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Try imaging the animated Aladdin without the manic improvisation of Robin Williams.

They're ahead of you on that one, guess who.

http://www.nme.com/news/film/w...

At lease it's not Samuel L Jackson. Not that I have a problem with him or he's not good or anything but he is in seriously everything these day. You can barely see a sanitary pad advert without his mug popping up.

See: Radiohead.

Article: "Radiohead won't repeat 'In Rainbows' release / Band says pay-what-you-like system won't happen again"
Source: http://www.nme.com/news/radioh...
What was your point exactly?

Maybe we should get a kickstarter going? http://www.nme.com/news/justin-bieber/67705

Apparently Putin thinks that he is Cal Worthington

I'm one of the guys behind an open source music hardware project (meeblip.com) and strongly against NC/ND restrictions. They exist out of fear and stand counter to the central tenant of open source (*anyone* should be able to study, modify, distribute, make and sell the design or a derivative work based on that design).

Sorry,

The key assumption in your argumentation: "open source software/hardware" and "open artistic creation" are identical. I assert that there's a fundamental difference between the two:

1. software/hardware is an engineering problem, and the results can be improved, polished, maintained over time in sync with technological advances.

2. By contrast, an artistic creation is meant to transmit/produce emotions/feelings/sensations etc... For some creations, the author may feel that any change in the expression would alter too much the intentions s/he had when creating it
Say whatever one may, no-one - maybe not even the author - can "improve" on a specific artistic creation

Yes, you can try to use an existing creation to build something equally appealing to the people, but in doing so you are going to dilute the original authors intentions (if not outright destroying them entirely).

Another example

Pink Floyd's attorney Robert Howe describes the band's albums as "seamless pieces." No-one who's heard 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' would quibble with that.

You know, I do agree with that and not only in respect with The Dark side of the moon.

My opinion is: the "open source" or "closed license" character for an artistic creation is irrelevant - the creator's wish is to be respected . Anything else would show a lack of respect for the original creative act, which I would say is more dangerous for society than the potential loss of another derivative creation.

Yeah, just like Lily Allen, who said she was giving up music for good because of all those filthy pirates.

Oh...I guess until her acting career didn't pan out, then it's back into the studio! Guess those pirates weren't such a drag after all.

And, just because I love it so fucking much, Dan Bull's response to her 'quitting music'.

Yes, we need an "artist exploitation watchlist", so that Elvis Costello and Motörhead don't have to go out and publically WARN their fans against buying over-priced box sets made to line the pockets of record company executives.

When it comes to music... realism can be fun, if you can are good enough to play.

From what they show, Pro Mode is completely optional, and nobody is required to play any instrument in a realistic fashion. It's just an option for those that might want to take it to the next level in order to play realistically, learn to play realistically, or shut up the constant "learn to play a real guitar!" and similar quips.

It sounds like a great option to me, and might even be instrumental (no pun intended) in getting some kids into actual music.

Now High School kids can quit school to join a real band (like a real rock star!) instead of doing it for a video game like this kid:

http://www.nme.com/news/nme/39065

Come on. The files aren't that big... your neighbor must have really shitty wi-fi if it takes that long to download.

If he only downloaded U2's good stuff, it'd be damn fast even with a slow connection. And you're right... the files are really, really small.

[dan@x1 u2]$ ls -l
total 0

In fact, all of U2's best tracks come preinstalled with every filesystem. The guitarist got it right when he said U2 are going to leave their skid mark on the festival.

You might like this article then:

X Factor winner Joe McElderry has branded Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name' "dreadful" after finally hearing his chart nemesis.

The star, who is currently 11,000 sales ahead of the Los Angeles band with 'The Climb', said he hated the track.

"They can't be serious!" he said. "I had no idea what it sounded like. It's dreadful and I hate it. How could anyone enjoy this? Can you imagine the grandmas hearing this over Christmas lunch?

"I wouldn't buy it. It's a nought out of ten from me. Simon Cowell wouldn't like it. They wouldn't get through to boot camp on The X Factor - they're just shouting."

http://news.cnet.com/Study-File-sharing-boosts-music-sales/2100-1023_3-898813.html

http://nme.com/news/44688

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=25462&mode=threaded&pid=225929

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/01/20/dutch.study.file.sharing/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090828/0444096038.shtml

Actually there was one study that showed the opposite -- it was done by the IFPI. It took all of one minute on Google to find those citations.

