> the used game resale options are in the hands of the game developers
Which is funny because were I live it's in the hand of the law. The law that says "I can resell my own games."
Actually, the law doesn't say that.
The law says you have a right to resell the physical media. Which you still have.
The law does *not* say you have the right to resell the experience of using the media, which is why its perfectly legal to DRM e-books, games, software, and why you can't legally resell your MP3s.
Well, that all depends on what country you're in now doesn't it? Since the entire world doesn't live under one set of laws your assertions are invalid.
There are alternatives to Adobe products. Perhaps not as good currently, but I'm willing to bet the slack will be picked up quickly if Adobe moves strictly to the cloud.
You mean like we've been hearing how Gimp will overtake Photoshop for more than a decade now? That long I'm not willing to wait. It's not an "if" in this case. Adobe *IS* moving it's applications to the cloud. That's not the problem. It's what they're charging that's got the community in an uproar.
Tell that to Adobe when your application resides in their cloud and you only have credentials to log into it, nothing to download, and its tied to your IP address. Try selling that.
Ummm, you still download and install the application locally, it just needs to phone home once a month or every 99 days for users to stay active. Don't know where the digital download resale laws stand. Me thinks you are still screwed in that respect as you can only subscribe for up to a year at a time of use billed monthly. Trust me, I work in education and we're very informed on this new change and don't like it one bit! Costs our students $360 a year instead of that for a perpetual license to the entire suite. Oh, and they upgrade about every two years, sometimes sooner if you're lucky. Certainly not often enough to justify the additional cost.
Make love, not war. Where are the sex bots that will roam around and make you orgasm unsupervised? Let's get some other automaton out of control kthxbie.
I'd prefer to see wars were always general against general, preferably armed with hand axes and stone tipped spears.
How about just the assholes that started the mess to begin with duke it out mano-i-mano and leave the rest of us out of it. No, I don't want to watch, either.
It's worth noting that the premise for almost every Robot story Asimov wrote was "something unacceptable despite the robot following the Three Laws". That's really what I liked about those stories: by extension to human moral codes, they're exploring how you can't prevent problems/evil with a simple set of rules.
The Three Laws are completely logical and boolean.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
They govern and define physical boundaries with regard to specific behavior. There's a lot of physical behavior and metaphysics that aren't covered. The Three Laws don't address morality at all. Never is good, bad, or evil ever mentioned. It's just a set directives ("must") to the effect of, "Don't hurt humans under any circumstances defined here". There are no consequences to be weighed in a value judgement when making a choice, so morality is really absent. Without a defined moral compass how can robots not commit "evil" behavior?
Maybe, possibly, this whole mess could finally get the Supreme Court to clarify what "first sale" rights are, and to do away with this whole bullshit of "we didn't sell you software, we just sold you a LICENSE TO USE our software".
Yes, but they may have patented said software that they just declared nothing but a license in their terms of use. How does that work? I don't mean specifically in this case per se, but I would imagine there are patented software components in the Xbox console's software. How do they declare the software not a thing but a license in the terms of use but have a software patent for code used in the software? Doesn't this circular logic invalidate software patents by terms of use?
A big downside is that we're likely going to see the end of cheap, used games.
Ummm, no. The big downside here is the death of the First Sale Doctrine in the United States and the ridiculous court proceedings that will ensue to try to defend it and revise copyright law that has gone completely off the rails from its original intent.
Second, to say that "[n]othing you ever do will have any effect whatever [sic] in geological time," is a bit short sighted. Since humans have only been around 250,000 years or so (or 6,000 depending on your level of crazy) and recorded history a lot less who's to say if Einstein's theories and the human race hold up to geological time scales. Anything ever done not having an impact on humanity that might last for millions of years seems like a low expectation for a person of faith.
Third, why does there have to be a purpose to life? Why can't life just be, if you wanna get all philosophical?
Fourth, me thinks the study found what it wanted to find, and I would like to see more studies done.
