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Slashback: SCO, COPA, AllofMP3, Navier-Stokes, and More
from the let's-all-go-to-court-and-listen-to-music dept.
IBM speaks about the SCO suit.. MasterOfGoingFaster brings to our attention Groklaw's detailed analysis and complete transcript of IBM's 10-point response to SCO's claims that Unix code showed up in Linux. From the article: "We've listened to SCO for more than three years tell its side of the story, and the media printed its every word. IBM, when asked to comment, invariably said nothing. Now it tells the court in detail how truly wronged it has been by The SCO Group, and why the court should bring this wrong to an end by granting IBM's motion for summary judgment on SCO's contract claims."
Another angle on COPA. segphault writes to point out an Ars Technica article that discusses in depth the ACLU-vs.-DoD COPA case. The article includes an interview with plaintiff Aaron Peckham, a free speech advocate and the creator of the popular Urban Dictionary web site. Peckham says that if the Internet censorship law were to go into effect, Urban Dictionary might have to shut down or move overseas.
AllofMP3 followups. Two pieces of news after Visa shut off AllofMP3.com. ColinPL writes, "According to Ars Technica, the IFPI lobbied Visa to reject payments from AllofMP3.com. The plan worked, and an IFPI spokesperson said the plug was pulled in early September. AllofMP3.com has resumed its public relations blitz, claiming Visa and MasterCard's decision to discontinue its relationship has no legal justification." And bjoeg writes, "Today Tele2 (a large Danish telco and ISP) received judgment from civil court to block their customers' access to AllofMP3.com. Tele2 has appealed the verdict, and for now access to the site is still open."
Navier-Stokes solution withdrawn. nherm writes, "So I finally decided to take a look at the solution of the millennium problem on the Navier-Stokes equation (previously discussed on Slashdot) and found that the entry on arXiv.org says 'This paper is being withdrawn by the author due to a serious flaw.' So I suppose that the rest of us still have a chance on it? From the arXiv.org page I found this interesting weblog entry with some comments on the issue, pointing to another weblog entry: 'I would not be surprised to learn later that her work, even if flawed, has led the way to helping solve this long-standing problem.'"
A librarian's guided tour of Wikipedia. tiltowait writes, "With the potential rise of Citizendium and the continued media circus surrounding Wikipedia's foibles, it's a good time to review the current state of Wikimania and consider what these disruptive technologies mean for the future of 'authoritative' information sources. If you've ever wanted for a general overview of Wikipedia or needed something to point to when asked, 'Wikipedia? Isn't that just a bunch of lies?' then the 1-hour screencast titled 'Why Wiki?' is for you. The online video is my perspective on the pros and cons of Wikipedia and how it stacks up to traditional publication formats."
The iPod's 5th anniversary. This one should perhaps be filed under "SlashWAYback." buddhaunderthetree writes, "Five years ago today Slashdot was introduced to the iPod and the reviews were mixed to say the least. CmdrTaco set the tone when he opined, 'No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.' Many of the 1044 comments that followed weren't much more enthusiastic. If anyone had dared to predict that in 5 years the iPod would have 70% of the mp3 player market, they would have been derided as an Apple zombie. Here's the original thread: Apple Introduces iPod."
Ipod article link wrong (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that (Score:5, Funny)
Can anyone get to that link?
TLA award (Score:2)
You know what would be nice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then (and this is the hard part), they should THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A SECOND before they proclaim how their pet tech will take over the world, their hated enemy will crash and burn, everyone will be dead in ten years, etc.
Seriously.
Compare that discussion with pretty much any discussion these days on this site that runs more than 50 or so comments. Reads pretty much the same, doesn't it? Now, I suppose it's possible that this time, we're all much smarter, and our opinions really do dictate the way the world outside
(Never mind me, I'm old, I'm drinking, and I've been building blades via a RIB interface through an RDP connection all day)
Re:You know what would be nice? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Agree with the article poster - Lame. Not only is this a lackluster MP3 unit (which by virtue of being firewire will be limited to Apple Mac owners), but it has virtually no UI wizardry that might define it as an Apple product.
A total waste of time."
"Unfortunately, Apple's ultimate goal is to get people to buy more Apple hardware. So it's not likely that Apple will be developing a PC version of iTunes. They want to keep their so-called advantages to Mac-only. Maybe, in the future, they will get one program on Windows to definitely support the iPod and release an SDK for other Mac and Windows apps to optionally support it. Remember, Apple makes more money on hardware sales, than on FireWire licenses. "
"The LCD display is too small, it remains to be seen what the power consumption or usability of the backlight is, the four buttons (five, actually, I suspect) are likely insufficient, and probably rather modal. I dare not imagine how badly they've ginnied up the volume control. Apple's support for ID3 is woefully insufficient on iTunes and on iPod."
"But it certainly isn't "groundbreaking" in any real sense.
Remember, due to the rumors people were expecting something more like an apple PDA/mp3 player.
