go round making thousands of unauthorized copies of someone else's bread, he can hardly send you to hell for sharing a few tracks, now, can he?)
I'm pretty sure that the bread and fish was in the public domain.....Viacom let the copyright lapse.
This is a great idea, and "NOW" is the key word. Governments can always stop you by implementing even harsher restrictions than they recently did in Japan, banning second-hand sales of certain electronics made before 2001:
I RTFA, and I see a restriction on the sale (i.e., within the country) but I don't see the word "import" in there (*cough*EBAY*cough*). If they restrict purchasing from other countries, then just get a friend in a less draconian country to buy the thing, and ship it to you as a "gift." If they then start saying you can't even send such things into the country as a gift, and start searching parcels to confiscate old video equipment....well, by then the government has become so intrusive that most of us eccentrics (read: "danger to order") on Slashdot will probably have already been detained for some manufactured reason or other anyway, and I doubt recording "Heroes" will be high on our list of worries.....
Besides, then instead of "selling" an old used computer to someone for, say, $100, we will instead hear conversations like this (spoken very loudly and clearly for the benefit of any listening devices):
Person A: Say, can I have that old computer?
Person B: Sure, take it, it's yours. Say, by the way, I'm short of cash this week -- can you loan me $100?
Person A: Sure thing -- no rush to pay it back -- take all the time you need.....
You know, there are many folks out there (myself included) who, for example, don't need to "see every blade of grass and every drop of sweat" (as the ESPN-HD promo goes) -- I just need to follow the ball and see the damn score. Good old analog TV is good enough for me, and even a 2nd or 3rd generation VHS dub of a program I very much want to see is fine with me.
So, for those who don't need digital quality, and just want to watch the damn show, there is a simple way to make a copy for future viewing that circumvents any "flags" anyone puts on the shit [sarcasm ON](read carefully -- it's quite technical)[sarcasm OFF]:
Get a good quality flat-screen monitor -- place decent-quality camcorder (even an old Hi-8 unit will do well) on tripod -- center screen image in viewfinder -- place microphone in front of speaker -- hit "record." Of course, you'll want to experiment with the best settings of contrast, ambient lighting, etc., but you can do that on some worthless piece of video (like, say, a Bush news conference).
Will it be perfect or even great quality? Nope -- but it will be watchable. I know, cos I've already experimented with this for future reference. I wouldn't recommend this for, say, an opera broadcast, but for the vast majority of televised pap, it will do just fine. Think of it as a "21st century kinescope."
And the best thing is -- there's not a damn thing the guvmint, the broadcasters, or the equipment manufacturers can do to thwart it.
Who needs HD anyway? Most TV programming doesn't benefit -- making the picture sharper doesn't improve the plotlines or the acting. And I don't need to see every pore on Bill O'Reilley's face to hate his pretentious guts just the same.
.....those buffets that have tried to kick someone out after X number of trips through the line in spite of the "All You Can Eat" signs hanging everywhere. It's either $7.99 for "All You Can Eat" or else it's not -- if it's not, don't hang a sign saying it is. (Anyone who knows me and my appetite would understand my making a food analogy -- and NO, I am not one of those who has been thrown out of a buffet.....yet.)
I'm sorry, Mr. ISP -- "unlimited" means "unlimited" and probably would in any court of law. Either state clear limits and parameters, or live up to the word "unlimited." I'm surprised this hasn't been litigated yet -- a good class-action lawsuit might get things changed.
Really, how many people actually hog that much bandwidth anyway? Back to the buffet analogy -- such a restaurant understands that, even in today's obese society, rare is the diner who's going to make half a dozen trips through the line. By contrast, I know quite a few folks for whom an AYCE buffet isn't about quanitity -- it's about efficiency (no waiting to be served) and variety (a little of this, a little of that, no menu to stick to)-- in reality, they probably aren't even getting decent value for the amount they eat. The restaurant knows it all evens out in the end. Likewise, for every broadband subscriber whose connection is gobbling terabytes of data 24/7, there are probably hundreds more who might use their connection a couple hours a day, if that. (Hard as it may seem for the hardcore web addicts to believe, lots of folks have other things taking up their time, like school, jobs, kids, relationships, hobbies, etc.)
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this is not about cost or infrastructure, but rather a result of the **AA's and others leaning on providers, convincing them that the more bandwidth being used by someone, the greater the liklihood that they are doing something illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
You're wasting your time. A college professor who taught freshman English once said, "If someone has reached the age of 18 or older utterly convinced that the possessive form of the pronoun 'it' is formed with an apostrophe, nothing you say or do will ever be able to disabuse them of the notion."
