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Comment Re:The Alliance of Artists should lose this suit (Score 1) 317

The CD is a derivative work containing an encapsulation and encoding of the original works*.

No, the CD is the work, it is not the derivative.

You don't actually get a license to anything, so you're not allowed to copy the works in any part, beyond the bare-minimum on-the-fly temporary copies made for decoding, and even those are debatable**

I think you really need to go back and read up on Copyright Law (17 USC). The license is implied in Copyright Law.

In essence, storing any part of a CD at any stage of decoding is prohibited without a license, even for personal or educational use***.

The Supreme Court disagrees with you: Betamax decision. The 9th Circuit also disagrees: RIAA vs Diamond.

Under the DMCA, the Librarian of Congress periodically receives comments from the public and declares what is or is not exempt from the DMCA's restrictions. During the most recent review process, the argument in favor of medium-shifting was rejected, because it basically boiled down to the commenters saying they didn't want to pay separately for both a CD form and a downloaded form, while the industry groups put forth a long argument citing legal precedent regarding the derivative-work perspective

Medium shifting is not the same for a private individual as it is for a public institution. The Library of Congress as a public institution has to be mindful of what it does. A private citizen has different obligations and considerations.

In short, what you buy when you buy a CD is the physical copy. You are not buying the information contained on that copy, so you aren't permitted to copy or transform**** it in any way. This is the key detail that so many Internet users seem to have trouble understanding. Just because you have access to information does not give you the legal basis to do anything you want with it.

Yes and no. You do have a right to transform it. You don't have a right to redistribute your transformation without permission. For example, I can make a mix of a song, even changing the structure of song like moving the chorus to a different place (if I had the skillset). If I don't publish, sell, upload, my changes, this is legal.

"Fair use" does not actually make copying legal. Rather, it's a defense to the accusation of copyright infringement. You still infringed the copyright and did something prohibited, but there's no punishment for it.

Um, no. By definition, Fair Use is not an infringement.

From 17 USC 107: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. 106 and 17 U.S.C. 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

Comment Re:Fire(wall) and forget (Score 2) 348

From the summary: "This isn't a tremendous deal today, but with how things are going, odds are there will be e-Commerce worked into it, and probably credit card transactions... which worries the bejesus out of me."

From what I understand, having multiple layers of protection is a benefit even if it is internal. This means that an intruder simply cannot bypass one layer and then have access to everything. This is what happened at Target. Someone stole credentials from one of their vendors and was in the network where they proceeded to hack other systems.

Comment Re:Fire(wall) and forget (Score 0) 348

But again. What IS the threat of network traffic to a port no one is listening on? None.

That's like saying what is the purpose of locking all the doors and windows in your house that no one uses? Hey if you want to keep the side windows and the garage doors unlocked, go ahead. If someone strolls in and steals your possessions, that's you own fault.

Comment Re:Time Shifting? (Score 4, Informative) 317

I think that RIAA vs Diamond does cover this. From this lawsuit:

The AHRA enacted the royalty payment requirement by prohibiting the importation and distribution, or manufacture and distribution, of any DARD [digital audio recording device] without first filing a notice with the Register of Copyrights, depositing quarterly and annual statements of account, and making royalty payments.

From RIAA vs Diamond:

Under the plain meaning of the Act's definition of digital audio recording devices, computers (and their hard drives) are not digital audio recording devices because their "primary purpose" is not to make digital audio copied recordings. . . the fact that the Rio does not permit such further copies to be made because it simply cannot download or transmit the files that it stores to any other device. Thus, the Rio without SCMS inherently allows less copying than SCMS permits. . . [t]he purpose of [the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use.

The way I read it, Diamond was covered in 3 ways. It was not a DARD according to the Act as the primary purpose was not to make copies. Second, it does not allow copies to be redistributed to other devices as it didn't have the capability to transmit to any other device. Third, it was for private, noncommercial use.

For the first one, GM and Ford has to show that their players' primary purpose is not to make copies. Marketed as infotaiment systems, they can show that multi-faceted purposes of GPS navigation, radio (satellite and terrestrial), hands-free phone connectors, email, etc. The other two are obvious. Lastly, Ford and GM could be dismissed from the suit as they didn't manufacture the systems but bought them and used them.

Comment Re:Swift Popular? (Score 2) 315

How do we even know it's going to be popular in the first place? Does it solve any problem I can't do with C# or Python and/or on more platforms?

Considering that you can't really use C# or Python for iOS or OS X development, I would say that's one major thing you can't do.

It'll be a language for little hipsters who hope to be the next Steve Jobs by releasing yet another crappy useless iOS app. I don't know anyone who still bothers with iOS apps.

Then you must not know anyone who uses an iPhone meaning you live in a rather small world.

Comment Re:We'll "need" Swift? (Score 4, Insightful) 315

Need? No. You can still use Objective C if you want to code iOS/OS X. Want? Yes.

And while the rest of the featured languages are no-brainers with regard to popularity, it's an open question how long it might take Swift to become popular, given how hard Apple will push it as the language for developing on iOS.

Apple does not have to push very hard. After looking at it and Objective C, it doesn't take a genius to see why programmers would prefer it over Objective C.

Comment Re:Why does Apple charge for Mac OSX? (Score 1) 165

"identically specced" Only for very liberal interpretations for "identically specced". The problem is that when you actually try to build one identically-specced, in some cases, you'd find you spend more money on a PC than a Mac. There are specs you may not care about: small form factor, workstation processors, etc which may drive the price down. However ignoring them means you don't have an identically specced machine.

Take for example the cost of the video chips in the Mac Pro. It is actually cheaper to buy a Mac Pro upgrades than discrete cards. The D300 cards are roughly equivalent to the FirePro W7000 (~$750) while the D500 is almost equivalent to the W8000(~$1250). The D700 is roughly equivalent to a W9000 (~$3200). The prices are newegg prices. To upgrade from D300 to D500 is $400 on Apple. If you had two W7000 discrete cards, the upgrade price to dual W8000 would be $800. To upgrade to D700s would be $1000. To upgrade from dual W7000 to dual W9000 is $5500.

Now you make say you don't need workstation level cards, but that's the problem with your argument. Using a consumer level card would be cheaper; however, a Mac Pro is not designed for consumers. It's designed for professionals.

Comment Re:Why does Apple charge for Mac OSX? (Score 4, Informative) 165

Apple hasn't charged for OS X since Mavericks. Then they charged before Mavericks:
  • 10.0 "Cheetah": $0
    I don't think there was a price as it was the first OS X to be installed on new machines.
  • 10.1 "Puma": $129
  • 10.2 "Jaguar": $129
  • 10.3 "Panther": $129
  • 10.4 "Tiger": $129
  • 10.5 "Leopard": $129
  • 10.6 "Snow Leopard": $29
  • 10.7 "Lion": $29
  • 10.8 "Mountain Lion": $19
  • 10.9 "Mavericks": $0
  • 10.10 "Yosemite": $0

Comment Re:Flat UI Design (Score 4, Insightful) 165

Nope. While I agree that skeumorphism may have gone too far in previous designs, the shift to flat UI takes away from functionality sometimes. I want to clearly tell if something is touchable/clickable as opposed to nonfunctional text/graphics. All I can say is that it's not quite as bad as Metro/Modern. But that's not saying much.

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