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probably the same people who answered this other useful AOL survey

The survey itself was conducted by Digital Marketing Services, a joint AOL/MARC Research company that does online opinion survey research. Although online polls suffer from various biases, the OpinionPlace.com polls use pre-interview demo weights to help reduce some of those skews. (Though my doubts are not, of course, dissipated by their reassurances.)

Finally, candidate for "most disturbing graf" must be this:

Despite busy schedules, female gamers over 40 make time for their preferred hobby. Twenty-eight percent of them play games between midnight and 5:00 a.m., considerably more than men or teenage game-players. In fact, nearly half of these women (44 percent) said that they spend less time watching TV or movies, reading, exercising or spending time outside as a result of their online gaming habits.

here

so it wasn't run through AOL, but an outside firm, which probably got a more representative sample.

But, there's lots of interesting statistics to go through. such as "Nearly Twice as Many Adults Have Played Internet Games for More than Eight Consecutive Hours than Teenagers"

That's Time Warner to you.

1. AOL/TW will drop the AOL part and revert to Time-Warner.

Already done. AOL Time Warner does not exist anymore.

1. AOL/TW will drop the AOL part and revert to Time-Warner.

Didn't they already do this? I could be mistaken, of course, but when you go to www.aoltimewarner.com, it redirects you to www.timewarner.com, where I can't find a single thing that has the AOL and Time-Warner names together.

Maybe the most obvious candidate to challenge this patent is Apple, since AOL recently got cozy with Microsoft again.

iChat does exactly what the patent application talks about by putting up a "thought bubble" with an ellipsis in it next to your name as you type, and replaces it with your text when you're done typing.

dial in over the TWX network.

Wasn't TWX called AOL until a few days ago? Was the TWX network a remote ancestor of Q-Link, the service that became America Online?

The OS X-native AOL client uses Netscape's Gecko as its browser render engine.

~Philly

smyle wrote:

(Now, everyone who sang "happy birthday" as a class in school, please make your royalty check payable to...)

Summy Birchard, Inc., a subsidary of AOL/Time Warner. Here's the history of its copyright. Assuming Congress doesn't extend copyright yet again, it is due to enter the public domain in 2030.

I think it is pretty obvious:

Entertainment Weekly is owned by
AOL Time Warner

AOL is in cahoots with EA for the Madden Bowl

EA may be mad they did not get the number 1 slot ;).

but netscape doesn't have money

Yeah. They are owned by that tiny no named company. What was it again? Oh yeah. AOLTW. I mean they only had $1.2 Billion in Income first quarter 2003.

Also, if you read the article, you'd know that software is the entire category. That's why the Linux, as the sole name of a word processor, is out of the question, no matter what os it ran on

That's just the opinion of Ann Harrison (or rather the lawyers she's spoken to). Personally, I'm more inclined to believe the trademark lawyers of the World's largest media conglomerate, who say that databases and browsers are separate categories.

If you _really_ want to change things, get the word out to Joe Sixpack who only reads CNN

If CNN and CNN Headline News are Joe Sixpack's sole source of information, then getting people not to buy Warner products will be an impossible task. CNN is owned by the same parent company as Warner Bros.

If you do it yourself, it's yours.

Oh really? What if some music publisher with $100 billion of equity sues you on grounds that you "accidentally copied" a song written by one of the publisher's songwriters? George Harrison lost such a lawsuit. How, before publishing a song, can a performer-songwriter make sure that the song is original?

• American Gramaphone is one of the last, great, financially successful independent labels
• By constrast, most of the other major labels are in a "tailspin," with record sales down 10% since last year
• Mannheim Steamroller has dominated the Christmas album business. Their latest album, "Christmas Extraordinaire," was the #1 Christmas album last year, and the #2 holiday album overall in 2002 and 2001
• Their customer base is older, and more likely to buy CD's than "rip and burn" music off of the Internet
• Part of their business success comes from "value-added" packaging, such as bundling their CD's in "gift packs" with scented candles, hot chocolate, even extra two-sided DVD's with the album and videos in surround sound (a feature only now being adopted by major labels) and mass-marketing those value-added packages to non-traditional outlets, not just record stores

It was probably because Case is not the CEO of AOLTW, he is the Chairman of the Board.

The CEO is Richard D. Parsons.

