(Almost) Free Movies On-Line... Sorta 293
Snaller writes "See the latest movies on the net? Its possible - apparently the law in Taiwan says that for a movie to be protected by copyright law one has to apply for such protection within a month after the opening in the theaters. This rarely happens and as a consequence movie88 has opened a virtual movieplex: See any of their films for 1 dollar. The movie is streamed in a format that doesn't allow you to save it on the harddrive, but for that 1 dollar you can view it anytime and as much as you like for 3 days. The selection includes movies like "Shrek", "Legally Blonde","American Pie 2","Gone with the wind", James Bond and Batman." Yeah this'll last.
Right. But it really demonstrates what TV will be like in the future
when you have access to thousands of movies. And the buck a film
rate strikes me as awesome. I'd watch a lot more movies if they were
only a buck.
Imagine the time that went into this. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't imagine that this will stay around for long, as the content producers will go nuts when they hear about it. It would seem that they took all this time to do this in futility.
Re:Imagine the time that went into this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Imagine the time that went into this. (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, it depends on the media used. If they are transferring from the 35mm reels, someone needs to splice them together, run the video transfer device, etc. Real hassle. If they are encoding from DVD's, you need someone to format the output for every movie. Without this, the encoder would waste space and time on the sharp edge between the picture itself and the black borders. Also a real hassle. It would definitely take a lot of time, or a lot of people, in either case.
I suppose they might be able to write a program to format the output of the DVD's automatically, but I've never seen this done myself.
Re:Imagine the time that went into this. (Score:2, Informative)
Also, that movie at least was 4:3, so they could avoid reformatting it.
Granted, the quality of the source material sucks, and even the 300k stream quality isn't as good as it could be, but film purists are not going to be watching movies on a PC screen over the net.
Re:Imagine the time that went into this. (Score:2, Funny)
the amount of people involved in transferring and encoding must be staggering.
It's not like they are encoding the movies using a hex editor...
Re:Imagine the time that went into this. (Score:2)
Re:Imagine the time that went into this. (Score:2)
really though. alot of the stuff on irc originates in asia. it wouldnt surprise me if they had a huge stash of movies/warez/misc media from over the years. i'm working on one myself. i've got the database and the web interface done in it's first incarnation.
O well (Score:3, Interesting)
And
roy
Re:O well (Score:4, Informative)
You don't really have to crack it. I've noticed they technique they use to make it difficult to change around links. they open up a no permission browser window and then from there redirect to the link of the actual
Re:O well (Score:2, Informative)
Once you've got the
a) capable of saving these streams, and
b) capable of re-building the index block that required to view streaming RM video offline
and there's only one that I know of that's capable of doing this: Streambox VCR
Re:O well (Score:2)
www.streambox.com
Re:O well (Score:2)
C:\>netstat
Active Connections
Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP moose:1272 210.59.224.72:http ESTABLISHED
Re:O well (Score:2)
Re:O well (Score:2)
download the program here [geocities.com]
Re:O well (Score:4, Interesting)
For those interested in the dirty details, may I recommend:
With that combination (and sometimes "strings") I can download ANY Quicktime or Windows Media video that I want to - permissions be damned. Plus, get this: mplayer on Linux does a better job of playing Windows Media files than Windows Media Player on Windows! (And at a higher screen res too!)
BTW, the secret letter is 'm'. (This may become apparant if you have done the above.) I don't have time for a complete downloading HOWTO, but ... mov = wget, asf = wget, asx = asfrecorder, wmv = try asfrecorder then wget.
Re:O well (Score:2)
Real Player 8 [real.com] which is good. It's not the newest version so they don't give you the option to download JUST the player anymore, which is hard to find. Email me (address listed above) and I can send you the RP8 install (basic, non-network install).
RealOne Player [real.com] which in my opinion sucks. This new piece of bloatware does everything the previous versions did but so much more (that you don't want it to do). I recommend against it.
Re:O well (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:O well (Score:2)
Re:O well (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.littlechapel.com/downloads/rp8-setup.e
It's a church site that lets you download real player to see one of their presentations. I guess they felt that it was sinful to let someone endure the pain of trying to navigate through www.real.com.
