And how exactly do you propose to stop them? With what money? What political connection do you have?

I was thinking long rifles might be a good start.

To hell with a political solution. Let's go for a nice practical one.

A lie, used to establish the basis of precedent, and to continue to act as if you are "winning".

No, not chump change at all. The kind of "not chump change" that should get you RICO charges. Because this is about as "corrupt organization" as you can get.

Nothing the *AAs have ever told us about copyright is based in fact, and they've used those lies to bully laws into existence which favor them. It's really time to start applying actual criminal charges to these organizations. Because they really are corrupt oligarchies who demand influence over the law.

Some of these clowns need serious jail time. And every politician who is paid for by them has sold us up the river to enrich themselves.

So, just fucking great, we have huge multinationals lying in public, and paying the politicians to get what they want.

Of course Do Not Track is meaningless.

It has always been meaningless. It's a voluntary thing which says nothing at all, and isn't legally binding. It's complete drivel. It's something the industry put out to give the illusion of giving a shit about what we want.

Want to prevent tracking? Don't let the packets happen in the first place. Use things like NoScript, Request Policy and HTTP Switchboard to deny the access entirely.

Treat this stuff like the shit that it is ... intrusive advertising and tracking about everything you do.

The only way to win is block as much of this crap from your browser as you can. You don't owe these companies this data, and the less you provide to them the better.

And when they whine and bitch about their revenue stream and their terms of service ... well, too damned bad. You aren't required to pull in any packets you don't wish to.

Once you start using these blocking plugins, you'll be amazed at just how much crap is actually embedded in most every page. One some sites, literally dozens of 3rd parties ... none of whom give a shit about your Do Not Track setting. So just block them entirely.

If we do it, Sony is one of the companies who helped pay for the law which says you and I would have to pay massive amounts of statutory damages, with additional punitive damages for having done it on purpose.

I want Sony to receive the same magnitude of punishment as they would insist we receive.

Because I really despise multinationals when they argue both sides of the same legal argument as it benefits them.

So, once again, if we do this we get crushed under the heel of a team of lawyers.

But a multinational like Sony does it and I bet they'll just dicker and claim some bullshit like fair use they routinely deny exists.

I sincerely hope Sony has to pay a massive fine for this ... something on par with what we'd get beat down with.

There's too much retcon in Trek to suggest that the canon might be immutable.

Not gonna lie .. had to look up retcon.

Vulcan was destroyed by time traveling angry Romulans. There is no 'ret' to 'con' ... they wiped out the future history of pretty much everything about James T Kirk, Spock, The Federation ,,, the canon was burned so completely they have a lot of room to do anything they want.

Like, for example, the theme song to Enterprise

LOL, I didn't see Enterprise until it was in syndication ... and once you got over 'nipple Vulcan' and up to at least the middle of season two I actually started to like it. But, yeah. It wasn't for everybody, and took a while to find its footing.

They made exciting movies, but I don't want to watch them again, because they had no substance.

Well, I won't argue the point. It was escapism and action since I'm a fan of both. However, the market wants that, and it sells tickets ... because most people have no substance.

But, sooner or later, we can hope that someone will remember they're making a Star Trek, and that Roddenberry had some really great vision, and to try to stick with that.

In the meantime, I will accept a romantic relationship between Spock and Uhura as a placeholder, and some really good action sequences.

Yes, I want Trek to tackle big issues. But, dammit, I want action sequences, and sex with green chicks. And the first two have done that.

The third is now so completely freed from specific expectation that they (hopefully) will make an awesome movie which satisfies a lot of people. If they don't ... well, then Star Trek has pretty much turned into Star Wars, and will be driven into the ground in the same way.

So, I liked the first two of the reboot, and they're still in the process of establishing the "new" Trek universe. But look at where that took Marvel with both the Avengers and X-Men. They have all the room they need to define it and run with it. We have Earth, and we have Klingons in a now very explicitly alternate universe ... and that's a *lot*.

If you put it in the hands of people who are fans, they'll make good movies if you let them. So while I'm afraid Star Trek movies will become simply action/space opera ... I really hope they do something more. But, if the best they do is some action films ... well, I might buy them in the sale bin of DVDs.

I guess I disagree that they are "acting like assholes" by regulating resources on their property to benefit their business.

Except communications spectrum and devices aren't their fucking resources to regulate or control.

And the FCC has long said you can't block someone else's signal, especially just to boost your own business.

In your car analogy ... this isn't Ford's stall. Marriott do not own the airwaves. Marriott has to use it under the same damned terms as the rest of us.

And those terms explicitly don't allow what they're trying to do.

Dude, you're far too wedded to the canon you've built up as something immutable.

As a long time Trek geek ... I like the fact that they basically burned the canon and made it so they can do anything they want to.

Because now they can focus on making (hopefully good) movies without every nerd in the world going apeshit and whining that something isn't consistent with the original series or some bit of fanboi Trek porn they read.

Wow, if you're gonna be a grammar nazi, you should at least endeavor to fact check your own crap.

Because you're completely wrong.

We don't live in a Socialist State.

No, entrenching the right for corporations to act like assholes to maximize their profits means you live in an oligarchy.

Which is far worse than living in a socialist state.

You sure as hell don't live in the free market state most Americans seem to believe in either.

Perhaps this is "Corporate Assholes" trying to monetize their investment in their hotel property and make money as most businesses are created to do?

Basically they want an exemption from FCC regulations in order to get customer lock in. They want to be able to block competing services so customers have no choice but to pay them money.

There's a huge difference between wanting to have their own service, and wanting the ability to block someone else's.

But, hey, enjoy your corporate douchebag overlords.

Actually its the mark of a statist/totalitarian masquerading as a Conservative

Yawn, whatever. This is the same "no true Scottsman" crap, because there is no universal definition, and I suspect among themselves 'conservatives' can't agree on a definition.

Hate the sin, NOT the sinner

See, the problem is you still define it in terms of your own damned religion.

So, I'll go with "hate the religious idiot, not the religion".

Any 'Conservative' or religious person who wishes to outlaw stuff on the basis of their religion is worthy of as much contempt as the Taliban, and are little different in my opinion. They're just someone who thinks their religious beliefs should be entrenched in law, and who want reality to be defined in terms of their beliefs.

But, unmistakably, a lot of people who are 'conservatives' (whatever the heck that means) are opposed to government restricting rights, unless it's to impose their own beliefs. And then they're totally fine with it.

So, to exercise my freedom of speech ... to hell with your religion. You are free to believe what you like in private, but leave the rest of us alone.

Back in August, Marriott, business partner Ryman Hospitality Properties and trade group the American Hotel and Lodging Association asked the FCC to clarify when hotels can block outside Wi-Fi hotspots in order to protect their internal Wi-Fi services.

"We need rent seeking and the ability to limit outside competition so we can maximize profits."

Sorry, but this is just corporate assholes asking to be treated as special.

And, of course, government will hand it right over to them, because all politicians worship at the altar of corporate profits being entrenched into law. Even the ones who claim to be in favor of free markets.

The only free market is how much the fucking lobbyists pay to buy laws. Because that avoids public scrutiny.

"we're all gonna die! we're all gonna die"

I hope they learned a lot. :-P

Conservative parents might disagree.

Well, then why don't Conservative parents fuck off, do their own parenting, and not insist on foisting laws on the rest of us to keep care of their children?

Outlawing everything you find personally objectionable or that you don't want your children to see if the mark of an asshole.