Wow, how did that get marked up. I'm really starting to wonder about the moderation system.

There are so many examples in real life that contradict that.
Lets start off with the bios chip in computers. That was copyrighted.
They got around it simply by having 2 teams
Team A disected the chip, and wrote the specs of what it did, and how it operated.
Team B took the specs and had nothing else to do with team A, and using only those specs made a new bios chip that matched the specifications written.

The courts decided that copywright didn't come into play, because they didn't copy the chip. (They indeed made their own version)
If it was patented it would of been a different matter.

Theres also the matter of the magic key that allowed decoding of HD-DVDs. I don't believe copyright is able to do anything about that (Although the DMCA might say otherwise, i'm unsure since its DRM and DMCA changes the game with DRM)

You could also try talking to apple, about how their court case vs microsoft went when MS copied how apple looked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation

I could go on, but in short you can't copywright the look and feel of software either.

So if the detailed innerworkings (or algorithms) aren't protected by copywright, and if the look and feel isn't protected either. What does copywright stop.
It stops outright ripoffs and direct copies, but it doesn't stop other companies producing compeating products.

Patents however do stop compeating products. (A little too effectivly some would argue)
If the bios chip was patented, it would of been illegal.
If it wasn't for the fact that the GUI had already been proven and demostrated by xerox before being handed over to apple. Apple could of patented the "look and feel".

So back to the orginal point.
Copywright Law protects you against people copying your software. It isn't very effective against people that DEVELOP compeating products. Patents are.

You can hate or love what patents are, but don't be confused about the differance. To discard what patents because [software] copywrite exists, defeats the purpose of patents themselves.
Reform is needed for both, but not an abolishment.

What i'm just wondering about is how it'll affect the power consumption on laptops.
Since currently browsers don't use it, it would be using its lowest powered rendering mode.

Now if you start getting IE to render using 2d acceleration, if the drivers aren't nice, its going to kick in full and start draining a lot more power.

Aero on vista was much the same. Pretty looks, faster power drain.

It'll be interesting to see how it works, if it can be disabled, and if it will drain more power on well written graphic drivers

sound low rent?
Look at their site, once you get past how "bling bling" it looks, its actually got very little content, and a hell of a lot of ads.

I also fail to picture why one would want to use an auction for this thing. You don't stay rich by squanding large sacks of money away on items you've not checked out.
Meeting in person would give you a far better idea of whats involved, as well as either talk the price down to something more resonable, or have it explained why its worth so much.

Thats the full description of a yacht with a minimum bid of 2.7 million dollars.
If that auction site was worth a damn, they'd actually either give pages of material about the product, or refuse to list it on such small infomation.
I'm done talking about the site, the fact that the site hit slashdot both gives credence to them, and lowers my perception of slashdot.
I just hope slashdot got a pile of cash for advertising it.

...so i ask, where is the justice?

They did, at least for the GBA:
WarioWare

It used a built-in gyro sensor to detect movement. Althought it was a GBA game, it still worked on the DS.
Pitty they didn't build it into the DSi. I'd MUCH rather have a gyrosensor then yet another camera to carry around. (cellphone/netbook both provide for that non-existant need)

A free market has nothing to do with personal rights. Its about having minimal goverment intervention allowing the ecnomony to find the path of least resistance. The most efficent way to produce goods and services.

Its based on the theory that the ecnomony can regulate itself better then the goverment can. Some regulation is needed, but preferably minimial. The more the goverement controls the system, the less of a free market and more of communist system we step towards.

You don't want to take either side to an extreme, as there is a balaning act involved. Too little oversight will result in companys becoming reckless in the serch for profits; too little freedom will smother companies, minimzing the jobs and profits they provide to the region.

This is the key pivot of your arguement, and i have no idea how you can so cleanly equate pollution to rights violation.

Lets take for example a farming community.
Cows produce greenhouse gases just by their digestive system. Eating, craping, farting, it adds up.

How does me owning 10 cows affect your human/legal rights
How about 100, 1000, 10,000 cows?

