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I want my MTV - For Free

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by WilHarris, 21 Jun 2004.

  1. WilHarris

    WilHarris Just another nobody Moderator

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    The latest column by our regular monthly columnist James Morris - a week late due to the Orac avalanche last monday...

    www.bit-tech.net/column/14

    :dremel:
     
  2. mrplow

    mrplow obey the fist!!

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    I'm scared, mother :sigh:

    Good article, definately worth a read. You might want to print it out first in case James decides to cancel his deal with bit ;)
     
  3. Nath

    Nath Your appeal has already been filed.

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    Great article!!!

    I think it definately hits the nail on the head. Soon everything will be completely dictated by large corporations and open source will be completely stamped out because if the os can control everything, then it can choose not to let you use openoffice or whatever. Scary stuff...
     
  4. BioSniper

    BioSniper Minimodder

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    This matter does somewhat worry me, I (as do most pople on bit) love to play with their hardware and software (no puns please) and if they remove the ability to do that they remove the enthusiast market.
    But then again. There will most likley be a way around these things, probably some solering your mobo trickery no doubt.

    I know what side i'm on though. I want to retain my hardware modification freedom and the ability to use open source! :rock:
     
  5. Piratetaco

    Piratetaco is always right

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    its the whole being at the whim of a huge multi-national that scares me.if you stop paying stuff you've already paid for stops working.here's my small thread on the TCPA
     
  6. Kingston

    Kingston What's a Dremel?

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    Yeah I can see it happening. I think its all retarted, how much do the corporations think people will take.

    All I can say is go canada, and **** the RIAA, ohh yeah **** Bush too.

    (MOD EDIT: Please do not try to get around the swear filter)
     
  7. p3n

    p3n What's a Dremel?

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    Great stuff.

    No-one will stand for it though and things will just go back to being distributed by mail...

    I for one buy anything I really enjoy and/or wish to collect, the 'content' industry just need to lower prices and create global release dates so that theres no need to download the lastest series running in the U.S. cos you can record it here, which kinda brings up the point, why can you tape a tv prog and keep it, but not download it ?

    Seems like 200 % profit isnt enough for these companies ...
     
  8. Piratetaco

    Piratetaco is always right

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    don't worry dude.i'll be there soon enough.
     
  9. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    www.againsttcpa.com also has a good amount of stuff. I'd suggest giving that a read as well, this article was basically a very quick summary of what's on there.

    Well I've heard about this before and have known what side I'm on for quite some time. I'll let you guess and as I'm responding to this it should be fairly obvious.

    I think that if stuff like this is publicized more, even the common user who normally wouldn't give a crap will start to freak out about this stuff (even if they actually don't do anything illegal). I know it violates the US constitution (and probably many other countries) however as some other article I read pointed out, Bill Gates doesn't care, has been doing it for years, and will continue to do so. And his unquestionable wealth simply means that most people take his word for law (and this kinda shows that it's become just that) so his constitutional violations (invasion of privacy anyone? not that our own government cares about that with the "patriot" act which IMHO is a bunch of crap to further control/monitor our lives) either go unnoticed or unquestioned.

    My parents won't believe me when I share my pessimistic view of the government and whatnot, but they also don't read news about stuff like this. It's people like them that let this happen. About how our so-called democracy is becoming more and more communistic and the government (and apparently the more powerful software producers) just want more and more power and control. And they're getting it.

    To go with the deleted music that you mentioned... that technically makes Napster a virus! Although I don't know the exact definition, I know that software which removes files from your computer without your permission falls into the category.

    The Matrix, anyone? Yes it could happen if you think about it. It'll probably just be that the government replaces/works with the machines. As the Oracle from The Matrix (Reloaded?) said, "What do all men with power want? More power."

    Solution? Well no good one as it's literally built into the processors (although it can be turned off, but will limit you pretty much to only open-source stuff), but everyone selling their shares in Microsoft and Intel would be a good start. Particularly the day after some huge newscast about this (not that there will be one, they're trying to integrate it silently).

    If you hate my pessimistic views or long post... well too bad, I'm not changing it :hehe: But if you fall into the same category as my parents do, you might actually want to seriously consider the article, the site I mentioned, and what I've just said.

    As a seperate note... did anyone hear about that rumor where ol' bill wanted to put a 1c tax on email? supposedly something to cut back on spam, but really just to do more of the above (and get more money). the greedy b*stard. maybe if he made it so his software didn't suck and let spam into our inboxes, it wouldn't be a problem...
     
  10. eaterofpies

    eaterofpies What's a Dremel?

