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• Trolls in trouble

  6 juin 2013, par Mans — Law and liberty

  Life as a patent troll is hopefully set to get more difficult. In a memo describing patent trolls as a “drain on the American economy,” the White House this week outlined a number of steps it is taking to stem this evil tide. Chiming in, the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (where patent cases are heard) in a New York Times op-ed laments the toll patent trolling is taking on the industry, and urges judges to use powers already at their disposal to make the practice less attractive. However, while certainly a step in the right direction, these measures all fail to address the more fundamental properties of the patent system allowing trolls to exist in the first place.

  System and method for patent trolling

  Most patent trolling operations comprise the same basic elements :

  1. One or more patents with broad claims.
  2. The patents of (1) acquired by an otherwise non-practising entity (troll).
  3. The entity of (2) filing numerous lawsuits alleging infringement of the patents of (1).
  4. The lawsuits of (3) targeting end users or retailers.
  5. The lawsuits of (3) listing as plaintiffs difficult to trace shell companies.

  The recent legislative actions all take aim at the latter entries in this list. In so doing, they will no doubt cripple the trolls, but the trolls will remain alive, ready to resume their wicked ways once a new loophole is found in the system.

  To kill a patent troll

  As Judge Rader and his co-authors point out in the New York Times, “the problem stems largely from the fact that, [...] trolls have an important strategic advantage over their adversaries : they don’t make anything.” This is the heart of the troll, and this is where the blow should be struck. Our weapon shall be the mightiest judicial sword of all, the Constitution.

  The United States Constitution contains (in Article I, Section 8) the foundation for the patent system (emphasis mine) :

  The Congress shall have Power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

  Patent trolls are typically not inventors. They are merely hoarders of other people’s discarded inventions, and that allowing others to reap the benefits of an inventor’s work would somehow promote progress should be a tough argument. Indeed, it is the dissociation between investment and reward which has allowed the patent trolls to rise and prosper.

  In light of the above, the solution to the troll menace is actually strikingly simple : make patents non-transferable.

  Having the inventor retain the rights to his or her inventions (works for hire still being recognised), would render the establishment of non-practising entities, which most trolls are, virtually impossible. The original purpose of patents, to protect the investment of inventors, would remain unaffected, if not strengthened, by such a change.

  Links

  • Taking on Patent Trolls to Protect American Innovation
  • Fact Sheet : White House Task Force on High-Tech Patent Issues
  • Make Patent Trolls Pay in Court
  • Constitution of the United States

• FFmpegPCMaudio doesn't work on my server but it works on my computer

  4 mai 2023, par Alex

  I am developing a Discord bot with python that can play music. When I do the tests on my computer all work find but when I take all the files to put there in my server it stop working. So I tried to run it on an other computer and no, it still does not work.

  


  First I was thinking it was a power problems but the other computer is almost the same. I tried to install all the packages that I have on my computer to the second but the music part still not work. It's not a Discord API problem because my others commands work find.

  


  import discord
from discord.ext import commands
from youtube_dl import YoutubeDL


class music_cog(commands.Cog):
    def __init__(self, bot):
        self.bot = bot

        # all the music related stuff
        self.is_playing = False

        # 2d array containing [song, channel]
        self.music_queue = []
        self.YDL_OPTIONS = {'format': 'bestaudio', 'noplaylist': 'True'}
        self.FFMPEG_OPTIONS = {'before_options': '-reconnect 1 -reconnect_streamed 1 -reconnect_delay_max 5',
                               'options': '-vn'}

        self.vc = ""

    # searching the item on youtube
    def search_yt(self, item):
        with YoutubeDL(self.YDL_OPTIONS) as ydl:
            try:
                info = ydl.extract_info("ytsearch:%s" % item, download=False)['entries'][0]
            except Exception:
                return False

        return {'source': info['formats'][0]['url'], 'title': info['title']}

    def play_next(self):
        if len(self.music_queue) > 0:
            self.is_playing = True

            # get the first url
            m_url = self.music_queue[0][0]['source']

            # remove the first element as you are currently playing it
            self.music_queue.pop(0)

            self.vc.play(discord.FFmpegPCMAudio(m_url, **self.FFMPEG_OPTIONS), after=lambda e: self.play_next())
        else:
            self.is_playing = False

    # infinite loop checking
    async def play_music(self):
        if len(self.music_queue) > 0:
            self.is_playing = True

            m_url = self.music_queue[0][0]['source']

            # try to connect to voice channel if you are not already connected

            if self.vc == "" or not self.vc.is_connected() or self.vc == None:
                self.vc = await self.music_queue[0][1].connect()
            else:
                await self.vc.move_to(self.music_queue[0][1])

            print(self.music_queue)
            # remove the first element as you are currently playing it
            self.music_queue.pop(0)

            self.vc.play(discord.FFmpegPCMAudio(m_url, **self.FFMPEG_OPTIONS), after=lambda e: self.play_next())
        else:
            self.is_playing = False

