News Stories

[Alchemist007]

http://akibanana.com/?q=node/1632

I hope the part about 'paving the way' holds true

[Shadow Kira01]

Warrants for Thai protest leaders

It is thanks to these sort of people as to why the idea of "political protests" and "social movements" get a bad image. Red shirts is the equivalent of communists and the fact that they went to attack the current prime minister's car in hostility, while charging at gun-wielding soldiers with explosives and rocks show that these guys are either paid to do these sort of things or are just a bunch of nutcases who don't seem to care much about bribery and corruption, thinking of it as nothing at all.

Hopefully, the Thai government will arrest their red shirt instigators.

[yezhanquan]

Thailand is now at a crossroads. Would the Bangkok elite (and middle class) allow the rural masses to have their voices heard, or do they want to turn back the clock? Things would become very interesting indeed.

[Shadow Kira01]

U.S. to give $1 bil. in aid to Pakistan, $4 bil. eyed at donors talks

Stabilize Pakistan, Afghanistan together

As long as the economic situation of Pakistan stabilizes, they will become a key to stability in the Afghan region.

[ZephyrLeanne]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

Thailand is now at a crossroads. Would the Bangkok elite (and middle class) allow the rural masses to have their voices heard, or do they want to turn back the clock? Things would become very interesting indeed.

I think they'll become fragmented. My studies on ASEAN have led me to this unlikely conclusion:

The Central areas will remain within the powers of the Bangkok elite.
The South might well join Malaysia, as it was before the British came in, that the south Thai areas were ruled in the sultanate system, not the Thai mornachy.
The North will end up likely seperating, and the Northeast might end up with some other Indochinese nation.

[NightWish]

Just heard this on the radio... thought I would share it: Pirate Bay founders found guilty

A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world's most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case.

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail.

They were also ordered to pay 30m kronor (£2.4m) in damages.

[Saleh]

Wow, they finally got sentenced after years of exploiting loopholes and writing amusing replies to legal department of some high profile companies. After reading the article, it seems that they are still quite high spirited and are enjoying themselves. Since this isn't the end I am really looking forward to outcome of this case.

[yezhanquan]

Originally Posted by ShimatheKat

I think they'll become fragmented. My studies on ASEAN have led me to this unlikely conclusion:

The Central areas will remain within the powers of the Bangkok elite.
The South might well join Malaysia, as it was before the British came in, that the south Thai areas were ruled in the sultanate system, not the Thai mornachy.
The North will end up likely seperating, and the Northeast might end up with some other Indochinese nation.

Nice observations, Shima. However, do not underestimate the Army's willingness to keep the territorial integrity of the nation. The south may be a "recent" addition, but there is a lot of determination to keep it within Thailand.

The elite should wake up and realise that the political franchise cannot exclude the rural poor again, as it did before Thaksin's arrival.

[ZephyrLeanne]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

Nice observations, Shima. However, do not underestimate the Army's willingness to keep the territorial integrity of the nation. The south may be a "recent" addition, but there is a lot of determination to keep it within Thailand.

The elite should wake up and realise that the political franchise cannot exclude the rural poor again, as it did before Thaksin's arrival.

Right. Still, there is also a strong intent on activists in the southernmost provinces (Pattani, Narathiwat, Songkhla, Satun and Yala) to create a Islamic state, or partially, which makes them closely aligned to PAS in Malaysia. If given the current state of affairs in Malaysia, Anwar might well topple the scandal-ridden Najib. And then PAS, riding on the golden oppurtunity, will try to encourage them to create what they want. Which might result in a Vietnam-war like situation, especially if it's Malaysia and Thailand.

If this happens, I see the line of seperation along the Isthmus of Kra.

Meanwhile, the North and Northeast are another problem. Worst case, the people there hold referendum with the support of UN (if Thaksin does talk UN into it) and they succeed in creating another state, with Thaksin at the helm... THEN we'll have a Korean War on our hands, monarchy VS democracy.

Still, with a Singapore in ASEAN, she'll likely just tell them all to shaddup. For world peace.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by NightWish

Just heard this on the radio... thought I would share it: Pirate Bay founders found guilty

I'm not suprised. If they had just complied with the odd C&D order they'd get, they'd likely never have been put on trial in the first place. Instead they decided to be asses and risk their future on a layman's interpretation of the law, and this is the result. It seems like they still don't get the seriousness of the sentence either.