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    yeah this has been floating around for a while

    still with you. some good points

    you forgot all the people that just dont care about what the government does because they dont believe they can do anything about it really . . think its theyre disillusioned or something . . . well thats me

    well here we have a problem . . . communists dont have anything controlled by corporations but all by the government and while the large companys may be best buddies with everyone in polotics they arent the government yet
    Welcome To Capitalism . . .
    but yeah they do want much more power and control and its baaaad

    wont happen ever . more likely is people not buying new DRM enabled hardware so its still in software and get aroundable. if people hold out long enough they will eventually have to back track and lets face it is there any game that wont run fine on last years hardware and any real reason to upgrade?(appart from your e-***** size ;))

    another problem thats nearly as bad as this is software patents trying to be brought in in the eu. i suggest everyone here looks it up . . . tho i cant find the damn link at the moment

    back to posting retirement for me

    pies . . . it was nice to be back for a short time
     
  11. -EVRE-

    -EVRE- What's a Dremel?

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    all they are going to do is piss off the people that can actually do something about it. Smart programmers willing to write code just to spite those big corps.

    We as consumers have to make it unprofitable or uncomfortable for them to do this.

    I seriously hope some1 out there comes up with a way to make Linux, or other OS mainstream for the general user.

    wouldn't making an OS proprietary to software/hardware be some kind of anti-trust?

    I am against pirating. but i think this is dumb

    Im feeling kinda dumb, I use apples I tunes and am facing a reformat of my raid because I am changing mobo's and im wondering, how am I going to get my music to play on my new machine?


    -EVRE-


    BTW Kingston, Im voting for Bush, stuff like this is probly right down Kerry's alley.
     
  12. jezmck

    jezmck Minimodder

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    Great Article.

    Now that's downright rude. (and theft) Had you paid for them at this point?
    What if MS took a CD from you which you were borrowing from a friend? (It's quite similar :worried: )


    WMP renamed some off my files ages ago (which is why I don't use it), just imagine if you uploaded some photos from your camera and MS decided to rename them! It's actually worse than that - it renamed them wrong - took me ages to work out what had happened to my files.
     
  13. kenco_uk

    kenco_uk I unsuccessfully then tried again

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    There's so much anti-trust in that article, it's unbelievable. If ANY software company dictated what you could and couldn't see using their software, that's pretty much tantamount to them being dragged through the courts and made to remake/modify their software so that it pleases the judges son/daughter.
     
  14. eaterofpies

    eaterofpies What's a Dremel?

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    its not specific to the hardware of software tho . . . u just need to pay for a licence but as linux is free they wouldnt be able to distribute it etc
     
  15. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    Did you read the other thing about linux and FAT partitioning?

    Yeah I wasn't sure what kinda government I had meant when I said communism but that was the closest thing I could think of. I guess it is a form of capitalism to a point, but it's about more than the money (and capitalism is something the government bases its ways on, it's not actually a type of government).

    "Now that's downright rude. (and theft) Had you paid for them at this point?
    What if MS took a CD from you which you were borrowing from a friend? (It's quite similar )"

    Yes, very true. However the againsttcpa.com site mentions something about WMP giving itself the legal right to do just that in the EULA. Personally I think the Kazaa lite one is the best, it directly says that use of the software is illegal :duh: No beating around the bush, it says it just like that :jawdrop:

    The problem we're going to be facing is that Longhorn is planned to require the DRM/TCPA stuff for it to work (not the beta, the full version scheduled to come out probably ~2007). So mainstream users won't get around it, they like their windows and nothing could get them to convert. All of the big OEMs are in on TCPA - Dell, Gateway, HP/Compaq among others. None of them are about to take their names off the list, they could care less about their consumers rights. And as linux/mac users and people who build their own boxes being a strong minority (growing, but still few), it wouldn't really bother Microsoft to lose them. Especially since probably about 2/3 of them are using copies of windows that weren't purchased by them (I know I am, proud of it, although the original was legally aquired)

    "all they are going to do is piss off the people that can actually do something about it. Smart programmers willing to write code just to spite those big corps."
    Indeed. However as the TCPA stuff will be using a simply nasty 2048-bit encryption, breaking it in realtime is going to take quite a bit of processing power. If you think about it, everything will be encrypted, compliance will just grant the code (and no doubt some hacker will find out how to get the code and get arrested, but not before he shares it with the world) - so there's bound to be a fairly simple way around it, and the wasted CPU power of just decrypting everything with that much encoding (not breaking the code, just decrypting it) is just unbearable to me.

    "I seriously hope some1 out there comes up with a way to make Linux, or other OS mainstream for the general user. "
    If you play around with it, it's really easy to get used to. I've played around with RH9 on an old P3-333 laptop and aside from getting wireless internet to work correctly (some router setting I think, or something with DHCP confusing it, although no messing with drivers still), it's just as easy to work with as windows. Different, but easy. And did I mention free? I don't need to keep every system's WPA.DBL file backed up on a USB key for each time I reformat and don't wanna have to call to reactivate windows. It's not the OS itself, it's general program compatibility really. It comes with openoffice installed (word/excel/powerpoint equivalents) so that's not a problem and I think (haven't tested) that they'll work fine with your MS office files. Game compatibility is kinda minimal right now I think though, which is the problem. I know if I could for sure install my UT2004 and whatnot (and HL2 if it ever comes out) on it with no problems, I'd convert over right now, which would mean at least 3 computers just for me, another 3 for the family lol.

