vpn, very wise, I do the same. unfortunately the bus depot adsl service is abysmal so my overall connection speed is not very good at all, the exchange at the post office is using ten-year old kit, apparently it's due to be upgraded to adsl2+ soon but somehow I think that "soon" will be a long time coming.
still, I'd rather have security and safety than speed, although it would be good to ahve the speed too, but then one can't have everything eh?
sorry mate looks like I haven't got them anymore 
I did try for you.
you're not wrong there. quite honestly anyone who doesn't do their downloading over a secure connection is just asking for trouble these days, but some people won't be told.
blimey hello there TG (yes I know I'm a year late) how are you doing, chap?
for the benefit of anyone else reading this, TG (Top-Gun) is one of the original TLR members from the pre-FL days; back then I just lurked, I didn't officially join until June 2003, T-G was a long standing member from way before then, 2001 I think not long after Bargib created the site.
Good times eh mate? I'm still in regular touch with Mustang and Loc and some of the old crowd.
<sigh> StarLancer.. wonderful game!
I may even have some saves archived away somewhere, I'll take a look. Doubt hat the game would play well on Vista or 7, although if you have 7 Ultimate you could play it in virtual XP mode I suppose.
a bit late in replying I know, I haven't been around much.
there always seem to be two basic schools of thought (polar opposites of course) regarding this sort of thing. the first goes "it's against the law, she broke the law, she gets punished by fines and deserves what she gets" whilst the second goes "everybody does it, it's only a few somgs, it's so unfair, it was her kids anyway"
however this whole issue of illegal copying of copyrighted music has been around for decades, ever since personal recording devices came into existence - cassette tapes in the 70s if you are old to remember those were castigated as "home taping is killing music" but of course they didn't. More on this in a bit.
there are several basic errors in the two arguments listed above on both sides (I'll get into what my take on this matter in a bit, just bear with me ok?)
Copying music is not of itself "illegal", not in criminal law anyway - it is a civil matter and is not "punished by fines" but by damages that are awarded based on a judge's valuation of "loss" incurred by the rightsholder. Distributing it for commercial gain is definitely against civil law, and also sometimes criminal law depending on the circumstances (bootleg cds for example) but in most countries you are allowed to make or keep a copy for backup purposes in any format that you wish. So you can digitally copy all of your cds or tapes or download mp3s of them if you prefer as long as this for your personal use only and you have the original, playable or not. Were you to hand it over to a thrid party or sell it on whilst retaining a copy, then that would be illegal as you would be distributing and making commercial gain. p2p is a rather grey area here as you start to share as soon as you start your download, and if you just leech you'll probably be cut off anyway.
Now let's say that you had a substantial collection of vinyl records but you know have no access to it as you haven't got a turntable, your ex melted it, or it got stolen. You still paid for it way back when and that right remains yours, effectively you are licenced to hold that music still, so you d/l it off a free mp3 site or a torrent site - you aren't breaking any copyright law in principle - you aren't taking anything that you don't have a right to. I inherited my father's 78s that he collected since the 1940s, some of which he performed on himself (he was a jazz and big band musician, later a choral singer) but they were stolen about ten years ago. If I download copies of the tracks, am I breaking any law in principle? No of course I'm not, I am replacing music that I still hold a right to have a copy off, even if I no longer possess the original (wish I had copied them at the time though, they're rare as rocking horse sh*t)
You bought a cd, it got scratched and won't play. You still have a right to it, and again, if you d/l an mp3 from an "illegal" site you aren't breaking any law as long as it's just for you.
You want to copy music that you bought from a shop or a "legal" site like iTunes to different devices, but you still have the original media. You paid for it, why should you pay for the same thing again? Personal use, again, not illegal. If you have a cd, why pay iTunes for their DRM copy of it? (I have no idea why people do this other than they are stupid or have loads of cash or both) This one always rather annoys me about games, when each person in multiplayer has to have a copy of the disc and a unique licence key - that's perfectly fair for online play, I have no issue with it all there in that environment, but what about if the Boy and I want to have a quick blast on the LAN at home on a Sunday afternoon? It's no so much an issue now, but when he was younger we used to play a lot of C&C, Red Alert, Delta Force etc and of course we each had to have a cd for the games and the expansions, and it could get rather expensive...... so I got brassed off with being screwed eventually and thought stuff it, I already own the bl**dy games and have stumped up cash for them, why should I be shafted twice?
