Dutch Court Lifts PlayStation 3 Seizure Order 95
An anonymous reader writes "The recent European import ban against the PlayStation 3 has been lifted. Reportedly, LG had already succeeded in seizing about 300,000 PlayStations, but a court in the Dutch city of The Hague overturned the prejudgment seizure order and told LG to return all PS3s to Sony. Sony uses the Netherlands as its main entry point for all European PlayStation sales, and can now return to normal. While the temporary ban has been lifted, LG can still assert its Blu-ray patents against Sony in a regular proceeding, which will go to trial on November 18. LG asks for patent royalties of $2.50 per Blu-ray device and believes Sony already owes it $150-180 million."
Bluray is a mistake (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what happens when we let money talk and assholes win.
BluRay is also encumbered by mandatory ads (Score:5, Interesting)
The one issue I had with BluRay from day one is that too many of the distributors put required ADs for other movies on the disc which play without your intervention and do their best to prevent you from skipping them. HDDVD did not allow this, it required discs to proceed to the menu or just play. I think this one of the bigger reasons Sony used to convince the other distributors to switch to their model.
Re: (Score:3)
(Sony wanted a bigger chunk of the HD-DVD royalties, and the other companies said no, so Sony went and made a new version to compete with them, and then started paying off 3rd parties to provide blu-ray instead of hd-dvd offerings.)
Re: (Score:2)
The one issue I had with BluRay from day one is that too many of the distributors put required ADs for other movies on the disc which play without your intervention and do their best to prevent you from skipping them. HDDVD did not allow this, it required discs to proceed to the menu or just play. I think this one of the bigger reasons Sony used to convince the other distributors to switch to their model.
I read this as "same as DVD", and it sort of explains why BD had the support of most major movie studios.
ZOMG movie theaters are encumbered by mandatory ads too!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's certainly the reason I encourage people to switch to piracy. Right or Wrong it just makes sense.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, I discussed the issue of AACS being mandatory before.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
AACS is a MANDATORY feature on Blu-Ray - all commercial pressed discs must have an AACS key. HD-DVD supports optional AACS enc
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The people in charge of creating new content mediums are the same people creating the content. We are never going to get a non-patent-encumbered, DRM-absent physical format.
Re:Bluray is a mistake (Score:4, Informative)
I checked his posting history, he's a big Microsoft fanboi, yes, should have his head examined. However he also posts in other subjects so he doesn't seem to be a shillbot.
This seems to be SOP for Microsoft shills. They post regularly and informatively on topics which are neutral for Microsoft. That of course gives them plenty of moderator points and keeps their karma high even when they are being moderated down. If you post information which is against Microsoft's interests you will notice some very interesting and wierd moderation (e.g. posts quite often fall massively early with several coordinated moderations within a period of seconds/minutes then often get moderated back up slowly later). I'd assume that this is part of a campaign to manipulate the Slashdot moderation system. I also assume that it's only partly successful since the moderating back up does seem to happen quite often. A very good reason for moderators to always browse at -1.
Re: (Score:1)
Why would a Microsoft "shill" be wasting his time talking up a dead format?
quite interesting (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've noticed how all these posts are now moderated 0 with no reason.
*rubs chin*
Re:quite interesting (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
malda@slashdot.org
samzenpus@gmail.com
IM TELLING YOU !! THEY DO !!!
they manhandle, their 'manhandle'.
Re: (Score:3)
So how exactly does your theory distinguish between "shills" and people who hold less hostile views of Microsoft of their own volition?
Re: (Score:2)
So how exactly does your theory distinguish between "shills" and people who hold less hostile views of Microsoft of their own volition?
Normal people don't give two shits about any particular company. Shills on the other hand are so bigoted it's funny and are almost completely incapable of coping with alternative points of view. In particular they have a perpetual and unbelievable feigned ignorance of anything that doesn't happen to agree with their propaganda.
---
Anonymous company communication is unethic
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but that's not quite good enough a distinction. Remember - most of the educational system in the US of A has been promoting Microsoft products for almost two decades now. Kids - my own, for instance, have grown up being indoctrinated to accept the idea that Microsoft and computing are synonymous. One of my own sons has swallowed that, hook, line, and sinker. Another son sees things much like I do - almost everything that Microsoft can do, can be done better by a *nix machine, usally faster, and m
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but that's not quite good enough a distinction.
It is actually. Your kids would not have an unbelievable feigned ignorance over a period of years, or even days, over basic facts. e.g. pretending that the economic network effect does not exist or that both closed and open source have both good and bad developers, even when those simple facts have been stated in obvious fashion. Your kids may be biased but they are not willfully ignorant.
---
Anonymous company communication is unethical and can and sho
Re: (Score:1)
Normal people don't give two shits about any particular company.
So that guy every one of us knows who has an iPad, an iPhone, an iMac, an iPod and has Apple stickers plastered all over the back of his Prius and/or Corolla is not normal? Or is he just a shill? Which is it?
Re: (Score:1)
Both. duh.
