2019-06-11 06:56:24

99. I am going to disagree with you. Pleas read my post along with 96 for why.

If you're still having trouble with it. let me break it down again.

This is the internet where anyone can be anything they want, say anything they want, and do anything they want.
Let's say for example you came on the forum and said. Gee guys, I have this lump pushing out from my forehead. I'm eally concerned. What should I do?
Nothing stops me from going. Hey there. have youconsideed having your skull drilled open. I am a brain surgeon, and I know for certain this is a sign of advanced hydro static fashiitus.
You are certainly going to want to know I can back up my claims before you go boring holes in your cranium. At least I'd hope so.

Now Before you go. "But Liam. that's totally different."
No. It's not. Someone who claims to be a professional in a field of study claims they are a professional. They have two options. 1. Prove they are who they say they are with some form of credential. or 2. Shut up and stop trying to use their supposed career to try to elevate them in a debate.

Now no one is under any obligation to share any sort of personal info. We all have the right to anonymity if we so choose it, but you can not make a claim like that without backing it up.

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2019-06-11 06:59:29

101 is right, and all I am asking for his license. As I said before, I have no doubt that if I walked up to any random person and they said they were a lawyer, and I asked them to email me their license, I'm very sure they would have absolutely no problem with that.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-11 13:01:36

@101 that is why he said if you were paying him he would give you his license. you don't just go up to someone and say are you a lawyer? then the person responds with yes. then you will ask for his license. it's like if i asked you to give me your birth certificate to prove you are a human. now going back to my analogy. the lawyer won't give his license it's like giving a stranger in the street your address, name, birth date, email address and phone number. would you do that? no of course not. same goes here. the internet is like a busy street. you don't know these people. now when a person says he is a lawyer and you go asking for his license he has the right to privacy as you said. i don't know a single person who would share there personal info online.

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2019-06-11 13:04:49

I'd like to point out that I can see angles on both sides here.

First of all, and most importantly, if you make a claim like this and then can't/won't back it up, you can't expect it to be taken seriously. I agree with that right down to the ground.

What some of you may not be bearing in mind, however, is that lawyer credentials would give first and last name, district, all that sort of thing. It says a whole lot about a person that said person may not actually be willing to share on a forum where they are not, in fact, all that well-known. Most lawyers have this info publicly available, yes, it's true, but most wouldn't just give you their info if you asked them on the street either. I know a couple of lawyers, however; maybe I'll ask one of them for the protocol in this situation.

The fact remains, however, that you can't use a claim like this to boost your credibility, then refuse to back yourself up. You may or may not be a lawyer, and you may or may not be right, but without credentials, your point is just your point.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
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2019-06-11 20:38:04 (edited by Ethin 2019-06-11 20:41:40)

Agree with 104. You don't just jump into a topic like this, make a claim that your a lawyer and expect me to take it seriously without some kind of way to back it up.
As an example, I was reading on Stack Overflow something involving AES and key rotation. This guy claimed he was a cryptography engineer at the military, if memory serves (I can't find it in my browsing history for some reason). His claim was that you should use a static key for encrypting your data. This expert cryptographer told him that that wasn't a good idea and that you shouldn't, and they argued over it in the comments. During the arguments the poster of the answer revealed his "cryptography engineer" career in the military (again, if memory serves) with no evidence and wasn't taken seriously by anyone in that question thread. (It didn't help that the guy was downright wrong anyway.)
While the above comparison to this one may not truly be accurate and a 1:1 comparison ratio, it outlines my point (and its been something people have been telling me to do for years too, and something that I still find difficult because I over-estimate my abilities): don't make a claim without expecting people to challenge you and ask for evidence to back up that claim.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-12 05:42:33

hi,
i see both sides of the coin here. but again as 104 said lawyer creddentials gives alot of personal info about you. first name, last name, address, and more i don't know about. but on the other side i also get that you have to backup your claim.

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2019-06-12 13:34:13

Hi guys,

liam wrote:

Now I want to point out something else to you guys that you don't think about, realize, or probably care about. This forum and website whether we like
it or not are viewed through a microscope. It is where mainstream companies go for information and advice about accessibility for blind gamers. I will
not name names, but I am going to tell you that already one some what important figure in the accessibility community has written off this forum as a waste
of their time. I constantly seeing people lament about how they want access to mainstream games, well this forum is your best chance of making it happen,
but when there are all these pointless topics and infighting, that drives people away.

Having ADV on here, or links to them here I don't think would be a problem for 99% of the developers that come across this forum or turn them away, because honestly like I said, most people and this includes blind people aren't aware of audio description, and having them access to such isn't something people are likely to frown upon, or look at it and be like, omg! this site's forum has a user or users that share audio described movies,and how they aren't making the dots and crossing the t's of all the laws and so its a den of piracy and lets run away as fast as we can!
As to the accessibility expert/ person that you are talking about, it was mostly due to dark's character assasination topic and all the poison that came out after that, that things like you said came about to be said

I will repeat again what I have said, be flexable and reasonable to the best extent possible as long as no one is being harmed, don't be overly harsh but don't go as far as allowing links every and anywhere to cracks softwares and the like.
Its hypocritical, yes, but what the hell.

liam wrote:

see an allowance being made if the transmission of audio-only versiosn of TV shows and movies did not break any copyright laws. I've asked for someone
to show me concrete proof it doesn't, but people like Grryf fall back on the morality argument

Why should it be only allowed if it meets all the copywrite law requirements? its been this way for 14 15 years (probably longer) and hasn't been a problem , and as long as it has a easy solution, why create a fuss.

and to be honest, why we or I often fall back upon morality as an argument is very simple. Laws, the ones that ought to be followed anyway, ought to be tempered with morality. Like
I do not make a single $$ or cent or whatever the hell you will through the vault for my own personal use, its of no benefit (financially anyway) to me, and I give it my time, energy and money  along with many others, there's a simple reason for it. We don't do it because a law tells us to do it (at all of you that are intent upon following each and every bloody letter of the law as if it were you that had the soul bloody responsibility that they were indeed followed without any other consideration), but we do it because we believe it to be the right thing to do, and something worth doing.

like flackers said,

flackers wrote:

I don't buy this idea of a sudden need for zero tolerance.
I personally would rather make a stand for what I view as correct and see how it pans out than have this strict adherence to the rules. Not one person
has tried to make the case that the vault is immoral, so why are we suddenly so keen to adhere to a rule that in that context has no moral worth? Laws
are just formalised principles. If we don't agree with the principle, and no one is forcing this upon us, why force this law on ourselves?

Getting to g97's being a lawyer topic and fernishing all the ethins in here with proof, there's 2 ways you can take this.
1, focus on what he said and with him being a lawyer or not be based on your beliefs. No one is forcing you to believe it, but he uses it as an aditional prop if you will to back what he said up. Any sensable person would go, read his post, if they disagreed or found what he said to be wrong would go and do a little research and than agree or disagree with him and proove why what he said is not correct.
Rather than go, oh yeah? what you said is hard to believe, I don't think you are as old as you say you are at this point, do you mind showing me your birth certificate? on a public forum where anyone and everyone's dog has access to it?
2. just focus on the first thing I am a lawyer and forget the rest, and ask him to tell you his / her house address so that you can visit and check yourself. big_smile

I think if the mods and admins were to focus more on dealing with trolls, and people saying what they want about any other user on here, I.E rosts or topics where a user is insulted/ called all sorts of names the forum would have a better environment/ image, rather than stearing up a hornets nest for nothing, my analogy/ phrase maybe a bit off here lol was never good with them.
Grryf

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.
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2019-06-12 13:48:32

We're dancing around this topic over and over again, but I wanted to point out that your last post, Griff, has an issue worth noting.
In particular, you say that since this sort of lawbreaking hasn't been a problem for the last decade and a half or so, it will continue to be harmless. Morally I mostly agree with you. But we're also getting more attention, too; as the forum goes, so does its footprint, so using the preceding decade and a half to say "no, it's fine, leave it", may be a little shakier than it looks at first. Also, were I a more mainstream dev, came here to check out the scene, and saw a bunch of topics/posts/whatever condoning pirated material (even mainstream stuff like MP3 described audio and the like) I'd start asking things like, "Uh, right; if they're going to soft-pedal this, will they try and find ways to get around paying for my own product?" and "Is this a trend I need to be afraid of?". Because generally, it's not, and we come down pretty hard on software cracking, especially games and the like. Fine, okay. But newcomers don't necessarily know that. They see the wrong thing, and it could send the wrong message. And the bigger and louder and more impactful we get as a community, the more this matters.

Still, I'm not actually saying you're dead wrong. You're absolutely not. it's just another element to consider, that's all.

What it comes back to in my head is simple.
It feels like we generally have to be all or nothing, at least when it comes to copyrighted material. If we allow the movie vault, do we also have to allow things like ThePirateBay and elsewhere? Is it fair to say "Well, a lot of blind people don't make a lot of money, so it's okay to rip off commercial audiobooks too"? What is fair to rip off and what isn't? And who gets to decide?
That's really the issue.
And let's not pretend this hasn't come up before. It's just that no one came to any decisions, so it continued to get kicked around until it faded away. Difference now is that it's not just fading away. It's really, really tricky business, though.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2019-06-12 14:00:06

Why is the moderation team bothering with this.
No, seriously. Why.Has anyone told you it's a problem? Specifically, the only people who would be held responsible in any way, shape or form if something were to happen? no? okay, so why do this. It hasn't been an issue in 14 years, why make it one now.
Besides, AG.net isn't hosting anything illegal. People are providing links to websites that are hosting reprehensible content, which is not even remotely the same thing.
And as to this lawyer bullshit, seriously? When did it suddenly become okay to pressure people to hand out their address to a bunch of strangers online? Plus, Jayde, you bring up the fact you're studdying to become a therapist about once an hour. Guess what, you can never do that again now unless you provide your transcripts, because apparently now that's how the world works.