Finally, I am not a materialist. Now, I can't say that about my whole life, but what boy doesn't want to own the universe? I grew up and expanded my frame of reference while enriching my intellect and soul. See, I don't believe in a flying spaghetti monster or whatever floating high above me, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in a soul. Problem with the God concept is that it is relative to a flat Earth mentality; God is always UP! above us. Which effing way is "up" when you know you're on a rotating, spheroidal planet, orbiting a star, spinning around a galaxy, surrounded by other galaxies all careening through space-time on the waves of the Big Bang? But, I digress. I am not buddhist because I do have desires, but I am certainly not materialistic enough to want or need your pity. Donald Trump needs it *WAY* more than I do. Have you seen his hair lately? OMG!
But to have a sense of purpose in a meaningless world, it needs to be packaged properly. Religion is just a very effective and time-tested vessel for purpose.
Umm, try enslavement, not purpose. Religion is a distraction from reality used to get power over people. TFA on the other hand is talking about belief in God, which does not necessarily include organized religious affiliation, i.e., religion. Belief in God gives people a happy, fuzzy feeling that there's a giant spaghetti monster (or whatever you believe) hovering high above them their whole life watching out for them and making sure good things and not bad happen to them. That's crazy!
The no resale limitation appears to be on the developer version that is out now. If they did that with the commercial one, they would have a giant shitstorm on their hands, both PR and legal.
Umm, if this was some simple one-off run of devices why did they sell them at all? Why not "loan" them to people they feel like loaning them to and hit them with a no resale clause? Hell, they could have auctioned the suckers off among the 1% and made a ton and hit them with the no resale terms! If this isn't them testing the waters for the same (or at least somewhat more restrictive than Android-proper) terms for the commercial release I would be surprised.
P.S. This thread on/. you don't think would qualify as the beginnings of a PR shitstorm? Don't think Google eyes aren't in here right now...recording on their Glass! [that recording thing was only partially serious]
Honestly, if it weren't for downloading, I don't think I would have even heard of the show.
Wow, really?!?! Everyone I know was talking about the show shortly before the first season ended. I don't have cable or satellite so I had no clue at the time, but because of all the talk my friends shared about the show I started watching via iTunes, etc. The number of torrent downloads was not the reason I started watching the show. So yeah, word of mouth, literally is what got me watching the show.
If they ever did unleash HBO GO to anyone that wanted to pay for it I might subscribe that way.
I believe they mulled this over recently (Google "hbo go non subscribers") and made a bunch of the providers angry so they backed off doing it. iTunes seems to be the best route around having to get cable/satellite to watch HBO content. The delay is the killer.
Wow, that hypothetical argument was really out there. The issue that Hollywood has with copyright infringement deals with distribution of content and the revenue that consumer demand for that content generates. Is it immoral to take a picture of a car and replicate it for your own personal use? No. Mostly because cars aren't copyrightable to begin with (Google the difference between copyright and patent). But, if you take a picture of a work of art and replicate 10,000 of them and sell them (or even give them away) then you're breaking the law if that work of art wasn't yours to begin with. I can produce my own episodes of Game of Thrones if I so desire, I just can't distribute/sell them or show them in public. Copyright doesn't always have to deal with duplication per se, it has to deal with distribution of a copyrighted work/idea/format that wasn't yours to begin with. I can make as many copies of things as I want so long as they are for my personal use and I'm not selling them or showing them off in public as my own original work.
It's not even theft, it's a copyright violation, a civil offense.
Uhh, in the U.S. copyright infringement is a criminal offense. Don't you actually read that FBI warning that comes up before EVERY bit of content on DVDs? Also, there is no such thing as a victimless crime. Now, there are also civil charges for copyright infringement that can be applied, but it's a crime and there are people that suffer financial loss because of it. Those people usually don't include Hollywood as their profits keep going up despite copyright infringement. But, small production companies and artists trying to get their foot in the door do suffer real consequences of copyright infringement and do suffer real "hurt" because of it. I'm not getting on a high horse here as I have violated a few laws in my time, but I am not ignorant of what I am doing nor the real consequences thereof.
