TurquoiseB wrote:
> ...(for example, Microsoft Word and Outlook) in 2 Mb
> of memory (Microsoft's claimed minimum memory
> requirement for Vista)...
>
Don't try this at home - Windows Vista needs 2GB of
RAM and works best on a dual core processor.
> This pandering to the copyright barons is also the
> thing that has crippled Windows Vista, because
> Microsoft capitulated to it. From what I hear, the
> moment you launch any of its multimedia utilities,
> the memory requirements of the operating system
> double, and sometimes triple if you're trying to
> play HD. I read one review/test of Vista in which
> the tester was unable to run more than two other
> programs (for example, Microsoft Word and Outlook)
> in 2 Mb of memory (Microsoft's claimed minimum
> memory requirement for Vista) when the OS went
> into its "protect Microsoft from copyright
> infringement suits" mode. They have effectively
> crippled their OS and passed the cost of the
> crippling (in the form of more memory being
> required) by giving in to the lawyers.
>
> When are the copyright owners going to learn that
> they're dealing with a "frontier" situation, and
> outlaws, and that heavy-handed attempts to intimidate
> the outlaws Just Aren't Going To Work? The outlaws
> understand the tech, and the entertainment industry
> lawyers do not. The outlaws are going to win every
> time, because they've got Righteous Indignation on
> their side. That and being 17 and having no assets
> that can be effectively seized. :-)
>
> My favorite attempt-at-copy-protection story is the
> short-lived scheme used by Sony corp. on its CDs.
> They spent several million bucks coming up with a
> copy-protection algorhythm that would prevent users
> from copying their CDs. The only trouble with it
> was that it actually *crashed* the users' computers
> when they tried to play the CDs on them. Big no-no,
> one that put the Righteous Indignation reaction into
> hyperdrive. Within a week, someone had figured out
> that the multi-million-dollar copy protection scheme
> could be defeated using a 49-cent Magic Marker pen.
> Simply use it to paint over the outside edge of the
> CD, and it played (and copied) just fine on any
> computer. No more crashes, no more copy protection.
> Sony abandoned the scheme.
>
> That's the way that all such copy protection schemes
> are going to be dealt with in the future. The hackers
> are smarter than the people creating the protection
> devices, and they're more motivated. The employees
> of the entertainment industry companies who invent
> these things are rewarded with (and thus motivated
> by) an industry-standard salary and a Dilbert cube
> that they can't even put up any of their photos of
> Elle Macpherson in. The hackers are motivated by
> Righteous Indignation, which doesn't pay as well in
> dollars, but pays off Big-Time in terms of satis-
> faction and peer approval. :-)
>
> Having worked on the peripheries of the music and
> film industry at one point in my life, I have to
> admit that I don't have a lot of compassion for the
> companies who are screaming about being ripped off
> by pirates. They've been Long John Silver to their
> artists for decades now, ripping off the very people
> who create their product every way they can possibly
> imagine. And now the karma has come home to roost.
> And about bloody time, in my opinion. I've known
> musicians who sold over a million dollars worth of
> product and who got a *bill* from their record
> companies for the album. The smarmy lawyers of the
> record companies had found a way to pass all of
> *their* expenses onto the band, and make them pay
> the company for the privilege of having made money
> for them. Same with some small films.
>
> So do I feel bad about these entertainment industry
> remoras losing a few bucks from pirates who take
> advantage of this authorization code being spread
> around on the Internet? I do not. When they start
> treating the "talent" that pays for their Porsches
> with a little more respect, I'll have more respect
> for them. Until then, I'm siding with the pirates.
> Ho ho ho, pass the bottle of rum, and plop that
> HD copy of Pirates Of The Caribbean At World's
> End into that Linux machine. Party time. :-)
>
>
> --- In [email protected], "vajradhatu108" <vajranatha@>
> wrote:
> >
> > 09 F9: A Simple Way to Stand Up Against the Latest Assault on
> Digital Rights
> > By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet
> > Posted on May 22, 2007
> >
> > I have a number, and therefore I am a free person. That's the message
> > more than a million protesters across the Internet have been
> > broadcasting throughout the month of May as they publish "09 F9 11 02
> > 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0," the 128-bit number familiarly
> > known as 09 F9. Why would so many people create MySpace accounts using
> > this number, devote a Wikipedia entry to it, post it thousands of
> > times on news-finding site Digg, share pictures of it on photo site
> > Flickr, and emblazon it on T-shirts?