Re:O well (Score:2, Troll)
http://forms.real.com/real/player/player.html?src
Scroll down and there is a Unix verion available as well. -Tommy
Re:O well (Score:3)
From this moment on I a'm no longer atheist!
Re:O well (Score:2)
Is $1 enough? It seems like it should be. If I rent a movie from the local video store I pay about $3. Surely $2 worth of that is wasted on things like rent on the space, salaries, etc.
And don't scream about not being able to save it locally. Why would you want to? You can watch it as many times as you want for 3 days. If the movie is so good that I would want to keep it after that I'd go and buy it, much better quality and it doesn't eat any of my disk space.
.
Re:O well (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't scream about not being able to save it locally. Why would you want to?
Some of us don't have super-fast internet connections like you seem to have. I've got 512Kbps cable and streaming video is pretty poor on it, however, downloading the stream while I'm at work to watch it in the evening is a viable option.
Re:O well (Score:2)
If it's the former, then yes, I could see your point. But with a 512k cable connection you shouldn't have this problem unless the bottleneck is somewhere between the other end and your ISP.
Modem and slower broadband users? Well, everyone knows there are advantages to having a fat pipe, and they do offer a 100k stream. Not many people would bother to attempt this with a modem... they know their limitations.
Maybe when someone legitimate does this they will make a way to download for play later. Some kind of codec with a key exchange for authorization. They could offer a higher quality feed than would be possible in live streaming with a bit of an increase in cost to cover bandwidth.
I'd pay the same as I would for a rental in that case. No going to the video store, thousands of titles available all the time, no out of stocks, no trying to get it back on time, no late fees. Perfect.
Someone will crack it, but like I said, why bother? If they keep the prices very low, it's not worth the wasted disk space to keep around. We've just got to get into this mindset.
.
Re:O well (Score:2)
Lots of rebuffering unfortunately. The 300K stream, when it gets going is quite nice, but the 100K is pretty dismal in both sound and audio quality.
Having just done a traceroute, there isn't really a bottleneck, so I really need a faster connection, something that the UK providers aren't yet willing to offer at an affordable price for the home consumer.
I would be quite happy to use the service, though, should I ever get the chance of a fatter pipe, as, all things considered, it's a damn sight better than either video stores or p2p piracy.
US Law vs. Taiwanese Law (Score:3, Funny)
Better mark Taiwan up on the Axis of Evil list too..
Re:US Law vs. Taiwanese Law (Score:5, Informative)
According to the Bern convention, you don't need to register for copyright protection.
But Taiwan was thrown out of the UN and most international bodies, in order to please China.
And thus Taiwan couldn't take part in the negotiations, didn't modify it's national laws.
Nice sideeffect.
Re:US Law vs. Taiwanese Law (Score:2)
price point (Score:5, Insightful)
Somethings that are free are not worth the price.
On the other hand, a dollar, euro, etc, is probably the minimum that most people would pay, since much less is possible too much of a hassle. dollar stores, dollar menus are popular because people think these provide good value, even if it is not true.
and think: when was the last time you changed a candy bar to a credit card? by itself? there is a point when paying by electronic means is perceived to be too much of a hassle.
Amen to that! (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen to that. I've downloaded several divx movies and after the nuisance of finding it in the first place, followed by a couple of weeks of broken and resumed downloads (and thats with a reasonably friendly file-sharing utility), using the better part of a Gig of bandwidth, and having other miscreants weezing stuff off my hard-drive, I'd rather go out and spend 20 bucks on a DVD. It's a better picture and sometimes they even throw in some other goodies (though I thought the tone poems on the Episode 1 DVD kinda sucked). I really wish someone would clue in the MPAA to this: That downloading movies is a pain in the ass and though I can't speak for everyone else's preferences, I really don't think that movie attendance or DVD sales is going to be threatened by it in any perceivable way. Please leave off the copy-protection shit and the regional encoding...you don't really need it.
Re:price point - Needs to be =$1 World Wide (Score:2, Insightful)
The nice thing about buying items from the rest of the world is that it is often at a much lower price point overseas. Importing IP into the US is far easier than buying other IP such as drugs in Mexico.
Re:price point - Needs to be =$1 World Wide (Score:2)
Interesting that you consider drugs to be intellectual property. Care to expand?