Re: (Score:2)
So how exactly does your theory distinguish between "shills" and people who hold less hostile views of Microsoft of their own volition?
If people who simply don't agree with you are voting you down then they are abusing the moderation system. Moderators are asked to focus on positive moderation.
Why doesn't Slashdot ban these shills? (Score:2)
So how exactly does your theory distinguish between "shills" and people who hold less hostile views of Microsoft of their own volition?
This is the fifth time in three days that he writes a relatively long first post defending Microsoft.
FYI, the other four are:
1 [slashdot.org]
2 [slashdot.org]
3 [slashdot.org]
4 [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sony owns far too much content (through Sony Pictures, Columbia Tristar, MGM etc) for HD-DVD to have won.
Re: (Score:2)
2) HD-DVD was patent encumbered too, as any currently competitive method for recording data on a physical medium.
3) Blu-Ray does not have mandatory AACS for homemade discs - that's all you should care about unless you run a Blu-Ray pressing business.
4) Sony is by no means more evil than Microsoft.
5) The competition has run, it was fair and fierce, and in the end the market chose. Which is good for the users.
6) Microsoft couldn't care less about the greater good, as
Re: (Score:2)
I know, as I use an old freeware version of Protel PCB layout tools here, still. Dumb, very fast, very stable, and did I say fast? It was written in the 286 era, so imagine how it runs on a modern machine.
For me, that was the beginning of the end for windows -- I was a windows developer, but coul
Re: (Score:1)
You are so freaking dense.
You can access "dos mode" by pressing WIN+R and then typing "cmd". There you go, enjoy your batch files.
I know Microsoft software used to suck HUGE fucking time, but nowadays with Win7 / Visual Studio and the like, Microsoft software is quite good. And if you look at Microsoft stand with the Kinect, it does not get "gooder" than that (openly allowing to hack your device).
But comparing them to Sony? WTF, Sony are the most control freak, anti customer/consumer evil technology company
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, but xtracto said he was drunk while writing that, and judging by the rambling incoherence, and factual inaccuracies, I would tend to agree with that statement...
But then again if I were drunk, I might actually think that cmd.exe was DOS, and that supporting a kinect API is somehow comparible to system-level security (Sony does support a move API, IIRC)... Wait..who am I kidding...I don't think I could ever be that drunk to believe that.
Just don't buy it (Score:3)
There isn't a Blu-Ray device in my house. Or at work. I don't own one, and I'm not going to own one. It's really pretty simple. If Sony couldn't sell Blu-Ray to chumps, they would stop producing them. As long as chumps are willing to pay for Blu-Ray, Sony will keep producing them!
Re: (Score:1)
HD-DVD was limited to 15Gb at most, as a 'standard for the future' it's severely lacking. Next year we'll be getting 8 layer Blurays which can hold 200Gb...
On that argument alone i'd choose the latter over the former, at least for now. Besides, we'll be getting HCD some time soon anyway.
Strange (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Dammit, just when I thought I'd gotten a handle on geography. Which Japanese country in the Netherlands is it again?
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Japan continued to vex the world Sunday, as numerous eyewitnesses saw the exotic and mysterious Pacific Rim country hovering over the flat agricultural regions of Holland. "I noticed it up there around noon," said Verner Trene, a farmer whose land lay in the 1,744-mile shadow temporarily cast by the floating archipelago. "The schoolchildren were having a great time waving at it. But, when I came out after lunch, it was gone again. Must have moved on." Trene added that no one was threatened by Japan's serene
Re: (Score:3)
Which Japanese country in the Netherlands is it again?
You know there was a big tsunami two days ago, right? And you know most of the Netherlands are under sea level.
We are NOT under sea level (Score:1)
See this land here. That is holland... no sea right? That over there is the sea, up there behind the dunes. We are NOT below the sea... we are next to it. And a bit lower but NOT under it.
What do you mean "yet".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
He said sea level. not sea. He is correct. I live below sea level.
Re: (Score:3)
Translation glitch, or reading comprehension problem? I can't decide. Maybe if I were multi-lingual, I would be better equipped to deal with a post that looks stupid. Damn, why couldn't I have gotten the multi-lingual gene, instead of the good-looks gene?
Re: (Score:2)
I can't wait for the Corporate Wars to begin.
I realize that they're all corporate wars, more or less, but I'm hoping for middle management with neckties and automatic weapons meeting on the field of battle.
Or swords. Swords, spears and trebuchets would be good too, but not high-tech enough for corporate. But more satisfying for us.
"In other news, while their lawyers met in a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Drinking the blood of the casualties?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
And still managing to turn a profit from it :-(
Re. your sig: "Yes! well-written code is self-documenting!" :D
Re: (Score:2)
%$#^&#
Re: (Score:1)
Nice. I've not seen that technique used for ages. Elegant piece of code :D
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It's tantamount to documentation. Print it out and there's your user-manual.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
http://serverfault.com/questions/2888/why-is-raid-not-a-backup [serverfault.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Valid points - good link; no fluff. I actually run timed backups in addition to the RAID because of the issues noted. You are correct, and I should have said "timed backups to hard drives" instead of "RAID". Use of Blu-Ray for backup would present its own set of problems - a backup that isn't done correctly and often is of little value.