It was probably because Case is not the CEO of AOLTW, he is the Chairman of the Board.

The CEO is Richard D. Parsons.

only terrorists use wireless Internet

No, the problem is only Campaign funders run cable networks, wireless is a competitor that is cheap to set up, impossible to control, and very useful. Like the old BBS's, or peer to peer.

because the "Mainstream press is the cable companies

A Nation of Thieves?

Something happened on the way to the 21st century. Media and entertainment companies started "converging" and "shareholder value" became far more important than customer service and respect for company employees ever managed to be. Compensation packages for company executives hit the stratosphere -- while holding them accountable for their company's results became nearly impossible.

These executives are indeed very naïve if they think that people haven't noticed.

People are noticing that something isn't quite right -- that something is indeed very wrong. After a decade during which the stock market gained apparent respectability as a legitimate, sensible form of investing, the recent slew of huge corporate scandals reveals that it is still what it has always been: a sick place where neurotic, puerile gamblers get their kicks off the backs of millions of "anonymous" workers and individuals, who have no control over what happens to their hard-earned retirement savings.

Yet this is the place that most company executives feel is much more important to watch than the actual people for whom they produce their goods and services. This is the place where the fate of thousands of employees is decided every day by people staring at computer monitors showing ever-changing, meaningless lists of numbers and charts. And if you happen to personally hold shares in a company that has just announced that it is "restructuring" in order to improve its bottom-line and thus increase its "shareholder value", don't kid yourself: When the company is talking about "shareholders", it's not talking about you and your measly couple of thousands of shares. It's only talking about big shareholders -- i.e. other companies that own a more significant share of its market value.

This is a world where "hostile takeovers" and government-approved "mergers" are feeding a never-ending cycle of fewer and fewer executives wielding more and more power on a multinational scale. Soon enough, the "World Company" and George Orwell's 1984 will no longer be the stuff of satire or fiction -- but prophetic descriptions of a very real "New World Order" gradually unfolding before our eyes.

A Little History

Let's start with a simple list: America Online, Time, Life, Warner Bros., Fortune, Elektra, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Cinemax, Entertainment Weekly, New Line Cinema, In Style, Warner/Chappell Music, Time Warner Cable, WBN, ICQ, Warner Music Group, Netscape, People, Reprise, Rhino, Atlantic, WEA, TNT, MapQuest, WinAmp, In Demand, Erato, Moviefone, Road Runner, etc.. All owned by the same corporate giant (AOL Time Warner).

And another one: Universal Music Group, Verve, Nathan, Canal+, Impulse!, Cegetel, USA Networks, Decca, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Barclay, Armand Colin, L'Express, Universal Studios, Larousse, Sierra, MP3.com, MCA Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cineplex, etc.. All owned by the same corporate giant (Vivendi Universal).

And yet another one: Disney, ABC, ESPN, Hyperion, Miramax, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, A&E, The History Channel, E! Entertainment, RTL-2, Buena Vista, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Mammoth Records, etc.. All owned by the same corporate giant (Walt Disney).

Need we say more? See for yourself... There's already only 7 of these corporate giants in total -- and how long will it be before there are even fewer?

It all began innocently enough. Young entrepreneurs in the early 20th century started up new companies with a mix of creative ambition and business acumen. Then these companies grew bigger and bigger, and whatever entrepreneurial vision was present at their birth became more and more diluted and less and less relevant. Then corporate accountants suggested merging with or taking over other companies -- and it all became an all-too-real game of Monopoly.

Then the Internet and "new technologies" came about, and the accountants' next big idea was convergence -- i.e. the merging of "content" providers and "access" providers in order to control everything from the inception of a "cultural product" to its ultimate consumption by the unsuspecting masses.

The Art of Manipulation

It is easy to guess what got lost along the way... Creativity. Artistry. Independence. Critical objectivity. Uncontrolled access. The ability to "break through" cultural barriers. Cultural diversity. Innovation. Freedom. Real music. Real art.

Juggling between art and commerce is a delicate balance at the best of times... and these are definitely NOT the best of times.

So now we have a so-called magazine "reporting" on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread -- as if the reporters weren't aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine... Yes, this is still called a "magazine". These are still called "reporters". And this is still called "journalism"... And yet millions of people are gleefully letting themselves be had.