Re:price point - Needs to be =$1 World Wide (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually manufacturing the resulting drugs is sometimes expensive depending on the process, but it usually nearly free. In third world countries there are often identical drugs that are 1/10 or 1/100 the blockbuster price in the US. And generics are often drastically cheaper even in the US.
The raw materials are often virtually free, aspirin, codeine etc in bulk powder form went for at most a dollar or two per KG, when I last checked about ten years ago.
Not unlike the cost of your homemade copy of windows on a CD vs from the manufacturer or the cost of the truly high quality plug and play fully functional "Rolex" knockoff vs the one that the Rolex company makes, or YSL dress or Gucci bag
Re:price point (Score:2)
Now if some major company started offering a service like this, I'd jump on it. Bigger selection, quicker response times, legal, and a lot more comfortable to do business with.
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Re:price point (Score:2)
Re:price point (Score:2)
.
A buck isn't worth anything? (Score:5, Funny)
Heh. Eat that, Terry Bradshaw.
Should be interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
Cannot be saved? (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems to me the content producers are trying to do the impossible. In this case and in other cases where they try to do copy protection.
Copy protection is the attempt to create something that will send a good signal to a display device but a bad signal to a recording device. Every implementation I have seen to date sends a less than perfect signal to the display device resulting in unwatchability at times.
When it comes right down to it, all you need to do to copy the signal is create a recording device that emulates a display device well enough.
I have 1 DVD that will not play with my current DVD player. My other DVD player had trouble with 2 different DVDs. Macrovision resulted in a distorted picture with the combination of hardware I was using to view VHS.
Is it too much to ask that I be able to view the content I've paid for?
Legal Release Date (Score:2, Interesting)
Although it's nice that someone sticks it to the MPAA, how many channels would they need to go through to protect their wares. I don't like their bully tactics anymore than the rest of
Everyone ought to check it out - NOW (Score:5, Insightful)
Even thought it is real streamed at 300k bps, you'll get an idea of what the future could look like if we really could get our film libraries live.
Remember that many US concepts of copyright, fair use, etc don't translate into equivalent laws in other countries. This may be legal now and forever for agreements executed under the laws of Taiwan (this site). Note that some countries consider region coding to be unlawful (NZ?.
Note that the fair use concept in the US is stronger than in many others.
US owned a lot of IP and is considered to be unfair in its licensing practices in other countries -- they don't like embargoes on content, restrictive format licensing on contects, copy protection, delayed release dates in other countries and other US centric concepts.
Re:Everyone ought to check it out - NOW (Score:2)
About New Zealand and region encoding (Score:2)
I haven't looked it up, but from what I understand it's perfectly okay to sell a region-specific DVD player. On the other hand, there's nothing the big publishers can do to prevent you from taking your DVD player to the shop downtown and having it de-regionised to play DVD's for other regions, I've definitely seen shops and electrical technicians advertising that particular service in the past. Region encoding was in some way ruled as an anticompetitive practice, I think, but I don't have it as firsthand information.
I'm guessing but it probably came in about the same time that all the parallel importing restrictions were lifted a decade or so ago. They were temporarily put back for movie material a few weeks ago by the Labour government on the grounds of "protecting local cinema" from all of the currently released movies coming in on parallel-imported DVD's at the same time. That said, I'm not sure whether that actually involves de-regionising of DVD players or if it's actually just importing the videos and DVD's to New Zealand in the first place. I suspect it's only the latter.
I noticed the other week that Wellington library even advises on the shelves that some marked DVD's they loan might not play in region 4 players, so if it's not legal (but I think it is) then I guess there's some significant civil disobedience coming from local government employees.
Can anyone with a better understanding expand on this?
IANAL, but... (Score:2)
Here is what you agree to (among other things) in the Terms of Service:
"You agree to indemnify and hold us. . . harmless from any claim, demand,loss and damage whatsoever including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your use of the Product, your connection to the Product, your breach/violation of the TOS, or your breach/violation of any rights of another or any existing laws (local, state, national and/or international) whatsoever."
