The part that could really get them hurt is that in several cultures tobacco is used for religious purposes.

6. have a tradition of single-user systems and a blazing stream of past bad security decisions that lots of legitimate apps take advantage of, so they can't do security right without breaking a lot of malformed but useful apps 7. can't really stop somebody from installing software 8. work in a culture of running with maximum privileges, resulting in many apps being written by developers with elevated privileges and tested as such 9. work in a culture where people typically have access to one account, rather than a lower-privilege one to see if what they write will work without high privileges

Basically, Microsoft is in a very bad place between security and backwards compatibility. Granted that a lot of the problems are hangovers from bad decisions Microsoft made, it still hinders MS in developing a secure OS. Similarly, the extreme delay in even trying to close some of the traditional holes.

I see nothing coming out of Redmond that's inconsistent with security consciousness. They're just going to have a lot of trouble digging out from various holes, and the fact that they dug many of them themselves doesn't matter for their future actions.

Not all results would have to be saved... only the good ones. (just guessing)

Our 8-core database server has been marching along happily under a heavy load for many months now.

[Huh? what a little comment box!]

Burglary was defined at Common Law to be a forced entry into the dwelling of another at night with the intent of committing a felony.

Modern statutory versions have dropped many of the requirements, such as being a dwelling, or at night, and some have probably even dropped the felonious intent requirement.

Under the classic definition, if you only intended to commit a misdemeanor, it wasn't burglary. Note that it's *intent* at the time of entry, not whether or not the crime occurs.

Or if you break in to steal a sandwich, and are inspired to steal the jewels you find in the icebox (a felony), it still isn't burglay.

In many states, the newer statute may label itself as something like "daytime burglary" in order to make it distinguishable.

hawk, esq.

I sent an email to the address at the bottom of the site...

Dear Sir or Madam,

It was with great interest that I perused the materials on the Music Rules website. (On a side note, it doesn't work properly with Firefox 3.0.) I agree that piracy of music is a problem, and some reform of copyright law is needed. However, I believe that your educational materials are misleading and sometimes directly contradict actions of the RIAA in the past.

In the teacher's guide, on page 4, the answer to question #2 (left column) is given:

Caitlin is not a songlifter because personal use is permitted when music fans buy their music. Caitlin can copy her music onto her hard drive and her MP3 player. Caitlin can even burn a CD with her own special mix of music she has purchased.

This however contradicts earlier cases where the RIAA has pursued music pirates for doing this exact same thing. A Washington Post article from 2007:

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

The teacher's guide also ignores the term, "fair use." While fair use is quite limited in U.S. law, generally being restricted to purposes of research and parody, if the RIAA wants to teach third-graders the term, "DMCA notice," why not "fair use?"

Coverage of alternative forms of copyright appears to be non-existent as well, such as the Creative Commons licenses, which allow the creator to turn over specific rights to others, such as the right to modify, or distribute. Public domain coverage is missing as well. Old recordings from before 1923 (such as Edison's early record player) on the Library of Congress site thus would be public domain, and free to download. The materials would scare kids into thinking that everything is copyrighted, and thus illegal.

The materials also should recommend sites where music can be legally downloaded for free. One example is Musopen.com, which contains recordings of public domain works, but also contemporary works where the composer has expressed willingness for his music to be shared. . Warnings should be balanced with alternatives. Also, you could recommend the students to whenever possible purchase music directly from the artist, so that the artist is paid a fair amount.

U.S. federal government training materials ignore this distinction, preferring the "all downloaded music is illegal" mantra. For example, see this training website (it's screen 27 of 48). I can disprove this by visiting this Wikipedia link, where I can download a copy of the W.W.S.S. Wind Ensemble with Dennis Smith playing Arthur Pryor's arrangement of "Blue Bells of Scotland," released under the EFF's Open Audio License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Pryor_-_Blue_Bells_of_Scotland,_for_Trombone_and_Band.ogg). Similarly, recordings by U.S. military bands, being created by the U.S. government, are generally also public domain.

Copyright reform does need to be effected in the United States. The clause in the Constitution governing copyright is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts," by securing for a limited time. Today's environment, where it is for the lifetime+70 stifles creativity. Two economists wrote a paper for Harvard Business School (a subsidiary of Harvard University) discussing how weak copyright actually benefits culture (HBS article).

I hope that the educational materials can be refined, so that students get all the facts regarding music piracy, so they can properly decide whether it is legal for them to download song X. Reducing FUD on the RIAA's part will improve their standing in the technology community, and consumers will benefit by using a variety of resources to get music: legal purchases, and legal downloads of free music.