Maybe we should stop calling this "art", or even "entertainment" for that matter -- for what is so entertaining about being involved in a collective hallucination? Maybe we should start calling it what it really is, i.e. unfettered MANIPULATION.

In 1995, Clear Channel Communications owned 43 radio stations. Now it owns more than 1,200 -- and its army of so-called "independent promoters" are letting legalized payola dictate what you get (or rather don't get) to hear on the radio.

Everywhere you look, the story is the same: more and more money, less and less choice, less and less freedom of access, fewer and fewer companies. How far will this have to go before a big shift in people's attitude causes this commercial hubris to collapse onto itself and implode?

Power Struggles

The first major cracks in this highly concentrated corporate world have, of course, already begun to appear, in what has been making the headlines in the past few months, i.e. shady accounting practices involving enormous amounts of money -- enough to shake the economy of the most powerful nation of the world. And the hysterical stock markets have of course been swayed by this news, at the expense of tens of thousands of workers worldwide and millions of small investors who thought that their holdings had nowhere to go but up.

The value of AOL Time Warner's stock is now a quarter of what it was at the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, and this decline forced the company to take a $54 billion writedown earlier this year. And now it too is being investigated about its accounting practices. The story at Vivendi Universal is similar. Disney shares are near an 8-year low. And there is little doubt in people's mind that the problems are similar everywhere, in every big conglomerate that has become utterly out of touch with the reality of everyday work and the essence of human creativity.

In addition, people also realize all too well that governments have little -- if any -- power left when it comes to regulating these multinational monsters. Governments have much more power when it comes to regulating the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens -- and they use and abuse this power as a way to distract people's attention from how much control the conglomerates have over what we get to hear, watch, read, eat, drink, buy, and generally experience as "free" citizens of the world.

One of the areas where this struggle is most acutely felt is, of course, the online world -- a sprawling, anarchic community that is still in its infancy and whose exponential development in the last decade took everyone by surprise. And nothing exemplifies the struggle between government, big business, and individual rights better than the highly controversial issue of "peer-2-peer" file sharing and its many digital variations.

A Nation of Thieves?

Will the media/technology giants recover from the latest stock market slump? They probably will -- but at what cost? In all likelihood, the cost will be more "restructuring", more layoffs, more executive shuffles and golden parachutes, causing even further alienation from their own employees and customers. And this, in turn, will further encourage the very behaviors that they claim are illegal and want punished by criminal law -- all the while preserving their own impunity as they continue to carelessly flounder a capital that they do not own.

Napster may have gone bankrupt and become a closed chapter in the Internet's short history, but its death is by no means a reflection of a decline in peer-2-peer (P2P) file sharing, quite the contrary. If anything, P2P has grown even further -- but since it's becoming totally decentralized, there is no easy way to measure its significance.

What is for sure, however, is that, in spite of its many claims to the contrary, the recording industry has yet to provide evidence that P2P is actually detrimental to music making as an artistic endeavor, and even as a commercial venture. It is worth remembering, for example, that sales of music CDs actually increased when Napster was at its peak, and declined after Napster was abruptly shut down. Even economists who thought that file sharing "should be" hurting the recording industry are now expressing their doubts, based on what they say is simply not happening.

More importantly, many well-respected artists have sided with Internet users against corporate greed and actually use the Internet to promote alternative ways to distribute their music and reach out to a non-captive, legitimate audience of authentic music lovers.

This does not mean, of course, that all forms of file sharing are equally innocuous. There is little doubt that, when people use the Internet as a substitute for radio, i.e. as a way to discover new music, it can help promote the work of artists. But when a young junior high school student downloads tracks off the Internet and makes CD-R copies of them that he then sells for $5 in the schoolyard, it hurts sales of the original CD and it's disrespectful of the artist -- regardless of how small a cut of the actual CD price the artist actually gets after all the executives and the middlemen in the recording industry have taken their piece of the pie.

Still, can we really go as far as to say that digital technology is creating a "nation of thieves" who no longer recognize the just value of art?

