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Hallelujah! The main purpose of patent and IP law was to promote innovation by ensuring that those who innovate are able to reap sufficient financial benefits commensurate with their invested work. It was to do this IN THE INTEREST OF THE SOCIETY. However, over time, greedy corporations and overzealous lawyer twisted and bent this law to protect interests of individual corporation at the expense of the society at large. This has to be undone.

Fucking dim wits spend their waking hours trying to steal more shit. You don't need to get caught, you are already a fucking dipshit and everyone knows it.

And in my experience managers tend to go with the solution that the largest percentage of the population and staff use. Granted the trend towards Microsoft software is on the downside but they are still king of the hill. For now.

You can't expect people to just up and leave software that they're familiar with. I reference college students where I work. We have two rooms, similarly laid out. One room has HP DC7600s, the other Intel iMacs. People chose the room with the HPs showing the typical Windows screensaver over the Macs (which dual boot!) - why? Because it's friggin familiar. And you can't change that by saying the software is crap, because there isn't a usable alternative that appeals to the masses.

No he was not. As far as I can understand it he leaked material from the warez scene onto P2P.

Most (except probably a few unrespected crap groups) do not upload their material to P2P networks and don't want their material getting there. It is a security risk and it is exposing the scene.

These so called Uploaders on P2P torrent trackers are mostly people who have access to scene material in one way or another. Maybe just a crappy courier that isn't contributing or maybe someone who pays for leech or is hosting a server. Anyhow they are usually not respected individuals within the scene and upload things to P2P for either ideological reasons or just to get a bigger epenis.

Sorry for my rant but someone had to say it.

Oh, sure! Programmers are totally going to be able to make a livable wage off a product that isn't made first! Look at the fucking game market and see how realistic that is. Put down the bong first.

Because the people in other industries are producing physical objects. When your creation (and it is as manifest a creation as anything physical) is easily copied, the framework of copyright ensures that you as a creator get a fair shake.

But no, you quite plainly don't give a fuck about the rights of creators. You and your GNUtard friends (and keep in mind, I write open-source code) plainly don't give two shits about the rights of those who are actually making things.

(And you're utterly, factually wrong about businesses "doing the work once those customers have agreed to pay them for it." Never fucking heard of retail, dipshit? Software development's profit cycle is essentially retail, not service-based, because service-based doesn't work for mass-market software one fucking bit.)

Everyone knows that Al Gore invented the internet. He also has AlGorithm named after him, so he is a programmer too.

I like the idea that I have free speech, but it's nothing but a nice sentiment. Free speech is a right, but I can't enforce it. Slander and defamation are crimes, even when they're true (or rather, especially when they're true), so speech is never free. As long as you can be sued for slander, you don't have free speech. I could go on with a rant about everything wrong with the world, specifically Australia, and our legal system, but I'll stop before I do that...

I was going to agree with you, but then I RTFA. Quoth CNN:

So no, Prince doesn't own the copyright on the recording of the performance.

The RIAA are getting stupider by the minute. It's high time they learned that people aren't going to take this shit sitting down for much longer.

The more the courts resist their moves, the more people will stand up for their rights.

mrbcs writes "NDP, trying to score some points with angry Bell users today introduced a net-neutrality bill.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/28/tech/

"The NDP has followed through with its promise to introduce legislation to the House of Commons that seeks to keep the internet open and free from control by service providers."


Now if we could only get these guys to work on a new copyright law instead of those apparent sell out Tories."
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/28/tech

NASA does a lot just for show. Do you think those rockets need to produce all that fire and noise? Hell, those rockets could be the size of a large car and they'd still work. %90 of them are just styrofoam and cardboard. Remember, It's all for the benefit of the taxpayer. In fact, five years ago, NASA took a poll of what people wanted to see come out of the space program. Number one on the list? "A tiny stationary drilling labratory on the surface of mars. Preferably with a colorful parachute and a snazzy name."

When will the government care about science?!

You will get a situation where two alternatives exists:

1. You will have the perfect copy-protection, but only a select few will buy your game.
2. There will be a crack that solves the problem of copy-protection.

And anyway - there has to be some code that accesses the TPM chip, and that also means that given enough time and effort it's possible to circumvent it, or even simulate the TPM chip.

Copy protection has been tried before - always with dubious result.

A conversation amongst the developers: Dev 1: "You see - we can just rename the exe and then get the job done!" Dev 2: "Is there a risk?" Dev 1: "How? Users without sight or with limited vision will have a hard time getting to cmd.exe to rename it - dumbass!"

Exactly. Screw em. If the higher up's think you are worthless and cut your access then give them what they want. A human paperweight. surf slashdot, do as little as possible, when challenged say, "I would love to, but you will not let me."

Your example is exactly why giving notice is not something you really do anymore. I got further screwed. I was nice like you and did all that, then HR came back with a letter, "All vacation is canceled" you cant take vacation after you give notice, you also forfeit all vacation and sick time accrued.

So I sat there and watched TV the last 2 weeks in my office. I was going to document all I knew, I decided that I was not going to as they wanted to be jerks about me being a good guy.

I still get calls from people there about systems that I was the only expert on. I reply with, "what is your PO number for this consulting call? I would love to help you but management and HR told me point blank that everything has to be done by the book."

So they hired another firm to help them, that firm contracts me out as the consultant. It pisses off the upper managers.

An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe put together a scorecard which makes the obvious but interesting point that, when you list every major DRM technology implemented to "protect" music and video, they've all been cracked. This includes Apple's FairPlay, Microsoft's Windows Media DRM, the old-style Content Scrambling System (CSS) used on early DVDs and the new AACS for high-definition DVDs. And of course there was the Sony Rootkit disaster of 2005. Can anyone think of a DRM technology which hasn't been cracked, and of course this begs the obvious question: Why doesn't the industry just give up and go DRM-free?"