    @commands.command(name="play", help="Plays a selected song from youtube")
    async def p(self, ctx, *args):
        query = " ".join(args)

        voice_channel = discord.utils.get(ctx.guild.voice_channels, name='General')
        if voice_channel is None:
            # you need to be connected so that the bot knows where to go
            await ctx.send("Connect to a voice channel!")
        else:
            song = self.search_yt(query)
            if type(song) == type(True):
                await ctx.send(
                    "Could not download the song. Incorrect format try another keyword. This could be due to playlist or a livestream format.")
            else:
                await ctx.send("Song added to the queue")
                self.music_queue.append([song, voice_channel])

                if self.is_playing == False:
                    await self.play_music()

    @commands.command(name="queue", help="Displays the current songs in queue")
    async def q(self, ctx):
        retval = ""
        for i in range(0, len(self.music_queue)):
            retval += self.music_queue[i][0]['title'] + "\n"

        print(retval)
        if retval != "":
            await ctx.send(retval)
        else:
            await ctx.send("No music in queue")

    @commands.command(name="skip", help="Skips the current song being played")
    async def skip(self, ctx):
        if self.vc != "" and self.vc:
            self.vc.stop()
            # try to play next in the queue if it exists
            await self.play_music()

    @commands.command(name="disconnect", help="Disconnecting bot from VC")
    async def dc(self, ctx):
        await self.vc.disconnect()

    @commands.command(name="pause")
    async def pause(self, ctx):
        voice = discord.utils.get(self.bot.voice_clients, guild=ctx.guild)
        if voice.is_playing():
            voice.pause()
        else:
            await ctx.send("Currently no audio is playing.")

    @commands.command(name="resume")
    async def resume(self, ctx):
        voice = discord.utils.get(self.bot.voice_clients, guild=ctx.guild)
        if voice.is_paused():
            voice.resume()
        else:
            await ctx.send("The audio is not paused.")


  


  There are not any error messages, the bot just joins the voice chat and does nothing.

  


  If someone can tell me we it work just on my computer I will be very grateful.

  


  My files :


  


• Trouble with CoCCA Registry

  7 octobre 2012, par Multimedia Mike — General

  I’ve been rather despondent all week. People who see me daily could readily identify this fact. Unfortunately, the exact reason was difficult to adequately explain. The problems that nerds deal with…

  When A Domain Expires
  As a few people noticed, the multimedia.cx domain and all of it’s subdomains didn’t work this last week. The problem started on Monday, October 1. Whose fault ? Well, fundamentally, I neglected to renew the domain name in time. However, I prefer to place the blame on the .cx domain registrar, CoCCA Registry. You see, they have never developed the technology to email a domain holder with a notice that their domain is about to expire or has already expired.

  This domain is the only one I have ever held so I don’t have a lot of experience in this matter. I wondered if I was crazy for thinking it would be normal for a registrar to send an email or 2 with status updates about your domain. I get the impression from speaking with others that this is indeed normal. I have 3 different email addresses listed under my account at the registrar– 2 at multimedia.cx and a backup gmail account. I checked spam folders after this incident. Then I remembered that I have never received any email notifications from them (although password reset emails show up, so that part thankfully works). Also, their support emails are black holes.

  So, I guess the moral is : be wary of dealing with CoCCA Registry. However, they seem to be the only way to register domains under a wide variety of uncommon country codes.

  By Friday, the domain appeared to have been reinstated, even through the status was officially listed as “renewal-pending” according to the web-based management console. Eventually, as cached DNS results started to time out throughout the day, I started seeing subdomains come back. I excitedly used the ‘dig’ command to count down the seconds until gamemusic.multimedia.cx was accessible on the network I was on (the number after the domain name is the time-to-live or ‘TTL’ value) :

  $ dig +nocmd gamemusic.multimedia.cx +noall +answer
  gamemusic.multimedia.cx. 3      IN      A       174.143.152.251
  $ dig +nocmd gamemusic.multimedia.cx +noall +answer
  gamemusic.multimedia.cx. 2      IN      A       174.143.152.251
  $ dig +nocmd gamemusic.multimedia.cx +noall +answer
  gamemusic.multimedia.cx. 1      IN      A       174.143.152.251
  $ dig +nocmd gamemusic.multimedia.cx +noall +answer
  gamemusic.multimedia.cx. 12962  IN      A       207.45.186.114
  

  Finally, today (Saturday), I received a receipt confirming that the domain has been renewed.

  8 Years Old
  Incidentally, happy eighth birthday to multimedia.cx. It was September, 2004 when I decided to branch out from a simple ISP-based web presence.

  People often ask why I went with the .cx TLD. When I decided I wanted a proper domain name 8 years ago, I found that multimedia.X was already taken for just about every TLD value of X. .cx was a notable exception and was distinctive enough (speaking of .X, though, I see that multimedia.xxx is still up for grabs as of this writing ; I imagine that would come with a whole other set of problems).

  It’s funny that tech nerds often rail against outsourcing too much — email, storage, computing power, web hosting — all to some type of cloud provider under the premise that it could easily be taken away. But this episode teaches me that even having your own domain name is no guarantee of a solid online presence.

  Meanwhile, I have taken proactive steps to avert this same situation from arising again :

  
  
  

  Barring a lack of automated emails from the registrar, I hope a Google Calendar reminder set up a month ahead of expiration will do the trick.