Protecting the Product

It is worth noting, to begin with, that the recording industry itself is far from having distinguished itself by recognizing the true value of art. Instead, it has consistently fought to be allowed to deprive many artists of their most fundamental rights. It has allowed popular artists to go bankrupt even though their albums were selling by the millions. It has reduced the artists' cut of the album sales pie to a ridiculously small portion of the actual income generated by these sales. It has consistently pushed commercial musical products at the expense of real musical artistry.

This hardly entitles the recording industry to lecture anyone about recognizing the just value of art.

It is also interesting to note that the cultural products that seem to be the primary concern of the industry giants are those that are already the most popular ones, and that things such as CD copy protection are being experimentally used mostly with items that will sell millions regardless of whether they are copy-protected or not.

So are most citizens really being completely disrespectful of the value of art and the need to provide appropriate compensation to the artists for their works? We've said it before and we'll say it again: the rise of digital technology and peer-2-peer file sharing has little to do with people's intrinsic respect for art and artists, and everything to do with the cynical attitude of big industry conglomerates, which have consistently pushed for more and more commercial, highly profitable products at the expense of authentic art and respect for artists.

If people do not feel enough guilt to prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration for their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the expense of artistic works.

The fact that actual works of art still manage to seep through the cracks of this huge profit-driven industry does not change anything about the fundamental equations that have been driving and still drive the industry, today more than ever -- i.e. that art = money, artists = money-makers, and art lovers = consumers.

As a simple example of how little music is valued as an art form by the industry, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of music ever recorded is currently available -- and, of this 20 percent, what proportion is actually readily available to music lovers? What proportion is not the current 100 top albums on the SoundScan charts?

It simply appears that the instinctive reaction of the lover of art (be it music, TV shows, movies, or other forms of art) is such that, if the industry has no respect for his or her identity as an appreciator of art, then he or she has no reason to have any respect for the industry as a purveyor of art. By making digital copies of so-called cultural products, many people are not demonstrating their lack of respect for art and for artists, but are expressing -- consciously or not -- their frustration with the way the entertainment industry profits from art at the expense of both art makers and art lovers.

The consumers of the commercial products of the entertainment industry are only as cynical as the industry has deliberately made them, by dumbing down their products, by exploiting artists, by making profit-driven choices and decisions, and by providing their own kind with obscene compensations and legal impunity that are completely out of touch with the real world of ordinary people.

Don't Get It Twisted

That being said, the whole debate about file sharing and digital piracy is, most of all, a convenient way for industry conglomerates to deflect attention from their own shady business practices and dubious alliances.

For example, it is worth noting that the Warner Music Group is heavily involved in the recording industry's fight against piracy, but that its own parent company, AOL Time Warner, is directly benefiting from file sharing, as a provider of Internet access to millions of Internet users worldwide. When AOL Time Warner repeatedly flaunts its ever-increasing number of members (34 million and counting) and the billions of hours that they spend online, is there any doubt that a good part of this growth involves the "unlawful" exchange of computer files at the detriment of recording artists?

In other words, the real "thieves" are not necessarily those that are currently getting the blame... Rather than a "nation of thieves", the current situation looks, to us, much more like an "elite of thieves".

And the real victims of this thievery are very much, as usual, the recording artists themselves, who will never get their share of AOL's profits as an Internet access provider, even though these profits are partly based on the content that they originally provided. And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access to the full range of music that they would like to explore, and who are also likely to suffer from technological restrictions that will soon prevent them from making legitimate copies of the works that they have lawfully purchased for their own enjoyment.

Make no mistake: the entertainment industry (including TV, movies and music) might be big, but the technology industry is even bigger. Remember that it is AOL that bought Time Warner, and not the other way around. Remember that Sony makes much more money in electronics and computer equipment than it does in record sales...

If the technology industry ends up implementing technological limitations that prevent users from lawfully enjoying their purchases -- as it is threatening to do -- the beneficiaries will not be the artists whose works are thus being allegedly "protected". And it will certainly not be the art lovers whose enjoyment of art will thus be restricted. No, it will simply be, once again... the industry conglomerates, who will have yet another generation of incompatible media and devices to sell to us under the guise of "technological improvement".

Conclusion

The technology and entertainment industries are simply to big for us to expect any overnight changes. The industry giants will continue to do their best to deflect people's attention away from their own wrongdoings and to blame falling profits and commercial failures on piracy at the same time that they are encouraging their customers to adopt the very technologies that make piracy possible. Artists will continue to be lured by unrealistic promises and contracts with big numbers and lots of small print.

