willy134 - Slashdot User

DRM Causes Piracy 413

Posted by kdawson on Saturday February 24, 2007 @03:46PM from the obvious-when-you-think-about-it dept.

igorsk recommends an essay by Eric Flint, editor at Baen Publishing and an author himself, over at Baen's online SF magazine, Baen Universe. In it Flint argues that, far from curbing piracy of copyrighted materials, DRM actually causes it. Quoting: "Electronic copyright infringement is something that can only become an 'economic epidemic' under certain conditions. Any one of the following: 1) The products they want... are hard to find, and thus valuable. 2) The products they want are high-priced, so there's a fair amount of money to be saved by stealing them. 3) The legal products come with so many added-on nuisances that the illegal version is better to begin with. Those are the three conditions that will create widespread electronic copyright infringement, especially in combination. Why? Because they're the same three general conditions that create all large-scale smuggling enterprises. And... Guess what? It's precisely those three conditions that DRM creates in the first place. So far from being an impediment to so-called 'online piracy,' it's DRM itself that keeps fueling it and driving it forward."

The Sierras of Titan 167

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday December 13, 2006 @03:37PM from the titans-of-titan dept.

eldavojohn writes "Cassini has detected the tallest mountains on Titan, a large moon of Saturn. More importantly, clouds have also been detected in Titan's atmosphere. Why is this news important? Well, as scientists scan the skies for the easiest piece of mass to colonize, things that resemble Earth's geology & atmosphere are going to require the least effort & resources. These mountains mean that Titan may have tectonic plate movement similar in some ways to earth's. From the article, '"You can think of Titan as the Earth in deep freeze," said Dr Rosaly Lopes, Cassini radar team member at the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It has a lot of the geological processes that Earth has. In fact, it is more Earth-like than anywhere else in the Solar System. But the surface is very cold; it's about minus 178C."'"

Online Store to Sue Blogger Over Google Ranking? 365

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday December 13, 2006 @01:32PM from the all-this-effort-could-have-gone-to-fixing-his-site dept.

An anonymous reader writes "An online business owner is threatening to sue blog owner Dean Hunt (DeanHunt.com) because he is upset that the blog owner is doing better than his business in the Google search rankings. After an initial threat, Dean received a follow-up threatening to take legal action against him. So far Dean has elected not to name and shame this business owner."

Comment Re:Illuminati, Ticket To Ride... (Score 1) 583

by willy134 on Saturday March 05, 2005 @09:54AM (#11851904) Attached to: Fun Tabletop Games?

We have this game. Very simple to play. It won game of the year like settlers. We too were looking for something new to play. We have either worn out our settler friends or we just don't have time to play settlers.

The goal of this game is to get the most trains, with other points coming from meeting certain destinations. I think it is kind of like settlers crossed with something more simple.

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