The Customer is Always Wrong 539
McSpew writes "Hackers author Steven Levy so far is the only person in the mainstream press to pick up on the the travesty of the SSSCA hearings. He points out that only the media giants could be so stupid as to think treating their customers like criminals will increase sales." Steven's a very smart guy - and very well said on this issue.
If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:5, Insightful)
The SSSCA is just the result of a lazy slob MPAA/RIAA executives who want the PC industry to build them tailor-made-to-order PC technology to their exacting specifications, without having to invest a single penny or lift a single finger of effort. Oh, the industry won't play along? Let's pass legislation REQUIRING them to.
The MPAA/RIAA are so used to having their way with consumers, that they now believe they can hand the jar of vaseline to the PC industry and have their way with them, too.
And the scary bit is that for the most part, they're right...
Nothing New (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh.
It's a shame people dont have the time or money to care until it actually happens.
Re:Protecting yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
Please! This is basically more of big, rich media companies convicting all their customers without a trial. Guilty because you own a piece of hardware. Yeah, file-sharing and copying is rampant...does it take away their profits? That's not clear...and in MY opinion, it doesn't since there's no guarantee that I would have purchased a CD containing a song I download...yet I know that many times, I've downloaded a song, liked it, then bought the CD.
As for the Apple campaign, nothing in it is promoting criminal behavior, only fair use...which is what these people would LOVE to stamp out.
The big deal for me (Score:4, Insightful)
I own an Archos jukebox. Me buying music is dependant upon whether I can rip it to mp3 and put it on my jukebox. I'll happily wager that I'm not alone in this.
Force American companies to hobble their electronics, and you're just making it more tempting to buy an import. Think about what happens to sales when it's discovered this or that DVD player has a way to override regional controls. If this happens, some shop in Taiwan or Hong Kong is going to start making a killing.
Re:Protecting yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they're safe, especially since none of these are illegal activities. Violation of copyright is illegal. Unlimited distribution without permission of the copyright holder (not "owner") is illegal. But for music you've made, or music you've purchased, ripping, mixing, and burning are entirely legal for your personal use. Not only does common sense say so. So does the law and quite a number of federal courts.
Despite efforts to grab the mindspace, the Content Cartel is simply wrong when it claims that ripping, mixing, or burning are, prima facie, illegal. Don't yield that ground to them.
New Distribution Model (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this is twofold:
First, the labels will not pin a price that is reasonable compared to the cost of production.
Look at CD's, despite falling from $6 to about $.50 to press, why haven't CD prices fallen as well? Besides, they make a lot of money selling 1 to 3 good tracks bundled with 10 tracks worth of filler.
Second: Unfortunately, there's a mindset that people will not pay for something that they got for free previously, despite the quality guarantees that a pay service might have. This explains why Napster's pay service is not rolling out as expected.
The result is the survival of a music distribution model with too many hands in the till.
Thankyou! (Score:3, Insightful)
Arguing against those who favor copy protection measures extreme as these can sometimes be difficult for people who arn't particularly technologically inclined; that's why we always see anologies to Ford making cars whose engines need updgrades like Windows does. This article does a good job of making the electronic freedom arguement without resorting to such sillyness by pointing to the underlying economic reality: treating your customers like theives will never increase sales.
Let's hope this is just the first in a long line of articles making a sensible arguments against Disney et al., and their handpicked legislators.
If this had been done right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, there would be quite a few people still pirating the content, but for audiophiles it would have been a no-brainer. Legal, fast, and clean would have been the watchwords. How many MP3s have you downloaded only to find out that it's a bad rip that took you an hour to get? Misnamed songs, misnamed authors, and things like that would have been things of the past. But no, we have to have paranoia, fear, and mistrust.
A company that would trust its customers a little bit could reap huge rewards. There will be piracy regardless of what they do. If it was created by man, it can be broken by man.
The first company to engender a little trust and lay on a little guilt "If one of your friends wants this song, send them to us so we can continue to offer you this premium service" would have made them money.
Re:If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:5, Insightful)
But if they accomplish the same thing via legislation, it's perfectly legal. Go figure.