How long, however, before a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, to leave the system for good? How long before a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and are careful not to get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long before a critical mass of art lovers get together to provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the existing system artistically irrelevant?

It all depends on us -- and it all depends on you.

[Ed: original used "2" for both "to" and "too" -- grammatical errors in that department are my fault. Only changes should be related to spelling, formatting and links preserved. Various Unicode characters translated to ASCII for the benifit of Slashdot. "Peer-2-peer" is kept as original.]

The name is cnn.com, not cnnforwindows.com!

Ironic, that this is the same company that owns Netscape.

"... Steve Jobs in April 1977 [4] asked Rob Janoff, art director of the advertising company Regis McKenna Advertising, to design a new logo. The advertising company Regis McKenna, wasn't picked by coincidence to design the new logo. This company had helped for example Compaq, America Online, Intel and other computer companies through their early years [5]."

Really? So Apple selected Regis McKenna in April 1977 because of the work they had done for AOL and Compaq?

That's strange because the AOL website says it was founded in 1985.
And the Compaq (now HP) site claims that Compaq was founded in the 1980s.

I know Steve Jobs has a good eye for the future, but I suspect he didn't choose Regis McKenna based on the good work they would do in years to come.

I know this is a cute piece, but the guy who did it just read a couple of Apple biographies and slapped it together with some graphics. It just bugs me when misinformation like this spreads across the Internet.

AOL is indirectly using Gecko under Compuserve 7.0 on Win32 already.

Since Compuserve is part of AOL, it would seem logical that AOL will follow where Compuserve has been. Whilst there is no evidence per se, it seems that this announcement would pave the way for such a move.

I believe the next corporation to go under will be AOLTimeWarner. There is no doubt that they are already cooking their books. The management is dumping their shares like crazy and some are even resigning. This is definitely the sign of a company in trouble.

The guys at Nullsoft would probably be happy to do that, but somehow I doubt that their adoptive parents would approve.

Speaking of which...why hasn't there been a slashdot review of Lilo and Stitch?

Three reasons.

For one thing, "Lilo" is taken. Not only is it the name of the old Linux bootloader (before distributions started using GRUB instead), but wasn't "Leeloo" (probably the same underlying name as "Lilo") a character in The Fifth Element, played by Ms. Jovovich?

For another thing, Lilo and Stitch is released under the Disney label. The Walt Disney Company (parent of Disney, Touchstone, and Miramax) was the biggest corporate sponsor of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and one of the biggest proponents of the DMCA's circumvention ban (among movie studios, only Time Warner gave the U.S. Congress more money in 1998).

Finally, because you haven't submitted your review for consideration by the Slashdot editors.

Manticor writes:

I agree, I do believe that the advertisers are taking things too far. I do also think that advertising is a necessary evil for many stations.

Advertising makes sense for commercial broadcast television, they are not in a position to change their entire business model overnight, or even over a few years.

Where it fails to make sense is the commercial cable companies. A typical non-premium (eg. Comedy Central, CNN, etc) gets a certain amount per subscriber (often $0.25 - $0.50) from each cable company that shows their services. That's many millions of dollars per year without showing a single ad, and they still have the same 10 minutes of ads for each 20 minutes of content as the broadcast stations.

Though I do wonder, and perhaps someone knows, how do HBO, SkinaMax and other manage to be profitable and provide programming at the same time. I imagine because we pay extra for those as premium channels the cable providers pass that on to the these companies.

The premium channels get far more per subscriber, although how much is probably a matter of contract between the cable company and the channel. This is further complicated by the fact that one of the biggest cable companies in the US (Time Warner Cable) and the most popular premium channel (HBO) are both owned by the same company (AOL-Time Warner).

Perhaps with the advent of digital people can have 2 cable options:

1. Cheaper package you get commercials.
2. A premium package you pay more per month for but you don't get the ad.

I, for one, would welcome that, provided the prices were reasonable. Cable deregulation has unfortunately encouraged cable companies to do unreasonable things with their pricing, since they have state-granted local monopolies without state regulation.

And the $200 payed in Britain is something everyone with a TV pays even if you don't have cable and even if you don't watch the BBC.