Yes, I too noticed that the "studies" seemed to be poorly premised or nonexistent. If we're going to be relying on anecdotal evidence as "studies" then I can certainly counter them with same. Plenty of good data already in the comments, but I find that when I take a break with my smartphone or tablet as a distraction, it certainly doesn't stifle my creativity. In fact, I find that most of the time I'm distracted I am actually rolling one or two ideas around in my head, or I will trigger or discover something while being distracted. I guess it might depend on your age, education, up bringing, and a host of other factors as to why your creativity might be stifled, but I would say monotony is a bigger enemy of creativity than distraction by smartphone or tablet, or any other device.
This is my position, and I have recorded a lot of 24/96 audio and know how good it sounds compared to other digital versions. I am not a fan of the RIAA or the mainstream music business machine, but I do support artists' rights.
If I am actually buying a license to listen to an audio track and not the track itself, the way the RIAA wants it, then I want the highest possible quality digital version of that track. I feel I am entitled to access to it because my money is not only going to pay for the license to the track it pays for that original recording. If the original was analog, then a different license would need to be obtained for a physical copy of that. One thing I do not have a disagreement with is the separation of digital and analog rights. I do believe (from some experience) that high-end studio analog equipment is better than even the current high-end digital systems (24/192).
Basically, if I can buy an AIFF of a file I will! If I could get a 24/96 or better version of a song I would feel better about plunking the money I now do for digital music. It requires more effort to make the crappier versions anyway, so why? Let the masses do it themselves to put on their music players. Plus huge hard drives will drop in price! Win-win really. Hehe
Slashdot Mirror
> the used game resale options are in the hands of the game developers
Which is funny because were I live it's in the hand of the law. The law that says "I can resell my own games."
Actually, the law doesn't say that.
The law says you have a right to resell the physical media. Which you still have.
The law does *not* say you have the right to resell the experience of using the media, which is why its perfectly legal to DRM e-books, games, software, and why you can't legally resell your MP3s.
Well, that all depends on what country you're in now doesn't it? Since the entire world doesn't live under one set of laws your assertions are invalid.
There are alternatives to Adobe products. Perhaps not as good currently, but I'm willing to bet the slack will be picked up quickly if Adobe moves strictly to the cloud.
You mean like we've been hearing how Gimp will overtake Photoshop for more than a decade now? That long I'm not willing to wait. It's not an "if" in this case. Adobe *IS* moving it's applications to the cloud. That's not the problem. It's what they're charging that's got the community in an uproar.
Tell that to Adobe when your application resides in their cloud and you only have credentials to log into it, nothing to download, and its tied to your IP address. Try selling that.
Ummm, you still download and install the application locally, it just needs to phone home once a month or every 99 days for users to stay active. Don't know where the digital download resale laws stand. Me thinks you are still screwed in that respect as you can only subscribe for up to a year at a time of use billed monthly. Trust me, I work in education and we're very informed on this new change and don't like it one bit! Costs our students $360 a year instead of that for a perpetual license to the entire suite. Oh, and they upgrade about every two years, sometimes sooner if you're lucky. Certainly not often enough to justify the additional cost.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708414/
Make love, not war. Where are the sex bots that will roam around and make you orgasm unsupervised? Let's get some other automaton out of control kthxbie.
And now, the punch line.
.
Wait for it...
.
If you build it, they will...
...still get walked in on by Mom.
I'd prefer to see wars were always general against general, preferably armed with hand axes and stone tipped spears.
How about just the assholes that started the mess to begin with duke it out mano-i-mano and leave the rest of us out of it. No, I don't want to watch, either.
It's worth noting that the premise for almost every Robot story Asimov wrote was "something unacceptable despite the robot following the Three Laws". That's really what I liked about those stories: by extension to human moral codes, they're exploring how you can't prevent problems/evil with a simple set of rules.
The Three Laws are completely logical and boolean.
They govern and define physical boundaries with regard to specific behavior. There's a lot of physical behavior and metaphysics that aren't covered. The Three Laws don't address morality at all. Never is good, bad, or evil ever mentioned. It's just a set directives ("must") to the effect of, "Don't hurt humans under any circumstances defined here". There are no consequences to be weighed in a value judgement when making a choice, so morality is really absent. Without a defined moral compass how can robots not commit "evil" behavior?