Thank you,

[REDACTED]

Just watch. Now I'm going to get investigated by the RIAA. :-)

Let us examine your post:

You do not address my argument that there is no fair use involved in "sharing" songs on the internet. Instead you try to change the subject.
You personally attack me rather than making any argument
You make unsupported claims about the RIAA, it's members, and corporations in general
You state that I am harming myself but provide no proof of same
You advocate destroying those you disagree with, but put forth no argument or evidence supporting such action
You claim that I am on the "wrong" side of the argumen

So, you post is a red herring, an ad hominem attack, a straw man combined with an appeal to fear and ridicule, a false dilemma combined with an appeal to consequences of a belief, begging the question, and two wrongs making a right.

Your entire post is one fallacy after another. You apparently have no concept of how to argue. And, judging from the style of the post, I bet you are under the age of 23.

I agree its an issue, but something as trivial as copyrights should not be part of the very foundation of our country. Its not THAT critical.

Yes we have.

Can't remember what it was called, but I had to clean up a machine with an old school .exe file infector a few months ago.

Completely hosed every executable on the machine, so it _was_ a matter of reinstalling from scratch.

Not sure if this is a serious question or rhetorical, but I'll assume the former in my reply (yes, I know this is slashdot).

First, it's not uncommon for an employee who has little or no managerial experience to "not get" what managers do so in my jobs where I've had a significant managerial role (e.g. dept head or VP), I try to make some specific information available for staff. For example, if you reported into me at any level and you came to me with this this question, I would pull out your job description and the one for your manager (assuming you had the same job family) and I would review them side by side with you and answer any questions you had.

But speaking generally (I've had everything from IT to Medical Affairs report into me at various times), some of the things I expect from first line managers (different from their direct reports) are as follows:

• Managers are expected to perform at a "role model" level in their specific technical area. As such, they can perform QC/QA activities as needed (especially for junior or recently promoted staff) and are themselves accountable for technical screw ups.
• Managers are expected to model business competencies for their group. For example, I expect them to be able to communicate well with customers and colleagues, which I don't necessarily expect from an individual contributor, depending on role.
• Managers are personally financially accountable for the success of projects their staff support, and they are "graded" not just on their personal contributions but those of their staff (usually I weight this more to group contribution as a team grows). As such, I instruct new managers that they are not expected to do the job of (e.g.) three people, but to make sure that three people can get their jobs done. This does not mean that they get to use a stick often to whip their employees into longer hours or crazy commitments, because that sort of management is counter productive long-term, but it does mean that managers have to identify and solve problems that limit productivity. I.e., they must continually think "one step ahead" ...
• Managers are responsible for hiring, training, remediating, and terminating their employees. All of these are time consuming when approached correctly. If you've never been involved in remediation efforts, then I will simply note that that they can take anywhere from 3 months to a year to go through a full process of performance evaluation and documentation, depending on the procedural rules of your organization. Termination for performance is and should be relatively rare, and a manager that decides to go this route better know that their own competency as a manager is called into question. What I've unfortunately had to call upon my own line managers for this year is down-sizing support. And it's really easy to be cavalier about this sort of activity if you haven't been through it before, but it can be a soul sucking experience to have to dismiss your employees for whatever reason. (I don't have or keep managers who don't care about their staff.)
• Managers support the company. I'm not saying that you can't like your employees or fight for them (you better if for no other reason than it's your job to retain them), but when something like a strategic business decision is made, you either get behind it or you find a new job.

Granted, there are radically different philosophies about management so ask someone else and you may get a very different answer. That said, I don't think there is anything in my response above that is novel or uncommon.

In the US, pay in companies is pretty much determined by pay reference points (PRP) -- i.e. "average" salary statistics for job families and positions in the same locale, industry, company size, etc. These numbers are obtained by HR departments from different companies sharing amongst themselves. While you can reconstruct rules from surveying PRP (e.g. first line managers in my company typically average 4-5k over their direct reports), the pay values are not actually based on any parametric model (such as the one you describe).

As for small group managers and their salaries, I couldn't disagree more. Their average day may not differ much from that of their direct reports, but they get the salary bump for other reasons, which you will figure out if you are in one of these positions for long. And FWIW if I have a manager fire a staff member it pretty much reflects back on them. Hiring staff, retaining good employees, and remediating the less productive ones is all part of what they are "graded" on.

Are you suggesting that a company will not decrease their profit margin even when it allows them to maximize profit (by increasing sales)?