Quoting: drjomsAs someone who owned a Razer mouse(some buttons died WITHIN first year of use!) - i gotta say, stay away from it.
I am not even bitching about quality of hardware.
I am talking about software side of things.
You need to run a server application at all times to support some hardware features. And my experience was not stellar with it.
Its experience from a roughly year ago. So it was recent software I was using. Never again.
Its unacceptable.

You want something nice for Linux - check out libratbag/piper. Check what mice are supported there and get THAT mouse.

I am very happy with my second wired mouse from logitech. G502 heroe. Its amazing mouse with abundance of buttons, high resolution, a lot of customization and allows for hardware profile.
And mouse scroll changer, my god how good it is to scroll through whole pdf file of 30 pages or more with just one finger movement.

Would not touch Razer mouse again, not unless its supported by libratbag. Unless its a dumb mouse. But then, i am too spoiled by proper logitech mice that work with libratbag. And let me tell you, I deeply distrust anything and everything made in China. Burned on quality too many times. But Logitech so far has not been a major disappointment to me.
https://github.com/libratbag/libratbag/wiki/Devices [External Link]

The exact opposite experience here. Logitech always have broken scrollwheels for me (last one to break was a G703), finally bought a Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro (no server application needed at all) and that have been smooth sailing since.

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Quoting: ShmerlAbout HDR, see also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDnbWaIMJJA [External Link]

In short it's not about making things brighter selectively, it means larger color space.

Larger color space is just one of the extra, allowing a larger dynamic range between the darkest and brightest items on the screen is the major one.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyGreat!!!

. . . What's HDR?

Depending on display and the software used (since there are multiple standards) it raised the maximum luminance level from 100 nits up to 10,000 nits (with most HDR displays currently in the 1000 nits category). It also raised the bit depth of the colour values from 8-bits per channel to 10-bits per channel (some up to 16-bits per channel).

Quoting: ShmerlI'm confused, this needs gamescope to be used? What about non geamescope use cases?

I think the patch is in such early stage that it needs Gamescope right now for early adapters since the display server part of KWin isn't patched yet. So it is a way to do early tests of the protocol.

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Quoting: Talon1024IMHO, this is a good example of why we should insist on native Linux ports instead of relying on WINE/Proton for everything.

So no game then instead of as of now at least the possibility that valve will fix it via proton?

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Quoting: M@GOidAFAIK Apple started the Metal API more or less the same time AMD released their Mantle API. When Vulkan appeared, they had already invested a lot in Metal, so they made the call to continue that path.

Now, was it the right move? If you look at their revenue from Apple store, looks like they did. But I had the feeling that is iPhone related. My impression is that their desktop stuff don't look any better than before, although they continue to get some support from a couple big names.

The recent release of a Apple's "Proton" indicates that things are not rosy, meaning Metal adoption is not in the levels they wanted it to be.

I had the feeling that while Tim Cook is in charge, things will remain the same. But I wouldn't be surprised if the next CEO, in a effort to boost profits, starts to drop anything that is proprietary in exchange for industry standards, like Chromium and Vulkan, to cut costs and make shareholders happy.

Well it was the right move in that it helps keep vendor lock in, which ofc always was the reason behind Metal.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI read the letter . . . sounds like it's been really tough, and I feel for him.

But it really hit me, the way he was writing it's like there's some kind of massive 2008-style recession. But in the broader economy, there isn't really. North America's basically OK by recent standards except for insanely expensive housing, which is a really big deal but I mean unemployment is low and economic growth seems to be happening. As I understand it Britain is in tough shape, mostly due to a series of self-inflicted wounds and self-inflicted Conservative governments, and Germany's not doing well because of expensive/scarce natural gas due to geopolitical reasons, but overall it doesn't seem like the general economy is as bad as the situation seems to be for gaming companies. Anyone know why the gaming industry in particular is in bad shape?

AFAIK gaming took off during the pandemic leading many venture capitalists to make heavy investments in gaming and then the pandemic ended, gaming first diminished and then in 2023 made a small denture up but not the massive constant increase that the VC:s demands and now they are trying to jump ship so some have removed their prior agreed upon investments (looks to be what hit both Embracer and Puny Human) and/or demanding huge layoffs and spending cuts to increase profits.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

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 :smile:

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.

Cover bands are a special case indeed with a complex set of rules, I think this page have the best information: https://www.coverbandconfidential.com/blog/cover-song-royalties [External Link]

In short royalties from covers have to be payed to the copyright holders but the musicians performing the cover can get payed for their work. This is not a special law in copyright though but instead something that record labels and musicians have created to allow this to happen (so not entirely sure that it will cover 100% of all music since it is most likely an opt in or opt out).

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

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 :smile:

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 [External Link]

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 [External Link]

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..?

What 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.

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[quote=padde]

Quoting: kaktuspalme

Quoting: MayeulCYes it should be done on the server. Client side anti cheat will always be possible.

I think that wouldn't work. E.g. for timing-related cheating any network jitter - e.g. cause by your flatmate streaming a movie - would cause lots of false positives.

network jitter can be compensated for and it's the server that already makes all the decisions so this have to be handled already today in order for the games to even work. It also means that implementing it at the server side will be problematic, meanwhile implementing it at the client side is impossible.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

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 [External Link]. 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).

Full 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 (I am after all a registered member of the original Pirate Party).

Now 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.

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