The RIAA or MPAA send you a nasty letter saying that your IP address was seen sharing a copyrighted file on p2p. Maybe it was, but how do they know, hmm? Not because your ISP told them as they would have you believe,but because they saw your IP address in the swarm, which they would only know if they were also uploading the same copyrighted file. That can be argued as entrapment; but personally I'd say that was fair enough, they didn't make you share that file, you would have done it anyway. But even so, it weakens their case.
The fact is, examples like Jammie Thomas and her ilk are just meant to frighten the sort of people who would normally go out and buy cds etc. Anyone with even a bit of knowledge knows how to p2p anonymously, it's the idiots who share their entire hard drive on Limewire who are most at risk from getting caught and they'll be virused up in no time at all too. I tend to think that it serves them right not for "breaking the law" but for being morons, they share as much malware and trojans as do they music files, they're a menace to themselves and everyone else. Ridiculous damages that are beyond the defendant's ability to pay cannot be taken credibly and are solely intended as headline grabbing deterrents, but there's no evidence at all that they succeed in deterring mass "illegal" downloading - in fact, they probably serve only to make people more likely to find ways of masking their online activities.
But these are old arguments that go nowhere and don't actually get to grips with what is happening - increasingly, the media industry is moving away from punishing users and is trying to get control of the technology of p2p, claiming that it is "inherently criminal". Well good luck with that, the same thing was said in two test cases in the 70s when Sony were unsuccessfully sued over cassette tapes and again in the 80s over video tapes - in all the trials the judges sensibly decided that what end-users did with the technology was not in the control of the technology manufacturers. That's like punishing Kodak for people taking dirty pictures with their cameras and films (gosh I'm giving my age away aren't I?)
Failing that, they go for the .torrent websites - now this in itself is probably more effective but depends on the laws of the land, and we don't all live in North America you know. The arguments go "these are just links, we don't host anything, if you tell us this is copyrighted material we will take down the link" and conversely "you are knowingly facilitating copyright theft and are an accessory to an illegal act" - neither are completely true or completely wrong. Some countries and states do have civil and sometimes criminal laws against facilitating copyright theft, some do not, and depending ont he wording, torrent sites may or may not fall into that category. However corporate copyright holders use their big wallets to force the smaller guy into court and face years of expensive legal action, so even if there is no "kaw-breaking" going on, the end result is much the same. Having said that, all such websites just open again with almost no disruption in service and carry on regardless, so what was the point of all that high-profile bullying? Which brings me to my next point.
The argument that I go with that is that the media industry is trying to shut the stable door after the horse has long bolted. The internet is everywhere, it is established, and regardless of punitive damages or propaganda about criminality, downloading both legally and illegally just grows and grows. Rather than trying to hang onto a failing and obsolete business model, companies should look to outfits like Spotify as a model for the future, highly successful legal file sharing that promotes new as well as established music. Google has invested heavily in Youtube (which begs the question "should Google be prosecuted for allowing uploading of copyrighted material? of course not, it's ridiculous) so it's obviously the way of the future (ok Youtube isn't p2p it's user generated content but the point is that there's stacks of copyrighted stuff on Youtube and they don't get sued - much). There is a maxim in business and military tactics too that you follow success, you don't reinforce failure - the media industry is mostly reinforcing failure and trying to impose a rapidly failing model on the world, which they simply will not succeed in doing. They'd do better to come about and go with the prevailing winds, not try to go against the tide of history. Rupert Murdoch's decision to charge for content seems to me to be utterly insane - this is 2010 not 1980, he no longer has a monopoly and tbh his Sky website isn't all that, and all those celeb stories you can get elsewhere. Although I would pay to see Kay Burley in the duff!
The irony is of course that smaller independent outfits see this already and embrace the new way of doing things, it's the old dinosaurs of the media business and their RIAA/MPAA hitmen and paid-for judges who are trying to hold things back. I confidently predict that in 5-10 years time, the only big recording companies left will be the ones that wised up, those that didn't will be gone, extinct. Back when I was a kid, EMI were huge, giants of the recording business - they're gone now, didn't keep up. There'll be a lot of others like them.
