The balance is wrong and we should have the means to tip it back to a sane level.
You do. Don't use the internet, or at least the advertisement-supported sites.
You see, if enough people take up a site's bandwidth without generating ad impressions, the ad companies pay less for their ad-space, and each visitor, on average, produces less income for the site. The site's gotta keep itself afloat (or in some cases, profitable), so it has to try harder to increase the number of ad impressions, or increase the value of ad impressions (e.g. making them more obnoxious). So, what ad-blocking does is bring this sense of "balance" to a select few, at the expense of making everyone else's experience extremely "unbalanced".
When Microsoft decided that they wanted to limit the number of features in the OS based on how much I was willing to pay them, I changed operating systems.
Microsoft has always done this! They adjust the amount of features they develop, according to what people are prepared to pay for. In recent times, however, you have some flexibility in which features you buy.
I'll admit that intellectual property kills culture a little bit. Right after you admit that unbridled sharing kills culture a lot more.
Besides, as you pointed out, leaving these clips up could be a form of advertisement. The only problem is if the free advertisement ends up being a substitute for the non-free whole package. So, the concept of intellectual property, and sharing small portions (or small parodies) of the work, are far from mutually exclusive.
that if there were no such thing as intellectual property, the ancillary streams they could tap in the free flow of cultural output would be richer sources of cash than their feeble and failed approaches to control what they cannot and will never be able to control?
Hmm. So you're saying, if artists have the option to try to make money off their works via copyright, they will be worse off than if you tell them what to do? That's an interesting philosophy.
I would rebut your conjecture by saying that I know better than you what to think, and thus it's about time for your frontal lobotomy, don't you agree? Of course you do. Because I say you should.
Well, the problem is that, aside from fiddling with the subtitles, you more or less have the scene untouched. For anyone who can understand german, for example, this scene is pretty much the same as its full release. Yes, it is definitely parody, but the parody could easily be used as a substitute for the original scene.
Of course, you'll notice that I say "scene", not "movie". On the length argument alone, it's only a few minutes, which is, I don't know, 2.5% of the total running time? It's hardly a substitute for the movie.
However, I maintain that, if it were the whole movie with funny subtitles, then there would be some legitimate cause here.
Not quite. He's defining games to be something competitive, which is not entirely unreasonable. He's then saying that such competitive works cannot be considered works of art.
What he needs to see is that competition doesn't automatically spoil art; that many of the facets that cause us to appreciate art can be woven very naturally into games. A classic example is Braid, which merges some impressive visual artistry, some beautiful music, and a lyrical, interpretative story. These elements of the game are undeniably artistic. Once you actually start playing the game, you can also experience the aesthetics of the gameplay itself, which has it's own profound beauty. Just because it's a test of coordination and lateral thinking doesn't mean it can't satisfy us on an artistic level.
You do realize that words like "theft" and "stealing" have well defined meanings? The definition of the word is not subject to your opinion. You can call it whatever you want, but that doesn't make it true. It is what it is.
Don't be an idiot. Meanings are not nearly so static or clear cut. Meanings are derived from usage in language, and, in within certain contexts, are defined more statically (but often differently depending on the context). So, for example, the term "fallacy" in day-to-day language is *far* removed from the term "fallacy" as used in mathematics. The word "fallacy" was grown organically in language, but mathematicians found that such a definition was useless to them, so they ruthlessly refined it. Also, terms in law often have discrepancies with their ordinary language equivalents. For example, negligence in law requires damage to be done, whereas in day-to-day life, you can perform negligent acts that (luckily) result in no damage.
Now, as for theft in particular, according to Wikipedia:
The actus reus of theft is usually defined as an unauthorised taking, keeping or using of another's property which must be accompanied by a mens rea of dishonesty and/or the intent to permanently deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use.
If you accept a portion of copyright (equating to a freely distributable copy of the work) to be "another's property", and you consider using that work with no intention of buying it (for the full sale price when you bought it) as "intent to permanently deprive the owner" of its use, then yes, it would be theft. I'm not taking for granted here that you accept this, hence the "I have no issue..." statement.
The problem here is that copyright infringement is a relatively recent and rather unique phenomenon. We don't have a neat classification for it. I would be happy with theft, because it has the same mechanic as theft, but just as theft of something intangible. This is where your precious notions about definitions may get shattered.
The planning stage, as well as the implementation stage, should really have come before they accepted everyone's $60. The expectation is that Ubisoft will provide a decent service, if they insist on making their game reliant on such a service.