Media (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhmm...am I the only one who sees how obvious it is that mainstream media, controlled by the companies that are backing the sssca, wouldn't be reporting on it? Unless it wasn't going their way, that is.
Re:Protecting yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
I have on my PC at work about 1500 mp3's that are perfectly legal and their purpose is to keep me from lugging CD's to and from work.
SSSCA would prevent that since the only purpose of mp3 is to steal music...
Re:Nothing New (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:They'll learn the hard way. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly and most importantly, I don't think people realize just how big the SSSCA is. If it passes, all of these wonderful OSS initiatives will die off. This is the real deal people, so stop whining about Slashdot subscription services and start writing to your Representatives (Don't e-mail them, write them a real letter). A few well-reasoned and insightful letters will enlighten our elected officials, hopefully. This is a direct and fundamental threat to a good deal of the
Re:it's not about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
I also think it should be emphasized that this law will affect more than just the entertainment cartel's content.
It could very well destroy the common person's ability to create their own content. Want to create a home movie? You'll have to buy a $10,000 device. Want to record your daughter's piano recital? You'll have to pay $100 in patent fees to some company.
Not only that, it will probably go beyond audio and video. Want a choice of OS? You get Microsoft bloated unstable unsecure ass-fisting Winders 2004 or Sun Microsystems really expensive server OS. Want to send an email with an attachment (such as a spreadsheet)? Sorry, unless it has the proper content codes, you're not allowed to do that. Want to edit an essay you wrote pre-SSSCA? Sorry, that isn't copy controlled.
All of the news media stories I've seen don't even seem to mention this. That and calling it "security" really confuses the issue, so that the average person doesn't understand the true implications.
Re:And this isn't stupid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's perfectly valid to view this as slashdot charging for the service, not the content. They organize the servers, the software, maintain the archives, etc. Through their reputation (such as it is) and their userbase, they supply the eyeball.
Hey, sort of like open source.
Eisner's Facing Reality Cramps (Score:5, Insightful)
First, Linux and other technologies become illegal. Right. Good luck with that.
Additionally, kiss exports by-bye and say hello to foreign competition - or barring foreign imports. Nice job of foreign relations there.
But before that, imagine creating a standard that'll work and that people can agree on. No chance.
However, before that, you have to deal with the legal challenges that will come up. If some bill is passed, it's going to go into the courts faster than anyone can imagine.
And, finally, foremost, this will blow up in the faces of the companies. People are used to this technology. Most are using it for understandable purposes, and almost none are evil, drooling, anti-american criminals. They will NOT be happy.
Ultimately, the companies involved have repeatedly shot themselves in the foot. They're running out of feet.
So, where is the boycot ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've not watched any TV for the last 2 years, I don't own any DVD products (disc, or player), I stop buying music CDs, I stop going to movies (last film I've watched in theater was The Matrix, and yes, I've not watched The LoTR!), I stop renting movies from Block Buster or Hollywood. In 1998, I spent about $3000 on music/movies (not including different players, discman, cables, figurines, posters, live concerts, etc). Not that big a sum, but that's the money those RIAA/MPAA fat folks do not get from me anymore on a yearly basis.
People complain, and then rush to give their money to those RIAA/MPAA monsters and witches. No wonder they get more and more powerful, and keep bullying the consumers, coz that's easy money. And for all the complaints that people have made, how does that affect their revenue? None! Au contraire, their pocket seems to get fatter, just look at every new hit. Every year is a record breaker in terms of box office and albums sold.
Re:Protecting yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you transfer the liability to the hardware manufaturers, the courts, and the government. Its easy to implement crappy copy protection, and then rely on other people to protect you when somebody figures out how to circumvent it.
As a company, it makes a lot of sense to try to stop people from using your products illegally.
I agree. And I have no problem with any company trying to do this. If they want to, then there should be nothing trying to stop them. I, of course, am free to not use their products, and I am free to support any company that chooses not to use copy protection that interfers with my fair-use rights.
The problem is that they are trying to pass a law to remove these rights from me. They are taking the actions of a few illegal traders (who are outnumbered by legitimate CD buyers - Somebody must have made O-Town a #1 record) and turning them into legislation that will effectively, remove my ability to choose and to fairly use my media in a way that I see fit.