2019-06-12 15:33:42

I disagree on the all or nothing approach. Just because we allow audio described content does not mean we allow audio game cracks because someone might not be able to pay for them. If we only allow material which can not be obtained through normal channels, in other words, material that would not result in a lost sail I think we're morally ok. Audio description and emulators would fall under this category, but software cracks and audio books would not. Namely, for audio books, they're available in ebook formats as well, and those can be read as a blind user. Still, it remains a gray area.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-06-12 16:30:29

But see, technically you can watch movies/TV shows without audio description, too. I spent most of my life doing it, in fact. Is it ideal? Heck no. But it's doable. So by that logic, since we can't allow audiobooks because there are e-book versions, then we shouldn't allow movies/TV shows because in many cases you can still get a lot out of it without audio description.

I am not advocating for this because I want to remove the access of people to media. I think it sucks that stuff isn't more widely available, for everyone, not just for us. I just think it's tricky to justify some things the way they're being tried here.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2019-06-12 16:35:41

The lost sale is a fallacy though. You can't prove either way if somebody would/wouldn't have bought the content so you can't use that as a reason to 'allow' it when it still breaks the law though because it doesn't do anyone harm.

Also what character assasination, I never noticed that, mind PMing the short version?

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-06-12 16:37:15

@Jade: The reason it's not available is complex, iwth licensing, distributors, networks, publishers, et al, not to mention each network has their own standards and practices and ways of doing things though.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-06-12 16:51:20

in the case of emulation, it's still not okay as the video game publishers own the copyrights.

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2019-06-12 16:57:49

With EBooks, you are not losing any information that a sighted person would get when reading the book. When watching movies without description, it highly depends on the movie itself, but let's say with Harry Potter movies for example most of the quidditch matches would be really boring to watch as a blind person. Probably many much better examples, but EBooks and standard movies definitely are not the same comparison.

2019-06-12 17:34:13

@114: And the people who create tue audio description own that copyright. Believe it or not, audio description is not free of copyright.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-06-12 17:54:03

I wasn't conserning myself with who owns copyrights, I was making a case for why things like audio described content and roms might be able to be allowed through whilst banning cracked software and audiobooks. And yes, some tv shows are watchable without audio description. Yet many others are not, or at least not very well. Regarding the lost sale, I didn't smean to say that if someone wouldn't buy the product anyway that it is ok to get it illegally. I was trying to say that if the product, when bought through legal means, is not accessible, you can justify it getting it illegally. As soon as audio description becomes widely available throughout the world, then the audiovault should be banned, in my opinion. But so far it seems to be quite limited.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-06-12 18:56:07

Unfortunately, the same argument can be made for certain types of cracked software. If a piece of software, when purchased legally, is so crippled by DRM that it's inconvenient to use, you have to contact the vendor many times for license resets, etc. and there's a crack which removes the DRM, then the cracked version is, without a doubt, the better product. Only problem is, it's illegal.

2019-06-12 19:36:23

Hello, When it comes to roms and emulators, i'm all for sharing roms and emulators that are not supported anymore.

My chiptune archive is https://chiparchive.com/files/.
And the new sync key is
BQHTXTVRWGMFSI3BI3ZVQ4TGEOGNJJO64
Twitter is https://twitter.com/thechiptunearc1?lang=en

2019-06-12 19:40:48 (edited by Ethin 2019-06-12 19:42:06)

@109, I have already made points and arguments to support why I would like to see G93's license, all of which were valid, and others have supported that argument as well.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-12 20:58:22

@118:

Yes, but drm does not have anything to do with not being able to use the product due to blindness. So yes, the same argument can be used, but there are some differences. But it remains a slippery slope.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-06-12 20:58:56

119. Can you please define not supported?

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2019-06-12 22:34:37

unsupported games are those games, that people are no longer doing anything for. For example mortal kombat armageddon, SF, and others. Did I really nead to explain that?

My chiptune archive is https://chiparchive.com/files/.
And the new sync key is
BQHTXTVRWGMFSI3BI3ZVQ4TGEOGNJJO64
Twitter is https://twitter.com/thechiptunearc1?lang=en

2019-06-13 01:33:47

@123, yes, since "unsupported" varies based on person. What about those games that never actually announced that support would be ending for them? I may be wrong but I don't think any of the corporations that created the ROMs or emulators actually announced that support was being dropped, nor do I think that the developers behind MKA or SF announced that it was unsupported.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-13 02:10:16

Whether or not the game is supported, having a rom of the game unless you own is illegal. full stop. It could be a rom of an Atari 2600 game from the 1970's, still breaks the law. I mean there's no wiggle room here. The onlytime it does not break the law if it is a home brew game. Also. Emulators themselves do not break the law as they only emulate the hardware, but the software itself is a different story.

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