(abridged, emphasis added)
In other words: you could get busted for this, and that's your problem. In fact, if someone (MPAA, government) sues us because you have been using this service, you get to pay our attorney's fees.
its Taiwan (Score:2)
I could have gotten a dollar? (Score:4, Funny)
but the MPAA managed to hunt me down and send me and my ISP really naughty obscene letters. they quoted obscene literature such as "Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 106(3" and "we hereby state, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 512" Eventually the letters started to get to offensive so I decisted all activity. But man, if I only had a team of lawyers at the time....
Re:I could have gotten a dollar? (Score:2)
I think this article is interesting because it's often fun to see big companies get screwed *legaly*, but you live in a country where the distribution is illegal. You can't just decide which laws you want to obey and which you don't, that's just not how society works.
Same treatment as the Ukraine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Same treatment as the Ukraine? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Same treatment as the Ukraine? (Score:2)
Re:Same treatment as the Ukraine? (Score:3)
Maybe Taiwan already has a DMCA-like law. Who knows?
This seems to be an entirely different issue altogether. Taiwan just insists on certain time limits wrt Copyright registration and protection.
Seems pretty reasonable to me. This requirement just makes sorting out copyright infringement claims later much easier.
What will almost certainly happen is that the Studios will take care to make sure the Copyright protection is in place in Taiwan before opening movies now.
IANAL, but it would seem that telcos and ISPs might be at risk for carrying this in the US. Any knowledgeable lawyers out there who can speak to this?
slashdotted? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:slashdotted? (Score:2, Informative)
.
Re:slashdotted? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is pretty interesting. I guess they did a good job scaling their video servers but not a good job on the web server. Kudos to them for devoting the most resources to the most important application.
Re:slashdotted? (Score:2)
.
Balls (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of their pricing decisions seem a bit arbitrary, however. For example, you can view the 3h17m movie Magnolia for the price of a single download, but the similarly long Schindler's list is broken up into three streams that must be viewed separately.
I give them five days before the US government threatens to give China the green light to annex unless the Taiwanese government cracks down on this site.
Re:Balls (Score:3, Informative)
Umm... there are places in the world that have access to the internet and *don't* have access to NBC broadcasts. Think globally.
Re:Balls (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand your point. I said that Movie88.com has balls because they are going to attract some extremely unwelcome attention from large, moneyed interests who can exercise more than their fair share of influence on the US government (and by extension, the Taiwanese goverment).
If you think this is changed by the fact that some people who are downloading "Friends" episodes don't get it on their local telly, you are extremely mistaken.
Sure.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Account Creation Broken? (Score:2)
Has anyone been able to actually test this service?
Re:Account Creation Broken? (Score:2)
Now I can login using Netscape (where I have RealPlayer configured) and see if this thing really works. :)
stream capturing (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be cool if you would put a machine on the network that watched every packet going by and detected when you were receiving a stream of data and would write that stream of data to the drive and then convert it to DivX? Then it could have streaming software and a web server to show you everything that is available and to present it to anyone in the house.
Re:stream capturing (Score:2)
TR is great for unencrypting all those Audible files, etc. so you can save them out as a standard mp3 or whatever. I just set it up and start playing the encrypted file before I go to bed. Next morning I have an mp3. I also record several radio shows this way. A cron job launches TotalRecorder about a minute before the show comes on. When the show is about to start it launches a url to the streaming audio of the radio station. It only writes to the file when there is audio to play, so no problems.
Why not have something that did the same thing for the video card when in full screen mode? Combine the two and you're set.
this is such crap... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a big endless loop of 'sign in', choose a movie, 'sign in', etc.
Already slowed to the point that it's worthless...
Also, no 'Clerks' or 'Chasing Amy'. Or the search function just doesn't work...
sigh.
Re:this is such crap... (Score:2)
So far the only problem has been the 6 zillion people hitting the site all at once.
Movie financing about to be turned on its head (Score:2, Interesting)
The only way to finance a movie in this new world is to sell the eyeballs that are watching the movie for other purposes. Already theaters make about half of their money on concessions, for example. The two other obvious ways of making money on the film is ancillary merchandise (toys, etc.) and product placement (advertising) within the film.
