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How long before a talented bunch of individuals are capable of making high quality movies without the industries backing.

What? You haven't seen Star Wreck? Hilarious and better than half the dreck from hollywood. And it's a free download! DUDE!!!!

Let's see you do better with a $10,000 budget.

Some Finnish kids did a damned good job for less.

nobody is going to make The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars in their basement.

Someone already made Star Trek in their basement, so Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings wouldn't seem to be that hard to do.

You assume that the MAFIAA doesn't want you getting a free copy of Metallica's "Free Speech for the Dumb" or Paramount's "Star Trek VII". That's not what they really fear. What the RIAA fears is independants who aren't on their labels; a pirated copy of Metallica doesn't cost them a dime, but if you download that indie title, like it, and buy it, that's money that doesn't go to the RIAA for their crap.

And I'm sure the MPAA is scared shitless of Star Wreck. Better than most crap Hollywood produces, was shot for a few thousand bucks, and given away free at the link above (you can also buy a copy). The MAFIAA can't compete with independants; MAFIAA crap is too expensive to produce to be able to compete.

So they scream "piracy" and try to shut down their competetion's only form of advertising and distribution.

I dunno if that's bad or not. The Finnish girl in Star Wreck looks hot. Not bad for a fan-made parody.

So just outright deny reality to "support" your arguments? Don't try to pretend we need the current copyright monopoly systems. We don't, as evidenced by history and current successfully crowdsourced movies. A kid with blender can produce movies that outclass the most visually impressive ones of yesteryear anyway. You don't need a high budget to make an adequately good movie anymore, if you ever did. Who's to say we even need more high-budget movies? We don't build big wasteful pyramids anymore either.

People are supporting Iron Sky in large part because of Energia's proven reputation with earlier stuff like Star Wreck. And Star Wreck: In the Pirkinnning isn't the first Star Wreck. They started out like like this, and grew their own skills through practice, their business and their reputation over the years. As it should be.

While it's been around in the USA almost since the USA was founded I suppose, to europeans (and presumably the asian cultures), copyright monopoly is just something our societies tried for a few years over the thousands of years of our history, and we can abandon it tomorrow if it proves too damaging, which it's well on the way of becoming. And hey, assuming for a moment that copyright law IS making it artificially profitable to work on imaginary crap and endlessly sue eachother, and america's bitching about how few people are going engineering instead of law and arts, well, maybe they should stop making being a lawyer or artist so profitable via copyright law.

Here ya go!

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/12/17/1943224/Stargate-Universe-Cancelled
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/06/18/batman-fan-film-city-of-scars/
http://www.starwreck.com/
http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/
http://www.pioneerone.tv/

If they were trying to say "this is the future of movies" they failed. It looked like a game trailer.

Star Wreck - In the Pirkinning was WAY better.

People are constantly pointing to the music industry and their staggering profits as being in disarray, but if you ask any artist out there, all piracy did was help destroy the old brick and mortar and CD model, and gave even the smallest indie band an opportunity to level the playing field.

Indeed, Roger McGuinn's career was all but over when the labels stopped supporting him; "you're too old, kids are into different stuff now". He was playing bars and coffehouses when his old records started hitting the original pirate Napster. He credits P2P with revitalizing his career.

That's exectly why the MPAA/RIAA is against "piracy" -- it levels the playing field and introduces a meritocracy. People will willingly pay for quality, but they'll only buy crap if you pull the wool over their eyes.

I'll bet Star Wreck scares the hell out of the MPAA.

Why would anyone purchase a creative commons movie?

Because they liked it? Because they want to support the creators in a direct way?

There's also always the fact that you get a physical artefact. For example, I have the DVDs from the Star Wreck folks. Yeah, I could have just downloaded the Star Wreck 6 when it was out, but heck, if you've waited the film to come out for years, getting a physical DVD from the creators before the thing officially hits the net is still as awesome as ever.

I mean, I have the original Star Wreck videos as crappy home-burned VCDs from years gone by. Extremely smudgy inkjet covers and marker labelling looks a little bit corny when compared to the actual printed DVD covers and factory-made DVDs. =)

I *did* say "a couple of decades".

