Fundamentally, DRM is the only other alternative the market has to offer right now.
The problem being that to a very real degree DRM costs developers/producers/consumers money, it doesn't prevent piracy and in the case of certain products have been shown to cause hardware/software damage, loss of data and generally made life inconvenient and hard for users of legally purchased copies of a product. Pirated versions on the other hand have a tendency to have whatever DRM they tried to use removed and thus avoid whatever problems were associated with it; and proving that the DRM was totally ineffective to begin with.
there was the notorious professor who had a bunch of overhead transparencies that he'd been using for 20 years.
During the last two years of elementary my biology/science education consisted almost entirely of copying down into our notebooks from overhead transparencies; and it was pretty much the same material as what we were assigned to read in our textbooks. Our teacher (who had no relevant education) felt that writing things down by hand were the best way to ensure that we learned the material. We got very good at copying stuff down without letting what we wrote be processed by whatever faculties of reason we might have had at the time. What this approach achieved was a very low average grade, frequently people would skip class, and from some people an almost irrational dislike for the subjects covered. None of us learned very much and when I took physics classes at high school I had loads of catching up to do, people from other elementary schools were almost universally better educated than me.
At the university there were several lectures (primarily those lecturing to large groups of people on very general introductory subjects) who seemed to subscribe to the same mentality. Though this time with more fancy graphics and powerpoint instead of overhead. At least at the university the powerpoint notes were made available through the university website and we didn't have a foul smelling elderly woman standing over us making sure we copied until our fingers blistered.
Personally I feel that the time spent copying stuff down back in elementary could have been better spend watching David Attenborough documentaries.
...him repeating the lie enough times that he can get his followers to back him up and then challenge fair use entirely.
The problem with that is that "Fair Use", and similar concepts, varies between nations and regions.
While influential in some quarters, other countries often have drastically different fair use criteria to the US, and in some countries there is little or no fair use defense available. Even within Europe, rules vary greatly between countries. Some countries have the concept of fair dealing instead of fair use. However many countries have some reference to an exemption for educational use, although the extent of this exemption may vary wildly.
I've bought it all but apparently it's not actually mine if my internet connection goes down.
Yeah I had the same problem. Bought the game on steam, internet went down for a few hours and I got a message I wasn't allowed to load my game since I had activated DLC on it that required I log into EA. Which is pretty crappy; so I wrote and complained about it (and hope others do so to).
I don't see why Co-op wouldn't work, it worked fine in Baldur's gate. Where, if I recall correctly, one was the "main character" and the other(s) basically played sidekicks.
By way of anal extraction, I arrive at the conclusion that 90% of the eyeball wall time spent looking at flash is spent looking at videos.
(89% of those 90% being youtube + google video, another 0.5% being redtube).
Probably underestimating the share of videos being from various pornsites, but in general I think you might be correct.
Anyway, we have to realize that much of our "success" has been pure luck, in the form of the above mentioned oil. I for one am not so sure how well our social democracy will fare once the oil runs out. It's a fantastic place to live while it lasts, but when it ends there's no substantial source of income to replace it with.
The presence of oil and gas and the benefit to the Norwegian economy could be said to be luck; how that profit was managed was not however. Though I do agree that the oil have made our nation somewhat more complacent than we should.
However at this point oil export is about half the total exports of the country which is fairly substantial; but we are by no means without other "sources of income". Though I shall agree that some of our other industries have been neglected as our focus was on oil and gas. There are room for expansion and I do not fear our nations economical future as we have access to other resources and a large potential for growth in several sectors. And our most important asset is a very high average educational level (though it should be driven ever higher).
Could be mentioned that Norwegian Labour Party was founded in 1887 (before there was a USSR) and that it split in 1921 as the majority of the party did not want to join the Communist International.
On the subject of roads it can be added that a lot of different regions initiate road building projects that are abandoned by the next local administration before they are finished. Resulting in a not insignificant amount of roads leading to absolutely nowhere; or to a mountain wall where a tunnel was planned but never started, or finished.
Forgot to add that Norway is today a so called mixed economical system as we use democratic reforms and reason to mix socialistic and capitalistic ideas to achieve balance.
