So, they argued that the right of resale was void because the item in question was not created on U.S. property, and thus is not subject to the law that says items made under copyright can be resold by a third party after the initial purchase.
Couldn't the book makers have had a better argument that since it was PURCHASED outside the country, the right of resale was void, not that it was MANUFACTURED outside?
Not that I wanted that argument to work, either. I love this verdict, and am glad the second-sale doctrine is upheld, but I find it odd they went after "manufactured overseas" and not "purchased". You'd think they'd have better grounds that if the purchase wasn't made on U.S. soil that the purchase isn't recognized by the U.S., and thus there wasn't a "first sale" to trigger the "second sale" right.
I often find that non English speakers tend to spell things right, but the grammar structure is screwed up beyond recognition. Common misspellings like loose/lose and there/their/they're are just lazy Americans most of the time. And they are always too proud to correct themselves when pointed out.
I am willing to concede if this is in fact a rare case of English-second-languageism, but I doubt it.
"If other customers in India file similar complaints, perhaps ISPs will think twice before engaging in widespread censorship."
This seemed to me to criticize the ISP for willingly engaging in censorship, rather than just criticizing the process that forced the ISP into this position.
Wait, so the ISP followed the order, claiming they were told to block an entire site. They were given a penalty for doing so. When the copyright organization was asked what it had requested, it had lied and said it HADN'T asked for the entire site?
And we're angry at the ISP over this? They were bullied, lied to, and now blamed for something they were forced into.
Thank god we (and India) have such clear-cut laws. /sarcasm
Yeah, I was wondering that myself. There are zero links in the article to ANY evidence that Microsoft is doing such an idea. The release candidates are already out and in people's hands, and all we have for info is "what if" articles from a small handful of developers saying that yes, IF this happens, it would suck.
I don't think Microsoft would shoot themselves in the foot over this. Windows Live Gaming is a horrible monstrosity that should be taken out back and shot, but they would never make it mandatory.
Either way, I'm still avoiding Windows 8. I like Windows, not Windows OSX
I can technically see where he comes from, with this "bait and switch" argument, but...
There isn't a man alive in this WORLD that would prosecute someone that adds another charity to this (assuming a nice safe one like another cancer research, etc, and not a iffy depending-on-your-politics one like -for instance- palistinian aid) though.
Sure, it's possible to make a game that is self-sustaining, but it's not making big numbers. Seems the big companies like Activision can ONLY make games that have to make billions of dollars, and to make that, they need to sell millions of copies. To do that, they need to spend hundreds of millions on fancy graphics, hundreds of millions on advertising, hundreds of millions on franchising.
There's just too much pressure to make a BIG splash, not a "I want to make a living" splash.
It's because, despite the proof from valve and recent indie devs, selling cheaply at high volume can actually make you more money than selling as high as possible (the current price of 60 a pop for as long as possible).
But only if you are lucky. The unfortunate trend with the price of games today, is that gamers will now only very reluctantly let go of their money if they are very sure of the sale. Thus, most of the money only goes to the big marketed games, which only get the big advertising budgets as big AAA games, which never sell for less than 60.
We're at a place right now where a game company HAS to sell millions of a game AT this 60 a pop price point just to break even. Take the recent closure of 38 Studios, which sold a highly acclaimed new game, that sold over a million units at 60 per, but still ran out of money.
Companies are too scared to gamble with their lives by selling at a lower price point, and hoping that they sell more than double the units as a result. I think they just believe that only so many people will buy the game anyway, might as well sell it for as much as they can right off the bat.
I wasn't exactly trying to say that because pirated copies are so perfect, they are thus the ONLY copies people should ever get, more that... currently, the only thing going in HBO's favor right now is guilt factor. People only keep paying because it's wrong to not do it.
If only we lived in a virtual reality. I'd like to see what would happen in HBO did the following:
Told cable companies it stopped exclusive partnering (I doubt they even do that. I think it's the cable companies that are bowing to the big TV channels rather than the channels bowing to the providers). It was going to provide the shows at the same time or perhaps a day later, online, for 1-2 an episode. These shows are 100% DRM free, not tied to any online account, 100% transferable, 100% copyable, 100% mobile. For small fees, you can redownload modified versions formatted for various devices such as for play on iPads, Kindle fires, mobile phones, etc.
Of course, because of the loss of exclusivity, the high price point of the channels loses it's value, so HBO can drop to $5 a month rather than it's 15.
In the end, More people will likely pick up HBO in their package because it's cheaper, as well as purchase episodes of their shows, possibly multiple times for every device they have, for every show they have, and more people will do this. Current pirates that claim to do so because there is "no other choice" now have their choice. It is in their format. It is in a price range for their liking. It is DRM free.
