Telephone service is a utility. Even though it's deregulated, companies that provide the service still have to maintain a level of service.
Something I learned as a Comcast subscriber -- if you want better service, subscribe to their phone service (which is VOIP and is carried by their internet service). Both I and my mother subscribe to Comcast service in our respective homes (which are separate dwellings, thank you). We each had internet and phone service through them. When we had a problem, all we had to do was remind the customer service tech that we had phone service, and it was fixed the same day.
I've since gone to a much cheaper VOIP provider (about a third of the price for about twenty times more features). We had an internet outage just last week, and we were down better than 30 hours until they got around to fixing it, because they didn't provide phone service and didn't have that obligation. (Funny how that distinction is made.)
As for those protections, last I checked, we were supposed to live in a capitalist free market economy, where even the most basic economics student learns that you don't "protect" industries, you let them compete. And if they fail, they fail.
Unless of course someone determines you're "too big to fail", and then apparently the government will give you lots of the public's money to protect you from failing.
This isn't a case of "banning", it's a case of creating a locked-in system on their tablet version of the OS. It's their answer to the iPad. (So, to answer the question in the title, it's "New Envy" more than "Old Habits".)
If they tried banning browsers in the standard desktop version of Windows 8, you'd have a story.
DRM is not required to distribute movies on DVD. You can burn a DVD without any DRM at all (region-free and CSS-free) and play it on any DVD player. I don't know enough about Blu-ray to know if players require DRM -- I don't own a Blu-ray burner or software. I would guess the same holds true, but that's just a guess.
Encoding movies in the existing codecs may require a license to use for distribution, but that's not the same thing as DRM. If the issue is that major distributors just won't produce movies without DRM, then coming up with a new video format isn't going to solve that.
So only the copyright holder will get to make reality TV shows, meaning one source to avoid. (Oh sure, they could license it, but we've already seen how convoluted copyright licensing is, so other players would probably just as soon not bother.)
This is one time where Life+70 doesn't seem long enough...
Who gets paid if you have a painting of a Coke can? What if Coke put a painting on a can and put that in a movie?
What if the movie includes a scene of someone painting, where the painting is created as a consequence of making the movie? In other words, who paid whom for the picture Jack draws of Rose in the movie? As a key plot point, it obviously has value to the movie; but because it was drawn in the movie, the picture owes its existence to the movie....
Granted, although by default most* are configured to go out on their own and get updates on whatever schedule the programmer decided/was directed to set. You either have to open the settings or watch for the option when installing — and know to go to each of those and turn them off if/when faced with impending bandwidth overage. I might remember to do this; the rest of my family might with my prompting. My mother (who still has an AOL account — I only wish I was kidding) wouldn't even be able to tell you what she has installed.
One thing I learned during all of this is the concept of "trickle bandwidth". Like "trickle power", the little bit of electricity a device ends up consuming just by virtue of being plugged in (DC power adapters, electronics that are "off" but consume enough power to look for the remote control signal telling it to "turn on"), my internet-connected devices use a non-zero amount of internet data just by virtue of being on. Email programs that ping servers for new messages, background widgets that look for content updates (news, weather), and any of a dozen apps that check for program updates (Adobe, Google, Windows, graphics drivers, keyboard and mouse drivers, even my TV and Blu-ray player) can add up to a couple hundred megabytes per day (especially when you have multiple computers doing this independently — am I supposed to set up a Windows Update Server on my home network?). It doesn't sound like much until you find yourself counting every kB at the end of the month to make sure you don't find yourself cut off from the rest of the world.
And why does all this trickle bandwidth exist? Because the people programming these widgets and web sites and services are written to actually use the resources of the internet, not considering these resources limited.
Ours was nearly used up with over a week left to go in the month. No Netflix, no YouTube, and I had to go through the same "cognitive cost" about every single email and phone call (since our phone service is VOIP). Add that to the stress that my ISP is Comcast (meaning going over the limit doesn't mean "extra cost", it means completely cutting you off for a year, until you find a new ISP [see the part about "no competition"]), and it was a very stressful week-plus.
So basically, not only does it prevent the DA from trying you again after a jury says "not guilty", it prevents the DA from deciding to try you again for a separate charge arising from the same set of facts.
Wait, how did OJ Simpson get found guilty of "wrongful death" after being acquitted of murder?
Sorry, no. They are free to allow or ban anyone for any reason, constitutional or not. They are not a government entity, they are private companies running their own networks.
Don't believe me? Try signing on to Xbox Live, put some racial or sexual slurs in your profile, and whine about your constitutional rights when you get banned.