I just checked out a couple of the new YouTube sites (Brazil and France). I tried a few searches on those plus the U.S. site, in English, Portuguese, and French, and it returned the exact same videos regardless of which site is used. Basically, it looks like the same exact damn site, only with instructions and links translated into the appropriate language. I guess that's the extent of "country-specific" content.
Just how obvious does the corruption in the White House have to be before you demand a change of government?
You don't get it, do you? The fact is, most Americans don't give a flying fuck. OK, I'm by nature a cynic, but I think there is not much hope left for us. These are just a FEW of the factors that have sold us down the garden path:
A public school system focused on cramming factoids into young heads just long enough to pass tests and keep the federal money flowing. No interest in whether children actually learn anything or develop the mental skills to look at the world in any sort of rational fashion.
An economic system increasingly making it necessary for middle-class families to focus more and more time and attention on just simply keeping solvent and paying the bills. When you're working two jobs and juggling mortgages and loans and barely keeping your head above water, occasionally grabbin a few hours of sleep in-between, you don't focus on much beyond making it to the next paycheck.
The increasing emphasis on celebrity fluff and scandal. A society in which people are more concerned about a blonde slut with no discernable talents or values going to jail than about an administration which daily guts the Constitution.
The plethora of entertainment and time-wasting devices keeping us focused on meaningless drivel instead of critical issues. As long as we have our iPods to listen to tunes, our cellphones and Blackberrys to maintain a constant stream of blather with others, and our flat-screen TVs to watch endless reality shows, we think we already have the good life. And it all keeps us well-distracted and complacent. (Baaaaaah!)
An increasingly pervasive "us vs. them" mentality. Democrat/Republican, gay/straight, red/blue. You're either with us or with the terrorists. Christians good, Muslims bad, atheists unspeakable. Everything is A or B, chocolate or vanilla, smoking or non-smoking. There's no middle ground anymore; no place for compromise, no corner for subtlety, no reason to think individually. Shades of gray no longer exist.
A news media increasingly unwilling to challenge authority and ferret out corruption. Ratings and ad sales matter, not journalistic integrity. Something loud, stimulating, and visually exciting (preferably with blood involved) will carry your channel for many hours on end. Anything subtle, the least bit pedantic, or requiring a viewer to actually think a little and learn something is a show-killer.
The growing realization that what affects the average citizen is of no interest to the powers that be. That lobbyists, special interests, ego, the thirst for power and (above all) money are what motivate our "leaders." Voting is rigged, democracy is a sham, and we're damned whether we vote or not.
And, no, none of this happened overnight -- it's been growing for a long time. But we have reached a critical point where I honestly believe there is no turning back. The things that you and I and others who hang out here care about are meaningless to the vast majority of Americans. The U.S. is in for a fall -- and it's going to be a big one. I'm at the age where I hope and pray I'll be dead before the ultimate collapse.
So far, one method tried was to post the summons on the message board itself and ask the defendants to step forward.
Wow! What a GREAT idea -- why didn't anyone think of this before? Just politely ask the bad guys to turn themselves in! Maybe they should try this with Osama! "Osama, dude, listen...we can't find you, so could you please just step forward and show yourself? If it's not too much trouble..."
Every time I think these dinosaurs have reached an unsurpassable level of outrageousness and chutzpah, they keep topping themselves. Do they not realize that every time they open their yaps, they lose more and more credibility and probably make downloaders and file sharers even more determined to persevere?
You know, you can argue about copyright law and the industry's legal tactics until you're blue in the face, but the fact is that the world has changed and these suits are going to have to eventually adapt or die. There's a whole generation of young people out there for whom file sharing, if it carries any "moral" weight at all, is looked upon as, at worst, a "sin" on a par with speeding or jaywalking. Rightly or wrongly, millions are growing up freely sharing their music as they see fit, and they scoff at being compared with hardened criminals for doing so. You're not getting this genie back in the bottle -- a "law" that is routinely and easily ignored by a significant proportion of the populace has no teeth.
So the feds are going to tell a few million residents of these states that suddenly as of such and such a date they can no longer fly? Sure, like that's going to happen. We're already at or near the tipping point on this -- if even a few more states say "no thanks" it could hopefully sabotage the whole thing. This could turn into a major federal power vs. states rights battle -- after all, licensing is a function traditionally assigned to the state level.
