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Latest Comments by pleasereadthemanual
Snap store from Canonical hit with malicious apps
2 October 2023 at 2:29 pm UTC Likes: 5
Quoting: dziadulewicz
Quoting: CanonicalFurthermore, the Snap Store team has placed a temporary manual review requirement on all new snap registrations, effectively immediately.
So, what you was suggesting, wasn't said anywhere ..
Canonical is now placing a manual review requirement on all Snaps. Logically, we can conclude that they did not manually review snaps before.

Quoting: Fester_MuddOf course they review packages within their resources. Are you serious assuming that they wouldn't at all? Or just a drama seeker towards Canonical and Ubuntu's :)
To me, the above quote suggests that Canonical has never reviewed Snap packages until now.

I'm happy to be corrected.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection multiplayer fixed for Steam Deck / Linux
2 October 2023 at 11:21 am UTC
I tried it again using Proton Experimental with the EasyAntiCheat Runtime installed.

It still hangs with:

Quoting: haloCONTACTING SERVER
Connecting to transport service. Please wait.
Whenever I try to launch a playlist. It's been this way forever. For good measure, I tried with Proton 8.0-3. Same result. I also waited for the Processing Vulkan Shaders prompt to finish instead of skipping (this took 10 minutes).
Snap store from Canonical hit with malicious apps
2 October 2023 at 10:49 am UTC Likes: 5
Quoting: dziadulewicz
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualWait, did Canonical not review Snap packages at all before this?

Where did it say that?
Quoting: CanonicalFurthermore, the Snap Store team has placed a temporary manual review requirement on all new snap registrations, effectively immediately.
Snap store from Canonical hit with malicious apps
2 October 2023 at 10:40 am UTC Likes: 5
Wait, did Canonical not review Snap packages at all before this?
EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking
30 September 2023 at 4:41 am UTC
Quoting: F.UltraWhat you have found there is the tape tax. Differs from country to country, but the big one (as usual) is the USA who in 1992 implemented a tape tax after music producers complained that people pirate copied their material so they wanted a compensation on sold blank tape. So in a somewhat genius idea to not make this one way the US government agreed to add a tap tax to blank media but then also made it legal for people to make private copies of music (since they had payed for it with the "tax"). This is also when they started to label records with "explicit lyrics" in the US, a genius idea by the recording industry where they said that they accepted to add this label (driven by Tipper Gore:s [aka Al Gore:s wife] war on music) if they could get the tape tax accepted, fooling the politicians that didn't know or understand that the record industry wanted that label since it would sell more records.

This "tax" doesn't give you the right to make a public performance, only for you to listen to yourself (or friends in a close group and in private). Hence the text you quoted.

Here in Sweden the music producers managed to keep this tax going to modern media so they get a cut of external HDD:s, cell phones and SD cards. Which is complete nonsense since basically no one does pirate copying anymore after Spotify.
I see...I think. As I mentioned before, I don't listen to much music

It's pretty crazy that they can collect royalties on private performances...

But aren't cover bands explicitly permitted under copyright law? I'm guessing this is a separate issue from compulsory licenses. I don't know anything about this other than that though.
EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking
29 September 2023 at 2:46 pm UTC
Quoting: F.UltraFull agreement that it is bad enough, I hope people don't take my explanations on how things work for endorsement of the system in any way
And to be clear from my side, I wasn't taking your explanations as an endorsement. I did talk briefly about streaming services in my original comment, so I felt what you wrote served as somewhat of a response to it, hence why I jumped in the middle of your discussion

Quoting: F.Ultra(I am after all a registered member of the original Pirate Party).
That is definitely not a credential I have on my CV! I'm only a regular reader of TorrentFreak.

Quoting: F.UltraNow I don't have any insight into how the law works in Australia, but in the EU and in USA there is no compulsory model for music. If you want to create films, shows, video games or public performances with copyrighted music you do need a specific license for it (aka if you get a license to use a piece of music in a video game you do not get a license to use that piece of music in any other form or for any other video game).

And you can most definitely prohibit services from playing your music, happens regularly in e.g the US in politics (e.g Reagan trying to use Born in the USA) and there are also some recent examples of artists excluding their material from Spotify.
After looking into it, I realize I was fatally misunderstanding what compulsory licensing is.