The point was that the difference in storage capacity is more of a marketing point than a practical one.
Re: (Score:3)
Problem is, blank media is very difficult to find and expensive. I bought a Blu-ray burner when prices dropped to a reasonable level a couple years ago, but it died as a backup medium before I even got started because blank media were extremely rare. Even today, where I live, blank media is not easy to find. Sure, you go to the store and you can see stacks of blank CD and DVD media... but no blank Blu-ray discs to be found. Typically, you have to order online and the prices are ridiculous. I believe this wa
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon shows dozens of different choices for 25GB BD-R packs, some for as low as about $1/disk.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon shows dozens of different choices for 25GB BD-R packs, some for as low as about $1/disk.
I'm I the only one that finds it mildly pathetic that, especially when you factor in the cost of swapping disks, it'd be cheaper for consumers to back to up to LTO-5 media in spite of how long Blu-Ray has been on the market?
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon shows dozens of different choices for 25GB BD-R packs, some for as low as about $1/disk.
I'm I the only one that finds it mildly pathetic that, especially when you factor in the cost of swapping disks, it'd be cheaper for consumers to back to up to LTO-5 media in spite of how long Blu-Ray has been on the market?
Well, the 1.5TB LTO-5 tape cartridges for $70-ish each are similar in price per GB to the 25GB BD-R disks at $1-ish each, and possibly needing only a single tape would avoid a lot of disk swapping. Unfortunately, the $2500-ish price for the LTO-5 drive is a bit of an impediment for home use. So is the need for a SAS interface on the PC (or backup server).
Even more pathetic is the fact that 2TB USB drives also cost $80-ish nowadays, and a USB interface has been fairly standard for a while. So the cheapest
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the $2500-ish price for the LTO-5 drive is a bit of an impediment for home use. So is the need for a SAS interface on the PC (or backup server).
Of course. I was pointing out the irony that the excessive disk swapping, in my opinion, could justify the cost of the drive! Of course, the cost of those damned tape drives isn't really justified by anything other than the corporate expense accounts they're usually purchased with...
You're right about the USB disks though. I much prefer the idea of using tape to run backups as opposed to using external hard disks though. It's hard to use tape for much of anything else, whereas most people I know couldn
Re: (Score:2)
Using USB disks for backup seems pretty interesting at current prices.
If you run some kind of unix you can make backup-like copies using rsync [mikerubel.org] so you'll only need to buy a new disk when you want an off-line archive backup.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't it cheaper to backup to 2 terrabyte hard drives? $1 for 25 gigs is 4 cents a gig, while they are selling 2 terrabyte hard drives for $70 on amazon today with free shipping. That's 2000 gigs for $70, or 3.5 cents a gig. Ok, ok, it's more like 1900 gigs but my point remains.
And the hard drives are ridiculously more convenient to back up to - just put in the drive in a hot - swap sata bay, and swap disks 76 times less often. And they are faster for recovery, and so on.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to assume that real broadband is available to everyone, everywhere. If my operating system and data files all fit on the same 40MB hard drive that I was using ~1995, then yes, I could make backups to onlne servers. But, for me to make a backup of my real operating system and data files today would take several days. Even if I used a backup solution that only backs things up that have actually changed, I'm still looking at several hours upload time each week.
Besides which - call me paranoid, but
Re: (Score:1)
Jerry: Holland *is* a province in the Netherlands.
FTFY. Calling the Netherlands Holland is like calling Canada "Ontario" or the USA "Washington".
Re: (Score:2)
You've got to remember that Seinfeld doesn't know the difference between his own country and the two-continent-wide landmass it is located in....
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite. A dutch/english friend of mine told me that "Holland" is really the largest part, and only people from a few, small, rural areas get pissed off when you confuse the two.
I guess like 80%(ish) of the British are English and aren't going to care that much when you confuse the two. But the Scots, oh the Scots get angry!
Error in headline (Score:2)
The headline says "Dutch Court Lifts PlayStation 3 Seizure Order". This is not true. It is a European court that happens to be physically located in Den Haag, which is in the province of South Holland. It is in South Holland, but is not Dutch.
Barack Obama lives in Washington, but he is not Washingtonian, he is Hawai'ian.
HAL.
It WAS a Dutch court, not a European one (Score:3, Informative)
I saw this post, which links to my blog, and then the comment above from Half-pint HAL claiming it's a European court that happens to be based in the Netherlands. However, Half-pint HAL is Full-scale WRONG on this one. It was a purely Dutch proceeding. A ruling issued in Breda, Netherlands, was appealed to the next higher Dutch instance in The Hague.
No European court is based in The Hague. The European courts are based in Luxembourg (Court of Justice of the EU, General Court of the EU) and Strasbourg (the E
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Zero sympathy for Sony (Score:1)
Somewhat on Topic, Somewhat Not: (Score:1)