From what I understand, in Britain, if you have a mainstream television, you have to pay the license fee. People without TV's don't have to pay anything. People who hook up cable or satellite systems to antennaless monitors that can't get broadcast TV don't have to pay the fee. Elderly don't have to pay. Sounds reasonably fair to me, since if you really don't want to pay the fee, there are many other options. The only thing I would add to such a system is an exemption for the first television if your household income is below a certain amount.

Manticor writes:

I agree, I do believe that the advertisers are taking things too far. I do also think that advertising is a necessary evil for many stations.

Advertising makes sense for commercial broadcast television, they are not in a position to change their entire business model overnight, or even over a few years.

Where it fails to make sense is the commercial cable companies. A typical non-premium (eg. Comedy Central, CNN, etc) gets a certain amount per subscriber (often $0.25 - $0.50) from each cable company that shows their services. That's many millions of dollars per year without showing a single ad, and they still have the same 10 minutes of ads for each 20 minutes of content as the broadcast stations.

Though I do wonder, and perhaps someone knows, how do HBO, SkinaMax and other manage to be profitable and provide programming at the same time. I imagine because we pay extra for those as premium channels the cable providers pass that on to the these companies.

The premium channels get far more per subscriber, although how much is probably a matter of contract between the cable company and the channel. This is further complicated by the fact that one of the biggest cable companies in the US (Time Warner Cable) and the most popular premium channel (HBO) are both owned by the same company (AOL-Time Warner).

Perhaps with the advent of digital people can have 2 cable options:

1. Cheaper package you get commercials.
2. A premium package you pay more per month for but you don't get the ad.

I, for one, would welcome that, provided the prices were reasonable. Cable deregulation has unfortunately encouraged cable companies to do unreasonable things with their pricing, since they have state-granted local monopolies without state regulation.

And the $200 payed in Britain is something everyone with a TV pays even if you don't have cable and even if you don't watch the BBC.

From what I understand, in Britain, if you have a mainstream television, you have to pay the license fee. People without TV's don't have to pay anything. People who hook up cable or satellite systems to antennaless monitors that can't get broadcast TV don't have to pay the fee. Elderly don't have to pay. Sounds reasonably fair to me, since if you really don't want to pay the fee, there are many other options. The only thing I would add to such a system is an exemption for the first television if your household income is below a certain amount.

Manticor writes:

I agree, I do believe that the advertisers are taking things too far. I do also think that advertising is a necessary evil for many stations.

Advertising makes sense for commercial broadcast television, they are not in a position to change their entire business model overnight, or even over a few years.

Where it fails to make sense is the commercial cable companies. A typical non-premium (eg. Comedy Central, CNN, etc) gets a certain amount per subscriber (often $0.25 - $0.50) from each cable company that shows their services. That's many millions of dollars per year without showing a single ad, and they still have the same 10 minutes of ads for each 20 minutes of content as the broadcast stations.

Though I do wonder, and perhaps someone knows, how do HBO, SkinaMax and other manage to be profitable and provide programming at the same time. I imagine because we pay extra for those as premium channels the cable providers pass that on to the these companies.

The premium channels get far more per subscriber, although how much is probably a matter of contract between the cable company and the channel. This is further complicated by the fact that one of the biggest cable companies in the US (Time Warner Cable) and the most popular premium channel (HBO) are both owned by the same company (AOL-Time Warner).

Perhaps with the advent of digital people can have 2 cable options:

1. Cheaper package you get commercials.
2. A premium package you pay more per month for but you don't get the ad.

I, for one, would welcome that, provided the prices were reasonable. Cable deregulation has unfortunately encouraged cable companies to do unreasonable things with their pricing, since they have state-granted local monopolies without state regulation.

And the $200 payed in Britain is something everyone with a TV pays even if you don't have cable and even if you don't watch the BBC.

From what I understand, in Britain, if you have a mainstream television, you have to pay the license fee. People without TV's don't have to pay anything. People who hook up cable or satellite systems to antennaless monitors that can't get broadcast TV don't have to pay the fee. Elderly don't have to pay. Sounds reasonably fair to me, since if you really don't want to pay the fee, there are many other options. The only thing I would add to such a system is an exemption for the first television if your household income is below a certain amount.

Jamie Kellner is the Chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. which is a division of AOL-Time Warner.