Future films will have smaller budgets, as these ancillary sources of revenues probably cannot replace the big ticket prices being charged today. One can make exciting movies for less money, of course. We worked on The Fast and The Furious last year, which was a low-budget (by today's standards) movie that was designed to get the most bangs for the very limited visual effects bucks that were available. We've been fortunate enough to be named to the "Bake-Off" for visual effects this Wednesday night, where they will choose the Oscar nominees -- which demonstrates that you can do competitive visual effects-laden movies on very limited budgets.
This may not sit well with the ILM's of the world -- but it is also inevitable. While with music there were huge profit margins that gave the record companies some slack with the advent of song sharing over the 'net, the movie studios don't have that kind of margin anymore. Once movie sharing becomes ubiquitous, they just will not be able to make $100M blockbusters.
Enjoy them while you can.
thad
Re:Movie financing about to be turned on its head (Score:3, Insightful)
Where this sort of streaming will have a big impact is in the video sale/rental market, which depending on the movie accounts for anywhere from 20-80% of total revenue. After all, an online stream or download is likely available before the video is released, is cheaper by far than buying the DVD, and likely looks better than the thouroughly beaten up VHS tapes at your local rental store. If anything, look for audiovisual effects to be regarded as a defense against online availability of movies in the future. Then people might actually go out and see the movie in a theater after downloading it, just to see/hear what they were missing.
On the other hand, $100M is an awful lot of money to spend making *anything*, and is certainly out of line with what is spent on most works of art. The protesters dancing outside the WEF in New York right now might have some ideas about how that money could have been more productively used. If summer action blockbusters go the way of pyrimid building as an art form, many would argue that cinematic art would be better off.
I stopped going to see movies... (Score:2)
Now, I'm over a year away from school and have a home entertainment system. Until I got the system, I was watching movies and television again. Now with a ReplayTV, I don't see commercials. The cost of movie tickets is $9.50, so for the cost of the two movie tickets, I can buy a DVD and watch it at home in surround sound on a HDTV. If I want to watch the movie later, I can. I don't really rent movies because of the hassle of returning them.
I never thought that I would stop going to see movies, but I mostly have.
I'll still see an eye candy movie, but the rest? I'll watch at home. There is no reason to go see a movie that isn't for the eye candy. I have a better sound system than most of the theaters, so I'd have to go to the good one 30 minutes away.
I dunno, I seem to enjoy having people to my place and watching a movie much more than going out.
Now, if you don't really like to watch TV and Movies, the $5k startup costs for a decent system (what my "midrange" system cost) is rediculous. However, if you don't really care, you can do a passable job for $1500 and still enjoy the experience.
Summer action blockbusters won't go, as those are more fun in the theatre. However, I no longer see them 2-3 times there. I see them once then buy the DVD when it comes out.
I doubt that the blockbuster will go away, but the theater as a way of distributing artsy films may go away. That's okay though, digital cable and better encoding algorithms should open up plenty of channels for them, and artsy films need to make less to do well.
The $100m film won't look good on your computer screen compared to a real theater, and when shit blows up I want to be screaming and yelling with the audience. However, $20 for two people to see a silly comedy is a bit much.
Alex
Re:Movie financing about to be turned on its head (Score:2, Interesting)
You may be right, but one could certainly argue otherwise. Producing movies is a lot like software in that almost all of the costs are upfront. Once the movie is made, or the distribution CDs are burned, the added cost to the production company of adding another viewing is minimal. Example:
Suppose I go to the movies about 4 times a year at the current $7.00 price (which is about right). Now suppose the price drops to a buck and I start going every week. In the first scenario I transfer $28.00/year to the theater (and indirectly to the studio). In the second one, I transfer $52.00/year to the theater. The added costs incurred by the theater are very small (in fact, they wind up making a lot more money on concessions). The added costs to the studio are minimal (they'd need to strike more prints, and they're expensive, but they'd be amortized across a larger number of viewings).
The point is that you can't automatically assume that "higher retail price" == "higher profit". Rolex watches cost a lot more than Timex ones. Which company makes more money? A meal at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant costs a lot more than one at McDonalds. Which company makes more money?
Another example: In the early days of VHS tapes they were selling them for $70-$100 each (in less-inflated dollars!). Now they're more like $20. Guess which price has proven to yield more money?