Besides these devices will soon be illegal anyway with the SSSCA (or its offspring), and cds won't be rippable either. And we all know that therefore there will be no mp3s. Just look at how the RIAA managed to kill file-sharing by taking out Napster
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Personally I think it's ugly, underspecced and overpriced. Thus its success to me must be because of its marketing, and its excellent integration with iTunes.
There are more elegant, more capable and cheaper devices on the market. They don't have the marketing spend that the iPod does, they don't have the U2 tie-ins, they don't have the mindshare. People don't know whether they've got equivalent usability because they don't know the products exist. (The fact that Apple are transgressing against Creative pate
Selective memory... (Score:4, Insightful)
I just browsed through that original article (link was busted, had to google it since
Re-mixed reviews? (Score:2, Funny)
So can we call this blurb 'Re-mixed Reviews?
AllofMP3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped downloading music via P2P when I found AllofMP3, and I now pay for it happily. Save me the bullshit about it still being "theft" ad nasuem. The fact is, I am willing to pay for music at a reasonable price in a format I want. I am not willing to pay for music any other way. As such, if I am not able to pay for my music in the format I want, I won't buy it. There is absolutely NO loss of sale either way. I won't buy it if I can't get it the way I want it, period. End of story. This is not a negotiable point. The sooner the RIAA and the rest of the music industry gets this through their heads, the sooner they'll be raking in cash again as people flock to "legitimate" quality online music distribution.
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How much money does the label make per song sold?
How many songs are actually sold? (Not just "wildly popular," what's an an actual estimate of the number)
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Who gives a shit? Seriously. Stop calling them "artists", they're not, they're musicians. Singing for a crust is not work. They have no divine right to be rich and famous. Jesus, this phenomona, the so-called "recording artist" is not even 100 years old. It was good while it lasted, but now it's over.
Re:AllofMP3 (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right they don't have a divine right to be rich and famous. Most of the artists I listen to are not rich or famous. If they are lucky they make enough to live off of selling records and touring but that's probably the minority. If I'm going to pay anything for a song I'd rather it went to feed the musician in hopes that they can continue to produce more music I like and don't end up leaving the industry.
I certainly am not going to pay someone for just hosting a server full of mp3 files.
Parent
Re:AllofMP3 (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, it's really annoying that I have to revert to science fiction to get across my point. Copyright on sound recordings is a relatively modern thing. Isn't it fair for society to be able to throw out something that we don't want anymore? It's not like you can claim that it's been this way for thousands of years. It was a nice experiment, the result is a restriction on speech, freedom and culture, let's move on!
Parent
Re:AllofMP3 (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Why, if I don't like the music they make? What do I care about seeing them and talking to them? How are they more worthy of my money versus someone who lives somewhere else in the world who's music I actually enjoy? I fail to understand why proximity should influence who I want to support.
I'm not supporting DRM or copyright restrictions, I am supporting paying for music I enjoy in hopes that more such music will be produced. Is that hard to understand? The point is that the songwriter as the source of future music I enjoy is not generic and replaceable.
I am in favor of direct payment, cutting out middle men and payment being optional. I have no problem with musicians needing to tour to make money (this is really how it currently works in terms of profits). I see no difference in buying music directly from the musician as I do from placing money in the hat of a street musician.
Parent
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English not your first language? You missed the entire point, which was:
Re:AllofMP3 (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, I don't have a problem with people getting music via p2p, it's clearly non-commercial and there is a strong ethical argument that permits filesharing, but AllofMP3 is creating nothing original, there are merely profiting off of these works and giving no compensation to the authors (at least those in the west). As far as I'm concerned AllofMP3 deserves everything is has comming to it.
If you really want to buy DRM free music and support our culture via the creative commons than there are options http://magnatune.com/ [magnatune.com].
Parent
Re:AllofMP3 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Weatern record companies don't collect money from AllofMP3 by choice, though it is offered. They are trying to force AllofMP3 out of business by painting them as pirates. True, the royalties wouldn't amount to much, but they're calculated on the same model as payment for pla
Re:AllofMP3 (Score:4, Interesting)
allofmp3faq [museekster.com]
The Register [theregister.com]
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The population of the U.S. alone is 300 million. There are about 1 million unique Slashdot IDs.
The Geek is rarely in a position to speak for the masses.
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Re:AllofMP3 - Access now closed (Score:4, Insightful)
So Tele2 has now implemented one court suggestion, blocking www.allofmp3.com in DNS. They know, and IFPI knows, that it can easily be bypassed (hosts file, using DNS at another ISP, TOR etc).
The judgement can have implications for all of EU, since the case has been run as en EU law case. So if the ISP loses the appeal, IFPI will use this to go to other countries to have ISPs shut down allofmp3.
The most bad about all this is, that the content of allofmp3.com is not illegal in Russia where it is hosted, so you could say it is censorship.
Parent
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And this is different to buying it normally how? Except that the rich guys are in the US, of course.
Distributor tax is paid (Score:3, Interesting)
No, all the money doesn't stay in AllOfMp3's pocket.
