News Stories

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by chikorita157

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04...cused_of_bias/

I guess the trial was not fair for TPB from the start because of a biased trial...

Given the nature of the ruling's logic -- I was already guessing technology incompetence in the opening parts of it. Now we have evidence of at the very least prejudicial malfeasance. I've always thought it a weak part of Western judicial systems that it was left up to the judge themselves to recuse themselves if the appearance of conflict-of-interest was there (rather than have a panel of other judges sign off on their neutrality).

Now, even if one thought the ruling was just ... its been tainted.

[vedicardi]

TPB is a really crappy torrent tracker anyway, not a loss by any means.

[Langknow]

So the SMAP member , Kunasagi got arrested for being naked in a park, and it seems the whole of Japanese is in shambles right now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090423...mearrestpeople

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by vedicardi

TPB is a really crappy torrent tracker anyway, not a loss by any means.

That isn't what the discussion was about (though, yeah I agree with the sentiment ). Bad or good -- the focus needs to be on what copyright should look like in terms of balancing Fair Use, Public Domain, and the Creative Commons against the interests of those who would create a concept called "intellectual property" and who would subvert copyright into a permanent free-ride for a cartel.

[vedicardi]

Originally Posted by Langknow

So the SMAP member , Kunasagi got arrested for being naked in a park, and it seems the whole of Japanese is in shambles right now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090423...mearrestpeople

He raises a good question, yeah?

"What's wrong with being naked?" XD

[Shadow Kira01]

5-year jail term sought for Komuro in copyright fraud

"His perception of the value of money defies common sense. He needs severe punishment to make him realize his responsibility," a prosecutor said.

So true..

And this is the great keyboardist Komuro Tetsuya?

[monir]

Originally Posted by Kakashi

Unfortunately, implementing that kind of system in a competitive economic enviroment wouldn't be so simple. Especially in the US, where people will simply disregard it as socialist. Not such a problem on a tiny island whose inhabitants are mostly fishers and the elderly.

eta: I do like the idea of 'work-sharing' though, even if it's a bit of a book-keeping-trick, maintaining employment figures is important for that vital economic ingredient -- confidence.

Agreed on all account which is I found it so interesting a read. Any such attempt in the most society, especially in Europe and N. America, will have guy running continents as the angry mob of crowd diligently follows with shovel and tomatoes (the british, the still use tomatoes, right? or was it shoes? )

Work sharing? I lol'ed. And did you read about the women in the island? All those steretypes in anime for your homely, devoted female might not be too far fetched after all.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I suspect that the Las Plagas have been released on that island.

I know I will visit Hime Island as soon as the opportunity arise. *fingers crossed*

[Anh_Minh]

We (France) have tried to share work. By reducing the legal amount of weekly work from 39 hours to 35. Not exactly a resounding success.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

We (France) have tried to share work. By reducing the legal amount of weekly work from 39 hours to 35. Not exactly a resounding success.

There's a difference in approach and scale. What works fine in a small town or village where most people know each other might not work as well on a national level with complete strangers.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by Vexx

That isn't what the discussion was about (though, yeah I agree with the sentiment ). Bad or good -- the focus needs to be on what copyright should look like in terms of balancing Fair Use, Public Domain, and the Creative Commons against the interests of those who would create a concept called "intellectual property" and who would subvert copyright into a permanent free-ride for a cartel.

I think the definition of copyright got mangled due to the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) because the music and movie industry are too overzealous and blaming people for piracy, mainly because prices of music cds and movies are too high and not at a fair price... Like mention earlier, DRM is a anti-competitive, anti-consumer technology which is illegal to circumvent in the DMCA, even for backup use. Also, DMCA prevents innovation. I think DMCA needs to be reform so it won't be as harsh and preserve "fair use" rights which DMCA mostly take away.

TPB trial case is important with this because piracy isn't like shoplifting a music cd from a store... How about lending a movie or CD to a friend, would that count as piracy as well?

[Nosauz]

No the stupidity in Piracy is that these companies think that one pirated copy= 1 sale loss, thats just asinine. The fact that it can be obtaiend for free is why some people just choose to obtain it that way. Also with games/movies/cds its EASIER to pirate than actually buy a legitimate copy with all the drm and restricitions to the songs that you own. Its really stupid how these companies want to tell me how, when , where i can play the music I BOUGHT its completely asinine, thats why I don't buy music, the only music I get is from radio, internet radio and before ruckus, but that got shut down, anyway i feel that these companies are trying to cling to broken technologies and just don't understand what the consumer want.

One thing that is good about tpb, is for rare or older things there will always be a tracker with 1-2 seeds, the problem with private trackers is that it plays into epeen a lot, so much that some people buy seeder bots, just to up your ratio, and its really an unfriendly environment for newbies who rack up terrible ratios and eventually get kicked.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by chikorita157

TPB trial case is important with this because piracy isn't like shoplifting a music cd from a store... How about lending a movie or CD to a friend, would that count as piracy as well?

Your first point is abit overused, but your second point is something fresh I would like to comment on.

In Australia, my friends reported that they TRADE video games, especially those with low replayability like Final Fantasy. And that isn't even counted as illegal because they bought the games off the shelves.