From the Huffingtonpost article "Norway's consistently high rating for desirable living standards, is, in large part, the result of the discovery of offshore oil and gas deposits in the late 1960s."
What isn't mentioned is that when oil and gas were discovered the Norwegian government decided to nationalize those resources (meaning state owned and operated) as the profit from such industry should benefit all the citizens of Norway. They then proceeded to borrow tons of money from various other nations with security in future revenue and spent that money (and the mentioned future revenue; now past and present revenue) to invest heavily in infrastructure (schools, hospitals, roads and etc). Also they offered public scholarships and decent student loans to everyone with the grades to get into a University; as a highly educated population was, and is, seen as beneficial to Norwegian society.
Norway, as the other nations of Scandinavia (to a varying degree); are Social democracies (as in Socialist Democracies); which is held, at least by the center->left side of politics (and to be fair some on the right in Norway are to the left of those on the left in nations like the US) as the reason for our high standard of living up to this point.
In a sudden outbreak of uncommon sense yesterday..
I shall be a bit pedantic that this isn't the first time the Norwegian courts actually use reason and rational assessment before issuing a verdict.
A man was taken to court for uploading a pirated version of the Norwegian movie "Falne Engler" and was let go with a warning. This and the fact that Kripos (special investigation unit) refused to "waste resources" investigating illegal file sharing (though also because of the current Norwegian law makes it difficult to prosecute anyone for file sharing); has members of the Norwegian movie/music/whatever lobby fuming. Rudimentary translated quote from Ketil Haukaas, assistant chief of Kripos We have dedicated investigators in some areas, like war crimes and internet related abuse of children. File sharing doesn't not warrant that kind of priority
Vi har dedikerte etterforskere på noen områder, som krigsforbrytelser og internettrelaterte overgrep mot barn. Problemområdet fildeling tilsier ikke en slik prioritet at det er en fornuftig vei å gå
Up to the point that article was written (in 2008) 182 reports of illegal file sharing had been delivered by IFPI; four were investigated and the only case "solved" was the one I mentioned earlier where the perpetrator was let go with a warning.
So this "out break of common sense" wasn't exactly sudden.
The travesty here isn't that someone is writing sequels to the original series. The travesty is that his heirs still have a monopoly on the series, 57 years later.
Anyone that have a problem with new books being written should consider that 1) They don't have to read them if they don't want to. 2) This happens all the time. How many works involving Dracula have you seen that is not the original novel? How many Sherlock Holmes adaptations? Many modern interpretations or derivations of Shakespeare?
I fully support having rights to work you have created, but after you die, maybe as much as a decade or so later, those rights should pass into the public domain. This is in relations to literary works and characters. Movies are a bit different as there are a lot more than one, or two, writers involved. But I do not believe that corporate entities, of any kind, should be allowed to hold rights and ownership for perpetuity. There is a difference between an individual profiting from their labour, and the ruthless exploitation and greed displayed by companies that try to further alter copyrights legislation to benefit their own bottom line.
...and become enamored with particular artists, but the same doesn't really happen for particular writers.
I would like you to reconsider that statement after I have listed the following names: Rowling, Meyer, Clancy, King. These are four random modern day authors each which a part of their audience being what I would call "enamoured" with their writing.
I fail to see why a "maybe out of context" "maybe advertising" clip from a hitherto unreleased game is such an outrage. This sort of an reaction to what is little more than unverified speculation seems excessive.
I have a 12mb line and always seem to get a nice 1.2mb/s download rate from Steam. Also I find using Steam for the majority of my computer game purchases very handy, I can buy it from home, set it to install (and it does relatively quickly with my line), have it automatically update to the latest patch, and during those rare moments when I lose my DSL connection (happened twice last year, both lasting about two days) I can set it in offline mode and continue enjoying my games. Visiting my parents I installed steam, logged on my account, installed one of my smaller games (their computer is getting on in years), played it until I left and un-installed. Everything worked without no fuss. Considering that, for me, a computer game only have a few years (at best) expiration date this system suits me fine; and it is so convenient that I now buy more games than I did the years before I started using steam.