Realistically, though, I think sooner or later the Real ID monster will be unleashed, but after some additional delays and perhaps a grace period tacked on. At the very least, I want to see this debacle delayed until after July 2010. Cos that's the earliest that *I* can renew my license by mail for another seven and a half years (I can renew 18 months prior to expiration plus 6 full years beyond that). Then I'm set until January 2018, by which time I'll be 60 and too old to give a shit any longer.....
This is why in the digital age, policing these things will be nigh unto impossible. A sufficiently interesting or controversial video can literally circle the globe in a matter of minutes or hours, and by the time YouTube takes anything down, chances are it's already been posted on dozens of other sites anyway. And while they try to get it taken down on those sites, it continues to spread. (And there are more little video sharing sites popping up every day, not to mention getting put in people's blogs, e-mailed around, possibly put on torrent sites, etc.).
Imagine you go out into your yard, and there's a bear. You shoot the bear, but now there a dozen more bears. And every time you shoot one of them, more show up. That's kind of what trying to contain this stuff is like -- it's an exercise in futility. Information spreads too rapidly to be contained in the Internet age.
So, in this expanding universe, 3.000.000.000.000 years from now, we will seem to be in a dark void.
And that differs from now.....how? (I've been in a dark void ever since the 2000 elections...)
Here in Florida, most communities are enacting completely unconstitutional laws barring exactly where "sex offenders" can live. In one community in the Tampa Bay area, they set the distance limit to something like 2,500 feet from *any* bus stop, church, school, library, etc. There were a few small areas in the town left over, which the city promptly added school bus stops despite there being no demand for them, effectively chasing out every sex offender, regardless of actual offense.
So, what happens to the really dangerous offenders? If they stay in the city, they end up homeless and wandering, probably eventually losing access to any medication or counseling they might have been receiving, and end up cold, hungry, and very angry. And all of that is supposed to make them LESS likely to offend? If they leave the city, and more and more communities pass laws like this, it will just shunt the problem out into the rural areas (where there are still children and lots of densely wooded areas and isolated buildings and no one nearby to hear the victims' cries). No, laws like this don't solve the problem, and the people who favor them are less interested in "solving" the problem than in merely making it "go away."
In public, you have no right to privacy.
Yes, and no. There are three levels of intensity when it comes to being in the public eye.
(1)Being seen -- OK....this is the most obvious, pervasive, and unavoidable level. If I am in public, I can be seen. Until someone develops a working personal cloacking device, this is a given. If I am walking down the street, and you are walking the other way, you will see me and I will see you. If there is a camera, and I am in its field of view, I will be seen.
(2)Being watched -- This is the intermediate level in which not only are you seen, but some person or persons focuses on you for a period of time. Like the weird guy on the bus who keeps staring at you, or the construction worker whose lecherous eyes follow that cute blonde as she passes him. Again, to a degree unavoidable, although social custom deems it very rude.
(3)Being tracked -- This is where I have a problem. To be tracked means to be watched beyond your immediate surroundings, as you physically move from place to place over a period of time. On a direct social level, this is the equivalent of someone following you on foot on in their car.
(1) is totally unavoidable, (2) is annoying, but is best handled by social taboos. But (3) is where my right to privacy really kicks in. Unless I am an established suspect in some crime, or fit the description of someone who has just committed a crime, or am doing something utterly and obviously suspicious, then I don't expect you, the police, or anyone else to track me, watching me to see if I might at some point do something wrong.I was thinking more Jack Lord. Now, THERE was a head of hair!
The problem (for the media industries) with DRM is that, if you are going to allow non-profit fair use under copyright law (or for that matter format-shifitng, which is under even more attack by the corporations), it really cannot be done in such a way as to prevent misuse for for-profit piracy. Fair use is already an endangered species -- I fully expect this to eventually get into the legislature and an attempt made to severely restrict, if not eliminate, fair use.
This is part and parcel with the increasing attitude amongst politicos (and the cattle who elect them) that anything, ANYTHING that MIGHT be misused by ANYONE for criminal purposes must be severely restricted or criminalized. (Example: millions play violent video games with no ill effects; one deranged dude plays violent video games and then shoots up a university; therefore NO ONE should have the right to play violent video games.)
I'm still waiting for "Stargate: Special Victims Unit..."
One of these goofy lawsuits will basically be the straw the broke the camel's bake.
Mmmmmmm.....baked camel.....
