response 41 of 162:

Jul 16 14:07 UTC 2003

If books were a more recent invention, borrowing them probably would be
restricted.  Video rental stores pay a *lot* more to buy movies than you
pay for your own copy.

response 43 of 162:

Jul 17 13:38 UTC 2003

DirecTV is taking an anti-piracy stand that borders on extortion. 
There's a good article about it here:
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6402

Basically, if you've bought a smart card reader in the past from one of
the businesses they've busted, they assume you're pirating their signal
without any other evidence.  They send you a letter demanding that you
send them the reader along with $3500, or they'll file criminal charges
against you.  If you ignore the letter, they file the charges and then
offer to settle again for $10,000 -- a lot of money, but still less than
defending yourself in court against a behemoth like DirecTV.

So far pretty much everyone has paid up.  A class action suit in Los
Angeles accusing them of extortion was dismissed, and the plaintiffs
were ordered to pay $100,000 in legal fees to DirecTV in addition to the
money DirecTV had already asked for.  Only a handful of cases have gone
against them; one case in Michigan ended in a summary judgement against
DirecTV when it was discovered that the defendent didn't own a satellite
dish, for example.  But of course the trick here is that the money
they're asking for isn't quite enough to make defending yourself worth
it -- it's cheaper to just pay up.

response 45 of 162:

Jul 17 15:26 UTC 2003

So the moral of the story is to pay cash!

response 47 of 162:

Jul 18 13:39 UTC 2003

Yes, you're right.  That was my mistake when typing my summary.

response 49 of 162:

Jul 21 18:30 UTC 2003

This afternoon I stumbled across some late June - early July reports
of European copy-protected CDs causing physical damage to consumer
equipment.  Everything is very rumorish.  Mike Oldfield's
"Tubular Bells 2003" album has been singled out for particular 
concern.  I dunno, see what you think:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/10/181528/569
http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/docs/damage.shtml
http://www.rcarter.34sp.com/oldfield/tubularbells2003.html

response 51 of 162:

Jul 23 03:06 UTC 2003

Word on Slashdot is that Boston College, among others, has refused
DMCA subpoenas on the grounds that release of student records requires
notification and other procedures also mandated by Federal law.

response 53 of 162:

Jul 24 03:10 UTC 2003

I just found buymusic.com, which is the Windows version of the "official"
music buying service. I even bought a song from it, for .99. It has
restrictions (can only be on 1 computer, and burned on 3 cds) which they say
are enforced by coding. It's rather interesting, although I don't think I'll
be using it very much. (Not much folk, although they DO have Great Big Sea.
I will probably pick up a few of my still-un-gotten 80s songs that I can't
find on compilation CDs.)

response 57 of 162:

Jul 25 05:28 UTC 2003

Russ, that idea is old news.
This spring I was doing first-level clerical routing of DMCA complaints, 
and we regularly saw complaints about a common IRC file-sharing bot which 
would be installed on unwilling Win2K machines with weak admin passwords.

response 59 of 162:

Jul 27 02:24 UTC 2003

I don't know that my copy of Tubular Bells is an 'original' cd, but I have
had it for a couple of years.  Now I've an excuse other than price to stop
buying discs with music on them.

response 61 of 162:

Jul 27 18:20 UTC 2003

The Ann Arbor News reports on the RIAA's target in Ann Arbor:
 
http://www.mlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1059144149193700.xml?aan
ews?NEA
    (i hope that works)
 
Quote:  "The RIAA subpoena claims the Ann Arbor user violated
  copyright laws by offering up pop and rock songs, including
  Madonna's "Material Girl," No Doubt's "Underneath It All"
  and the Guns and Roses tune "Sweet Child of Mine.""
 
This leads me to the catty suggestion that a Kazaa user's best protection
against an RIAA lawsuit may simply be to improve one's taste in music.  :)