HP declares war on sharing culture
 

The game is getting tougher...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34804.html

Also here:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...pcworld/114213

i always figure that, no matter what they come up with, no what comes down the road, somewhere out there, some 16 year old geek will hack it...napho will have the details 20 minutes later....and we'll all know about it the next morning:p

After this would an HP be worth hacking? I'll spend my money elsewhere and avoid the whole mess.

anyone know if theres anything really bad that would happen if you delete this folder?

i know one way to find out, i just deleted it. :spin:

rebooted, came up to my normal desktop, nothing differant.

looked, folder is not present anymore, ie dident respawn itself.

running xp pro

color it gone

weeee

yeh,decided to give it a try too
it seems not too needed..maybe to do with media player....
i wonder what reg entries point at it?
a dll i saw in windows/system32/drmstor.dll

i am not really sure that thats connected so dont delete it..
unless you know it is :)

but doubt if i even hit the tip of the iceberg in the registry..

theres probably a how to disable DRM in media player site out there somewhere..:PO:

theres 2 bunches of stuff like this

The DRM folder contains licenses for your DRM-protected Windows Media Player files, if you have any. This article gives good detailed info related to WMP & the DRM folder.

- tg :WA:

"Stating this year, we'll strive to build every one of our consumer devices to respect digital rights." - Carly Fiorina



Breaking the chains of “information feudalism”
Miriam Rainsford writing for Open Democracy

“In a book of the same name, Australian professor Peter Drahos suggests that the current push for increased control over intellectual property rights has bred a situation analogous to the feudal agricultural system of the medieval period. In effect, songwriters and scientists work for corporate feudal lords, licensing their own inventions in exchange for a living and the right to ‘till the lands’ of the information society.

In this perspective, the capitalist world’s feudal lords – the major record companies, publishers, and pharmaceutical companies – exploit these workers and the creative products they bring to harvest. Through efforts to stop the advance of internet technology and to control and monitor free communication, today’s equivalent of feudal lords resist the workers’ struggle towards liberation from the modern feudal system.

But what will happen if, by a natural process of invention and creativity, these creative workers begin to outgrow the feudal lords and to circumvent the very systems that society considers itself to be founded upon? Could this lead, as in earlier historical eras, to revolution (as in 19th century France) or to acceptance and synthesis (as in Europe’s Renaissance)?

The philosopher Fritjof Capra believes that the struggle we are experiencing is not as simplistic as the revolt of a group of anarchists against their oligarchic oppressors, but is one more deeply indicative of major civilisational change. Capra invokes Arnold Toynbee’s and Pitirim Sorokin’s analyses of the cyclical development of world cultures to argue that current tensions are part of a pattern repeated across centuries. He writes: “As individuals, as a society, as a civilization, and as a planetary ecosystem, we are reaching the turning point.”

For Capra, “cultural transformations of this magnitude and depth cannot be prevented. They should not be opposed but, on the contrary, should be welcomed as the only escape from agony, collapse, or mummification.” Perhaps we should be viewing p2p in this light. Instead of clinging to archaic and decaying business models we should, as Capra suggests, examine deeply the premises of our culture, discarding that which has not proved itself useful, and recognising and embracing new and emerging values.

Against an empire of fear

One symptom of the cycle of cultural death and rebirth is that people who have been prominent in the declining social world will seek to cling to their position through ever-increasing and often futile attempts at control of the forces of change. Michael Moore describes in Stupid White Men the leader’s methods of control in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-four, words of eerie relevance in light of President Bush’s ‘war against terror’ and the introduction of the Patriot Act in the United States:

“The Leader needed to have a ‘permanent war’. He needed to keep the citizens in perpetual fear of the enemy so they would give him all the power he desired. The people wanted to live, so they gave up their freedoms and their liberties. Of course, the only way this could happen is if they were truly convinced that the enemy was everywhere, anywhere, and that they could die at any moment.”

This mentality of fear is reflected in the assertions of world political and business leaders about, for example, the links asserted between p2p systems and terrorism, or the funding of terrorism – a concept which is laughably ironic as p2p by its very nature is a non-profit system. Yet such implications are routinely aroused as part of the effort to control the spread of a system which threatens the very base of operation of these leaders.

They are right to worry, for non-linear systems of communication do present an alternative to the tiered hierarchy of capitalist regimes. But p2p itself does not seek to provoke change through the empty, ‘smash-the-state’ methods of anarchism; that would be against its essentially ‘viral’ character, as some insist upon describing it. Instead it quietly and gradually builds communities across physical borders, cultural boundaries and, crucially, systems of governmental or economic rule. After all, it was not the invention of Napster itself that caused an outcry – the product launched calmly and was enjoyed initially by the few geeks who were aware of its existence. The fuss only happened when major record labels reacted to a perceived threat to their established means of controlling business.

P2P systems will play a crucial role in the evolution of the next major world culture. To take a Taoist view, the yang of the present system seeks its complement in yin, or non-linear systems – where the new world evolves from within the hierarchical present, not by violent force but by quiet evolution.”

:AP:

I'm sure this has nothing to do with HP's supposed attempts to license iPod and related technology from Apple... will be opening their own music store in the near future no doubt.

Why tech firms are out of tune
 

Normally it would take a political appeal, or a tribute to some old time rock and roll legend, to get Dr Dre, The Edge, Sheryl Crow and Alicia Keys onto the same stage.

But when they all showed up at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week it was entirely for their own benefit.

They were there as stooges to Carly Fiorina, the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, as she made her conference keynote address and spoke movingly of how her company is going to 'democratize technology and empower digital revolutionaries everywhere.'

In an impassioned address, punctuated with a video of the future of home entertainment and a short performance by the talented Ms Keys, Fiorina tried to position HP at the centre of what she claims is a revolution in the way that technology is being used in daily life.

She talked about the ways that photography has changed from a chemical and physical process to one that is, as she put it 'digital, mobile and virtual'.

She waxed lyrical about the joy of hearing a song in Starbucks and downloading it wirelessly 'for a buck'.

more

Oh well.......
 

Looks as if HP will go tits up even quicker than I thought.

Most knew a couple years ago not to buy compaq 'cause of their proprietary hardware that U had to buy from them at a inflated price.

This sound like the same chit.

I can spell boycot.........


hehe~let the word out.

"Stating this year, we'll strive to build every one of our consumer devices to respect digital rights."

How are they gonna do that...stop putting cd rom drives in their machines?

Pod's right on the money.:AP: