(no subject)
While I'm on the subject of stupid things being done by superpowers and me not sleeping even though I should be either sleeping or baking at the moment, some of you may be interested in noting that Microsoft is shutting down its PlaysForSure (yeah, a nice oxymoron, kina like Microsoft Works) DRM servers. This won't instantly stop all PlaysForSure DRM'd music from playing, but it ties it to the machines it's currently on, since transferring the music to another machine requires authorization from the license server, which will now no longer exist. This my friends is why DRM is evil and why you should not trust that DRM'd music will always be playable. I highly suggest buying all your music on CD or buying from DRM-free sources such as Amazon's new mp3 store (despite what many of the firebrands on slashdot say, emusic is not a good source of DRM-free music as their selection sucks something awful).
An interesting ponderance: if the owner of a copyrighted work (book, music, software, etc) ceases to distribute the work in any way so that it is no longer published, cannot be bought anywhere, etc, is it immoral for one to copy the work from another? I'm too tired to give my own thoughts on that at the moment though. (and yes before you chastise me Cidra, I have been getting a reasonable amount of sleep this week :))
An interesting ponderance: if the owner of a copyrighted work (book, music, software, etc) ceases to distribute the work in any way so that it is no longer published, cannot be bought anywhere, etc, is it immoral for one to copy the work from another? I'm too tired to give my own thoughts on that at the moment though. (and yes before you chastise me Cidra, I have been getting a reasonable amount of sleep this week :))