Unfortunately, Hasbro will most likely come out on top because the Scrabble board layout itself is copyrighted and trademarked.
The lawsuit wouldn't be quite so egregious if Hasbro offered their own online Scrabble game which wasn't extortionately priced, offered the same level of interactivity and community, and didn't suck all manner of ass.
Will they unsheathe the "lost sales" gun too, I wonder? If anything, Scrabulous made me more interested in Scrabble than any number of adverts or publicity by Hasbro ever has. Let's all go play on the Internet Scrabble Club instead.
Just because carbon monoxide is present on another planet does not mean life could not exist there. Do aliens to whom oxygen is poisonous as carbon monoxide is to us examine an uninhabited section of Earth and conclude there is no life?
This story is terribly redolent of this instance of an independent film producer receiving a tonne of publicity (and sales) for his film because it was widely pirated.
Personally, I never saw the problem with the piracy of TV shows: a large proportion of those who watch them, assuming they like them, will probably watch the original broadcast or the next episode when it's aired anyway. It's a different matter for large-scale, large-budget Hollywood films, but in instances like these, I think that this is a move in the right direction.
A print of the mona lisa is the genuine article. It was still painted by the artist and it looks identical to the real thing
No. The original Mona Lisa was painted by the artist, but the copy was not -- assume you made the copy. If you copied the work with intent to deceive and to put your copy forward as the original Mona Lisa, you've just counterfeited an original work, because however you copy it, it will never be identical to the original painting. Yes, I'm being incredibly pedantic, but if you try to repaint it, the brush strokes will be different. If you photocopy it, it won't be a painting anymore (assuming the definition of a painting is that it must have paint), etc. Even if da Vinci repainted one as close to the original as possible, it would not be exactly the same, and would still be liable to be labeled counterfeit *IF* it was claimed to be the original Mona Lisa. If it was designated not to be the same, then it would be a similar, genuine painting, unless you wish to argue on grounds of human perception that one could not tell the difference between the slight variations in colour, brush strokes and age, and therefore it is a counterfeit.
On the topic of a copied version of Windows being 'genuine', I would personally split up genuine into multiple senses. It is genuine in the sense that the program is exactly the same (if copied well) and functions identically, but it is not a genuine copy in the sense that one did not buy the software off-the-shelf or online, and a duplicate serial number is probably being used. I also think that a serial number is always genuine if it is valid and has been issued by the manufacturer (i.e. not keygenned), even if it has been used multiple times or for piracy. Really, the only way to sort this is for Microsoft to describe exactly what they mean by "genuine", because they clearly have an altered definition of the mainstream's.
This is exactly what independent developers have been wishing for, and as the editor says, it has been a long time coming. Personally, I've almost totally abandoned games by major developers, and gone with indie games instead. They tend to have more replayability, cost less and are all in all more enjoyable. I can't remember the last time I looked through the reviews section of a magazine and wanted to try or buy EVERY game listed in it. That's what this magazine did; it almost makes me want to re-read the Scratchware Manifesto again. No more scouring Google for new and exciting indie games. Hooray for Game Tunnel! Direct link to the publication for the lazier among us.
... if it were to install new computing capacity at it's Fort Meade HQ
Sounds like Slashdot needs a supercomputer to correct the volume of articles submitted by people who don't know that "its" is the possessive form of "it" and "it's" is a contraction of "it is". Sigh. Seriously. This happens far too often.
Oops. I misread the title at first; I saw, "Apple Partners with Freud". Imagine:
*tooltip window appears on iPod* "Did you know... the letters that constitute the name of the song you are playing closely resemble a penis?! You may require immediate psychotherapy."
Slashdot Mirror
Can you prove that?
Sure. Every prime p has two digits in base p. QED.
Probably; it's a potent and well-known rhetorical device called anthypophora.
The lawsuit wouldn't be quite so egregious if Hasbro offered their own online Scrabble game which wasn't extortionately priced, offered the same level of interactivity and community, and didn't suck all manner of ass.
Will they unsheathe the "lost sales" gun too, I wonder? If anything, Scrabulous made me more interested in Scrabble than any number of adverts or publicity by Hasbro ever has. Let's all go play on the Internet Scrabble Club instead.
Where's the "-1 *Groan*" mod when you need it?
Let us all hail the glorious staircase of mod-downs.
That's a tad non-partisan for a /. editor isn't it? :P
Just because carbon monoxide is present on another planet does not mean life could not exist there. Do aliens to whom oxygen is poisonous as carbon monoxide is to us examine an uninhabited section of Earth and conclude there is no life?
But is it interactive-odular?
Slashdot sprays dupe-posting editors with jets from black holes: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/17/2149239
Vee one at gee vertical bar two ay! Pee three nis hundred time larger!!
Personally, I never saw the problem with the piracy of TV shows: a large proportion of those who watch them, assuming they like them, will probably watch the original broadcast or the next episode when it's aired anyway. It's a different matter for large-scale, large-budget Hollywood films, but in instances like these, I think that this is a move in the right direction.
Try PyPE or jEdit.
Actually, if it was halving every few years, the level of pr0n would never reach 0%, just become infinitely close.
On the topic of a copied version of Windows being 'genuine', I would personally split up genuine into multiple senses. It is genuine in the sense that the program is exactly the same (if copied well) and functions identically, but it is not a genuine copy in the sense that one did not buy the software off-the-shelf or online, and a duplicate serial number is probably being used. I also think that a serial number is always genuine if it is valid and has been issued by the manufacturer (i.e. not keygenned), even if it has been used multiple times or for piracy. Really, the only way to sort this is for Microsoft to describe exactly what they mean by "genuine", because they clearly have an altered definition of the mainstream's.
This is exactly what independent developers have been wishing for, and as the editor says, it has been a long time coming. Personally, I've almost totally abandoned games by major developers, and gone with indie games instead. They tend to have more replayability, cost less and are all in all more enjoyable. I can't remember the last time I looked through the reviews section of a magazine and wanted to try or buy EVERY game listed in it. That's what this magazine did; it almost makes me want to re-read the Scratchware Manifesto again. No more scouring Google for new and exciting indie games. Hooray for Game Tunnel!
Direct link to the publication for the lazier among us.
So the article isn't about warez? Damn.. I was looking for teh l337 DDL linkz!1. Guess I should stop going by the titles...
Why, I thought that was nyl-on impossible!
..Sorry.
Oops. I misread the title at first; I saw, "Apple Partners with Freud". Imagine:
*tooltip window appears on iPod*
"Did you know... the letters that constitute the name of the song you are playing closely resemble a penis?! You may require immediate psychotherapy."
Gotta get me one of those.
After reading the title, I thought for a brief moment that real zombie geeks were actually outside and walking..
Me big Uggabongo. Bestest mousemat tester in world. See how well it performance.