Sadly your lack of arguments leads to flamebaiting. However try lawsuits for ridiculous sums of money that do not reflect real loss of income. Its one thing to pay for your damages, but if you actually consider this fair then I can only hope someone shoots your kneecap off with a shotgun the next time you make an illegal turn or drive too fast. It's called excessive sentencing, hope you'll like it.

Shame it'll just be written off with excuses like it always is all over the world.

Put your hands against the car, we're winning the war on drugs

In relation to this, it is amazing to me how many sites are able to set the tone for the conversation without having a forum/comment section on their own site.

Pitchfork Media has some of the most controversial music reviews. I still don't think you can leave a comment directly on their pages. Compare that to NME, where the first review I opened had a comment section.

From the political isle: Instapundit Glenn Reynolds and Matt Drudge's Druge Report. These two pages set the tone for many (not all) conversations in the conservative blogosphere, yet no direct comment section. Same for the conservative magazine National Review. I'm wearing my political beliefs on my sleeve here. I invite someone to post a liberal site sans comments, I can't think of one on the top of my head.

The effect of removing a comment section forces the reader to search out if someone has a counterpoint to your opinion, which while it may not be terribly difficult via google, is something people simply are not accustomed to doing. This has two effects. It protects your reputation, since it is possible that someone reading your page would never know an opposing opinion. As an extension of that, since your reputation is far cleaner than a page with potential detracting comments, your message is securely delivered - whether it is that pitchfork thinks band x is good and they are also sponsoring a music festival featuring band x that you should purchase tickets for (no direct conflict of interest there!), or that you think policy y position is a good one and that you have friends that would benefit if policy y is advanced (Larry Kudlow at NRO here).

It may not necessarily be a mark of cowardice to not have direct comments on your site, but the inclusion of it is definitely a mark of bravery.

Certainly, but only insofar as a natural resource - such as oil, water or land is a government enforced monopoly.

Totally and unequivocally false.

Natural resources are both rivalrous and excludable. Information is not. Copyright is an attempt to artifically make information rivalrous and excludable. Any, and I mean, ANY comparison you try to make between real property and information is going to fail on the critical points because rivalousness and excludability are the defining characteristics of the debate.

There is no such "natural right of free expression".

Totally and unequivocally false.

In the natural state - with no intereference from anyone else like the government - people are free to express any idea. ANY IDEA. Be it original or not.

[custom recordings] If it was that large, it would be happening right now, all the time.

Do I need to say it again? You are on a roll.
No way any major record label is going to permit custom recordings - they own the copyrights preventing the people with the actual creative talent from making use of it in new ways that satisfy new market opportunities.

[subscriptions] Didn't work for Stephen King. Didn't work for Radio Head. Doesn't work anywhere else either.

Here, you can have another -- Totally and unequivocally false.

Stephen King was an idiot, he (a) used the honor system, not subscriptions (b) required a 75% renumeration rate instead of a fixed price - with all of the libraries and used book sales he doesn't get 75% of all readers of paper books, he was a fool to expect to do better, at a higher price, for electronic downloads and (c) the story sucked - failure of people to pay for crap is no failure at all. It is the market at work without the government interfering.

Radiohead didn't do the subscription model either - they used a form of the honor system too and they made more money that way than their LABEL grossed on the entire sales run of their previous album.

Your system would ensure that only sure-fire movies ever got made, and that the escrow people would get rich off it.

Who are these "escrow people" you speak of? The escrow model is only slightly different from the subscription model - it just isn't regular like a subscription. Individuals who wish for a creative work to be created pay into the escrow fund until it reaches the creator's asking price, the creator then gets to work and releases to the public domain. If not enough people pay in, the creator either reduces the asking price or decides not to do the work and returns the money previously collected. Just like the subscription model and even most of the current copyright based model - the more well received a creator's previous work, the more money they can charge for their next work because popularity means more people willing to pay.

Say goodbye to anything which has a high cost to get going. Because your models have proven time and time again not to work.

Lol, you don't even understand the models enough to cite actual failures - you cite other models that succeeded - you don't have a damn clue what you are talking about.

no magazine publisher makes a profit on subscriptions

And HBO, Showtime and Rainbow Media all makes lots of profit on what are essentially subscriptions today.

Where nearly all artists never make a dime off their work. And you want to make it worse for them? Have you ever created anything of any kind of worth in your life? Have you ever even tried?