Maybe, possibly, this whole mess could finally get the Supreme Court to clarify what "first sale" rights are, and to do away with this whole bullshit of "we didn't sell you software, we just sold you a LICENSE TO USE our software".
Yes, but they may have patented said software that they just declared nothing but a license in their terms of use. How does that work? I don't mean specifically in this case per se, but I would imagine there are patented software components in the Xbox console's software. How do they declare the software not a thing but a license in the terms of use but have a software patent for code used in the software? Doesn't this circular logic invalidate software patents by terms of use?
A big downside is that we're likely going to see the end of cheap, used games.
Ummm, no. The big downside here is the death of the First Sale Doctrine in the United States and the ridiculous court proceedings that will ensue to try to defend it and revise copyright law that has gone completely off the rails from its original intent.
First of all, the Matrix? Seriously? Bahahahahaha
Second, to say that "[n]othing you ever do will have any effect whatever [sic] in geological time," is a bit short sighted. Since humans have only been around 250,000 years or so (or 6,000 depending on your level of crazy) and recorded history a lot less who's to say if Einstein's theories and the human race hold up to geological time scales. Anything ever done not having an impact on humanity that might last for millions of years seems like a low expectation for a person of faith.
Third, why does there have to be a purpose to life? Why can't life just be, if you wanna get all philosophical?
Fourth, me thinks the study found what it wanted to find, and I would like to see more studies done.
Finally, I am not a materialist. Now, I can't say that about my whole life, but what boy doesn't want to own the universe? I grew up and expanded my frame of reference while enriching my intellect and soul. See, I don't believe in a flying spaghetti monster or whatever floating high above me, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in a soul. Problem with the God concept is that it is relative to a flat Earth mentality; God is always UP! above us. Which effing way is "up" when you know you're on a rotating, spheroidal planet, orbiting a star, spinning around a galaxy, surrounded by other galaxies all careening through space-time on the waves of the Big Bang? But, I digress. I am not buddhist because I do have desires, but I am certainly not materialistic enough to want or need your pity. Donald Trump needs it *WAY* more than I do. Have you seen his hair lately? OMG!
Belief In God Correlates With Better Mental Health Treatment Outcomes
so does marajuana use, so therefore belief in god must correlate with marajuana use :P
Actually, the opposite effect on mental health is probably more likely for marijuana.
Spoken like a true AC. [golf claps]
But to have a sense of purpose in a meaningless world, it needs to be packaged properly. Religion is just a very effective and time-tested vessel for purpose.
Umm, try enslavement, not purpose. Religion is a distraction from reality used to get power over people. TFA on the other hand is talking about belief in God, which does not necessarily include organized religious affiliation, i.e., religion. Belief in God gives people a happy, fuzzy feeling that there's a giant spaghetti monster (or whatever you believe) hovering high above them their whole life watching out for them and making sure good things and not bad happen to them. That's crazy!
I guess it would depend on whether or not you see belief in God as an act of lunacy.
The no resale limitation appears to be on the developer version that is out now. If they did that with the commercial one, they would have a giant shitstorm on their hands, both PR and legal.
Umm, if this was some simple one-off run of devices why did they sell them at all? Why not "loan" them to people they feel like loaning them to and hit them with a no resale clause? Hell, they could have auctioned the suckers off among the 1% and made a ton and hit them with the no resale terms! If this isn't them testing the waters for the same (or at least somewhat more restrictive than Android-proper) terms for the commercial release I would be surprised.
P.S. This thread on /. you don't think would qualify as the beginnings of a PR shitstorm? Don't think Google eyes aren't in here right now...recording on their Glass! [that recording thing was only partially serious]
Pay particular attention to the 'Total cash' line item. Apple could build their own fab anywhere they wanted with the amount of cash they have. Why is this an issue? Oh yeah, it's not. More FUD on a slow news day.
Is it unlawful to upload a file?
It is if that file is a copyrighted work of someone else and that upload location is not inside your home network.
Is it unlawful to back up your DVD to a file?
Hell yes it is! Breaking the DVD crypto is a federal crime. Google that shit yourself.
Is it unlawful to take that backup file and place it on the Internet?
Yes it is. See the answer to the previous question for why.