I think it is pretty clear that he does represent the opinions of AOLTW.

Jamie Kellner is the Chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. which is a division of AOL-Time Warner.

I think it is pretty clear that he does represent the opinions of AOLTW.

Jamie Kellner is the Chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. which is a division of AOL-Time Warner.

I think it is pretty clear that he does represent the opinions of AOLTW.

This case might make industry think twice about the DMCA if the copyright work in question were owned by, say, Bertelsmann or another AOL-Time-Warner competitor. But as the suit was brought by some puny individual (no offense, Mr. Ellison, but you're not a mega-media conglomerate) and the Right Side won, this won't change the opinions of Anyone That Matters.

My rant on this topic, and the US government.

Yes this is very 1984ish. When this law passes "Big Brother is watching" gets that much closer to reality. You have your 1984 TV that spreads the propaganda, the propaganda that only they can produce. And it watches you (let's see what MS will build into its OS), and you can't turn the device off (The DMCA Thought Police will get you).

Someone supposed to be representing the people has actually been paid by a couple of corporations to promote their own interest. The idiot Hollings is only after money, but isn't that politics nowadays, money and public opinion, I believe Bush knew more about Enron than he's saying, come on Bush and Cheney were/are in the oil business goddammit!

Why are we only attacking the evil that is SSSCA, not the evil that is the corruption that is running the government? I believe a revolution is overdue. And it won't be televised, because guess who owns the media? Why haven't we seen anything on CNN? Or Time Magazine?

Furthermore, I can't believe what is happening to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Yes they are being refused prisoner of war status, they are on hunger strike, last I read. They are ready to die for their beliefs, and hell no the US Govt isn't going to let them die, but if they die anyway, who's going to prosecute the US? Imagine if those are US soldiers being held captive in Iraq. Bush would be nuking Saddam's ass and he (Mr. Hussein) would be Milosevic's cellmate in no time, but no, the US Govt is running the show here. As much as I hate extrimist who kill innocent people, I hate the idea that Bush is getting away with what otherwise would be "crimes against humanity" simply because he's the one bossing the world. Double standards for you, yeah life isn't fair, tough.

But all empires fall in the end. This one has covered basically the whole planet, what will happen when it falls? Just because the provider of its "entertainment" corrupted the congress that runs the planet itself.

If the SSSCA bill pass through, I'd like to see what kind of a country the US would be in a couple of decades, if not the world. People who don't like the idea would stop using computers and technology. The idea of Amish society doesn't seem so bad after all, live simpler lives without Disney crap that you don't need anyway. We could return to music making with real analog instruments and public performances of real artists, performances for donations, recorded using a pencil on music sheets. As for the internet, I can imagine that they would try to monitor all forms of data communication next. Non-certified publishers (aka servers) will not be allowed to serve content. Only AOL Time Warner will be left, serving you, yet again, crap, the internet turned into a TV, like a slashdotter has said. The "greatest thing after the industrial revolution" lived to a ripe age of 25 (born 1975) and died a slow painful death.

I can go on, but am I still coherent?

My rant on this topic, and the US government.

Yes this is very 1984ish. When this law passes "Big Brother is watching" gets that much closer to reality. You have your 1984 TV that spreads the propaganda, the propaganda that only they can produce. And it watches you (let's see what MS will build into its OS), and you can't turn the device off (The DMCA Thought Police will get you).

Someone supposed to be representing the people has actually been paid by a couple of corporations to promote their own interest. The idiot Hollings is only after money, but isn't that politics nowadays, money and public opinion, I believe Bush knew more about Enron than he's saying, come on Bush and Cheney were/are in the oil business goddammit!

Why are we only attacking the evil that is SSSCA, not the evil that is the corruption that is running the government? I believe a revolution is overdue. And it won't be televised, because guess who owns the media? Why haven't we seen anything on CNN? Or Time Magazine?

Furthermore, I can't believe what is happening to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Yes they are being refused prisoner of war status, they are on hunger strike, last I read. They are ready to die for their beliefs, and hell no the US Govt isn't going to let them die, but if they die anyway, who's going to prosecute the US? Imagine if those are US soldiers being held captive in Iraq. Bush would be nuking Saddam's ass and he (Mr. Hussein) would be Milosevic's cellmate in no time, but no, the US Govt is running the show here. As much as I hate extrimist who kill innocent people, I hate the idea that Bush is getting away with what otherwise would be "crimes against humanity" simply because he's the one bossing the world. Double standards for you, yeah life isn't fair, tough.