It MAY be that the current ticket prices maximize revenue. It may not. Expecting reasonable business practices from Hollywood is a little unrealistic, so I don't think we know for sure.
Of course, your point about no one producing a big-budget movie in an atmosphere of universal piracy is spot on. Lower prices can increase profits, but the price has to be greater than 0.
Re:Movie financing about to be turned on its head (Score:2)
The hollywood greed machine feeds itself. Eventually the general populace will give a big FUCK YOU to $12.00 ticket prices when they arrive, and go buy the DVD of it for $19.99.
Damn it (Score:3, Redundant)
Da *buffering*
mn *buffer--*
movi *buffering*
e got sla *buffering buffering buffering buffering 3 hours remaining*
shdot *buffering*
ted! *buffering*
--joshua
/.d (Score:3, Funny)
A new development - the site was slashdotted - it's extremely slow and video downloads do not work!
I can almost hear the engineer in the background... " She canna take much moore of it, keptin! "...
I'd suspect that even if they have access to the fattest pipes in Taiwan, the international feed to Taiwan would be saturated with
Here's to their good luck!
OMG! Copy control ACHIEVED! (Score:2)
Hah! They don't even control the client hardware.
Non-copyright infringing uses (Score:2, Informative)
I've gotten it to work (sort of)... (Score:2)
I created an account and started watching "American Pie 2". The first three things I noticed out the gate... the sound SUCKS, the picture at 300K is very small, and the subtitles (which you can't turn off) are almost always completely wrong. On the up side, there was NO slowdown or stutter in the video or audio over the course of the entire hour I was able to watch the movie.
After about an hour, the stream suddenly stopped, giving, instead, an error message that someone had just logged in as my user name, so I was being logged out. The message further indicated that it was likely my fault for handing out my login information.
I then spent over a half hour trying to log back in to no avail. It is apparently impossible to log in... period. Ultimately, I created a new account again, ran the free movie (Frankenstein in College), and was confronted with the same problems again... to include my "stolen account". I find the odds of that happening, TWICE, staggering...
At any rate, it could be a decent service if they offer a larger screen version, fix their sound, fix/remove the captions, and repair their screwy login system.
Well, my $0.02, and that's probably overrated...
Streambox VCR anyone? (Score:2)
Does anyone still have a copy of this program? Can you try it on this site to see if it still works? I know after Real got the company shut down they changed their format around to break a lot of Streambox's functionality.
Every day I still curse Streambox for bending over and let Real have their way with them. If only this site were using Windows Media! ASFRecorder is still working flawlessly even on the latest WM8 files.
- JoeShmoe
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Re:Streambox VCR anyone? (Score:2)
streambox, the cracks to remove the "phone home" problem and also an intercept tool.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_softwar
I haven't tested the download, so naturally use it at your own risk.
Bzzt! (Score:2)
This is terrible for peope against the DMCA (Score:2)
I am completely against all the extreme restrictions that things like the DMCA can put upon us. But, I am completely for the protection of intellectual properties for their creators. If the movie houses don't make money off of their movies, you can expect the quantity and quality to go way down.
Re:Quality? (Score:2)
They seem to be making plenty of money, the quantity is up, and the quality is crap for 95% of the offerings. Hmmm... how can it get much worse?
Will Rogers said, "People get the government they deserve." I guess the same goes for entertainment. If we keep paying them to go see crap, they will produce more crap.
"Go on, take the money Enron."
-- Steve Miller Band (with a little help from current events.)
The site is slashdotted... (Score:2)
Also, I would like to note that this will surely not last, as the long arm of MPAA will reach them, sooner rather than later.
Anyway, this is a great idea, but we all know what happens to great ideas if the BIG companies don't approve them...
Movies for less than US$1 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:right... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh...I see. (Score:2)
On an off-topic note, I have the plugin in both Netscape and Galeon and I still get the "not detected" problem. What are these sites doing to "detect" plugins, and why? Why don't they just send the damn stream and let the client worry about how to handle it.....
Re:Oh...I see. (Score:2, Interesting)
As I am on Slashdot,its even more interesting. They may have AOL in the back but Real isn't the only propetioary firm/codec giving you Linux/BSD client?
oh, I worked on AV business, let me say... Of course, Quicktime is the best one (if they can code a client that can do true fullscreen, argh) and Real is the second. Its my personal view. For me windowsmedia is the least suscessful project of Microsoft, forever.