This scares the hell out of me.
Re:The big deal for me (Score:2, Insightful)
Jobs and Woz, Hewlett and Packard - Nevermore! (Score:3, Insightful)
If our government thinks we're in a hi-tech slump now, just see what happens if SSCA passes. Just watch the US fall on the wrong side of the digital divide as innovation moves elsewhere.
As others have said, it's not just hardware, but software, too. You can add all the DRM hardware you want, but unless you've got a DRM OS with signatures, security, and verification everywhere, it's broken. An OSS kernel is dead in the DRM age, and userspace may well be in trouble, too. Imagine SSCA-certified compilers that guarantee the 'DRM Devices' are only used properly.
Re:it's not about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes! Exactly! Bravo! ** applause **
This will prevent my neighbors garage band from creating and duplicating their CDs for distribution amongst their friends. And it will prevent their friends from duplicating and sending to *their* friends. Making a digital quality demo tape on the latest hardware will go from an easy to use program on a PC to thousands of dollars in equipment just to encode the right security codes.
If we were lucky, this would go back and bite the RIAA in the ass. Less garage bands distributing demo CDs means less bands for the RIAA members to sign and rip off. And that might also mean more independent labels playing some kick ass music and playing more than 30 days worth of concerts every 5 years.
Re:Nothing New (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:it's not about piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that the software industry can have suffered from piracy for longer than most of you have been alive, but just a few years of Napster warrant stepping all over our freedom and forcing us to lose control of the hardware we purchase?
The future of copy protection (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people equate digital copying with analog copying, but the primary difference is the volume of piracy, and that's what they're scared of.
There is a flip side to all of this... (Score:2, Insightful)
And who will read this? (Score:3, Insightful)
But the question comes up of how much help his support is. This is being printed on msnbc.com.. which is a step removed from, say, slashdot, true, but not a huge step. If someone is reading msnbc.com, there's an excellent chance they're aware of the SSSCA. These are not the people who we need to reach. The people we need to reach are the random uninformed trailer trash and soccer moms.
My question is this: this piece is copyrighted by newsweek. Is it being printed *in* Newsweek? If it is, i'm overjoyed, because that gives this issue the kind of public exposure it so violently needs. People read newsweek. Like, mass numbers of people who are not already relatively in touch with the slashdot groupthink.
We don't need a scattered collection of geeks with excellent philosophical, moral, and constitutional arguments against the SSSCA. We need a large body of uninformed persons who, while they may not be able to understand what "DeCSS" is even if you explained it to them, understand vaguely what the SSSCA is saying and understand *EXACTLY* what its repercussions would be. The congresscritters aren't afraid of lone gunmen with weblogs. They're afraid of herd behavior-- afraid of anything that the uninformed voter mass begins to do en masse that they aren't either in total control of or able to escape blame for. If a lot of people start asking questions about the SSSCA and have begun to realize an answer like "Congressman R. J. Theonomist has a tough anti-piracy stance and is pushing new digital encryption technology to help e-commerce and fight copyright theft" is just dodging the question, the congresscritters will spook and skitter away from the SSSCA like roaches when you turn on the kitchen light, trying to make sure they're not identifiably supporting the SSSCA in any way when the common voter figures out the people supporting the SSSCA are trying to take away consumer rights.
Again, it takes a lot for people to understand what DeCSS is, it takes a lot for people to understand what the DMCA does, and it seems to take a hell of a lot for people to begin to consider source code as "speech". It takes a lot to get people to the point that they understand that napster workalikes do less hurting of the revenues of the music industry than guns do killing people, much less to decide considering the first illegal and the second legal is absurd.. so there may not be hope for the DMCA anytime soon. But the SSSCA is simple to describe-- It makes it illegal for your teenage son to wire together circuitry in your garage because of the possibility your teenage son could potentially be making devices that have the effect of enabling people to listen to music without paying!-- and so there may be hope in stomping it down forever, if the steven levys of the world can bring it up to enough people..