Seems to me that what people seem to forget is that when it comes down to it Video Games are consumer goods. Sure you might want to play through a game several times, or pick it up and go through it again a few years down the line, but for many, and for most games, you play it until you have finished it or is bored with it; and then you move on to another newer brighter shinier game. That's not saying that some games don't stick around for years, particular those with strong multiplayer elements; but how many frequently play a single player game six-seven-eight years old? And how many of the games enjoyed now will still be worth looking at five years down the line?
Ten years ago I still bought games through one of the local stores where I lived, and rarely read reviews beforehand, I had game boxes stacked to the roof; and most of their names or content I can not recall even on a good day.
Personally I believe that digital distribution will continue to grown. I have a 12mb internet line that is very affordable and have no qualms about buying games through steam or other such services (though predominantly I use steam). The games I have bought is in a nice list that makes me able to reinstall at a whim. Nothing being able to resell my games isn't really an issue for me since I didn't use to do that before anyway; however I can see how those that do that regularly could see this change in distribution method as a bad thing. Though I believe that for good or bad it is a change that is inevitable, if nothing else it will reduce resource consumption to a certain degree by eliminating a part of the packaging and shipping associated with traditional distribution.
These events have lead to many shops relying on the sale of entertainment distribution in various forms to close their doors, and will probably continue to do so. While this is no doubt a tragedy for those either making a living in that sector, or enjoy frequenting such establishments, it is inevitable fallout from our technological advance. It is not the first, nor the last I assume, time such a thing has happened.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like my webcam to read my books and magazines to me at home.
Make it also wash the dishes and vacuum the house and you got yourself a deal!
Fundamentally, DRM is the only other alternative the market has to offer right now.
The problem being that to a very real degree DRM costs developers/producers/consumers money, it doesn't prevent piracy and in the case of certain products have been shown to cause hardware/software damage, loss of data and generally made life inconvenient and hard for users of legally purchased copies of a product. Pirated versions on the other hand have a tendency to have whatever DRM they tried to use removed and thus avoid whatever problems were associated with it; and proving that the DRM was totally ineffective to begin with.
there was the notorious professor who had a bunch of overhead transparencies that he'd been using for 20 years.
During the last two years of elementary my biology/science education consisted almost entirely of copying down into our notebooks from overhead transparencies; and it was pretty much the same material as what we were assigned to read in our textbooks. Our teacher (who had no relevant education) felt that writing things down by hand were the best way to ensure that we learned the material. We got very good at copying stuff down without letting what we wrote be processed by whatever faculties of reason we might have had at the time. What this approach achieved was a very low average grade, frequently people would skip class, and from some people an almost irrational dislike for the subjects covered. None of us learned very much and when I took physics classes at high school I had loads of catching up to do, people from other elementary schools were almost universally better educated than me.
At the university there were several lectures (primarily those lecturing to large groups of people on very general introductory subjects) who seemed to subscribe to the same mentality. Though this time with more fancy graphics and powerpoint instead of overhead. At least at the university the powerpoint notes were made available through the university website and we didn't have a foul smelling elderly woman standing over us making sure we copied until our fingers blistered.
Personally I feel that the time spent copying stuff down back in elementary could have been better spend watching David Attenborough documentaries.
For some reason I had an image of certain despots through history unrelentingly insisting their perception is absolute truth flash through my mind.
...him repeating the lie enough times that he can get his followers to back him up and then challenge fair use entirely.
The problem with that is that "Fair Use", and similar concepts, varies between nations and regions.
While influential in some quarters, other countries often have drastically different fair use criteria to the US, and in some countries there is little or no fair use defense available. Even within Europe, rules vary greatly between countries. Some countries have the concept of fair dealing instead of fair use. However many countries have some reference to an exemption for educational use, although the extent of this exemption may vary wildly.
Wikipedia
Oh there is no rush. We'll just have to wait until 2074 when it becomes public domain ;)
Why didn't they just call the classes Plate, Cloth, and Leather?
Among other things because what armor you can wear is limited by strength (and how much fatigue you are willing to accept) rather than class.
I've bought it all but apparently it's not actually mine if my internet connection goes down.