RIAA Sues Pregnant Mom and Unborn Child
Claims Both Were Present at Times of Alleged Infringment
Seeking Double Normal Settlement Fee
RIAA Files Suit Against Family Dog
Says Pooch Was Alone in House All Day -- Had Ample Time and Opportunity to Download
Suspect Responds "Arf! Arf! Grrr....."
RIAA Traces IP Address to Long-Vacant House
Hires "Ghostbusters" to Flush Out File-Sharing Ghosts
Spokesman: "Just Because Someone is a Disembodied Spirit Doesn't Let Them Off the Hook"
.....or it's just that I never had kids, and have no idea of their developmental schedule but, geez, the alleged infringment took place when she was seven? Hey, I know kids are very computer and Web savvy these days, but does the average 7 year old even have the skills to do any serious filesharing? When I was 7, I couldn't even tune in UHF on the family TV.
Given Madden's frequent use of the interjection "BOOM!" any explosion may well infringe on the NFL's copyright.....
This is kinda OT (off the specific topic of this case, but not the general topic of **AA extortion), and maybe naive on my part, but I wonder how cost-effective these efforts really are. I mean, even while trying to do an end run around due process (remember when we used to have that in our legal system?), they still have to patrol the P2P nets to find infringing files, determine who is downloading them, trace IP addresses and try to match them up with individuals, determine which files on their computers correspond to specific copyrighted works, then strong-arm those individuals, etc. Has anyone done a study to determine how many man-hours (and at what cost) the RIAA expends per alleged infringer vs. how large of a "settlement" they offer? Is all of this really a major cash cow for them, or are they more interested in the deterrence factor -- i.e., knowing they will never catch all of the file sharers, or even a majority, but believing that for every nastygram they send out and every settlement they extort, they think that through publicity (press and personal word of mouth) they will "scare" X number of additional infringers into abandoning their activities?
...then they are just looking for a big payday from Google's deep pockets, and are using the suit to force them into some sort of deal the way some other content providers have done. Realistically, there is no way to effectively police millions of clips uploaded on a daily basis for copyright violations any more than Slashdot could police every single post on its site to see if there is anything infringing, libelous, or somehow illegal. And don't forget, YouTube is NOT the only game in town -- they may be the biggest and most popular such site, but many times I have seen a clip that was killed on YT simply turn up on a dozen other smaller video sites -- I don't see Viacom going after them. If you had a physical product that was being sold illegally, you're going to sue Wal-Mart, not Bob's General Store -- you go where the money is.
BUT, sometimes these things depend more on the attitudes and personalities of the rights holders than anything else. I can give an example of that on a much smaller sale. I have an acquaintance who had been providing short, out of context clips of some obscure TV shows that (a) are not being rebroadcast anywhere and (b) are not likely to be offered commercially in any form because there is simply not a big enough market for the material, and it would not have been profitable for them to do so. His efforts appealed to a very small, narrow group of fans. Nonetheless, he received a C&D letter, a threat of a lawsuit, and a demand for compensation from the holder of the rights to these shows. His argument that the owner was not making a dime off the material, and indeed had no intentions of doing so, and that therefore he was causing no financial harm to them, fell on deaf ears. Because, basically, you can own a copyrighted work, and lock it away in a vault never to be seen again, and still demand that no one else make use of the material. He said that the responses he got from their legal eagles were almost petulant -- we don't care that we have no intentions of making any money off this stuff -- we don't want YOU to do so either. (Even though his compensation in this case amounted to a handful of small donations that users sent to help support his site.)
So, clearly, this was a case in which attitude and a strict adherence to the letter of the law were far more important than the money involved, which was, on the rights holder's part, nothing, and on the infringer's part, pocket change. While this is hardly directly analogous to the Viacom-YouTube situation, it does demonstrate how it's not always about the money. To repeat, if Viacom was smart, they would just seek a big licensing payout from Google and be done with it. But, for all we know, Viacom's masters may be anal, set in their ways, and motivated by the notion of an affront more than anything -- this is OUR material -- how DARE they use it -- we're not going to be forced into a deal with them even if it means a big profit for us -- WE will control who uses our stuff.
(And the Feeding of the N-thousand, of course; if Jesus is going to go round making thousands of unauthorized copies of someone else's bread, he can hardly send you to hell for sharing a few tracks, now, can he?)
I'm pretty sure that the bread and fish was in the public domain.....Viacom let the copyright lapse.
Also may cause dizziness, insomnia, psoraisis, and the Creeping Crimean Crud.