I must say, I personally was pissed off when this DRM was announced. I really did want to buy and play AC2, but my current living arrangements make it impossible for me to play the game with this DRM. I would consider buying it and subsequently downloading a crack/cracked version, but I don't believe in subsidising such DRM by resorting to illegal activity. If I hate the DRM so much (which I do), then I am prepared to go without.
Well, I would argue that it is a justification for classifying it as theft, which is a reason enough for making it illegal. The thievery is of something intangible, but that, IMHO, does not actually change the nature of the offence. The definition of thievery is, more or less, "taking something for oneself by depriving it of another, without their permission". So long as you can accept that the "thing" in something can be intangible (like portions of value from a copyright), then it satisfies the definition.
Think about it carefully. Those who choose not to buy from Ubisoft because of DRM (or X company because of Y complaint), are they actually stealing value from the copyright? Certainly they get no value from Ubisoft, and Ubisoft gets no gain from them. What's happened is that Ubisoft actually never did have the demand in the first place, and their copyright was never worth that sale. It is not the case that the person is enjoying themselves at Ubisoft's expense, rather a mutual agreement not to trade with each other. Notice the key word "mutual" here.
There are subtleties to my logic. Beware all those who would presume to know it.
Dude, I completely agree with you, but choose your battles wisely. All the groupthink is asking for is, if not a DRM-free copy of the game, then at the very least, a well-maintained working service. The latter is not an unreasonable request if you've already paid for the game.
Now, of course, you weren't trying to disingenuously equate copyright infringement with theft, were you? They're not the same thing. Copying something cannot by definition be theft.
I've made this argument several times before...
When you infringe a copyright, it's not the copies you're stealing, it's the value of the copyright. The copyright's value comes from (surprise) the demand for the product. Copyright holders exchange, portion by portion, the value of their copyright for legal tender, until the copyright's value is spent, and the market reaches saturation.
By downloading a copy of a work that you had any remote chance of purchasing (this is much harder to determine than people give it credit for), you are detracting from demand and hence the value of the copyright, without the requisite trade of money to the copyright holder. You have gained value through having a movie/album/game that you like, and the copyright holder has lost value through the value of its copyright. You paid nothing for this value, and the copyright holder received nothing from this detraction from their property's value.
You can bet that they're already charging what earns them maximum profit. Their campaign against piracy is a side project to try to secure those profits in the long term.
The problem is that you really can't compete with piracy. For music and movies, it's not really possible to differentiate your product with the millions of digital copies (without packaging a whole lot of physical goods with the album/movie, and even then, it then becomes "overpriced stuff" with a disc thrown in). If you try to lower your price to compete, you're still competing against an identical product for zero cost. Still, pirates are going to find it cheaper and easier to keep downloading from bittorrent.
The situation's a little like extortion. You can appease your extorters, but there's no guarantee that they won't get greedy and ask for more.
Normally, I'd do the same, but this situation is not analogous to the usual problems that/.ers have with Sony. It's more than Sony trying to sell something sub-par at par price (like the rootkits, for example), this is Sony actually reducing functionality that people paid for. This can not possibly be legal, and I'm sure there's a class-action in this somewhere. They paid for the functionality, and now Sony is removing it without consent.
The only spanner in the works here is that the PS3 owners don't need to upgrade their PS3s. All their games that they've bought so far currently work, so long as they don't "upgrade" to the latest firmware, plus they keep their other OS functionality. Sure, they can't buy new games, but they don't necessarily have the right to buy new games. However, I would argue that customers bought their PS3s, in part, for the games. In buying a PS3, there's a clear expectation that you will have the ability (given the will and the money) to buy and play some of the many forthcoming PS3 games. Sony has artificially and abruptly shortened the life of the platform for those wishing to continue using their second OS.
No, just a joke, at the expense of the ultraconservatives.
Conservapedia makes a point of admitting bias, and also admitting that it has no intention of toning such bias down, but it's a hard read without the bile in your throat rising.
Hence I wrote "I beg to differ", because those who claim they can tolerate open bias, never know for sure until they've read conservapedia.;-)
(To reiterate: It's a joke; I'm not calling you a liar.)
Ah, so that's the reason for this "revenue-raising" nonsense. It's a scapegoat, so you don't feel bad when you try to weasel out of fines!
You did something careless and unsafe. You were caught. The fact that you were caught by someone trying to make a profit doesn't actually change the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
You do. Don't use the internet, or at least the advertisement-supported sites.