Over at where I live, there is a place which RENT OUT videogames. But it does not have titles which limit installations like Bioshock, so that is one big damn pity.

Besides a current -accidental- countermeasure that is overlooked is the size of the files in the game, not the DRMs that deters download (imagine downloading a 10GB file to play on your computer, and if your hard drive has got low spin rates, good luck to it in a few months). Since content increases space, it would be better if the producers and distributors work together to increase the amount of content and the quality of content. At least it gives fans a reason to buy their games.

Direct2Drive is an excellent service that increases availability of PC games, so why not market in that direction at this age of information technology rather than creating protections that increase production costs?

Alcohol 120% and Daemontools are not foolproof emulators because it does increase loading times if the image is too big, if the makers are willing to put more effort into their content rather than meeting deadlines all the time, we would certainly have less of these cases happening.

P.S TPB isn't that bad compared to Mininova and some others. BtChina would have outstripped it if not for its Chinese.

[Nosauz]

SSD, thats all I gotta say, and then your acutally storage discs in raid... oh does it make running anything smooth as ice, anyway thats my point with the industry, they want to control everything down to a T, but there really isn't incentive to provide the consumer with a better experience because their out ther policing everything. If I buy a CD, we are not even talking about the god awful tracks that are filler, but if I buy a CD I will damn well play that music when, where and how I want because thats the notion of owner ship, I have purchased it, does it mean that if my dad hears the song while i'm playing it that I'm pirating music I purchased? If I let my friend listen to it as i bop my head to it while we're hanging out, is that piracy? The way these companies try to mass produce music and then DICTATE how we use and consume that product just drives me nuts.

[Sazelyt]

Originally Posted by chikorita157

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04...cused_of_bias/

I guess the trial was not fair for TPB from the start because of a biased trial...

Those guys need to organize better. The trial is over and they just found out that connection? Or maybe they knew, and they wanted to keep it to themselves so that they can make the other side lose credibility if they lost and disclosed the connection.

But somebody should whisper in the ears of those copyright protectors that in the hands of an average pirate, Google plus rapidshare/megaupload/etc. is a much more powerful weapon than piratebay to access their content illegally.

[ClockWorkAngel]

I'm on the side that its TPB's intentions to smear the Pro-copyright group's image as much as possible to garter public support. Once they know that the trial was "Biased" and people's minds wander off to things like bribery etc, there'll be an uproar. Of course we don't know if it'll change anything really.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by monir

Has anyone read this article on Hime Island, Japan. This pretty obscure island has received a lot of attention during the past few weeks in Japan.

Considering how the trouble with economy is a global phenomenon, the article is pretty interesting to say the least.

I love this island Modern Icelandic tribalism Japanese style... (obligatory reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail's "We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune.")

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by ClockWorkAngel

I'm on the side that its TPB's intentions to smear the Pro-copyright group's image as much as possible to garter public support. Once they know that the trial was "Biased" and people's minds wander off to things like bribery etc, there'll be an uproar. Of course we don't know if it'll change anything really.

Well when the entertainment industry is in the business to entertain, they do very little of it. I just find that politicians are all about protecting big business and not the consumers. I'm all for for profit companies but the way the industry treats their customers as shifty eyed shoplifters just drives me nuts. Complacancy and apathy is the reason why people let their elected officials accept biased points of view.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by monir

Has anyone read this article on Hime Island, Japan. This pretty obscure island has received a lot of attention during the past few weeks in Japan.

Considering how the trouble with economy is a global phenomenon, the article is pretty interesting to say the least.

...it sounds like a creepy place to me. Aging island, neck-deep conformity, reactionary conservatism. Ugh.

That, and the article itself said that the island escaped perennial poverty by riding on LDP's pork money. While its current economy is practically too insular to suffer much from a global downturn, it's not exactly a stellar display of communal triumph. The Soviet Union didn't suffer much from the Great Depression either, but I'm pretty sure life in the 1930's USSR wasn't what we would call the pinnacle of human affluence. You can make an insular commune and survive just fine, but it would be naive to apply this to any economy bigger than an island's worth without actual large scale experiments.

Sadly the big ones either collapsed from endemic perversion or outside influences. We will never get to see what could have come out of Barcelona circa 1937, while Central Planning continentally applied proved disastrous in the backdrop of Stalinism.

[yezhanquan]

@Irenicus: Thanks for the hint. I have this in my mind.

Japan: Aging nation, chest level conformity, conservatism. Reminds me of Italy, only worse.

[Kakashi]

Originally Posted by monir

Agreed on all account which is I found it so interesting a read. Any such attempt in the most society, especially in Europe and N. America, will have guy running continents as the angry mob of crowd diligently follows with shovel and tomatoes (the british, the still use tomatoes, right? or was it shoes? )

Tomatoes are preferred, especially in theatre, but shoes are generally more accessible as projectiles. With Labour (centre-left) becoming increasingly unpopular in Britain, we're more likely to swing to the right than to adopt this kind of policy.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

We (France) have tried to share work. By reducing the legal amount of weekly work from 39 hours to 35. Not exactly a resounding success.

Japan seems to like the idea.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Japan-...-14421121.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0090107a2.html