An unnamed representative from another firm contacted by Mr. Digati said later, "We would have turned him in ourselves, but his threat got caught in our spam filter." ;-) lol

Some interesting points to think about:

• You make a film called "The XYZ Picture"
• Millions of people download "The XYZ Picture" and see it for free without paying you a dime
• Most of these millions of people wouldn't have paid to see in the first place. Lets say a few thousand that would have paid to see your picture don't because they found it for free yes, this costs you real money
• Some of these millions decide to see it in theaters for various reasons:
  • it's more fun to go see it in a large groups with their friends
  • The prefer a big theater viewing experience
  • or maybe they just like the over-buttered movie theater popcorn

  and many of these people wouldn't have even known about your movie unless they found it online for free This is money you got from movie piracy that you wouldn't have gotten if it couldn't be downloaded

• many of these millions tell the friends about it, and they go to the theater to see your movie. again more money you got from free movie piracy as advertising
• Many of these millions decide that your movie isn't good enough, or worth the time / effort to go see in theaters, but they really liked it or want to see all your behind the scenes stuff, so they decide to buy or rent the movie on DVD when it comes out These are even MORE sales you can attribute to free movie piracy as advertising

And here is the very delicate and sensitive philosophical question

• Do the few thousand movie tickets you lost in sales to piracy cost you more than...
• ...the many thousand more tickets you sold because of the free advertising that movie piracy provided?

I honestly think this comes down to those movie makers who make really mediocre films being afraid that they'll loose their shirts to those movie makers that produce quality content that thrives on word of mouth advertising.

What do you think?

Hmm... This is the initial announcement I found from Sept 24, 2002... Back before the project was renamed Firebird, then FireFox

  Enjoy: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/24/1215252

They requested suggestions... so I'm sending them this...

I recently became aware of your challenge, and I think it's a great idea. I applaud your initiative to dispell disinformation. I have to admit that, as it stands, I don't think your challenge will have any takers for three reasons:

        1) Money... While I understand that many people make great contributions to our society for little or no compensation I think, in light of what your asking, your proposed reward is much to meager; and I say that not simply in deference to greed. I realize this is a competition you are financing out of your own pocket, and you have limited ability to fund it, but the feat you are asking may take hundreds of hours of research, understanding and custom analog circuit design, specific to at least that particular model of hard drive, if not the specific revision, or even that PARTICULAR individual item (compensating for the timing and balance characteristics of that particular unit). If this feat *WAS* accomplished it's important to realize that it would have almost no marketable value to owners of other drives. Hundreds of hours of engineering is hardly compensated for by $40, a used hard drive, and a little ego-boo...
There may be some that say that if this can't be done for $100, it's not worth doing. but if the data on the drives was millions of sensitive credit card records, or resellable sensitive medical records of either celebrities (to the paparazzi) or of more mundane consumers (to medical insurance companies), or sensitive goverment secrets, the recovery of data off a single hard drive could easily be worth millions, or in some cases peoples lives.

        2) Specialization... Like I said, as I understand data recovery of OVERWRITTEN data, it's an analog matter of figuring the old values as some percentage of the current data values. This is a very specialized process probably best accomplished by the engineers who created the original drives... furthermore, it's not in THIER employers' best interest to see this myth debunked, as it prevents the market being flooded with cheap retired enterprise-quality hard drives.

        3) Limitations... I am quite convinced that this challenge cannot be accomplished without at least replacing the HD's logic board, as the process requires direct access to the raw analog induction data comming directly off the disk. Also more than 3 days may be required to determine the specific physical characteristics of balance, timing and geometry of the specific unit you are providing. While you waive this stipulation for professional recovery houses, for the common hobbyist you are essentially tying their hands and removing any chance for them to compete. I realize that the internals of a hard drive are very sensitive, I think all participants should be at least allowed to replace the drive's logic board and have a few week shot at the device.

I personally have very little vested interest in this competion. While knowing if this feat can be accomplished, and having the particulars more readily availible, might be beneficial, at least professionally. I have very little circut design experience and can barely immagine designing something myself, much more complex than a toaster. I hope my suggestions will help this challenge become more valuable simply than determining that nobody felt willing to tackel this type of challenge for a C-note and a little noteriety.

I applaud your efforts,

-Loren Osborn
  Software Engineer