Yeah I had the same problem. Bought the game on steam, internet went down for a few hours and I got a message I wasn't allowed to load my game since I had activated DLC on it that required I log into EA. Which is pretty crappy; so I wrote and complained about it (and hope others do so to).
I don't see why Co-op wouldn't work, it worked fine in Baldur's gate. Where, if I recall correctly, one was the "main character" and the other(s) basically played sidekicks.
Oh and slashdot's sellout here is disappointing.
I don't see how "slashdot" are selling out as the dude posting the review is writing down his personal opinion.
Personally I don't mind DLC, if the game is good I'll happily shell out a few bucks for a bit more gameplay and/or shinies.
Hopefully next year Black Isle or whatever they're called these days will get hold of this engine and make an absolutely amazing game.
I for one would not object to a remake of Planescape: Torment.
By way of anal extraction, I arrive at the conclusion that 90% of the eyeball wall time spent looking at flash is spent looking at videos. (89% of those 90% being youtube + google video, another 0.5% being redtube).
Probably underestimating the share of videos being from various pornsites, but in general I think you might be correct.
Anyway, we have to realize that much of our "success" has been pure luck, in the form of the above mentioned oil. I for one am not so sure how well our social democracy will fare once the oil runs out. It's a fantastic place to live while it lasts, but when it ends there's no substantial source of income to replace it with.
The presence of oil and gas and the benefit to the Norwegian economy could be said to be luck; how that profit was managed was not however. Though I do agree that the oil have made our nation somewhat more complacent than we should.
However at this point oil export is about half the total exports of the country which is fairly substantial; but we are by no means without other "sources of income". Though I shall agree that some of our other industries have been neglected as our focus was on oil and gas. There are room for expansion and I do not fear our nations economical future as we have access to other resources and a large potential for growth in several sectors. And our most important asset is a very high average educational level (though it should be driven ever higher).
Could be mentioned that Norwegian Labour Party was founded in 1887 (before there was a USSR) and that it split in 1921 as the majority of the party did not want to join the Communist International.
On the subject of roads it can be added that a lot of different regions initiate road building projects that are abandoned by the next local administration before they are finished. Resulting in a not insignificant amount of roads leading to absolutely nowhere; or to a mountain wall where a tunnel was planned but never started, or finished.
Forgot to add that Norway is today a so called mixed economical system as we use democratic reforms and reason to mix socialistic and capitalistic ideas to achieve balance.
From the Huffingtonpost article "Norway's consistently high rating for desirable living standards, is, in large part, the result of the discovery of offshore oil and gas deposits in the late 1960s."
What isn't mentioned is that when oil and gas were discovered the Norwegian government decided to nationalize those resources (meaning state owned and operated) as the profit from such industry should benefit all the citizens of Norway. They then proceeded to borrow tons of money from various other nations with security in future revenue and spent that money (and the mentioned future revenue; now past and present revenue) to invest heavily in infrastructure (schools, hospitals, roads and etc). Also they offered public scholarships and decent student loans to everyone with the grades to get into a University; as a highly educated population was, and is, seen as beneficial to Norwegian society.
Norway, as the other nations of Scandinavia (to a varying degree); are Social democracies (as in Socialist Democracies); which is held, at least by the center->left side of politics (and to be fair some on the right in Norway are to the left of those on the left in nations like the US) as the reason for our high standard of living up to this point.
In a sudden outbreak of uncommon sense yesterday..
I shall be a bit pedantic that this isn't the first time the Norwegian courts actually use reason and rational assessment before issuing a verdict.
A man was taken to court for uploading a pirated version of the Norwegian movie "Falne Engler" and was let go with a warning. This and the fact that Kripos (special investigation unit) refused to "waste resources" investigating illegal file sharing (though also because of the current Norwegian law makes it difficult to prosecute anyone for file sharing); has members of the Norwegian movie/music/whatever lobby fuming.