Lets take it a step futher.
Lets say their waste goes down stream of some sort that is nice to fish from.

1 cow, not a problem.
10 cows, still isn't a problem.
100 cows, getting an issue.
1000 cows, the river is unhealthy to fish from

Explain at which point your individual rights get violated. (Its not your property so its only your personal rights).

The point of this post is simple.
Free markets will make companies pollute more when they aren't accountable.
You can't make companies accountable just by human rights. If a company damages your properity/rights by a mesuable amount i'm sure you already have legal recourse. For everything else that is unmesurable, you need regulation, to prevent polution from getting out of hand.

I'll also add that too much regulation will result in companys moving to more agreeable countries and taking their jobs with them.(See China and the Kyoto treaty).

Free market leads to a dangerious but profitable market, where as a regulated leads to a less profitable (read: higher poverty) market.
A balancing act is needed. Human rights have little to do with the pros and cons of the free market with regards to polution.

Yes its an oxymoron, i chose it for that purpose.
It doesn't change the fact that people are copying it without paying the agreed amount.

The publisher/developer is allowing anyone to buy it with whatever they think its WORTH. They didn't say pay what you want.
You ask anyone who "purchased" the game at 1 cent, and ask them if they got a bargin, and they'll say hell yes. Its because they just got something vaulable for dirt cheap.
Anyone who actually thought the game was only worth $0.01 cents wouldn't even bother downloading it.

If you ask me, such actions not only breaks the spirit of the sale, it also breaks the agreement it was purchased with. Its also just being a selfish arsehat.

what bugs me is that 16,852 people paid $0.01 for the game. Which is nothing but legally pirating the game.

If you were doing it for an OS port of the game thats fine, but otherwise at least throw in a dollar.
The bandwidth and credit processing would cost them more then the cent provided.

At least they got the marketing, and my business, which is some good from the cheapskates
Thats my $2.00 cents.

Yes the camera's that are built into laptops are usally pretty piss poor quality, but theres nothing stopping someone taking a USB video camera in as well. It wouldn't surprise me if there are a few tiny ones that record with good footage, and connected to a laptop, would have plenty of recording space unlike a cellphone which most won't have the room/power to store movie length footage

I still think its a stupid idea. You can't stop cam-rips without creating a hostile viewing enviroment, even then i doubt you would stop cam-rips.

I'll also add, i expect laptops to become more and more common as time, and internet connectivity goes on. Have you see how small some of the netbooks are getting, while the coverage area's and pricing of 3g networks keep improving. But thats a bit off-topic.

Same thing for me here.
I'm a a pretty big nut of C&C games, but the DRM on C&C3 (fantastic game) gave me a ton of greif. I actually had to go and download no-cd images and use damen tools + YASU (yet another secure-rom utility) just to RUN my own game.
My dvd drive struggled to read and pass the dvd check at boot because their dvd was non-standard.

Nothing like having to crack your own game, just so you could play it, then worry that your online account will be banned as a result.

Lets not forget how badly EA made C&C3's online lobby system. For a game that aimed to please the mutliplayer base, their online interface was terrible.
You were cramped into rooms labled lobby1, lobby2, etc, so joining a room that matched your timezone/region was impossible.
The networking code for making and establishing connections was the worst i've ever seen. Requiring the following ports be opened:
TCP Ports
80,6667,28910,29900,29920
UDP Ports
432,127,900

What a headake to setup your router with, and have fun if you have 2 machines behind the router you wanted to be able to play online with.

Then came the expantion, which was fantastic in terms of gameplay and story, but online got destroyed. There was a sync bug which caused a lot of players to desync. And any game that desynced would be aborted. 2v2 and 1 player desyncs, game aborts for everyone.

EA told us that a patch would be coming in 2 weeks to fix it. But it took them 4 months to release a patch. 4 months where the mutliplayer desync rate was 30%+ screwed up. (In addition to the lobby being as bad as ever)

I lost all respect in EA as a company over that.