The cause of the fall of the Roman Empire? File sharing.
JFK's assassins? File sharers.
Besides, file sharing isn't mentioned in the Bible, so it must be forbidden by God.
This is a great idea, and "NOW" is the key word. Governments can always stop you by implementing even harsher restrictions than they recently did in Japan, banning second-hand sales of certain electronics made before 2001:
I RTFA, and I see a restriction on the sale (i.e., within the country) but I don't see the word "import" in there (*cough*EBAY*cough*). If they restrict purchasing from other countries, then just get a friend in a less draconian country to buy the thing, and ship it to you as a "gift." If they then start saying you can't even send such things into the country as a gift, and start searching parcels to confiscate old video equipment....well, by then the government has become so intrusive that most of us eccentrics (read: "danger to order") on Slashdot will probably have already been detained for some manufactured reason or other anyway, and I doubt recording "Heroes" will be high on our list of worries.....
Besides, then instead of "selling" an old used computer to someone for, say, $100, we will instead hear conversations like this (spoken very loudly and clearly for the benefit of any listening devices):
Person A: Say, can I have that old computer?
Person B: Sure, take it, it's yours. Say, by the way, I'm short of cash this week -- can you loan me $100?
Person A: Sure thing -- no rush to pay it back -- take all the time you need.....
You know, there are many folks out there (myself included) who, for example, don't need to "see every blade of grass and every drop of sweat" (as the ESPN-HD promo goes) -- I just need to follow the ball and see the damn score. Good old analog TV is good enough for me, and even a 2nd or 3rd generation VHS dub of a program I very much want to see is fine with me.
So, for those who don't need digital quality, and just want to watch the damn show, there is a simple way to make a copy for future viewing that circumvents any "flags" anyone puts on the shit [sarcasm ON](read carefully -- it's quite technical)[sarcasm OFF]:
Get a good quality flat-screen monitor -- place decent-quality camcorder (even an old Hi-8 unit will do well) on tripod -- center screen image in viewfinder -- place microphone in front of speaker -- hit "record." Of course, you'll want to experiment with the best settings of contrast, ambient lighting, etc., but you can do that on some worthless piece of video (like, say, a Bush news conference).
Will it be perfect or even great quality? Nope -- but it will be watchable. I know, cos I've already experimented with this for future reference. I wouldn't recommend this for, say, an opera broadcast, but for the vast majority of televised pap, it will do just fine. Think of it as a "21st century kinescope."
And the best thing is -- there's not a damn thing the guvmint, the broadcasters, or the equipment manufacturers can do to thwart it.
Who needs HD anyway? Most TV programming doesn't benefit -- making the picture sharper doesn't improve the plotlines or the acting. And I don't need to see every pore on Bill O'Reilley's face to hate his pretentious guts just the same.
.....those buffets that have tried to kick someone out after X number of trips through the line in spite of the "All You Can Eat" signs hanging everywhere. It's either $7.99 for "All You Can Eat" or else it's not -- if it's not, don't hang a sign saying it is. (Anyone who knows me and my appetite would understand my making a food analogy -- and NO, I am not one of those who has been thrown out of a buffet.....yet.)
I'm sorry, Mr. ISP -- "unlimited" means "unlimited" and probably would in any court of law. Either state clear limits and parameters, or live up to the word "unlimited." I'm surprised this hasn't been litigated yet -- a good class-action lawsuit might get things changed.
Really, how many people actually hog that much bandwidth anyway? Back to the buffet analogy -- such a restaurant understands that, even in today's obese society, rare is the diner who's going to make half a dozen trips through the line. By contrast, I know quite a few folks for whom an AYCE buffet isn't about quanitity -- it's about efficiency (no waiting to be served) and variety (a little of this, a little of that, no menu to stick to)-- in reality, they probably aren't even getting decent value for the amount they eat. The restaurant knows it all evens out in the end. Likewise, for every broadband subscriber whose connection is gobbling terabytes of data 24/7, there are probably hundreds more who might use their connection a couple hours a day, if that. (Hard as it may seem for the hardcore web addicts to believe, lots of folks have other things taking up their time, like school, jobs, kids, relationships, hobbies, etc.)
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this is not about cost or infrastructure, but rather a result of the **AA's and others leaning on providers, convincing them that the more bandwidth being used by someone, the greater the liklihood that they are doing something illegal.
But you have a point, I was too precise with my ASS MATH...
You studied ass math in school? (I wanted to, but my college didn't offer it....)