If you want an open format? No, it won't happen, than people with T1/T3 whatever corparate lines will "leech" all movies from them.
Re:Oh...I see. (Score:2, Insightful)
If I'm paying for it, I want to enjoy it; nothing political about it; Real SUCKS.
:)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I'd watch a lot more movies if they were only a (Score:2)
However life sucks. And BBC doesnt get adverts.
Re:Is Final Fantasy on the list? (Score:2, Insightful)
There has to be a law affording them protection, in order for them to have any.
Firstly, even in the US, there doesn't _have_ to be a law doing so at all. Congress could give up the whole idea tomorrow, repeal copyright laws, and it'd be one big free for all... domestically. (foreign countries would still have their copyrights, presumably; copyrights are not international, though there are mutual recognition agreements in many instances)
It's much the same elsewhere -- England was the first country to have such laws, that was ~1700. Took until the 20th century for them to propagate in most countries. Why? Because no one cared about them, and if it isn't illegal, what's wrong with it?
Secondly, US copyright law has, IIRC, been limited to only books and maps (films would've been fair game, music was), only for American authors (foreigners would be screwed), and only for 14 years (a fraction of the modern span).
Isn't this just as arbitrary? Couldn't it be claimed that this is "stealing" by someone as unknowledgeable as yourself?
Taiwan should pass laws that the Taiwanese _want_. It is that simple. Don't like it; don't go to Taiwan.
(Besides which the word you're looking for is 'infringement,' not 'theft' or 'stealing.' There are specific meanings attached to each, and they're not interchangable. Go read some legal decisions on copyright some time and come back when you know enough to meaningfully participate in the discussion, kid.)
Re:Is Final Fantasy on the list? (Score:2)
It's hardly theft. And it's not a loophole. The MPAA et al are not entitled to any amount of copyright protection whatsoever merely as a consequence of having created some work. Not even in the US.
How the hell did this get moderated up? Perhaps you need to read up on the Berne Convention [google.com] to figure out what protection is afforded to parties for creation. Taiwan, it should be noted, is not a member. This little stunt, though, could easily turn them from a developing country into a country that gets hammered not just by the US and the MPAA, but by 95 other countries that actually value the efforts of individuals that create content.
Re:Is Final Fantasy on the list? (Score:2)
UNLESS Congress chooses to utilize its power to so create such protection, and then only within certain limits set by the Constitution, as interpreted by the Judiciary. Congress merely can pass such laws -- it doesn't _have_ to. In the absence of such laws, where would you claim copyright protections to eminate from?
This is what I mean by artists not being entitled to copyright protection. Were they, it wouldn't take an enumerated power of Congress and actual passage of law by that body to do it. (and even then, the criteria used is based upon the progress of the arts -- not an automatic entitlement)
Similarly, the Berne Convention does not impose copyright law on any non-signatory; how could it? It's a treaty! Furthermore, it doesn't establish any international copyright law so much as it requires signatories to grant a copyright to works copyrighted elsewhere. Even then, within certain bounds.
And frankly, the US's lovely utilitarian copyright system could care less about the efforts of individuals that create content -- it cares about the social benefit of said content.
Re:Is Final Fantasy on the list? (Score:2)
As it happens, I'm an artist myself, and although at the moment I'm back at school, I've supported myself as an artist for years.
Please, point to the bit where I said that copyright was a bad idea. You won't find it.
I think it's a perfectly good idea -- when it's done right. Artists should be able to have the opportunity (there's no guarantee one's work won't flop) to support themselves.
BUT, carried to extremes, copyright monopolies harm society's interests in being able to freely access and use works. They harm other author's interests in being able to modify works. (e.g. Disney's movies based on other people's fairy tales) They harm the efforts of preservationists to keep pieces of our culture from being lost permanently.
These same ordinary people have an interest as well in seeing there be a broad diversity of works. It is in everyone's interest to afford _some_ protection to authors.
Some.
Where it makes sense for our society as a whole, not where it only stands to fatten the wallets of artists (or worse yet, cause harm w/o even any benefit to an artist b/c their work flopped).