Quit it with the holier and thou bullshit. I walk the talk. For over a decade I've worked solely on contract. It is precisely because I make a very good living this way - I get paid for the work I do to produce creations that my clients want

Once you have that, you have an issue with free speech rights being trampled as the government tries to regulate what it obscene or not.

Clearly, Obscenity is a statue of a naked women giving birth.

No really: http://www.nme.com/awards

Now that Motorola has the hardware working, they can consider cutting Apple out of the loop. By, say, cutting a deal with WalMart.

Actually, his new spoken word album is not that bad. In particular the song linked (which you can listen to for free) is very good. It is a cover of a classic britpop song "Common People" by Pulp. Give it a listen. http://www.nme.com/features/110018.htm/

Nope, NPG is now Sony.

Here is a good history of the legend known as prince.

And yet despite all this rampant piracy, UK album sales are actually up 7.6% to a record 121 million sales in 2003.

So which side is winning again? Is it the pirates or the record companies? God I'm confused...

The result is an album that feels wonderfully alive, is unbelievably re-listenable, and has really good dynamics. Recording using old analog equipment captures their groove far better than any high-tech digital whiz-bang system could even dream of.

Thank goodness not every band is falling into the trap of "perfect pitch" and metronome steady beats. Just play your songs and record them. If you can't sound good that way, then, well, you're not really a worthwhile band, are you?

-S

From a legal standpoint, it is fairly clear, The White Stripes copied the lyrics and gave no credit and no royalties to the actual author. What is interesting is the moral or even economic dilemma: The White Stripes almost certainly did nothing to harm the movie Citizen Kane. In fact, they probably inspired some people to watch the movie who otherwise would not have watched it. Economically, the products are non-competing, as one who wants to watch a movie will not susbstitute a song for the movie, and vice versa.

Just curious as to /.ers opinions on the matter.

Rage Against the Machine would like to sincerely apologise to all of our fans who were kicked off of Napster for downloading 'Renegades'. The move to take action against Rage fans was taken completely unilaterally by our new management. In their zeal to keep the record from getting out before the release date, they did not consult the band before instructing Sony Music Corp. to institute the Napster ban. As soon as I was made aware of this horrible mistake on their part, I immediately phoned our management and the record company to see what we could do to get our Napster-using fans reinstated as soon as possible. I'm told that the easiest way to get back on Napster as quickly as possible is to download one of many files floating around on the Internet to get around the ban.

As a result of the leak, the album will now be released on Monday (May 27).

If the problem is defined as "pre-release cheap copies will stop people buying later, full price copies", haven't the advocates for change won a battle here?

I mean, hasn't the record company just realised that artificial marketing delays inherent in the offline distribution process are likely to hurt their sales?

By releasing the album electronically with (1) fast servers, (2) lossless compression and (3) a reasonable price, and simultaneously sending "gimme airplay!" copies to radio stations (etc.) as is done now, they could cut this sort of "I don't want to wait" piracy down. Sure people will still re-rip the album at 128KB/s and make it available through P2P, but they were going to do that anyway. What do the record companies have to lose, by adopting the practice I have described?

Ditto for software. Clearly you're not going to get packaging, cover-art, glossy manuals or whatever, through TCP/IP, but doesn't the prevalence of warez and pirated music blatantly show that a sh1tload of people simply don't care? How hard is it to put a "download PDF manual | snailmail me a hardcopy for $5" option together? Or just make the manuals available in normal bookstores?

Thank god they shut down napster and stopped piracy.

The CD-Rs were most likely burned from mp3s downloaded from P2P networks. Besides, 10s of thousands of CDs distributed mostly in urban U.S. cities is hardly comparable to the millions that were downloaded across the globe on napster.

Besides, Taco, you almost sound like you condone music piracy. Aren't you the one who said "I wish people wouldn't steal"?

Whoever put my shit on the Internet, I want to meet that motherfucker and beat the shit out of him... - Eminem ( quote)

..however, you can add these people (nme.com article) to the For: (or in some cases, "not against") Napster list:

• Courtney Love, Hole
• Dave Rowntree, Blur
• Bobby Gillespie, Primal Scream

qube

Actually, I believe there is a zero-g porno movie. Liam Howlett from the Prodigy and 3D from Massive Attack made the music. Obviously, they didn't shoot the film in space; they borrowed the vomit comet. It's called The Uranus Experiment.
Here's the story at NME
--
"I was a fool to think I could dream as a normal man."