This has little to no meaning for most home users, many of whom are probably still running XP, or may have upgraded to WIndows 7. However, it may have a big impact on corporations and governments though, in particular ones who standardized their SOE with Vista for workstations.

Many have governance which requires their organization to run OSes which are within the (mainstream) support lifecycle - meaning that Microsoft moving Vista to extended support means many corporates and/or government bodies might get pushed to Windows 7 or Windows 8 for their SOE in the very near future. Not a bad earner for MS assuming their don't push organisations to another platform...

Isn't there a fairly broad market for offline, single player games? Or am I just amongst a small minority of consumers who actually prefers offline, disconnected play?

I've also noticed that local splitscreen support (offline multiplayer) has all but been pretty much abandoned in many games now. "Always on" might be a nifty mechanism for games developers/companies, but I think it has a fair amount of downside for the consumer - especially if/when we get the "server is full" experience. Or when the game is less profitable, and the company decides to pull down the servers (Star Wars Galaxies, etc).

Shame, SimCity might be a perfect candidate for a long haul flight. Civilization V was awesome on some long flights I had last year.. Pity.

It's a different kind of theft, different ramifications. You can't compare stealing a physical good to stealing personal data. What's he is comparing isn't apples and apples. They're different laws, different acts, different outcomes. Look it up.

It's not my point of view. I'm just pointing out the flaw in Packer's statement.

'There is no difference from going into a store and stealing a packet of Pringles or a handbag, and stealing something online. Right?'"

One [obvious] and distinct difference: physical deprivation of property. If someone steals a handbag, the lawful owner no longer possesses it (theft). If someone copies a file, the original is not removed, nor does the rightful owner lose possession (presumably).

Don't ask a question and answer it for me. Also, is "ridiculous hyperbole" the only phrase you know? Very original.

Actually, I think you'll find that your assumption (that they wouldn't sue) is quite wrong. There are plenty of examples of 'big business' suing smaller brands over trademark violations. What courts will enforce is irrelevant when small businesses and individuals can't afford the legal costs to defend themselves, which is the point of these big corporations going after all and sundry.

There are plenty of examples of trademark lawsuits, sometimes the defendant fights back (and wins) but many can't afford to, least of all when the US asserts legal authority outside their own borders. Here's a couple which spring to mind:

Katy Perry files against Katie Perry: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/pop-singer-sues-our-katie-perry-20090704-d8fc.html McDonalds loses to McCurry: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/29/us-courts-mcdonalds-idUSTRE53S6G120090429 The Hobbit Pub: http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/03/14/016231/the-hobbit-pub-threatened-with-lawsuit Ugg boots: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/blogs/threadny/THREAD-Ugg-Suing-Emu-Over-Trademark-111665149.html

There are PLENTY more.

Now, that's from companies that actually have a registered trademark. Companies like facebook 'priming' their T&Cs is the start of something bad. I'm not saying there should be a T&Cs regulator (by the way, thanks for putting words in my mouth) - I'm simply thinking that dictionary words shouldn't be OWNED. Common sense should prevail. Context matters.

Do you need any more ammunition for patent and trademark reform??

..but better late than never.

I'm heartened by the fact that he didn't stop with having the treaty go before Congress, but also attempted to have the entire process reviewed.

In Australia, a Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade official went before Parliament and defended what he called (wait for it -- ) an 'open, inclusive and transparent process' involving 150 stakeholders. 150 out of 22 million, go figure.

Sure, except for regional encoding/region locking, advertisements your DVD player is programmed not to allow you to skip.. need I go on?

Luckily there are Chinese made players out there that don't enforce region locking, and which allow you to fast forward past anything... :) Not sure what the status is with BluRay (which is also region locked).

"over which the U.S. firmly asserts jurisdiction as the companies that run them are all U.S.-based." That's blatantly untrue. Not all *registrars* for .com extensions are US based or in any way affiliated with the US! While we're at it, ICANN is supposed to be the body holding jurisdiction over domains, not the US Government (in theory; in practice obviously it's a different ball game). Also, in this particular case the funds involved were outside the US, as were the businesses involved and the registrar used to register the domain. Lastly, consider how this even came about. Do individual states (Maryland in this case) get to trigger seizure of international assets now? What mandates the US this power, other than they maintained top level domains in the early days? Can France start grabbing .com domains too? Where does this end?

All your bases are belong to us.

The success of games like Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed (to name but a few) have shown that an immersive storyline works just fine. The fact that successive titles fixed up issues in gameplay also shows that game play is just as important (Assassin's Creed's debut version was tiresome). In the end though, do you remember the gameplay or the storyline more once you've set aside the controller? I think there's a market for both, if not more so for a game with a vivid and memorable story to tell.

Heh, the keyword is temporary. The problem is that today's laws mandate anything but temporary control. By the way, it's a scope that applies to *all works*, not just the profitable ones, which is part of the problem. A song or book written decades ago, but which generates no income (so is not worth much to the original author) can't be freely improved upon. Do the original artists deserve (in perpetuity) to gain income off the efforts of others who have borrowed from their ideas? That doesn't seem realistic to me. Yet that is what we have today.