Just because you can get away with something doesn't make it legal.
That's too risky for me. I always make a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
Maybe you should stop letting Bugs and Daffy navigate!
Honestly, if it weren't for downloading, I don't think I would have even heard of the show.
Wow, really?!?! Everyone I know was talking about the show shortly before the first season ended. I don't have cable or satellite so I had no clue at the time, but because of all the talk my friends shared about the show I started watching via iTunes, etc. The number of torrent downloads was not the reason I started watching the show. So yeah, word of mouth, literally is what got me watching the show.
If they ever did unleash HBO GO to anyone that wanted to pay for it I might subscribe that way.
I believe they mulled this over recently (Google "hbo go non subscribers") and made a bunch of the providers angry so they backed off doing it. iTunes seems to be the best route around having to get cable/satellite to watch HBO content. The delay is the killer.
Wow, that hypothetical argument was really out there. The issue that Hollywood has with copyright infringement deals with distribution of content and the revenue that consumer demand for that content generates. Is it immoral to take a picture of a car and replicate it for your own personal use? No. Mostly because cars aren't copyrightable to begin with (Google the difference between copyright and patent). But, if you take a picture of a work of art and replicate 10,000 of them and sell them (or even give them away) then you're breaking the law if that work of art wasn't yours to begin with. I can produce my own episodes of Game of Thrones if I so desire, I just can't distribute/sell them or show them in public. Copyright doesn't always have to deal with duplication per se, it has to deal with distribution of a copyrighted work/idea/format that wasn't yours to begin with. I can make as many copies of things as I want so long as they are for my personal use and I'm not selling them or showing them off in public as my own original work.
It's not even theft, it's a copyright violation, a civil offense.
Uhh, in the U.S. copyright infringement is a criminal offense. Don't you actually read that FBI warning that comes up before EVERY bit of content on DVDs? Also, there is no such thing as a victimless crime. Now, there are also civil charges for copyright infringement that can be applied, but it's a crime and there are people that suffer financial loss because of it. Those people usually don't include Hollywood as their profits keep going up despite copyright infringement. But, small production companies and artists trying to get their foot in the door do suffer real consequences of copyright infringement and do suffer real "hurt" because of it. I'm not getting on a high horse here as I have violated a few laws in my time, but I am not ignorant of what I am doing nor the real consequences thereof.
Yes, I too noticed that the "studies" seemed to be poorly premised or nonexistent. If we're going to be relying on anecdotal evidence as "studies" then I can certainly counter them with same. Plenty of good data already in the comments, but I find that when I take a break with my smartphone or tablet as a distraction, it certainly doesn't stifle my creativity. In fact, I find that most of the time I'm distracted I am actually rolling one or two ideas around in my head, or I will trigger or discover something while being distracted. I guess it might depend on your age, education, up bringing, and a host of other factors as to why your creativity might be stifled, but I would say monotony is a bigger enemy of creativity than distraction by smartphone or tablet, or any other device.
Music Lover - Someone who loves music Audiophile - Someone who loves his stereo equipment
May be we can add "music Formats and Containers" to that definition.
I don't know. I know a lot of music profs that are crazy audiophiles! As well as more than a few handfuls of musicians.
This is my position, and I have recorded a lot of 24/96 audio and know how good it sounds compared to other digital versions. I am not a fan of the RIAA or the mainstream music business machine, but I do support artists' rights.
If I am actually buying a license to listen to an audio track and not the track itself, the way the RIAA wants it, then I want the highest possible quality digital version of that track. I feel I am entitled to access to it because my money is not only going to pay for the license to the track it pays for that original recording. If the original was analog, then a different license would need to be obtained for a physical copy of that. One thing I do not have a disagreement with is the separation of digital and analog rights. I do believe (from some experience) that high-end studio analog equipment is better than even the current high-end digital systems (24/192).
Basically, if I can buy an AIFF of a file I will! If I could get a 24/96 or better version of a song I would feel better about plunking the money I now do for digital music. It requires more effort to make the crappier versions anyway, so why? Let the masses do it themselves to put on their music players. Plus huge hard drives will drop in price! Win-win really. Hehe