I can't read legalese very well, but here's a relevant section of US Law as it applies to compulsory licensing with music: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/115#a_1

Quoting: U.S. GovernmentA person may obtain a compulsory license only if the primary purpose in making phonorecords of the musical work is to distribute them to the public for private use
The language in this is perplexing. You distribute them publicly for private use?

One thing is clear—compulsory licenses can only apply in the United States even despite the Berne Convention. They don't cross borders. And despite it being compulsory, you do need to contact the artist (or failing that, the copyright office) to decide the terms of the license.

As I read more, I saw that compulsory licensing is only supposed to apply to making covers of songs. Cover bands are definitely something unique among other copyrightable industries. So I'm thinking it would be legal to take some song (say Gymnopedies, but let's assume that song was still copyrighted, I don't know many songs okay), perform a cover of it, and use that song in your game after obtaining a compulsory license, but you wouldn't be able to obtain a compulsory license for the original Gymnopedies rendition.

This article seems to provide a clear take on the matter: https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-compulsory-license-in-music-2460357

And it makes it clear I was completely misinterpreting compulsory licensing. Man, I wish it actually worked as I imagined it...this is so much worse haha. This is how you can tell I've never used Spotify or listened to much music.

I do not understand this part at all though:

Quoting: liveaboutUse the song of the original artist for a live public performance, as a background track for their own recording, or for use with karaoke. That's because a compulsory license only applies to music that is distributed to the public to be listened to by the end user.
Why is compulsory licensing not allowed here..?
EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking
29 September 2023 at 12:08 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: Guestwell region locking isnt going to ever be completely removed, because states do their own region locking .
just silly examples, power adapters, current, ethanol cut on gasoline, wifi channels, wifi antennas power, cell phones frequencies... etc.. etc.
Let's not forget that how they implemented the region lock in the 90s was to make cartdriges NTSC or PAL-N.
So to effectively remove all region locks you would have to implement worldwide cell phone frequencies, etc etc, everything should be standarized to a single standard. Or maybe make everything multi-standard
DVD region codes are not different in any practical way, whether it's Region 2, Region 4, A, C, or whatever. It's an entirely artificial restriction. The proof of this is that region codes can be completely circumvented by libdvdcss with no side effects. And here I thought the purpose of the Berne Convention was to bring every country's copyright laws in line so we didn't need to deal with arbitrary limits on distribution rights like the territories you can sell in. Gah. I'm pretty sure this is what is making compulsory licenses needlessly complex too.

With power adapters, there is an actual technical difference, and the RIAA won't come at you for circumvention if you plug your adapter into a converter. The NTSC vs PAL-N thing is somewhere in-between.

Alright, I would be willing to compromise. If the US government revokes Section 1201 of the DMCA, they can keep the region locks. Let the unsung heroes like MakeMKV break the locks open. I mean, in some countries this is already the case for DVDs/CDs/BRs. But do it for games too!

(especially visual novels, thank you)
EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking
29 September 2023 at 4:05 am UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: F.UltraNetflix does no such thing, if you bought your account in Norway you can still access the service in Croatia, or Austria. There is no geo-lock on your account. Yes there is differences in available media depending on where you login to Netflix but that is not Netflix being asshats, that is different IP holders having different rights to media and thus different agreements with Netflix. Aka distribution company X might have the rights to show Y in Norway while company Z have those rights in Croatia and if only one of them have decided to make an agreement with Netflix then ofc Netflix is forbidden from showing that content in one of those areas or Netflix would be found guilty of copyright infringement. And there is draconian law allowing EU to force a single company to have the rights to the entirety of the EU, such things are handled by each local country.
Sorry for jumping in here, but I did say "region-locking streaming services is bad enough".

Here's something I think is interesting. TV Shows and Movies work completely differently in terms of copyright infringement to, say, books and music.

Music, in my opinion, has the most fair licensing. You can't prevent anyone from commercially exploiting your music due to compulsory licensing. This is far, far better for the customer. They don't have to search several streaming services finding the song they like because any service can license it and send the royalties over to the creator. However...you can still get region locks depending on where the copyright holder makes it available.

Am I not understanding something here? Are these songs actually licensed not under the compulsory model, but rather a voluntary licensing agreement between the distribution platform (e.g. YouTube) and the copyright holder? Why would they do that? Wouldn't the distribution platform end up with fewer rights at a greater cost?