But all empires fall in the end. This one has covered basically the whole planet, what will happen when it falls? Just because the provider of its "entertainment" corrupted the congress that runs the planet itself.

If the SSSCA bill pass through, I'd like to see what kind of a country the US would be in a couple of decades, if not the world. People who don't like the idea would stop using computers and technology. The idea of Amish society doesn't seem so bad after all, live simpler lives without Disney crap that you don't need anyway. We could return to music making with real analog instruments and public performances of real artists, performances for donations, recorded using a pencil on music sheets. As for the internet, I can imagine that they would try to monitor all forms of data communication next. Non-certified publishers (aka servers) will not be allowed to serve content. Only AOL Time Warner will be left, serving you, yet again, crap, the internet turned into a TV, like a slashdotter has said. The "greatest thing after the industrial revolution" lived to a ripe age of 25 (born 1975) and died a slow painful death.

I can go on, but am I still coherent?

"There is no question that Microsoft's conduct violated the law and harmed competition and consumers. Netscape's lawsuit seeks not only an award of damages, but for the Court to provide injunctive relief that will help restore competition on the computer desktop. We support the efforts and goals of the non-settling state attorneys general who continue to seek appropriate remedies to end Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct and illegal activities. The aims of Netscape's lawsuit are entirely consistent with their efforts."

May sound absurd but I know that AOL and NASCAR had some kind of mobile web access thing going. There is a picture of it on Here. Of course, I am not sure how cost effective it is to have two satellite dishes on top of an old mac truck.

Hello:

AOLTW owns New Line Cinema. Here is a link: http://aoltimewarner.com/about/index.html.

With all the hype surrounding LoTR and Harry Potter, I have been wondering who has a financial stake in these movies. As usual, Google came to the rescue and revealed that AOL-Time Warner invested in both. In case anybody was wondering...

With a behemoth like AOL/Time Warner making noise about pushing into this territory (see this Steve Case speech, about halfway down), I think it's a good thing to have a company with Microsoft's resources give them some competition. Odds are we'll end up not with a monopoly, but an oligopoly.

...an AOL Time Warner company.

[Insert conspiracy here.]

If you count cable subscribers then:

• Comcast/AT&T Broadband would have 22 million customers
• Time Warner Cable has 12.7 million customers

If you count Internet access then:

• Comcast/AT&T BroadBand would have roughly 2 million subscribers
• America Online would have 30 million subscribers

If you count cable subscribers then:

• Comcast/AT&T Broadband would have 22 million customers
• Time Warner Cable has 12.7 million customers

If you count Internet access then:

• Comcast/AT&T BroadBand would have roughly 2 million subscribers
• America Online would have 30 million subscribers

Street Cents, a show on CBC (yeah, I know, 90% of you don't get CBC) had a show a while back about these high school kids in Halifax who set up a recording studio business in their basement. It was pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, as parent poster proficiently pointed out, marketing is the problem. Specifically, radio. Radio is what sells records, and payola is as much alive today as it was way back before "New Year's Rockin' Eve" was even a twinkle in Dick Clarks' eye. His eyes were too busy being used along with his fingers to count all his "investment income". The only difference between then and now is that it's not DJ's who see the big bucks, but the executives who run the gigantic media conglomerates. :(

Not even Freenet is immune to such an attack, if sufficient resources are behind it. Remember, in addition to being major media producers, some of the RIAA members also have a stake in broadband internet access. That means they've got a lot of bandwidth to work with.

Not even Freenet is immune to such an attack, if sufficient resources are behind it. Remember, in addition to being major media producers, some of the RIAA members also have a stake in broadband internet access. That means they've got a lot of bandwidth to work with.

You seem to be forgetting who owns the mainstream media (among other things).

Can anyone provide a link to show that the song is, indeed, 0wned by AOL/Time Warner?

Damn them, Damn them all to hell

From your reference:

The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families.

Certainly Time Warner can do better than $52K ... or perhaps they should re-think taking on Microsoft.

-yb