Why not install a PDF printer, and print the PDF to that? It's how I "edit" secure PDFs (primarily eBills that I get from utility companies when I just want the "bill" part and not the "correspondence" part).
I've heard some whoppers in my time — "jumbo shrimp", "military intelligence", "found missing" — but "intellectually honest federal government" takes the cake!
In addition to the Trust issues brought up by John Fenderson above (Will they be there, with my data, tomorrow?), I am concerned with my ability to use such a service effectively.
First, bandwidth. Will I have enough bandwidth available so that using a cloud service is no different than using my own server? Will I be constantly buffering, because the bits are going through heavy congestion at some indeterminate point along their path? Will I be pounding my fist on my desk in frustration because I can't access my files, because I've lost my connection to my ISP again (due to weather, network fault, user error, or something else out of my control)? This happened as recently as last weekend, when I was trying to watch some live streaming video program and my connection went dark for a solid ten minutes.
Second, ISPs and bandwidth caps. I came very close to my cap last month with over a week left in the month. I had to effectively shut down a lot of my internet usage. No Netflix, no YouTube, no Xbox Live. If I stored my own media "in the cloud", I would have been cut off from that, too.
Third, if I want to take my media on the road (movies for the kids in the minivan, for example), I know I will not have a usable data connection everywhere I go. Free Wi-Fi is not universal; and even if I had a cell data plan for my vehicle (an expensive add-on), there are many dead spots that I drive through just around our neighborhood. It makes no sense for me to do anything but keep the media on my own computer, convert it to whatever portable format necessary to play in the car, and move it using my own physical cables and memory cards.
Now, in the brief description above, you call it a "cloud-based syncing system", which to me means that media is stored locally, and the cloud is only used as a backup and service to sync with other devices. My first and third points aren't as critical then, but the second point, ISP bandwidth caps, is a HUGE drawback.
It should be a utility by now
Telephone service is a utility. Even though it's deregulated, companies that provide the service still have to maintain a level of service.
Something I learned as a Comcast subscriber -- if you want better service, subscribe to their phone service (which is VOIP and is carried by their internet service). Both I and my mother subscribe to Comcast service in our respective homes (which are separate dwellings, thank you). We each had internet and phone service through them. When we had a problem, all we had to do was remind the customer service tech that we had phone service, and it was fixed the same day.
I've since gone to a much cheaper VOIP provider (about a third of the price for about twenty times more features). We had an internet outage just last week, and we were down better than 30 hours until they got around to fixing it, because they didn't provide phone service and didn't have that obligation. (Funny how that distinction is made.)
Did I miss something in Geography?
When did South Korea become a Western country?
Current government policy argues otherwise
Unless of course someone determines you're "too big to fail", and then apparently the government will give you lots of the public's money to protect you from failing.
Windows RT is their "tablet"
This isn't a case of "banning", it's a case of creating a locked-in system on their tablet version of the OS. It's their answer to the iPad. (So, to answer the question in the title, it's "New Envy" more than "Old Habits".)
If they tried banning browsers in the standard desktop version of Windows 8, you'd have a story.
Required on DVD??
DRM is not required to distribute movies on DVD. You can burn a DVD without any DRM at all (region-free and CSS-free) and play it on any DVD player. I don't know enough about Blu-ray to know if players require DRM -- I don't own a Blu-ray burner or software. I would guess the same holds true, but that's just a guess.
Encoding movies in the existing codecs may require a license to use for distribution, but that's not the same thing as DRM. If the issue is that major distributors just won't produce movies without DRM, then coming up with a new video format isn't going to solve that.
Re: well
Speedbumps would serve to slow the descent into hell.
I prefer to think of the lawyers as oil slicks.
Re: Ambivalence...
So only the copyright holder will get to make reality TV shows, meaning one source to avoid. (Oh sure, they could license it, but we've already seen how convoluted copyright licensing is, so other players would probably just as soon not bother.)
This is one time where Life+70 doesn't seem long enough...
What about...
Who gets paid if you have a painting of a Coke can? What if Coke put a painting on a can and put that in a movie?
What if the movie includes a scene of someone painting, where the painting is created as a consequence of making the movie? In other words, who paid whom for the picture Jack draws of Rose in the movie? As a key plot point, it obviously has value to the movie; but because it was drawn in the movie, the picture owes its existence to the movie....
Bribes to China?
Shouldn't they be investigating (alleged) bribes to the US Congress first?
Re: Re: Re: And what happens when you run out?