You see, if enough people take up a site's bandwidth without generating ad impressions, the ad companies pay less for their ad-space, and each visitor, on average, produces less income for the site. The site's gotta keep itself afloat (or in some cases, profitable), so it has to try harder to increase the number of ad impressions, or increase the value of ad impressions (e.g. making them more obnoxious). So, what ad-blocking does is bring this sense of "balance" to a select few, at the expense of making everyone else's experience extremely "unbalanced".
It's more like banning people who suggest buying an ad-detecting and automatic ad-skipping machine.
Microsoft has always done this! They adjust the amount of features they develop, according to what people are prepared to pay for. In recent times, however, you have some flexibility in which features you buy.
I'll admit that intellectual property kills culture a little bit. Right after you admit that unbridled sharing kills culture a lot more.
Besides, as you pointed out, leaving these clips up could be a form of advertisement. The only problem is if the free advertisement ends up being a substitute for the non-free whole package. So, the concept of intellectual property, and sharing small portions (or small parodies) of the work, are far from mutually exclusive.
Hmm. So you're saying, if artists have the option to try to make money off their works via copyright, they will be worse off than if you tell them what to do? That's an interesting philosophy.
I would rebut your conjecture by saying that I know better than you what to think, and thus it's about time for your frontal lobotomy, don't you agree? Of course you do. Because I say you should.
Director != copyright holder. It's the director's job to make it sellable. It's the copyright holder to ensure the sales actually happen.
Well, the problem is that, aside from fiddling with the subtitles, you more or less have the scene untouched. For anyone who can understand german, for example, this scene is pretty much the same as its full release. Yes, it is definitely parody, but the parody could easily be used as a substitute for the original scene.
Of course, you'll notice that I say "scene", not "movie". On the length argument alone, it's only a few minutes, which is, I don't know, 2.5% of the total running time? It's hardly a substitute for the movie.
However, I maintain that, if it were the whole movie with funny subtitles, then there would be some legitimate cause here.
Better test: is it copyrightable? If yes, then clearly it's art. If no, then clearly not.
Say, did you know that doubly linked lists were invented in 2006? I didn't!
Not quite. He's defining games to be something competitive, which is not entirely unreasonable. He's then saying that such competitive works cannot be considered works of art.
What he needs to see is that competition doesn't automatically spoil art; that many of the facets that cause us to appreciate art can be woven very naturally into games. A classic example is Braid, which merges some impressive visual artistry, some beautiful music, and a lyrical, interpretative story. These elements of the game are undeniably artistic. Once you actually start playing the game, you can also experience the aesthetics of the gameplay itself, which has it's own profound beauty. Just because it's a test of coordination and lateral thinking doesn't mean it can't satisfy us on an artistic level.
Don't be an idiot. Meanings are not nearly so static or clear cut. Meanings are derived from usage in language, and, in within certain contexts, are defined more statically (but often differently depending on the context). So, for example, the term "fallacy" in day-to-day language is *far* removed from the term "fallacy" as used in mathematics. The word "fallacy" was grown organically in language, but mathematicians found that such a definition was useless to them, so they ruthlessly refined it. Also, terms in law often have discrepancies with their ordinary language equivalents. For example, negligence in law requires damage to be done, whereas in day-to-day life, you can perform negligent acts that (luckily) result in no damage.
Now, as for theft in particular, according to Wikipedia:
If you accept a portion of copyright (equating to a freely distributable copy of the work) to be "another's property", and you consider using that work with no intention of buying it (for the full sale price when you bought it) as "intent to permanently deprive the owner" of its use, then yes, it would be theft. I'm not taking for granted here that you accept this, hence the "I have no issue..." statement.
The problem here is that copyright infringement is a relatively recent and rather unique phenomenon. We don't have a neat classification for it. I would be happy with theft, because it has the same mechanic as theft, but just as theft of something intangible. This is where your precious notions about definitions may get shattered.
The planning stage, as well as the implementation stage, should really have come before they accepted everyone's $60. The expectation is that Ubisoft will provide a decent service, if they insist on making their game reliant on such a service.
I must say, I personally was pissed off when this DRM was announced. I really did want to buy and play AC2, but my current living arrangements make it impossible for me to play the game with this DRM. I would consider buying it and subsequently downloading a crack/cracked version, but I don't believe in subsidising such DRM by resorting to illegal activity. If I hate the DRM so much (which I do), then I am prepared to go without.