Rudimentary translated quote from Ketil Haukaas, assistant chief of Kripos
We have dedicated investigators in some areas, like war crimes and internet related abuse of children. File sharing doesn't not warrant that kind of priority
Vi har dedikerte etterforskere på noen områder, som krigsforbrytelser og internettrelaterte overgrep mot barn. Problemområdet fildeling tilsier ikke en slik prioritet at det er en fornuftig vei å gå
Up to the point that article was written (in 2008) 182 reports of illegal file sharing had been delivered by IFPI; four were investigated and the only case "solved" was the one I mentioned earlier where the perpetrator was let go with a warning.
So this "out break of common sense" wasn't exactly sudden.
Until we see an intergalactic threat, I doubt we'll see the kind of R&D needed to really accomplish this.
Unfortunately I reckon that if we see "an intergalactic threat" starting the R&D would be a bit on the late side.
The travesty here isn't that someone is writing sequels to the original series. The travesty is that his heirs still have a monopoly on the series, 57 years later.
Anyone that have a problem with new books being written should consider that 1) They don't have to read them if they don't want to. 2) This happens all the time. How many works involving Dracula have you seen that is not the original novel? How many Sherlock Holmes adaptations? Many modern interpretations or derivations of Shakespeare?
I fully support having rights to work you have created, but after you die, maybe as much as a decade or so later, those rights should pass into the public domain. This is in relations to literary works and characters. Movies are a bit different as there are a lot more than one, or two, writers involved. But I do not believe that corporate entities, of any kind, should be allowed to hold rights and ownership for perpetuity. There is a difference between an individual profiting from their labour, and the ruthless exploitation and greed displayed by companies that try to further alter copyrights legislation to benefit their own bottom line.
...and become enamored with particular artists, but the same doesn't really happen for particular writers.
I would like you to reconsider that statement after I have listed the following names: Rowling, Meyer, Clancy, King. These are four random modern day authors each which a part of their audience being what I would call "enamoured" with their writing.
I fail to see why a "maybe out of context" "maybe advertising" clip from a hitherto unreleased game is such an outrage. This sort of an reaction to what is little more than unverified speculation seems excessive.
I have a 12mb line and always seem to get a nice 1.2mb/s download rate from Steam. Also I find using Steam for the majority of my computer game purchases very handy, I can buy it from home, set it to install (and it does relatively quickly with my line), have it automatically update to the latest patch, and during those rare moments when I lose my DSL connection (happened twice last year, both lasting about two days) I can set it in offline mode and continue enjoying my games. Visiting my parents I installed steam, logged on my account, installed one of my smaller games (their computer is getting on in years), played it until I left and un-installed. Everything worked without no fuss. Considering that, for me, a computer game only have a few years (at best) expiration date this system suits me fine; and it is so convenient that I now buy more games than I did the years before I started using steam.
Seems to me that what people seem to forget is that when it comes down to it Video Games are consumer goods. Sure you might want to play through a game several times, or pick it up and go through it again a few years down the line, but for many, and for most games, you play it until you have finished it or is bored with it; and then you move on to another newer brighter shinier game. That's not saying that some games don't stick around for years, particular those with strong multiplayer elements; but how many frequently play a single player game six-seven-eight years old? And how many of the games enjoyed now will still be worth looking at five years down the line?
Ten years ago I still bought games through one of the local stores where I lived, and rarely read reviews beforehand, I had game boxes stacked to the roof; and most of their names or content I can not recall even on a good day.
Personally I believe that digital distribution will continue to grown. I have a 12mb internet line that is very affordable and have no qualms about buying games through steam or other such services (though predominantly I use steam). The games I have bought is in a nice list that makes me able to reinstall at a whim. Nothing being able to resell my games isn't really an issue for me since I didn't use to do that before anyway; however I can see how those that do that regularly could see this change in distribution method as a bad thing. Though I believe that for good or bad it is a change that is inevitable, if nothing else it will reduce resource consumption to a certain degree by eliminating a part of the packaging and shipping associated with traditional distribution.
These events have lead to many shops relying on the sale of entertainment distribution in various forms to close their doors, and will probably continue to do so. While this is no doubt a tragedy for those either making a living in that sector, or enjoy frequenting such establishments, it is inevitable fallout from our technological advance. It is not the first, nor the last I assume, time such a thing has happened.