You think practice is going to help these folks? You sir, are an optimist of the most impressive degree.

This is Christmas, so I'll overlook the tiny mistake :-)

Try http://www.starwreck.com/

Seriously, even if 99.44% is still garbage, that leaves some good stuff. It's like literature - there's a lot that comes in on the slush pile, but that doesn't mean that it's *all* slush.

We dont need them. Their budgets are way too high, they pay their actors more per film than most people make in a lifetime, and for what...for them to stand around and woodenly repeat lines made by writers who are worse than your average third grader?

trek '09? terminator salvation? harry potter?
give me a BREAK!

We don't need them! The faster they die the better!

That is, they sell albums based on people wanting just one or two songs.

The recording industry was singles-based for most of its history. A 78 held only one song per side. A 45 only held one song per side*. It was 1948 before the twelve inch album was premiered.

Beginning in 1939, Dr. Peter Goldmark and his staff at Columbia Records undertook efforts to address problems of recording and playing back narrow grooves and developing an inexpensive, reliable consumer playback system. In 1948, the 12-inch (30 cm) Long Play (LP) 33 rpm microgroove record album was introduced by the Columbia Record Company at a New York press conference on June 21, 1948. In February 1949, RCA Victor released the first 45 rpm single, 7 inches in diameter, with a large center hole to accommodate an automatic play mechanism on the changer, so a stack of singles would drop down one record at a time automatically after each play. Early 45 rpm records were made from either vinyl or polystyrene.[22] They had a playing time of eight minutes.[23]

Most albums were "greatest hits" or other compilations; if you wanted a single you bought the 45 single.

During the 1960s and 1970s, many rock and roll bands made "concept albums" that were meant to be pleyed in their entirety; Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, most Pink Floyd offerings, and many more.

When the CD came out is when the "album theivery" where you had to buy a whole CD full of second rate songs to get the one good one.

Why does a movie that cost $100 million to produce cost the same as a music CD that maybe cost $10 million (or $1 million, or less)?

Less; far less. You can get a record recorded in a professional studio and 1000 copies professionally duplicated with cover art and so on for the price of a good PA system and a few mikes (every band needs a good PA and mikes).

Good music can be produced for next to nothing, whereas it is much more difficult to do that with movies.

This movie scares the hell out of Hollywood. A parody of Star Trek and Babylon Five, it's very well done and hilarious. You can download it for free from the linked site (the producers of the movie). It only cost a few thousand dollars to make.

* The humorous song "They're Coming to Take Me Away" had a "B" side that was the song played backwards

Do me a favor and call me when someone posts a home-made movie on YouTube that is, I dunno, let's say 10% as well-made, written, and acted as Star Trek.

Here you go: Star Wreck - In the Pirkinning. Free, made by five students in Finland in their spare time in a two-room apartment, and not far off the quality of Star Trek movies. It's originally in Finnish, but subtitled and dubbed versions are available. Some of the humour may not be apparent to those unfamiliar with modern Finnish culture, and many puns are lost in translation.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=star+wreck+in+the+pirkinning&search_type=&aq=0&oq=star+wreck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wreck:_In_the_Pirkinning
The high resolution version is now distributed by Universal on DVD. But you can still download the low resolution version from http://www.starwreck.com/ Or you can watch it on Youtube - it's uploaded in several parts due to its length...

You don't even have to set the entertainment industry back to the 40's. Starwreck is a good example of that.

in that they make the Prequels better than the Original films.

Otherwise it will become another Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and mess up some of the continuity in the original films and TV series, and have a plot that does not make sense, and acting that was not as good as the originals as they are using new actors and actresses that hardly anyone heard of before and have not yet fully learned the art of acting.

At least make the Prequel better than the Star Wreck parody. I am sorry to say but Even Stark trek fan based films seem to be better than the original most recent Star Trek films, since Gene Roddenberry passed away. Maybe they should hire some of the Star Trek fans who made those films to help make the Prequels, if the current Star Trek film bombs? When Gene Roddenberry was alive, he was able to write or at least inspire the writers to have a good plot that follows logic and inspire the actors to act better, and have better combat and drama and more Sci Fi than Space Opera. I got a bad felling that this Prequel will end up more Space Opera than Sci Fi and deal more with relationships and personal issues between the characters than the Sci Fi story it should be. I hope it does not become, gasp, "Broke Back Starfleet Academy" or something. ;)

There was one possibly unintentionally funny moment in on of the "Stargate" episodes where they have thirty seconds to get the computers online and show what you get to see in the first few minutes of a Solaris bootup.