Of course on the other hand, I hate to see a win for the record companies.

[Anh_Minh]

Eh. Don't forget, they(TPB) are making money. It's a calculated risk. More or less.

And so far, so good. Except for the jail thing, which they may yet escape.

[SaintessHeart]

The media companies are suffering losses not because of their inability to stop filesharing, but rather their inability to market their products to the masses effectively.

ITunes is a good example but not many people follow it. Instead they reserve their rights to deliver their goods in the old conventional way.

Time is money, or maybe more precious than money. They asked for it.

Although they should be punished for not heeding the warning, jail is pretty much a gross injustice for a middleman. Nobody wants to challenge the market these days, they just blame their incompetence on unfair competition.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

U.S. to give $1 bil. in aid to Pakistan, $4 bil. eyed at donors talks

Stabilize Pakistan, Afghanistan together

As long as the economic situation of Pakistan stabilizes, they will become a key to stability in the Afghan region.

the reason they want to stabilize pakistan, is the fact they have nuclear weapons, and if radicals were to get their hands on those weapons, the world would truly be in jeopardy.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

The media companies are suffering losses not because of their inability to stop filesharing, but rather their inability to market their products to the masses effectively.

ITunes is a good example but not many people follow it. Instead they reserve their rights to deliver their goods in the old conventional way.

Time is money, or maybe more precious than money. They asked for it.

Although they should be punished for not heeding the warning, jail is pretty much a gross injustice for a middleman. Nobody wants to challenge the market these days, they just blame their incompetence on unfair competition.

The problem is the MPAA and RIAA is greedy... and inorder to prevent piracy, they heavily push for Digital Rights Management, which ended up being a complete failure because DRM prevents music or video to play on certain devices, it restricts the number you can play the file, it's harder to back up and also the DRM licence don't last that long because once the DRM server goes down, you cannot play back the file if you reformat your computer.

Also, the new pricing models on iTunes is proven unpopular because the popular tracks get a price hike (1.39 from 99 cents) which people aren't willing to pay and also Amazon MP3 sells the tracks cheaper than iTunes now..

MPAA and RIAA really need to change their business models now or go bankrupt... I'm pretty sure that the US Government isn't going to bail them out this time.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Eh. Don't forget, they(TPB) are making money. It's a calculated risk. More or less.

And so far, so good. Except for the jail thing, which they may yet escape.

The ruling was bizarre enough they have a good chance of appealing successfully. It doesn't appear the judges understood the front-end of the the argument from a technical perspective and so their back-end logic was for naught.

[Reckoner]

These companies are fighting the inevitable. The court ruling won't do much to stem the avalanche.

[Anh_Minh]

On the contrary. I'm pretty sure there are now people who know Bittorrent and Ipredator who didn't, before. Thanks for the publicity, and the motivation to give TPB money, guys.

[Nosauz]

Main problem is the disconnect between the law making body and the tech savvy. Just look at the french... the three strikes policy enacted by the parliment in attempt to combat piracy. There was an interview of what the lawmakers thought, and it was just abberant because they really didn't understand the technology and had clearly been fed the talking points of the corporations. Its sad how democracy is really a way to benefit the big coroporation and not the constituents that elect these politicians.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The ruling was bizarre enough they have a good chance of appealing successfully. It doesn't appear the judges understood the front-end of the the argument from a technical perspective and so their back-end logic was for naught.

Keep in mind that the judges aren't very bright when it comes to discussing the details of technology (I went to a court case before in which my friend is getting sued for downloading anime and music, the judge blasted the defence for being irrelevant when they presented some points on the more intricate details of technology). And this is only the beginning in which resources become widely available.

This will revolutionise how media is available to us in the future. And this is only the beginning.

Besides DRMs are useless. There are a few games with Securom v4 that came out, the cracks became available later in the day.

[Nosauz]

The problem with securom lies in the fact that its intruisive taht forces your computer to give it to access where it shouldn't have any. Also the reason why I love digital is the fact that I don't need the damn cd to play, which defeats the entire purpose of forcing you to have the game in the drive. Anyway, wish there was a program for officials to get educated about a growing demand in technology and information about said technology.