It is up to the people and governments of EVERY country to determine for themselves where that balance lies. A nation with few artists stands to gain little by affording them great protections. The US used to be one of these countries. Do you dare claim that one country should be subjugated to the law of another country unless the first has shown a willingness to do so!
For such a triviality as copyright! That would be mad.
If Taiwan _WANTS_ to develop copyright law, that is its business. If it insists that authors seeking copyright protections comply with their laws or forgoe those protections, that is its business. As Taiwan is not a Berne Convention signatory AFAIK, is has placed upon itself NO obligation to respect foreign copyrights as though they were its own. This works both ways -- we need not respect theirs. Nothing compels us to do so.
I can't imagine how you think that attempting to circumvent the legitimate Taiwanese government in order to impose laws that the natives do not want is in any way just or fair. You advocate a violation of soverignty, because you don't like someone's internal practices.
This kind of thing led to centuries of war before, when attacks on soverignty were undertaken for religious reasons. Took the Treaty of Westphalia for people to recognize that countries can do within their own borders as they like. Don't throw this away.
Re:Is Final Fantasy on the list? (Score:2)
That _is_ the sort of thing you'd expect in a democratic society, is it not? Major music publishers have been frequently accused of illegal price fixing -- but if we adopted your view, they could do as they please, and antitrust laws a thing of the past.
Glad I don't live in your fantasy world.
Re:Is Final Fantasy on the list? (Score:2)
Companies are indeed forced to lower prices, even on luxury goods. (among other regulations) This is particularly true when they have engaged in anticompetitive practices in order to control a market without concern for typical market forces.
If you don't like complying with the laws of a democratic society, you can of course attempt to change them (just like everyone else does), suck it up like a man, leave, or be an outlaw.
You appear to be opting to leave (the marketplace) at least. But do you really think _EVERYONE_ will do so? I'm not talking about regulating prices to the point where profit is impossible, only where it is acceptable to the public. A truly efficient capitalist will take any opportunity to profit he can get.
You just sound greedy.
Re:Is Final Fantasy on the list? (Score:2)
Part of capitalism is the idea that prices will naturally flow to a fair point, since companies have to keep their prices low to be competitive. Antitrust comes in when companies try to beat the system and remove competition from the equation so that they can have high prices.
"Price fixing" is never a company charging "too much". It's about systematically removing the competitive element from a market so that you can control it. In the case of retail industries, price competition starts at the end consumer purchase. The retailer doesn't care all that much if an item costs say $50 from the distributor if they can charge $100 for it. However if competition with other retailers lowers the price to $55, the retailer will start putting pressure on the distributor (perhaps by threatening to stop carrying their products) to lower the distributor's price to $25. This creates competition among distributors and lowers their profit margins.
In the case of the record companies, they sought to avoid this trend not by defining the prices that retailers could charge (which is highly illegal) but by defining the price that they could *advertise* (which is less illegal). Most consumers won't do very heavy comparison shopping unless an advertisement clues them in, so this prevents the retailers from putting much pressure on each other; as a result most of them just charged MSRP. What's the point of having a lower price if you can't advertise it, anyway? This results in no pricing pressure on the record companies, since the retailers are making plenty of money per unit at MSRP.
The government never sets any sort of price limits for an industry unless they decide to formally regulate it, which is never done with luxury items. Antitrust is about certain methods of doing business which must be illegal for capitalism to work.
Re:Well, this'll be interesting. (Score:2, Funny)
What are you really trying to say? Hongkong is not part of Taiwan. Or do you just mean the region? Hmm join the navy and not know the difference between Taiwan and Hongkong.
Re:And what is the point, exactly ? (Score:2)
.
Re:Works ok... (Score:2)
HH
In Chinese, number marking is optional (Score:2)
Why do Chinese people have so much trouble making plurals?
Probably because marking number on nouns is optional in Chinese. Chinese has a noun for "one or more men" or "one or more" of anything else, and you can add adjectives that translate as "one" or "many" to make the noun specifically singular or plural.
Just add an 's' and be done with it!
That doesn't work on all nouns. Child does not become *childs, and sheep does not become *sheeps.