Well, I would argue that it is a justification for classifying it as theft, which is a reason enough for making it illegal. The thievery is of something intangible, but that, IMHO, does not actually change the nature of the offence. The definition of thievery is, more or less, "taking something for oneself by depriving it of another, without their permission". So long as you can accept that the "thing" in something can be intangible (like portions of value from a copyright), then it satisfies the definition.
Think about it carefully. Those who choose not to buy from Ubisoft because of DRM (or X company because of Y complaint), are they actually stealing value from the copyright? Certainly they get no value from Ubisoft, and Ubisoft gets no gain from them. What's happened is that Ubisoft actually never did have the demand in the first place, and their copyright was never worth that sale. It is not the case that the person is enjoying themselves at Ubisoft's expense, rather a mutual agreement not to trade with each other. Notice the key word "mutual" here.
There are subtleties to my logic. Beware all those who would presume to know it.
Dude, I completely agree with you, but choose your battles wisely. All the groupthink is asking for is, if not a DRM-free copy of the game, then at the very least, a well-maintained working service. The latter is not an unreasonable request if you've already paid for the game.
I've made this argument several times before...
When you infringe a copyright, it's not the copies you're stealing, it's the value of the copyright. The copyright's value comes from (surprise) the demand for the product. Copyright holders exchange, portion by portion, the value of their copyright for legal tender, until the copyright's value is spent, and the market reaches saturation.
By downloading a copy of a work that you had any remote chance of purchasing (this is much harder to determine than people give it credit for), you are detracting from demand and hence the value of the copyright, without the requisite trade of money to the copyright holder. You have gained value through having a movie/album/game that you like, and the copyright holder has lost value through the value of its copyright. You paid nothing for this value, and the copyright holder received nothing from this detraction from their property's value.
I have no issue whatsoever with calling it theft.
You can bet that they're already charging what earns them maximum profit. Their campaign against piracy is a side project to try to secure those profits in the long term.
The problem is that you really can't compete with piracy. For music and movies, it's not really possible to differentiate your product with the millions of digital copies (without packaging a whole lot of physical goods with the album/movie, and even then, it then becomes "overpriced stuff" with a disc thrown in). If you try to lower your price to compete, you're still competing against an identical product for zero cost. Still, pirates are going to find it cheaper and easier to keep downloading from bittorrent.
The situation's a little like extortion. You can appease your extorters, but there's no guarantee that they won't get greedy and ask for more.
Some of us is not so fsusy.
That was so unbelievably lame, I actually laughed. :-)
This move works fine for me. Gaming from big studios was getting too expensive anyway.
Normally, I'd do the same, but this situation is not analogous to the usual problems that /.ers have with Sony. It's more than Sony trying to sell something sub-par at par price (like the rootkits, for example), this is Sony actually reducing functionality that people paid for. This can not possibly be legal, and I'm sure there's a class-action in this somewhere. They paid for the functionality, and now Sony is removing it without consent.
The only spanner in the works here is that the PS3 owners don't need to upgrade their PS3s. All their games that they've bought so far currently work, so long as they don't "upgrade" to the latest firmware, plus they keep their other OS functionality. Sure, they can't buy new games, but they don't necessarily have the right to buy new games. However, I would argue that customers bought their PS3s, in part, for the games. In buying a PS3, there's a clear expectation that you will have the ability (given the will and the money) to buy and play some of the many forthcoming PS3 games. Sony has artificially and abruptly shortened the life of the platform for those wishing to continue using their second OS.
No, just a joke, at the expense of the ultraconservatives.
Conservapedia makes a point of admitting bias, and also admitting that it has no intention of toning such bias down, but it's a hard read without the bile in your throat rising.
Hence I wrote "I beg to differ", because those who claim they can tolerate open bias, never know for sure until they've read conservapedia. ;-)
(To reiterate: It's a joke; I'm not calling you a liar.)
[citation needed]
Perhaps you could link to a Thai site detailing the planned revolt? ;-)
This may help:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=region-free+dvd+player&x=0&y=0&sprefix=Region-fr
I beg to differ
Ah, so that's the reason for this "revenue-raising" nonsense. It's a scapegoat, so you don't feel bad when you try to weasel out of fines!
You did something careless and unsafe. You were caught. The fact that you were caught by someone trying to make a profit doesn't actually change the situation.
Dude! That's an awesome idea! Why isn't this everywhere?