With books, there is no compulsory licensing, but you will never get region locks. How would you even enforce that with physical books? With ebooks, you almost never get region locks.

And with film, there is no compulsory licensing, and region locks are everywhere.

I don't think I have to explain what my preferred model is. And I would prefer if copyright terms were far more reasonable (we can keep the 1989 amendment that implicitly grants copyright protection to works without a copyright notice, but 28 years is long enough for protection).
EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking
29 September 2023 at 3:44 am UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: poiuzThe ruling does not condemn region locks, they must only comply with the law.
I think I understand the ruling, but I may have hijacked the topic to air my personal grievances with physical media. I disagree strongly with the idea that any country should be allowed to tell you what you can and can't watch, and even more strongly with the idea that any company should be allowed to restrict this.

Quoting: poiuz
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualRegion-locking shows on streaming services is bad enough, but region locking physical media is incredibly greedy.
Isn't the same true for any DRM?
That DRM is incredibly greedy? Yes. I think region locks are the best example of this.

Quoting: poiuz
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualWas anyone allowed to publish a hardcover book which would combust if a customer attempted to open it in Australia?
That analogy doesn't work, you can still use the mediums in the foreign regions. You simply require a device compatible with the region.
Or you could flash the player with free software firmware that will do as you tell it to. Fortunately, that's actually legal in Australia with an exception to Section 1201 of the DMCA.

I enjoy the idea of a book bursting into flames if you dare to upset the publisher, but if you want a more accurate analogy, perhaps imagine a book you can only open in a certain country.

Comparing hardcover books to ebooks, some ebooks are region restricted: https://help.bookwalker.jp/faq/en/1048

For a straight DRM example with no region locks, there was that time Amazon closed my account, taking the 50 ebooks and several audiobooks I'd purchased along with it. I've never had anyone from a bookstore break into my house and take back the books I'd paid for without refunding me. That isn't to say book burning hasn't happened historically.

I'm getting increasingly tired of being treated this way by companies.

Quoting: GuestCorrect me if I am wrong, but EU comission ruling is against regional pricing, not against regional blocking. Maybe on this case, on the time frame were this happened people could buy keys from third party sites from other cheaper EU regions, and activating them in their own region was legal an ToS complaint?
The issue is complicated because these companies used region locking to enforce regional pricing. I personally don't have much to say on regional pricing, but I don't believe region locks should be employed in any consumer product for any reason.

Quoting: F.UltraNow you probably talked in more general terms, but just for people who don't know both DVD:s and BR:s are a single region inside the EU so they are both already not region locked as per EU regulation.
I did not know this; thanks for telling me! Being from Australia myself, most of the stuff I want to watch is from another region. Namely, Region A for Blu-Rays. But I'm in Region B.

It's still legal to region lock DVDs and BRs, for some reason. In Australia, circumvention of these access controls for the purpose of making a private backup is completely legal (assuming you don't later infringe on the owner's copyright with that backup). It's an incredibly bizarre state of affairs...

Quoting: robvvIn the UK, at least, you could buy DVD players from legitimate stores back in the day which came pre-chipped to avoid all that nonsense. One of my first purchases from Scan was one such player!
I went around to various stores a few years back trying to find a region-free DVD player as a gift with no such luck. I ended up buying a region-locked player. I'm in Australia. Nowadays, I use MakeMKV.

---

As far as games being affordable in different regions, I've always found Community Copies on itch.io interesting. It's the idea that someone can pay for an extra copy of a game, and anyone interested can claim it. There's obviously an honor system, but it's a nice way of supporting the creator while making games affordable to everyone.

Obviously, this only really works well for indie games
EU court upholds fine against Valve for geo-blocking
28 September 2023 at 1:26 pm UTC Likes: 17
Now, if only governments would outlaw region locking with DVDs and Blu-Rays. Region-locking shows on streaming services is bad enough, but region locking physical media is incredibly greedy. Or how about creating firmware for DVD players that will refuse to play discs not authorized to play in this region? How was anti-consumer behavior like this ever allowed? Was anyone allowed to publish a hardcover book which would combust if a customer attempted to open it in Australia?

Fuck region locks. For any reason.
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