Then they decided with their next release of RA3, they would increase the DRM even more. That you'd only be able to install RA3 5 times. After that you'd be screwed.
It was the first C&C game i never purchased, and i can honestly say i'm thankful for that after watching it at a friends place.
The gameplay was annoying. Every unit had to have a special ability, if only for the sake of it. That C&C feel i'd loved since tha days of starcraft were lost.
You could no longer amass tanks... TANKS (solid bricks that you throw at your opponent), but now units which had to be microed on each unit to work. Building on land or water didn't matter, navies could pack up and become an airforce... Nothing made sence, nothing flowed, and everything was micromanagement intensive. (The plot was also very forgetable and childish)

And this is the company that wants to make an MMORPG?
Failed at understanding how to foster a good mutliplayer experance? Check
Failed at timely patching when critrical game bugs are encountered? Check (just wait for when exploits are found)
Failed at developing a fun gameplay experance? Check.
Failed at development of solid networking code? Check.

I will add this since noone else has mentioned it.
C&C might be lacking a lot of lore to start a MMORPG game, but keep in mind they have a FPS shooter tiberium coming out soonish. If they make it like mass effect they would be able to add a ton of lore into the game and give the most basic foundations to starting an MMO with.
But at the same time, if its a popular game, theres a good chance they could get a new following that would be interested in futher exploiting the world of C&C.
If its another renegade where although its a good game, its not popular. Then i'd say the best they could hope for is is to futher milk the C&C franchise.

No capitalism doesn't work FOR humanity's best interests, however that doesn't mean their work doesn't further the advances of humanity.

Thinking of some of the greatest inventions of last century, the light-bulb or automobile. Both were made by great inventors, both drastically changed the world, both were made with profits in mind, and both had patents on their inventions.

Anyone who thinks that its wrong to make money for advanced research should get a clue on how the world works.
The same can be said for anyone who instantly assumes that all patents should be worthless.

Watching videos on your cellphone?
We get charged by the kilobytes for online cellphone useage here in New Zealand, watching a 30 minutes youtube movie would probably cost at least 50USD
If your annoyed that you can't download movies to your cellphone, i can't help but think your doing something wrong.
Flash pages on the otherhand i can understand, especially since there are so many websites that don't function correctly without flash

Everything has its limits
The reason microsoft and windows have been so successful has been because their software has been so friendly to use.
Its so easy it attracts developers, that make applications for the platform, which attracts end-users, some of which go on to become developers.

Its a self-feeding cycle, which is why microsoft has been so successful, and its also where linux is starting to show real growths.

Now your saying MS can give its customers anything it wants and they'll eat it. You might be right, but only in the short term. Longer term, a small amount, lets say that in frustration/annoyance 5% less developers drop windows vista, and start using using linux instead.
They go on to develop apps that DON"T work on windows but instead on linux, these apps appeal to other users who go on to get linux instead, and the linux cycle grows.

Those few developers, taht tiny market share, is all it can take to crush the windows monopoly. And without the monopoly, or ease of use, why would you pay money over a linux distribution which is free.

No microsoft can't afford to stuff up windows, its the cornerstone of all their software, everything is dependant on it, it just takes time (read: years) before screwups play out fully.

Heres a small post showing that MS's vista screwup has cost them dearly, the Mac's web presence nearly doubling from 4 to 8%.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/appleaday/blog/2008/06/macs_web_footprint_growing_at.html

It'd be simlar with linux.
Just wait a few years, and the results will play themselves out.
Don't even get me started on the fact that the netbook market is cut-throat pricing wise, MS are already having a hard time jusifying the cost of windows (to the point where they cut prices on windows oem to stop being excluded from that market)

HD's can cover about 20g while in use. So as long as there are no sudden jerks, its fine for even mobile use.
When the drive heads are parked, its about 200-300g. Which is enough for small falls, and large jerks.

For all the talk about HD's being protected, its actually the casing and the motherboard that stands to benefit. Hell, newer laptops have the HD bay easily accessible for HD replacement.
But if the case is damaged, then the whole thing needs to be repaired. A laptop with a a damaged power socket, or broken wifi antenna/wire isn't easily fixable.