In the meantime, i'm wondering if there's anything we can do to help that process along. Maybe starting a mass movement for computer-savvy geeks to start emailing to their less computer-savvy relatives URLs to news articles explaining what the SSSCA does would be a good idea?
Re:Give thanks to Democrats, Republicans, Greens, (Score:5, Insightful)
Incidentally, you might be interested to know that the closest thing to total-free-market libertarianism that has occurred so far in western society (UK, 18th century) resulted in MASS poverty, and the price of bread rising above levels the vast majority of the population could afford. Under totally free markets, people 'compete' until there is no time/money left over after production to inject back into the economy or use to enjoy said fruits of the system.
Most countries that have seen their GDP rise over the last 10 years (India, Japan) have done so using decidedly anti-free-market tactics (choosing and awarding development to oganizations that are more likely to help the economy in the long run than provide the 'cheapest and best' in the short run), and of all the countries in the EU that have been placed under WTO sactioned IMF reforms, where everything has gone free-market, only Poland has seen their GDP rise slightly. All other 12 countries have seen their GDP fall under true freemarket reforms; even the WTO admits nothing has worked out as planned in their 2000 annual report
So where does that leave you? With a decent system, some things to fix, and a immediate need to cleanse your political system of big business brown nosers. Life wasn't so bad in the mom'and'pop days, no matter what these huge corperations want you to believe. If you can find a non-violent way to restore your government to being more pro-people than pro-business, and temper your fears of market regulation (you dont want total regulation, of course, that doesn't work, but 'checks and balances' when things (read: MS, or RIAA) get out of hand, much like the checks and balances that supposedly prevent any one political body from owning all political decisions), you might have the greatest chance of stabilizing the situation.
Re:it's not about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
The politics of losing voters. (Score:2, Insightful)
Interestingly, or not, Trent Lott, said, rather predictably I suppose, "I guess there's some people that think we ought to all be driving Honda Civics." His point, and he went on to say, as part of the Republican creedo, we don't need government in our lives to dictate how and what we should drive.
The point being, it is very interesting that people who would be on the side of government installing some sort of copy protection are the Dem's and it follows almost from their ideology, it would seem. I would be interested if Lott, and his ilk, would stick to their ideology in saying that govt shouldn't meddle in this. In fact, it is other people like Bob Barr (and let me say I find Lott and Barr as a particularly vile strain of politician) who speak out [house.gov] against surveillance cameras.
It would be interesting to know, or to hear some of the "keep govt out of my life," "let the market rule" Repub's speak out on this issue. Especially if Hollings keeps this up. Maybe it is just in my mind that I still imagine Dem's as being progessive, but the truth is that people like John Perry Barlow and Lawrence Lessig are more Liberterian than anything. The dem's are poised to lose a lot of consumers/citizens on this one, via pissing off the voter. I wonder if any of the other party's are poised to pick it up and run with it?
When CD burners are outlawed... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the funny thing is the record industry will STILL have CD burners. I wonder how they'll get around that little problem. If all CD burners have to be crippled so that they can't copy protected content, how the fuck is the record or movie industry going to produce its product?
Answer: They will have CD burners that aren't crippled. But won't that be illegal?
Answer: Obviously not. So, the SSSCA is even worse than these bastards wanting to cripple all of the electronics in the country...they want to cripple all of the electronics in the country EXCEPT FOR THEIRS BECAUSE THEY NEED FUNCTIONAL ELECTRONICS TO MAKE THEIR PRODUCTS!!!
In fact, I might support the SSSCA if it would apply to everyone, since that would fuck the content industries, and I could live without CDs or movies for a few years before things get straightened out.
When you're writing about the SSSCA to your congressmen, please point out this little piece of hypocrisy. The fact that the industry will keep for itself functional devices and deny these same devices to everyone else. If they can't trust us, why the fuck should we trust them?
Or, maybe I could declare myself to be a record or movie company and get the "privilege" of obtaining the uncrippled devices.