Will HBO end up making more money... or less for all this?
You really think that people are trying to give money to HBO here because they claim HBO will give out a better deal? It's hard to believe that Anything will beat an instantly available, fast download, multiple portable formats, self correcting (the scene corrects encoding errors when they care), offline, non-DRMed files for free.
The only downside, is guilt, and the occasional stern letter from a copyright agency or a temporary cutoff of internet from their ISP.
People were guilted into publicly demanding the "right" choice for consuming this content the way they want to, but isn't available the way they want to. The fact this big corporation is deaf to their pleas is not a surprise to me.
That is certainly a possibility. I was not at all trying to shill for big corporations here that tend to have the money and power to get what they want done when they want it. Just putting out there that, if they can be believed, the official word from DirecTV reps was that place-shifting of local television was illegal because of federal laws regarding broadcasting.
I certainly don't see how this law could possibly be in the public's best interest at all. I am surprised however that in the Aereo case it wasn't flat out claimed that it was against federal law, thus being a US v Aereo case instead of corporation v Aereo case.
From my experience as a phone tech (yes, customer support) for DirecTV, the best argument against Aereo was that there are actual federal laws prohibiting anyone outside of a specific TV broadcast marketplace from getting ANYONE ELSE'S local TV channels. Seems the big affiliates (Fox, CBS, ABC, etc) got congress to pass a law to such an effect. That way, you can only watch the channels and thus commercials marketed to your home city area.
DirecTV, in order to make sure customers didn't game the system by claiming residency in another state to get their local channels (for example to watch a football game playing on a local channel there) was forced to do spot beaming, which is where they will only beam the channels for a local market to an area around that market.
This of course results in people that travel and use portable dishes, such as in RV's, completely out of luck. It was impossible to get their home channels, and considered illegal for us to change the account address to allow their receiver to get the local stations of the area they were in.
HBO is actually a "premium" package that you have to sign up for separate (unless you get the "ALL IN ONE" package that is really just their second highest tier with the premium channels added to it, with no savings per month). When I worked for DTV, HBO was in fact the most expensive of all the 4 premium channel packs (HBO, STARZ/Encore, Showtime, Cinemax) clocking in at 15 extra bucks per month just for the HBO channels. The other packs were each 12 dollars, meaning that HBO felt their 6 or so channels were worth more than Starz's 15. They have, of course, since then raised prices of all these packages even more since I left.
Long story short, it's actually hard to get HBO without intentionally asking for it, as the premium channels are usually the first to go when people realize they are paying 15+ bucks for 6 channels.
One advantage of most premium movie channels are that they in fact have little or no commercials at all. a movie on HBO will tend to go froms tart to finish with no commercial break, unlike one on TMC in which you can't go 10 minutes without 5 minutes of commercials. What few commercials there are tend to be between movies, and are just ads to show when other HBO movies will be on later that day/week.
Is this at all similar to Blizzard's attempt to sue and shut down Glider, a program designed to cheat at the popular MMO? They appeared to be successful, as the primary and only use for it was to accomplish methods against the game's TOS. It appears to me that even if it's not a criminal case, a company ought to be able to shut down a company whose use is maliciously against the TOS.
On the post: Supreme Court Gets It Right In Kirtsaeng: You Can Resell Things You Bought Abroad Without Infringing
Couldn't the book makers have had a better argument that since it was PURCHASED outside the country, the right of resale was void, not that it was MANUFACTURED outside?
Not that I wanted that argument to work, either. I love this verdict, and am glad the second-sale doctrine is upheld, but I find it odd they went after "manufactured overseas" and not "purchased". You'd think they'd have better grounds that if the purchase wasn't made on U.S. soil that the purchase isn't recognized by the U.S., and thus there wasn't a "first sale" to trigger the "second sale" right.
On the post: Netflix Provides 'Knock-offs' After Contract With Disney Ends
Re: Re: Most of these movies are crap
On the post: Netflix Provides 'Knock-offs' After Contract With Disney Ends
Re: Dang
I am willing to concede if this is in fact a rare case of English-second-languageism, but I doubt it.
On the post: Indian ISP Penalized For 'Overblocking' In Obeying Court Order To Try To Stop Infringement
Re: Re:
"If other customers in India file similar complaints, perhaps ISPs will think twice before engaging in widespread censorship."
This seemed to me to criticize the ISP for willingly engaging in censorship, rather than just criticizing the process that forced the ISP into this position.
On the post: Indian ISP Penalized For 'Overblocking' In Obeying Court Order To Try To Stop Infringement
And we're angry at the ISP over this? They were bullied, lied to, and now blamed for something they were forced into.