You know that for all the guff about illegal copying and downloading robbing artists, there's no actual hard evdence that their income actually suffers at all? Shows still sell out, tours are fully booked, cds sell in huge numbers, downloads abound. And artists get next to nothing out of these big damages cases, anything recovered goes to the record companies and their lawyers (well mostly to their lawyers to tell the truth) Artists, especially younger ones, are pretty well clued up on this now, p2p can be very good free publicity and an effective income generator, but their record companies mostly aren't, they're terrified of losing their monopoly-preserved six-figure salaries and executive privileges and freebies.
My mp3 collection mostly consists of opera and orchestral, swing and big band, and classic 50s/60s/70s easy-listening tracks, some of which are copyrighted, some of which are not. Were I ever to receive a nasty letter threatening legal action, which I probably won't, given the various freely-available means that I use to hide my online presence when I so wish, I would point to my current lack of a turntable and my huge collection of 33/45/78rpm vinyl in the attic and say "go right ahead.."
thanks BP I rather like it!
The People of Tawakalnistan also celebrate May Day and extend fraternal socialist greetings and solidarity to the heroic and oppressed workers and peasants and proletariat of all nations.
I meant, without the onerous financial responsibility, or dodgy ticker, or aching joints.
OpenOffice is your friend.
oh good choice, back to '80s synth-pop in style!
yeh and strung the little b*ggers up to, unf some chickens came and freed them. They've now got a website all of there own.
I tried to sell my kids in Algeria but nobody would take them off my hands. I did suggest that they walk home "it's just past that sand dune, keep heading south for a few months erm hours and you'll be back in the hotel, i'll just head north in the jeep for a little while..." but they weren't falling for it.
may i just point out that I object to the association of the word logic with the word women?
and money too, don't forget that. kids reckon they're hard done to but inf act look at from a parent's p.o.v. and they get a pretty good deal. Don't get up till late, slack at school, slope home at an early hour, get free room and board plus all the leccy they can use, contribute nothing except a few unwilling chores, then b*gger off after 20 years and not a word of thanks. Can I be a kid again please?
Quotewhen i was a kid i use to chase done rabbits
Give that man a medal! He knows who his enemy is! We could do with a bit rabbit-hating around here.
My country is not made up!
and here was me thinking it was something for us old-skool BBC Micro afficionados.
I remember you, Demonslayer!
bah, every single one of those images was stolen from the Tawakalnistani Space Agency's Al-Tawbahl Space Telescope, launched in 2006 by the Al-Tawass Mk.73 single stage missile erm launch vehicle from our super-secret site in the back garden of the Grand Palace erm Mosque (so secret that it even shows up as a patio and washing line on Google Earth, how's that for camouflage!)
it's been my experience that modders don't necessarily make good admins or moderators - some do, and they're very good at it, but the majority don't. Unf as most people on games forums esp an aged game like TL are modders then it limits the spread of people to choose from and unfortunately many come at this with their own issues and agendas already in place. TLR is far from unique in this respect.
Having said that, it's a rotten task, thankless and you can never please everyone and there's always someone telling you what you did wrong. If as many people offered support or help as stick the knife in, things would be a lot better.
Then there's the egos and neuroses and lack of perspective. Everyone's problem is always important - to them; unfortunately it may not be quiet so pressing in the grand scheme of things. This is something many people forget in the heat of typing out a moan. Unfortunately the perceived anonymity of interweb means that many people behave in a manner that they never would "in real life" which I find rather cowardly and mealy-mouthed myself.
soothing teenage egos is just about the last thing I want to do for relaxation, having teenagers of my own. Some of you moaners are lucky that BP and Mental even give you the opportunity to have a go, because I wouldn't. Left to me, adolescent whinings would be in the dustbin of deletion and you would not get the oxygen of publicity but BP and Mental are decent fair-minded guys who listen - on most community sites you would not be able to say the things that you say.
Were TLR ever to fall under the blessings of Tawakalni rule, anyone with names that suggest a colour link with avian life forms would be immediately banned, as would anyone of a hiruste facial nature who lives in a "shack" in the forest. However people who sell and recommend comfy mattresses that give me a good night's sleep after years of pain and discomfort are perfectly welcome (thanks Rich, best buy I ever made!)