Re:it's not about piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
The RIAA and MPAA better be careful in what they pray for. Most households only have so much money left over for entertainment (and even less during a resession). If entertainment gets to the point where everything is pay-per-view, then for most people, viewing/listening for the month will end when the budget runs out. Perhaps people will go out to clubs and see live entertainment. People will actually go outside again -- once you own a basketball, there's no charge for a pickup game...
The Media Cartels may find that their profits are continuing to fall, and of course they will still blame "piracy" for their ills...
Civil disobedience (Score:1, Insightful)
Refuse delivery of any future mailings from them, until they stop mailing you.
Rejoin. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Continue until record companies go out of business.
Take the money you would have spent for those CDs at cover price, and send it to the artists directly to support their work.
The last part is what makes this civil disobedience, as opposed to just being a cheapskate stealing CDs.
Re:If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very simple, really.
The SSSCA requires every digital device to have copy protection measures in it, referred to as Digital Rights Management. Guess who now holds a patent on a Digital Rights Management Operating System? Microsoft.
And guess what OSes would become illegal if the SSSCA passed? Anything but Windows. Do you think Microsoft would license their patent to Linux? Do you think Linux distros could afford to buy it?? No. MS would become a government-mandated monopoly as the only OS legally allowed by federal law.
Yes, the SSSCA *IS* that far-reaching. This isn't just about our eroding fair-use rights, its about MS/Disney/MPAA/RIAA putting open-source out of business. If you hack code for Linux for a living, enjoy OSS, or just don't want to use Windows for the rest of your life, I HIGHLY suggest you tell as many people as possible about this.
Re:Protecting yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
One thing that is wildly irksome about the whole music copyprotection debate is how seldom we go past the two-part question of whether or not the latest intervention by the music industry is a fair try at protecting their business from thieves, or if it is an attempt to cheat the consumer out of his right to duplicate for private use. By limiting the debate to these terms, we miss the key point: the media industry has everything that it wants.
As a business, the big media companies have created music as a commodity and they have driven the price of it as high as they can without losing substantial customers. All you have to do to prove this, is to walk into Tower Records and look at the casette tapes instead of at the CD's which have replaced them and vinyl as the main musical storage media: the casettes cost one third of what the CD's do.
The physical media are different, but the songs are the same. The only difference is what the market will bear, the price, and with the only source of the material being a very small number of media providers, the fix is in with regard to pricing.
Essentially, the media industry has used the invention of the compact disc to do what Microsoft's harshest critics say that it does, by creating a way of doing business where in order to enjoy the benefits of a technology, you have to pay a price that is set by a seller whose business model is not touched by the moderating influences of competition--monopolistic price-gouging.
People like the original poster either fail to see or hide the key fact that copyright law--a concept put in place to allow creators to enjoy a market value for their works--is not being used the way it was originally intended.
Copyright law is there in order to provide insentive to create and invent; insuring the creator that he or she will be able to derive some profit from his work. Instead of this, copyright law is being used as the basis for price fixing; putting a noose around the neck of every consumer and offering the choice of either paying a price that gives the industry the money to consider copyright-law, and copyright protection schemes as a commodity for sale by the government, or walking through life in silence.
This brings us to an the unpleasant impasse between the passive consumer and the too active producer. The media companies have the money, lawyers and lobbyists necessary to make ridiculous changes in the law of the land and they will continue to use those resources because to do otherwise would be to forego billions of dollars of profits that they have secured by the power of a frighteningly well-funded oligopoly.
With this in mind, the original poster's trumpeting the media industy's just cause with regard to Apple is a ridiculous argument. The truth of the matter is that the media industry is protecting and will continue to protect its "natural right" to define price-gouging as pricing itself even if it means writing laws that reach into every electronic device on earth to do it.
In a better world than the one that businessmen make, the solution would be a very simple reaction to the market itself: if the price of CD's were the cost of tapes, more people would be able to afford larger music collections and the time and trouble needed to rip and burn MP3's would be more of a burden by comparison.
The problem would solved: fewer people would bother to steal.
Re:If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:2, Insightful)
This brings a whole new meaning to the "Open source is free speech" merchandise on Think Geek.
Re:Poor economic reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
The economic argument about public goods is not concerned with your "rights" or the legality of your activity. It is simply concerned with whether or not you can be prevented from accessing said good.
