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Comment Re:Simplistic view (Score 2) 278

It's partially voter apathy, but it's also a huge amount of regulatory capture.

I may feel very strongly, but I really have no money and have other things to deal with day to day.

As an industry with an agenda, I have a dedicated staff to doing nothing but lobbying and deep pockets behind it. A lone individual also lacks the "credibility" of an industry insider. Regardless of what the industry says, they live it so they "must know the issues." It's not necessarily correct, but that's how it works.

Comment Re:This is Good! (Score 2) 150

One of the big issues is that is (currently, in the vast majority of cases) a civil matter. The two parties involved pay for it.

If it's criminal, your tax dollars are going to be increasingly used to pay for copyright enforcement that the copyright owner doesn't want to pay for. If they don't want to pay for it, why should I? Why should you?

Comment Re:Set up the precedent (Score 1) 138

Unfortunately, it's hard for people to do it. Copyright litigation is very risky, as fair use is vaguely defined. Although I'd say that 4 paragraphs is fair use, the statutes don't really set the limits. The law/case law says you should consider X,Y, and Z but aren't real definitive about where the line is drawn.

And lawyers are expensive. It's $200+/hr for a lawyer (roughly) and you're going to potentially need hundreds of hours to litigate a case in court. If it's a few thousand to make the issue go away, that sounds pretty good when you weigh the relative costs.

Comment Re:Good idea (Score 1) 224

Problem with requiring a company controlled portal to run the game is the industry has proven multiple times that they're all too quick to kill off network infrastructure required to play the game.

It also means that you have to have an operational network connection to run the game.

Comment Re:Bad Summary (Score 4, Informative) 775

Basically, the decision said that a company can enforce regional pricing and distribution structures through a (broad) interpretation of copyright laws.

Omega has various pricing depending on region. Overseas they were cheap and expensive in the US. CostCo bought them from a low priced region overseas and imported them to the USA. The ruling was they couldnt do that as it violated the copyright, despite the fact they were legally purchased overseas.

Comment Re:That long ago? (Score 1) 721

I would argue that it is mostly large corporations that decided "long time back that the work of their [subjects] hands should go to those of their own choosing --- and have never truly signed on to the notion that the artist should be compelled to surrender his work to the public domain."

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of the populus, the issue of copyright has not really mattered to them in their daily lives. Especially before the internet, they copied (for personal use) and nobody had any way of knowing about it.

The large corporations are HIGHLY motivated to push for protectionist copyright policies though, so they end up winning out. You end up with this situation a lot in politics, a significant portion of general populution do care about minor issues but don't have the time/energy to do anything about them.

Comment Re:They will stop all software patents. (Score 1) 175

Bad idea.

It will result in everything green lighted. A "green" stamp means that the USPTO is effectively done with it. Move on to the next.

A "red" stamp means that the inventor can come back with changes, questions, etc. It doesn't kill it. That process can drag on another year or more. The USPTO also puts together some reason for it being rejected. It is a lot more work and is drawn out.

Comment Re:That's Everyone (Score 1) 376

It's 1 per day for copyright holders (specifically the USCG on behalf of a copyright holder). They process many more for law enforcement which eats up time and is significantly more important.

I'm sure they were also worried about person X coming and demanding 100 immediate lookups for copyright issues, then person A, then person B coming and doing the same. It's also likely the system is not centralized and the ISP has near zero business incentive to comply.

Since it's for a subpeona, they really need to manually verify it as well. The cost for getting it wrong is quite high from a PR standpoint. It shouldn't be 100% automated.

Comment tape isn't bad (Score 5, Insightful) 266

Tape is one of the best long term and reliable storage methods. As long as it doesn't burn (which kills any memory type), it's more stable in most situations than the modern memory devices. Remember, it has be stable in salt water, in high impact, humid environments, dry environments, wide temperature ranges, take electrical shock, etc.

People just think it sucks b/c it's old school and clunky.

Comment Re:Liberal Arts? (Score 1) 828

It's not about the quality of the degree or that all liberal arts schools are crap.

It's that nobody gives a shit about your liberal arts portion of the education (beyond maybe the ability to communicate which isn't only available via liberal arts).

They care that you can do CS work (in my example). They don't care about the history class you took, or the psychology, or the native american culture, or the sociology, or whatever...they care about whether you know the skills that directly relate to what they want you to do. In a technical field, it's technical knowledge that is important.

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