    "Im feeling kinda dumb, I use apples I tunes and am facing a reformat of my raid because I am changing mobo's and im wondering, how am I going to get my music to play on my new machine? "
    You're probably screwed. That's why I don't use those programs... my dad has had some real pain-in-the-@ss experiences with these DRM encryption stuff, and I like a real hardcopy of my music anyways. I just rip it with freeripmp3 (free, works great, love it, doesn't add copy protection!!!) and I'm set.

    Personally, I'm totally pro-piracy, but only to a certain extent. Buggy software (windows most notably) and overpriced software (photoshop) simply aren't worth the money. But games, which work right, tend to actually care about CD-keys (for online play anyways) and are actually enjoyable, not to metion reasonably priced, are worth paying for IMO. It ticks me off when it's one of those "cd required for play" type of games *cough*UT2k4*cough* but there's a way around that. Heck, I managed to get an Atari employee to send me the official no-cd thing for UT2k4 :thumb:

    The worst part of this is the BTX type of deal. In order to comply, ALL of your hardware needs to be "enabled" or whatever, which, like BTX, requires you to get a new everything (except for a case, although BTX will let you keep your drives). They charge on top of what you're already paying for! It's absolutely rediculous.

    Of course the longhorn requirements are expected to be 2gb ram and a 4-6ghz proc (and ~1TB HD) so by then, realtime cracking of this won't necessarily be that hard. It's the hardware ID tracing thing that really bugs me, although I suppose the right router setting would fix that.
     
  16. theagent

    theagent What's a Dremel?

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    dude, republicans are naturally for big business...

    kerry thinks health care should be a right

    --

    cant you burn your itunes music to a certain amount of cds, and then rip them with some 3rd party program?

    i thought i heard that on the screen savers, but i could be mistaken. if worse comes to worse, call apple, they seem to be helpful when it comes to that. i believe i read an article somewhere where the writer had a computer go bad or something and couldnt "de-register" [sorry for not knowing the right term, it was a while ago] that machine, so he called apple and they cleared all 3 out for him, and he reset it on his other 2 [if that makes sense]

    and, out of curiosity, has anyone heard anything about that russian music service? :)
     
    Last edited: 22 Jun 2004
  17. brandium

    brandium What's a Dremel?

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    the deal with this is be suggested using a system in which the email client would have to solve a simple puzzle to send the mail - consuming a certain amount of time. Others suggested directly paying for it, and the stupid media mixed everything up.

    Also, although its not officially supported, UT2K4 (at least the dvd version) will run on linux, and i can only hope other developers follow suit.

    and unfortunately for us, modern encryption algorithms are essentially invincible, since they are designed to take millions of years using the current combined computing power of the world. The only hope is if you find a flaw in the implementation, and since we're talking about microsoft, i'd say the chances are quite good! LOL
     
  18. Skutbag

    Skutbag What's a Dremel?

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    I'd put myself in the ever growing group of
    "Want to use Linux or another independant OS, but quite frankly can't be arsed."
     
  19. Almightyrastus

    Almightyrastus On the jazz.

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    Who hasn't seen this one coming for a loooooooong time?

    I am all for the protection of work done by someone else but I do resent the fact that I do not have a choice about the way I run my PC (that I paid for, built, installed, customised :rock: and look after).

    It doesn't really matter what corporations and the like do to stop things going on there will always be someone out there only half a step behind them ready to find a new and crafty way around it. I mean how long does it take the hackers and crackers to get a key gen for something like Windows put out or even a full cracked version? Sometimes before the official date of release.

    There is a line at the end of a piece of text called The Hacker's Manifesto, which I am sure that a great many of you are familiar with, that says:

    'You may stop this individual, but you will never stop us all. After all, we are all the same'

    It is just sad that the ones of us who do play by the rules will have to suffer the knee-jerk reactionary responses from the software companies and the law makers, I have first hand experience of the damage these sort of snap decisions can do in the field of shooting, something I enjoy very much but am finding it increasingly restrictive, I don't want my other hobby to suffer in the same way.

    Oh and on the subject of games running on Linux, take a look at my friend's site www.tuxgames.com and I think a few people might be pleasantly surprised about the quantity and quality of the games that are now supported.

    Have a great one and remember, be good :thumb:
     
    Last edited: 22 Jun 2004
  20. Tetsugaku-San

    Tetsugaku-San What's a Dremel?

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    The USA isn't a democracy it is a capitalist state - you could get no further from communism.

    The reason the USA is in this state, and therefore leading the rest of the world into their own drone populated hell is because your government only listens to money, cold hard cash, not your consitution, not your consituents, jsut money, the sickening sham of the US government is reposable for a hell of a lot of bad - and the US public just keep letting them do it!
     
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