In the default case, with software and music on a public network, the answer to that has proven to be a resounding no.
Now, efforts can be made to enforce excludability. Partial success at this does not necessarily remove the characteristics of a public good from something. Some roads are toll roads. However, the cost of controlling access to every road is too high to justify, so they are mostly treated as public goods.
Just like toll roads, some software will continue to be sold for profit and excludability enforced even if things like the DMCA and SSSCA are not passed.
I do believe that content publishers should have every right to build whatever copyright control mechanisms they want into their products, so long as fair use rights are preserved. The costs of this and the effect it has on the salability and vale of their goods will be borne by them alone.
The problem comes when they try to use legislation to remove free market choice and force the cost of making a their goods excludable onto others. (the taxpayers for enforcement of these laws, hardware mfrs for implementing these measures, consumers who must pay more for goods with less value) It's a bit like road builders asking for the government and car owners to pay for tollbooths in every driveway and taxi meters in every car so they can charge for the use of the street system.
If we are to legally mandate this kind of subsidy and transfer of wealth then I feel there should be srong justification on why this is in the public's interest. I have seen no such justification, just panicky FUD spread by those who feel that in the face of evolving markets they should be able to "grandfather" economic inefficiencies they happen to find profitable.
Re:If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is actually the least problematic of the patents. There are hundreds of DRM patents. Intertrust has one (of many) that is over 100 pages long with a thousand odd claims. I doubt anyone has ever read all the claims, certainly I find it hard to believe the examiner would have.
The real problem is that there is no way for the SSSCA requirements to be met without trusted hardware that will only load a trusted O/S. Trusted in this context means 'RIAA approved'. There is no way that Linux could meet that criteria.
I am much less bothered about the SSSCA than most. We in the computer industry can buy more politicians than the RIAA and MPAA put together. The only reason why Hollings is holding hearing is massive campaign contribribetions.
Furthermore folk should be raising issues about the stupider aspects of the Bill. The computing industry is given 12 months to deploy a technology that does not exist and whose sole purpose is to protect profits. The car industry was allowed decades to deploy safety features such as seat belts and air bags that were designed to save lives. The auto industry execs should probably ask themselves if they want a 12 month precedent to be set.
Even if passed the SSSCA would likely have no effect since there is not prospect of the 12 month schedule being set so the decision would fall to the dept of commerce which would then be besiged with lawsuits and various patent holders trying to peddle their snake oil. They certainly won't come to a decision in 2003, 2004 is an election year.
Given that the RIAA and MPAA people were doing their best in 2000 to get Gore elected and are almost certain to be doing their best in 2005 to make sure their is an administration change in 2005 it is most unlikely that govenor Bush will be signing anything into law to favor their interests (unless they come up with a couple of million in hard money contribribetions).
Re:If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:5, Insightful)
The yankees will have killed it's only innovative industry at the whim of bullshit producers, thus proving the rest of the world that they are really as stupid as they are perceived to be...
Re:If the MPAA/RIAA want copy protected PCs... (Score:5, Insightful)
he real problem is that there is no way for the SSSCA requirements to be met without trusted hardware that will only load a trusted O/S. Trusted in this context means 'RIAA approved'. There is no way that Linux could meet that criteria.
Just in case this needs extra clarification: these protection schemes rely on "trusted clients" (which is the motivation for the bill in the first place -- outlaw all untrusted clients), meaning that you have to be able to count on a piece of the user's equipment (hardware, software, or whatever) to obey the rules, not because it has to, but because it agrees to (or, rather, its manufacturer agrees to make it function that way).
It's not that a regular Region 1 DVD player doesn't know how to play a Region 2 DVD; it just refuses to do so. The discs are encoded the same way, so the player's circuitry is capable of decoding it; it's just that the format includes a message that politely asks "please don't play me unless
The problem with Free/Open software meeting the criteria is that no piece of software for which the source is readily available can ever possibly be a "trusted client", since any user could modify the program to disable the protection mechanism (probably by commenting out a single line, but in any case, it would almost surely be trivially easy).