As long as it's easier to fill out an excel spreadsheet, type emails and communicate with people on a PC, there'll continue to be a PC in every home. Typing on a tablet for an extended period isn't fun for most people, and forget pecking at a phone. Yes cue the obligatory obsessive-compulsive who hasn't wearied of it yet, but let's not fool ourselves.

I met a middle aged American gent a couple of years ago looking to rent out a room. No matter what else, he had to have his bigscreen TV in the room with him. Why don't you just use your laptop to watch your shows like the rest of the tenants, I asked, but nothing would budge him. I got the impression it was some sort of status symbol or cultural icon.

And this is the false dichotomy you've created. The world isn't divided into content creators and consumers anymore, there are many shades of grey. At one time in the past it would have been true but as that generation gets older it becomes less and less so. Mainframes and Unix workstations NEVER had a foothold in the mass market and NEVER had the everyday utility that PCs bring so that analogy likewise falls short.

Is there some compelling reason why these tests aren't being conducted in realistic conditions in the first place?

A couple of things; session codes can't be shared, or rather there would be no point in doing so, they're temporary server-side identifiers. Second the internet is fairly useable without cookies, they aren't like javascript. Some sites may use them to store your login details but that's poor programming since your browser should be the only software doing that. In any case browsers like firefox have an option to erase everything when you close it. If you live in the EU you should even see regular notices asking for your permission to use cookies.

As far as I can see with plugins like multifox and user agent switcher along with routinely deleting cookies and an ISP that uses dynamic IP addresses (most of them), there should be no real way for websites to track you unless you use your real name and email address etc.

It's high time the US as a society fell out of love with the perp walk and permanent punishment as embodied by long term criminal records and started to embrace the idea of real rehabilitation, making "convicts" part of normal society again. And for pity's sake stop prison rape, what the actual fuck.

This is why we don't bother RingTFA around here.

Zing!

This severely penalises small content producers in favour of massive corporations, all a publisher needs to do is wait five years and they can leverage their marketing and distribution might to completely own a franchise while the original creator gets nada.

If we're grading planets according to habitability, it's fairly binary - habitable or non habitable. Until we've mastered the effects of low or high gravity on people anything not almost exactly earthlike is going to be more effort for less return than a large space station. You might fine tune it a bit by adding a third category - habitable with modifications, like say a semi toxic atmosphere you can survive with air filters. Even then considering how much of the earth's atmosphere is a result of its biosphere the odds of finding an earth-compatible world without running into huge ethical problems regarding the disruption of its native life forms is minimal.

So here's my ad hoc categorisation scheme which no doubt the scientists involved have already superseded.

Class A: Completely human compatible, habitable and uninhabited.
Class B: Completely human compatible, inhabited by something.
Class C: Moderately human compatible, can be terraformed or colonists genetically engineered for unprotected compatability, uninhabited.
Class D: Moderately human compatible, can be terraformed or colonists genetically engineered for compatability, inhabited.
Class E: Inhabitable with sanctuary (sealed compartments, very difficult to develop, think Mars or the moon), uninhabited.
Class F: Inhabitable with sanctuary, inhabited.
Class G: Completely uninhabitable (like Jupiter).

Many more people are self publishing nowadays than ever before. Seriously, they represent a significant percentage of the total publishing marketplace.

That's not how copyright works unless they were creating work for hire. They still own it, they may sign an exclusive license but there's considerable legal debate over whether or not copyrights can be transferred or even made public at all, hence the existence of things like creative commons.

Fortunately stronger legal protections as embodied by the DMCA make it relatively easy to have infringing works taken down immediately. If it looks like they were making money from your work, then sue them.

Nonsense, you may be thinking of the automated Content ID tool which draws on a library of copyrighted works for automatic comparison, but when a DMCA notice is sent infringing works get taken down.

No doubt a contributing factor along with ubiquitous and cheap tools of creation but we can say at minimum that stronger protections haven't noticeably hindered creative output. For a graphic example of borderline illegal work check the booming mockbuster industry, which pretty much knocks any arguments about the suppression of derivative works on the head.

Whatever gets you through the night, I suppose. Contrary to the opinion of people who've overwhelmingly never created anything in their lives, most artists who've put a lot of time and effort into their work get pretty riled when someone starts sharing their for-profit work for free. If they released something deliberately intending that it should be used as a business card that's a different matter, and of course someone who put in less effort is going to care less, but otherwise it's the surest way to piss someone off.

You've constructed a framework of half-truths, imagined circumstances and worst case scenarios in an effort to justify the masses taking advantage of the work of the few, which is precisely why we have laws. I'm not in favour of industry overreach like mass lawsuits or criminalising non-profit sharing, civil penalties are plenty, but really if you don't plan on infringing anyone's copyrights I dont see why you'd oppose stronger protections.

If they're forced to hand over the data they won't be in business in the EU for long, which considering the enormous size and wealth of the EU is going to hurt any company badly, so I guess they'll have to open seperate competing European branches. Either that or the US government is going to have to play nice with the rest of the world.

While you're mad as a sack of spiders I cannot help but admire how you've managed to work both the masons and regicide into a discussion about facebook privacy.

While I'd say that it would be possible to remain incognito on facebook with caution and a sprinkling of technical knowledge if they rescind their real names policy, the EU at least is finally making moves to restrict its ability to transfer data to regimes with fewer protections for proviacy.

Real names are far more useful to bullies than otherwise as they allow bullies to track people over multiple platforms, find their phone numbers, place of work, even track them right to their front doors. A real names policy does little to stop trolls either, they just register a burner account and troll until they get kicked off, it's not hard to do.

I'm solidly in favour of this EFF petition and I hope everyone signs, like it or not facebook is the de facto means of mass communication on the internet for most people today. They already have way too much power and have proven themselves more than happy to abuse that power in ways that would have gotten an accountable entity shut down hard, any moves to curb their influence and reach must be supported.

Well that doesn't reflect my experience at all, but we're comparing what people find interesting so it becomes a battle of the anecdotes. In terms of fantasy, paranormal, or science fiction I feel I've far more and better options than twenty or even ten years ago.

A swing and a miss. I believe the author of "The Martian" was an indie. Self publishing is taking off in a big way - but don't take my word for it, google it yourself.

Not just small independent artists but large corporations also, stronger protections make creative work more valuable (this can't be disputed) and encourage higher quality. I mean who wants to put in a lot of time and effort if some nimrod is just going to filch it. However they apply to ALL creative work, not just whatever is put forth by Sony.

Funny, I was just thinking that people who say "stronger and longer IP protections strangle creativity" are almost universally people who not only have never done anything creative but who probably freeload off the people who do the creative work.

What you're increasingly desperately trying to do is frame this in terms of cigar-smoking capitalist Snidely Whiplashes lording it over poor toiling peasants who don't own the means of production, except they actually do. Welcome to the 21st century, marxism is worse than useless here.

Obviously this doesn't mean I support the entire treaty, at least until I see it.

I've no idea why you think the two are mutually exclusive. Indie authors and musicians for example are sharply on the rise, in terms of cinema while the blockbusters will forever remain in the hands of corporations there's a lot of decent quality amateur stuff coming out. Everything you write, you have immediate copyright protections on, that's how easy it is to take advantage of stronger copyright law.

I'll put it to you like this - with stronger and longer recent IP protections recently, have you noticed a decrease or an increase in creative output?

With that said I'd oppose criminalising non-profit copyright infringements or attempts to eat into existing fair use standards.