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Comment Once the console's servers are shut down (Score 1) 104

Developers can make the license whatever they want including on consoles.

Not once the console maker shuts down the platform's reactivation servers.

Or say the publisher wants to publish a multiplayer game where players 2 through 4 can download a limited-functionality version of the game without charge so long as player 1 is a paying licensee and on their mutual contacts list. This resembles the model used by StarCraft spawned installations, single-Pak multiplayer on Game Boy Advance, and DS Download Play on Nintendo DS. I don't think all consoles support this sort of game sharing.

Comment Re: Cheap = abused. (Score 1) 11

But CITIZEN! THAT is an OBSTACLE to police investigations!

Don't you want police to investigate crimes!?
You aren't SOFT ON CRIME, are you!? Only criminals would have anything to fear from expanded police powers, citizen!

Remember Citizen, Reauthorizing FISA is absolutely ESSENTIAL to our national security, because the gatekeeping by all those bad, onerous warrants we used to need were OBSTACLES to INVESTIGATION! Those mean, bad terrorists that hate our way of life are aided and abetted by our heroic men and women being stymied in this most important work! (Pay absolutely no attention to what's in the Kissinger memos! We're good guys! You can TRUST us!)

--- That is to say, 'We gotta be able to do this whenever, however, however often, and for whatever reason we want!' Is indeed *exactly the thing they cannot be allowed to have*, (for the very reason you just illustrated), and is also expressly they very thing they have been crying publicly about until govt gave it to them.

There is not a category where it is at once cheap and easy to do, and 'does not get abused'.

That means it cannot be cheap and easy to do, if you want to prevent its abuse.

Comment Re:Two statutory carveouts: first sale and RAM cop (Score 1) 103

Which is not an ownership issue, it's a DRM/license enforcement issue.

Correct. The digital restrictions management regime on paid downloads from PlayStation Store doesn't grant rights to a licensee that are equivalent to those that the law reserves for the owner of a copy. The complaint, as I understand it, is that the required notice of inequivalence is not conspicuous enough.

The plaintiffs can still get the same benefits of the product even if their purchase is just for a license.

The benefits are not the same if the publisher or the platform gatekeeper retains the ability to remotely disable licensed software.

Comment Re:What does someone think "owning" a game would m (Score 1) 104

The only thing you really lose is the ability to resell your license easily.

Or, in the case of certain failure modes of PlayStation Store (such as end of support for a particular platform), the ability to restore your license to replacement hardware.

Comment Re:I don't think it would matter (Score 1) 56

The siloing of knowledge and duties is why it was always somebody else's problem.

It was known what would happen if carbon fiber was used for the hull in a submsersible nearly a decade earlier: See the DeepFlight Challenger: "Based on testing at high pressure, the DeepFlight Challenger was determined to be suitable only for a single dive, not the repeated uses that had been planned as part of Virgin Oceanic service. As such, in 2014, Virgin Oceanic scrapped plans for the five dives project using the DeepFlight Challenger, as originally conceived, putting plans on hold until more suitable technologies are developed"

That's all we need. A removal of siloed thinking and a duty to complete all of the scheduled work regardless of whose toes it tramples.

It wasn't about "toes". People died. You seem to be using the same strawman tactics as Stockton Rush.
Everyone else: "This could kill people."
Rush and you: "Your feelings don't matter."

That would have solved the problem.

Except they didn't. They did not even try. The Titan was using their second hull after the first one developed cracks. What did OceanGate do differently to prevent cracks in the second hull? Nothing. They did not change the formulation. They did not change the design. This was the concern voiced by James Cameron. Cameron was excited about the possibility of developing new forms of carbon fiber for submersibles. Until he learned OceanGate was not developing new forms of carbon fiber. They just used existing forms which were known not to be suitable.

But, because departments never like to give up powers they obtain, a side-effect would be that departments would be proactive. They wouldn't walk down piers, looking for strange things. Rather, if they heard of strange things that are their department, if they don't want to be shamed, then they need to ask the company for more information. Because then it's on their plate and not that of a rival department.

I have no idea what you are talking about "departments". People have experimented using carbon fiber for hulls. They were found to crack under multiple dives. That's it.

've worked in the public sector, I've seen the paranoia and closed-mindedness first-hand. That's not going to go away. So you solve the issue by exploiting those traits, since you can't eliminate them.

Then you should know the phrase very well: "Regulations are often written in blood." You seem not to understand it though.

Comment Go Janitors! (Score 4, Interesting) 16

I see so many names in the commit logs, but some standouts include: Blum, Cook, Torvalds, Solodai, Tyragu, Stitt, Bergmann, Wysocki, Panda, de Mello, and no doubt some I missed who have a large number of commits fixing this problem.

Thank to all who undertook this Herculean chore!

Comment Re:revocable (Score 1) 103

Narrowing:
1. The right answer in the case of games with a substantial offline experience is to not make the license for the offline portion revocable.
2. The right answer in the case of games without a substantial offline experience is to describe the license as a rental at all times.

Comment Re:revocable (Score 1) 104

All three major console makers require all customers to "agree[] to let them change the terms when you signed up." If a game developer wants to sell a customer an indefinite license that the console maker can't revoke, the developer has no way to do so. This appears to be evidence of a cartel to me. How is it not?

Comment Re:Hey, it's a paycheck..... (Score 1) 32

In plain English? Here you go:

A woman sitting upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The waters which thou sawest, where the woman sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

The way the machine works, if one side can get funding for a PAC to do something (like Leading the Future, pro-AI pac), then it's relatively easy to get funding for a PAC supporting the opposite. Fund both sides, and eventually you can leverage that to influence.

Comment Re:revocable (Score 1) 104

You don't respect the time and effort that went into creating your enjoyment

Say I buy an indefinite license to use a video game. Then the game's publisher or the platform's owner unilaterally revokes that license. What do I have to show for having "respect[ed] the time and effort that went into creating your enjoyment"?

Comment Re: What does someone think "owning" a game would (Score 1) 103

Title 17, United States Code, reserves specific rights to the owner of a copy. It defines a copy as a physical object in which a work is fixed (17 USC 101).

Licensed for how long?

The owner of a copy of a computer program retains the right to use that copy, including the right to make essential ephemeral copies in RAM, as long as the copy remains readable (17 USC 117).

And how do you obtain a copy of the software to exercise your licensed rights?

As I understand it, ownership of a physical object is defined by the personal property laws of the several states.

Comment Re:What does someone think "owning" a game would m (Score 1) 103

You've have never owned a copy of a game

A "copy" under United States copyright law is any physical object in which a work of authorship is fixed, such as a game cartridge or game disc. The owner of a lawfully made copy of a work enjoys two carveouts, or uses deemed noninfringing. One is reselling that copy (17 USC 109). Another is making private copies essential to the use of a computer program (17 USC 117). These carveouts subsist as long as the copy remains readable. A license through PlayStation Store does not.

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