Thank god we (and India) have such clear-cut laws. /sarcasm
On the post: Game Developers Concerned About A Potentially Closed Windows 8
Re: Why would you want to use those anyway?
I don't think Microsoft would shoot themselves in the foot over this. Windows Live Gaming is a horrible monstrosity that should be taken out back and shot, but they would never make it mandatory.
Either way, I'm still avoiding Windows 8. I like Windows, not Windows OSX
On the post: Carreon Admits His Original Threat Letter Was A Mistake, But Keeps On Digging Anyway
There isn't a man alive in this WORLD that would prosecute someone that adds another charity to this (assuming a nice safe one like another cancer research, etc, and not a iffy depending-on-your-politics one like -for instance- palistinian aid) though.
On the post: EA Believes That Making A Lot Of Money Is Less Important Than Keeping Games Expensive
There's just too much pressure to make a BIG splash, not a "I want to make a living" splash.
On the post: EA Believes That Making A Lot Of Money Is Less Important Than Keeping Games Expensive
But only if you are lucky. The unfortunate trend with the price of games today, is that gamers will now only very reluctantly let go of their money if they are very sure of the sale. Thus, most of the money only goes to the big marketed games, which only get the big advertising budgets as big AAA games, which never sell for less than 60.
We're at a place right now where a game company HAS to sell millions of a game AT this 60 a pop price point just to break even. Take the recent closure of 38 Studios, which sold a highly acclaimed new game, that sold over a million units at 60 per, but still ran out of money.
Companies are too scared to gamble with their lives by selling at a lower price point, and hoping that they sell more than double the units as a result. I think they just believe that only so many people will buy the game anyway, might as well sell it for as much as they can right off the bat.
On the post: Correction: Earn My Money, HBO
Not condoning 100% piracy rates
If only we lived in a virtual reality. I'd like to see what would happen in HBO did the following:
Told cable companies it stopped exclusive partnering (I doubt they even do that. I think it's the cable companies that are bowing to the big TV channels rather than the channels bowing to the providers). It was going to provide the shows at the same time or perhaps a day later, online, for 1-2 an episode. These shows are 100% DRM free, not tied to any online account, 100% transferable, 100% copyable, 100% mobile. For small fees, you can redownload modified versions formatted for various devices such as for play on iPads, Kindle fires, mobile phones, etc.
Of course, because of the loss of exclusivity, the high price point of the channels loses it's value, so HBO can drop to $5 a month rather than it's 15.
In the end, More people will likely pick up HBO in their package because it's cheaper, as well as purchase episodes of their shows, possibly multiple times for every device they have, for every show they have, and more people will do this. Current pirates that claim to do so because there is "no other choice" now have their choice. It is in their format. It is in a price range for their liking. It is DRM free.
Will HBO end up making more money... or less for all this?
On the post: Correction: Earn My Money, HBO
The only downside, is guilt, and the occasional stern letter from a copyright agency or a temporary cutoff of internet from their ISP.
People were guilted into publicly demanding the "right" choice for consuming this content the way they want to, but isn't available the way they want to. The fact this big corporation is deaf to their pleas is not a surprise to me.
On the post: TV Network Exec Argues That Anything That Causes Cable Subscribers To Cut The Cord Is Illegal
/-:
I certainly don't see how this law could possibly be in the public's best interest at all. I am surprised however that in the Aereo case it wasn't flat out claimed that it was against federal law, thus being a US v Aereo case instead of corporation v Aereo case.
On the post: TV Network Exec Argues That Anything That Causes Cable Subscribers To Cut The Cord Is Illegal
DirecTV, in order to make sure customers didn't game the system by claiming residency in another state to get their local channels (for example to watch a football game playing on a local channel there) was forced to do spot beaming, which is where they will only beam the channels for a local market to an area around that market.
This of course results in people that travel and use portable dishes, such as in RV's, completely out of luck. It was impossible to get their home channels, and considered illegal for us to change the account address to allow their receiver to get the local stations of the area they were in.
On the post: HBO Decides It Still Isn't Difficult Enough To Watch HBO Shows
HBO isn't subsidized
Long story short, it's actually hard to get HBO without intentionally asking for it, as the premium channels are usually the first to go when people realize they are paying 15+ bucks for 6 channels.
One advantage of most premium movie channels are that they in fact have little or no commercials at all. a movie on HBO will tend to go froms tart to finish with no commercial break, unlike one on TMC in which you can't go 10 minutes without 5 minutes of commercials. What few commercials there are tend to be between movies, and are just ads to show when other HBO movies will be on later that day/week.
On the post: Twitter's Lawsuits Against Spam Tool Providers Could Easily Backfire
Blizzard
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