Like in some other "pre-DCMA" countries, in Russia, if you want to distribute music, you just have to pay a tax to the local body of governement who's in charge with TV tax and Boardcasting tax.
Once the tax is paid, the company is free to boardcast freely whatever music it wants.
The Boardcast tax institution in turn invests the money, with differe
SCO, it's a race (Score:5, Informative)
Bottom line: SCO v. IBM will never get to trial. My guess is that the bankruptcy trustee will give IBM and Novell everything they ask for. SCO is SO dead.
Even if COPA dies, it will return... (Score:2)
They will keep trying until they end up with a law that the courts dont reject (just like various state governments are going to keep trying anti-video-game legis
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You can still use Visa (Score:5, Informative)
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On a related note; can you get around this and just use paypal?
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Yeah, they used Chronopay I believe and it acted like Paypal. I use XROST too now for the workaround with my Visa, so Visa got no where on this ban.
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I was annoyed that visa was acting as a judge, jury and policeman. in matters that just aren't their business. their business it to take a piece of the action. whether they like it or not
so yes, I bought xrost tokens. with my visa.
I lost nothing but a little annoyance. but nothing was 'stopped' by this stunt.
Probably right (Score:2, Insightful)
The iPod's 5th anniversary (Score:2)
Upcoming headline for the Zune (Score:3, Funny)
The ACLU is suing the Department of Justice (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, the way things are going, we'll be fighting The War Against Titillation (living up to the acronym far better than the current iteration) and attacking rogue states for hosting WMAs (weapons of mass arousal).
Denmark forbids internet. (Score:3, Interesting)
A lttle more on AllofMP3.
A court in Kopenhagen (Fogderetten) has now delivered its verdict (Oktober 25 2006) between IFPI and the Danish ISP Tele2, where IFPI wanted to force Tele2 to block AllofMP3.
This court verdict (21 pages PDF in Danish [www.dr.dk]) is quite suprising, not that it forces Tele2 to block access to Allofmp3.com, but rather how the verdict does it. Among other things the court says (transladed to english below):
The court finds .... that also the temporary fixation of the work in the form of electronic impulses, that goes on in the routers while transmitting the data packets over the internet, is covered by the 2 in copyright law.
This means that the court ruling finds that Tele2 are unlawfully making copies while routing their customers communication. So they are not directly forced to block information from Allofmp3.com, they are found to be making "pirate copies" when doing their job of directing communication on the internet, that is what a router does, and internet cannot function without it. This basicly means that this court has forbidden the internet in denmark, since an ISP can be held responsible for its customers communication. This goes also for modern mobile communication too, since a mobile phone also can be used to unlawfully communicate otherwise allredy published and not stamped with secrecy information. It is a lot like if the old telephone company had been held responsible for what its customers said on the phone. Tele2 has appealed this ruling.
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That's true. "Unsanctioned music copying," is the correct term.
Schwab
Yes there is such a thing as music piracy (Score:2, Informative)
You claim that "music piracy" does not exist. On whose definitions do you base this? The American Heritage dictionary defines "piracy" [answers.com] to include what the statutes call infringement of a copyright or patent. Therefore, "music piracy" means infringement of the copyright in a musical work or a sound recording embodying the musical work.
Re:Yes there is such a thing as music piracy (Score:5, Informative)
I have read this opinion many times on Slashdot. But it is dead wrong. The word 'Pirate' has been associated with illicit copying for over four hundred years.
Here are some examples, via the Oxford English Dictionary:
"Banish these Word-pirates (you sacred mistresses of learning) into the gulfe of Barbarisme."
Thomas Dekker, The Wonderfull yeare, 1603. [uoregon.edu]
"The public curiosity was imperfectly satisfied by a pirated copy of the booksellers of Dublin."
Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life and Writings, 1790. [gutenberg.org]
"Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practise to steal Impressions of other mens Copies."
J. Hancock, Brooks' String of Pearls, 1668.
"Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates."
Daniel Defoe, A True Collection of the Writings of the Author of the True-Born Englishman, 1703.
"If you publish the latter in a very cheap edition so as to baffle the pirates by a low price{em}you will find that it will do."
Lord Byron, in a letter of 1822.
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When a major record label hold the rights to a band's songs to ransom, demanding a number of solo albums by each member if the band split and ever want to perform their old songs again in their new guises, I'd call that piracy. When a major record label hold their customers to ransom, demanding more money for the same song as they already paid for once but playable on a new device, I'd call that piracy. When a cartel of major record labels buy laws limiting the usefulness of recording hardw
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Re:music piracy is WRONG. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Re:comment on the mathematician (Score:4, Informative)
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Looking at Lehigh University's Math department website, this woman got her PhD at, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, 1978.
While she seems to have some interesting research, it just seems odd that a mathematician on the verge of solving one of the great outstanding problems in mathematics attended such a no name school. Does anyone know something about the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn that I don't?
She was a woman getting a PhD in mathematics in 1978. It is entirely possible that the Polytechnic In