> >
> > They're doing it to protest kids being threatened with jail by
> > entertainment companies. They're doing it to protest bad art, bad
> > business, and bad uses of good technology. They're doing it because
> > they want to watch Spider-Man 3 on their Linux machines.
> >
> > In case you don't know, 09 F9 is part of a key that unlocks the
> > encryption codes on HD-DVD and Blu-ray DVDs. Only a handful of DVD
> > players are authorized to play these discs, and if you don't own one
> > of them, you can't watch Spidey in high definition -- even if you
> > purchase the DVD lawfully and aren't doing any copying. For many in
> > the tech community, this encryption scheme, known as the Advanced
> > Access Content System (AACS), felt like a final slap in the face from
> > an entertainment industry whose recording branch sues kids for
> > downloading music and whose movie branch makes crappy sequels that you
> > can't even watch on your good Linux computer (you guessed it -- not
> > authorized).
> >
> > When a person going by the screen name arnezami managed to uncover and
> > publish the AACS key in February, other people immediately began
> > reposting it. They did it because they're media consumers angry about
> > the AACS and they wanted Hollywood and the world to know that they
> > don't need no stinkin' authorized players. That's when the Motion
> > Picture Association of America and the AACS Licensing Administrator
> > (AACS LA) started sending out the cease and desist letters. Lawyers
> > for the AACS LA argued that the number could be used to circumvent
> > copy protection measures on DVDs and posting it was therefore a
> > violation of the anticircumvention clauses in the Digital Millennium
> > Copyright Act. They targeted blogs and social networks with cease and
> > desists, even sending notice to Google that the search engine should
> > stop returning results for people searching for the AACS key (as of
> > this writing, Google returns nearly 1.5 million pages containing it).
> >
> > While some individuals complied with the AACS LA, in many cases
> > community sentiment was so overwhelming that it was impossible to
> > quell the tide of hexadecimal madness. Popular news site Digg tried to
> > take down articles containing the number, and for a while it appeased
> > the AACS LA. But Digg is a social network whose content is determined
> > by millions of people, and as soon as Digg staffers took down one
> > number, it would pop up in hundreds of other places. At last Digg's
> > founder, Kevin Rose, gave up and told the community that if Digg got
> > sued, it'd go down fighting. Many other sites, such as Wikipedia and
> > Wired.com, deliberately published the number in articles, daring the
> > AACS LA to sue them. Sites like MySpace and LiveJournal are also rife
> > with the number -- like Digg, these sites are made up entirely of user
> > content, and it would be practically impossible for administrators to
> > scrub the number out.
> >
> > The AACS key protests have become so popular because they reach far
> > beyond the usual debates over copyright infringement. This isn't about
> > my right to copy movies -- it's about my right to play movies on
> > whatever machine I want to. The AACS scheme is the perfect planned
> > obsolescence generator. It will absolutely force people to upgrade
> > their existing DVD players because soon they won't be authorized to
> > play new DVDs. Even worse, the AACS scheme allows movie companies to
> > revoke authorized status for players. Already, the AACS LA has revoked
> > the authorized status of the WinDVD media player, so anybody who
> > invested in WinDVD will have to reinvest in a new player -- at least,
> > until that player's authorized status is revoked too.
> >
> > The AACS, more than any other digital rights management scheme, has
> > revealed that the Hollywood studios have formed a cartel with
> > electronics manufacturers who will do anything to suck more money out
> > of the public. If you want to watch lawfully purchased movies, the
> > only sane thing to do is post the number. Stand up and be counted.
> >
> > http://www.alternet.org/story/52242/
> >
>