Granted, although by default most* are configured to go out on their own and get updates on whatever schedule the programmer decided/was directed to set. You either have to open the settings or watch for the option when installing — and know to go to each of those and turn them off if/when faced with impending bandwidth overage. I might remember to do this; the rest of my family might with my prompting. My mother (who still has an AOL account — I only wish I was kidding) wouldn't even be able to tell you what she has installed.
*In my experience. Your mileage may vary.
Re: And what happens when you run out?
One thing I learned during all of this is the concept of "trickle bandwidth". Like "trickle power", the little bit of electricity a device ends up consuming just by virtue of being plugged in (DC power adapters, electronics that are "off" but consume enough power to look for the remote control signal telling it to "turn on"), my internet-connected devices use a non-zero amount of internet data just by virtue of being on. Email programs that ping servers for new messages, background widgets that look for content updates (news, weather), and any of a dozen apps that check for program updates (Adobe, Google, Windows, graphics drivers, keyboard and mouse drivers, even my TV and Blu-ray player) can add up to a couple hundred megabytes per day (especially when you have multiple computers doing this independently — am I supposed to set up a Windows Update Server on my home network?). It doesn't sound like much until you find yourself counting every kB at the end of the month to make sure you don't find yourself cut off from the rest of the world.
And why does all this trickle bandwidth exist? Because the people programming these widgets and web sites and services are written to actually use the resources of the internet, not considering these resources limited.
And what happens when you run out?
Ours was nearly used up with over a week left to go in the month. No Netflix, no YouTube, and I had to go through the same "cognitive cost" about every single email and phone call (since our phone service is VOIP). Add that to the stress that my ISP is Comcast (meaning going over the limit doesn't mean "extra cost", it means completely cutting you off for a year, until you find a new ISP [see the part about "no competition"]), and it was a very stressful week-plus.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Double punishment?
Wait, how did OJ Simpson get found guilty of "wrongful death" after being acquitted of murder?
Re:
Sorry, no. They are free to allow or ban anyone for any reason, constitutional or not. They are not a government entity, they are private companies running their own networks.
Don't believe me? Try signing on to Xbox Live, put some racial or sexual slurs in your profile, and whine about your constitutional rights when you get banned.
Re: Re: Double punishment?
...right-wing media? I thought no one listened to FOX News anyway.
PDF printer?
Why not install a PDF printer, and print the PDF to that? It's how I "edit" secure PDFs (primarily eBills that I get from utility companies when I just want the "bill" part and not the "correspondence" part).
Oxymoron
I've heard some whoppers in my time — "jumbo shrimp", "military intelligence", "found missing" — but "intellectually honest federal government" takes the cake!
Infrastructure and ISP
In addition to the Trust issues brought up by John Fenderson above (Will they be there, with my data, tomorrow?), I am concerned with my ability to use such a service effectively.
First, bandwidth. Will I have enough bandwidth available so that using a cloud service is no different than using my own server? Will I be constantly buffering, because the bits are going through heavy congestion at some indeterminate point along their path? Will I be pounding my fist on my desk in frustration because I can't access my files, because I've lost my connection to my ISP again (due to weather, network fault, user error, or something else out of my control)? This happened as recently as last weekend, when I was trying to watch some live streaming video program and my connection went dark for a solid ten minutes.
Second, ISPs and bandwidth caps. I came very close to my cap last month with over a week left in the month. I had to effectively shut down a lot of my internet usage. No Netflix, no YouTube, no Xbox Live. If I stored my own media "in the cloud", I would have been cut off from that, too.
Third, if I want to take my media on the road (movies for the kids in the minivan, for example), I know I will not have a usable data connection everywhere I go. Free Wi-Fi is not universal; and even if I had a cell data plan for my vehicle (an expensive add-on), there are many dead spots that I drive through just around our neighborhood. It makes no sense for me to do anything but keep the media on my own computer, convert it to whatever portable format necessary to play in the car, and move it using my own physical cables and memory cards.
Now, in the brief description above, you call it a "cloud-based syncing system", which to me means that media is stored locally, and the cloud is only used as a backup and service to sync with other devices. My first and third points aren't as critical then, but the second point, ISP bandwidth caps, is a HUGE drawback.
(untitled comment)
Identity theft, apply directly to the forehead.
Loss of data, apply directly to the forehead.
Financial risk, apply directly to the forehead.
Palm slap, apply directly to the forehead.
Re:
That's what I got out of it as well. It would've been a really clever ad about corporate and network security.
The connection to piracy is never made in the video.