Posts by The BigYin

Re: Levy

AIUI Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom all lack a "blank media levy".

In the USA personal copies are allowed and this is where the confusion arises. In the UK, however, copying for personal use is illegal (although the various media companies have said they will not pursue anyone). The Digital Economy Act may make it legal in the future, but until such times if you want to obey the strict letter of the law, you must get express permission from the copyright holder to make the copy (or but it again on the different media).

Citations: Mostly Wikipedia, but even the most basic of web searches will get you some answers.

Re: Microsoft: Please U-turn!

Not at all. Basic ergonomics relating to the prevention of eye-strain gives a rather amusing rule-of-thumb; have the monitor beyond arm's reach.

How the heck does one use a fangly-dangly touch interface on a fangly-dangly touch monitor in that case?

Re: Electric burns?

I don't think it leaks as such, but causes an acid to be formed. This was on "Monsters Inside Me" a few episodes ago. Afraid I can't recall the acid.

Re: whats

@AC - What's the point? because it stifles innovation, prevents new products coming to market and can stop a whole industry moving forward. That's why. The whole Internet was found on technology that was patent-free. Do you think it would have gone as far as it did if was riddled with patent caner?

Patents have a place, so long as the are good patents about something truly new/non-obvious. The patents the USPTO a granting willy-nilly for tech ideas are just such cobblers. Thankgoodness (for now) the the EU doesn't allow software patents.

Re: internet economics

Perhpas Greece should check Groupon for some hot EU deals?

Re: The drive needs to be re-formatted?

The Bravia can read from multiple formats. It seems that when connect to a special "output" port the drive will get formatted and the TV will drop encrypted recordings on there. There are comments that the drive can only work with the exact same TV, and the Sony manual have precious little information. So my guess is Sony are using some proprietary crap-ola.

Again.

One more reason to never buy Sony (as if they hadn't given us enough reasons already).

Re: So my question is

I was about to post the same thing. I would imagine that Google would respect "robots.txt" and if the Google bot can get at the images, it kinda implies that anyone else could by simply walking the site using wget or similar.

So either they didn't define "robots.txt" properly, didn't correctly check sessions, didn't have proper security or some combination of all three.

And what did Perfect10 want? Google (and Yahoo, Bing, AltaVista etc) to not index them?

Re: They haven't copied

Yes, yes I think they have. Get Andrew Orlowski on the case, he's big on copyright and will surely see that just action is taken.

Re: This all ignores the elephant in the room

@h4rm0ny

Nice post, although I do take issue with the use of the word "piracy" but that's just semantics.

I see Avengers 2012 on that list - can you please tell me how much that affected the box-office take? Because if I remember, it just broke lots of records.

Obviously that does not excuse copyright infringement one little bit, but it does bring into question just how much damage (if any) is actually being done.

I don't necessarily agree with TPB (although as a distribution service it is genius) but neither to I agree with the draconian legislation being mooted and forced through.

Infringement has almost certainly always existed once it became technologically possible (and no, that does not make it right) but what harm has actually been caused? Companies have survived and grown from gramaphones thru LPs to tapes, videos, CDs etc and not a lot seems to have gone wrong. Heck, maybe the infringement was even a boon to some. So despite it having been around for so long and companies/people still raking it in, why should we let them make such an audacious grab for culture with ever increasing terms, region-locks (WTF did those ever do other than force people to infringe?), DRM (as before), and new laws?

I often wonder what history has to say about all this - what happened when the printing press landed and all the scribes' jobs were in danger; did they demand legislation/special treatment to protect their business? It's the closest equivalent I can think of.

Re: Censorship is bad. Always

@AC - Nothing, but a consistent handle is a step-up from a coward and the best yer going to get around here. Yes, I could have multiple handles, use throwaway account etc etc.

But I don't.

ElReg, good as it is, just isn't worth that level of effort.

Heck - how does another reader know that you are not me.

Are you me? Does that explain the blackouts and the voices?

Re: Old hat - but the bigger story is...

@Ian McNee - I wish I had more upvotes for you. This is exactly what the NHS should be doing. Hopefully it can be expanded to other services.

Re: or provide a refund

"A buyer has the right to return or resell the OEM copy of MS Windows, or the antitrust authority should intervene."

No, they don't. MS changed the EULA, remember? You must now comply with the vendor's policy which may mean you have to return the entire machine (and I believe that is not the policy of the major vendors).

Re: Switzerland.....

@Ommerson

It's triple-dipping. My taxes are subsiding the service in the first place.

I had recent cause to use the train in Germany. A one-way cost €60 bought at the station on the day, not cheap I grant you but still around half the price of a UK equivalent ticket (some of the changes were tight, so I took flexible).

The train left on time, was spacious, clean, quiet, had a comfortable dining car, good and reasonably priced food. Even the more rural trains were all clean and well turned out. For half the price I felt like I got four times the service.

In the UK I would have been on a slow, dirty, overcrowded train which served cardboard and paid through the nose for the privilege.

Re: Homeopathy...

Ah, so he has a penchant for supporting the unsupported and seeing n effect where there is no cause. Explains much.

If you forget to take your homeopathy meds - do you die from an overdose?

Re: Really??

@Oliver Mayes

Almost exact same spec as my box (1GB nVidia GT240) with 7.1 soundstill running 10.10. DVDs play fine.

I suspect PICNIC.

You should get on the forums and resolve the issue - might be the drivers, compositing or just a dodgy config; but this is hardly the place to do support.

Re: Really?

"And giant shapeshifting lizards run the world, I hear."

Is that what we are calling lawyers these days? That's a step up for them.

I have little issue with copyright - but extending it ad infinitum (which is what is happening) is madness. The current duration is far too long, never mind what it will become.