There is a very intentionally funny one visible in Starwreck where a starship with a massively powerful weapon fires, and it drains every bit of power available. After a couple of secs, lights switch back on and you can see BIOS messages on the screen that is visible. Go and get it, it's full of funny quirks like that - quality humour..

Clearly, you are not aware of the upcoming movie Iron Skies. (From the makers of Starwreck for those of you who have seen it. For those who haven't... It is available as a free download.)

P.S. This isn't advertising... Or well, it is but I am in no way assosciated to the people making those. Just seemed fitting here...

The bits used for online banking are also free... you're confusing the value of data with the medium

In your example, the bits aren't the money, they merely count it. They have no value whatever to anyone but the banker. In a music CD, the bits are supposed to BE the money, completely unlike the data that flows between banks.

Actually their [the Golgafrinchans'] actions were quite rational, like farmers destroying crops to keep prices up.

There's nothing rational about destroying food when there are people starving. That's just self-serving evil. The kind of self-serving evil that mammon worshipers support. I do not subscribe to your religion.

The nature of the digital world leads to a tragedy of the commons, there is no loss to inviduals copying, but the net result of their actions unchecked is a degradation of the market to the point where the goods they download will no longer be made.

I want music to be neither "goods" nor a "market". Music will continue to not only be made, but be recorded. The indies put their music on the internet for free. When the RIAA dies there will still be music. When the "music industry" dies there will still be music.

The same goes for films. The cost of recording music has dropped to the point that anyone with the most modest budget can record music, yet industry continues to charge as if recordings were expensive to make and distribute.

The cost of making movies is likewise dropping. You can download an amateur-made movie that has better acting, directing, and special effects than many Hollywood films. There have been some real stinkers come out of the "industry", as anyone who has ever sat through a "B movie" knows.

For the US to base its future economic growth on movies and music is past insanity, even past stupidity. If we don't get rid of the bought and paid for politicians and get some statesmen, we as a society are doomed.

As to your "tragedy of the commons", the commons sustained itself for hundreds of years. "The tragedy of the commons" was a fiction put forth by landowners to grab the common lands for their own benefit. The true tragedy of the commons was that the commons were privatized, further impoverishing the commoners who had used those commons.

With the permission from the community in question. You need to make distinction between creators of the work and the public that uses and distributes the work. One would assume that if they get contributors aboard, each of them will understand what they're going to do with the work, right?

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was released under BY-NC-ND, and was definitely a "community work" in every sense of the expression. It's also sold on DVD, for profit - by the creators. -NC just means you aren't allowed to make a copy and then sell it yourself.

as long as Stephen Hawking is still alive, I am sure he can handle it. After all Stephen Hawking beat all the other great scientists in poker with Commander Data in the far future, so he should be smarter than Picard or Kirk. If anyone knows how to reverse a black hole it would be Hawking.

Besides never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon Five problem.

PayPal tells me that a copy of "Dirty Wings" is headed in my direction. I tasted two or three tracks and liked them - so I bought a copy. If you like SF/Star-Trek try New Voyages or Star Wreck They both use the same model. If you're into some seriously cool (although the business model is somewhat more commercial) DVDs try Animusic. They aren't free, but they are self-published.
C:\>

Ever seen "Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning? It's hollywood's worst nightmare. It's hilarious. It has your "magical Hollywood special effects" that now only need the same kind of PC you have on your desk.

If they showed it in a theater I'd pay to see it there, even though I've already seen it on my 42 inch TV (s-video out from the computer).

The world has changed. If Hollywood doesn't want to give their crown to Finland they had better change with the times. The old ways of business are no longer possible with the advent of cheap computers that can do all of the special effects anyone wants to do, and the internet to publicize and distribute them.

When the environment changes drastically, an organism (or industry) must evolve or die. The carriage manufacturers that didn't go on to become automobile manufacturers died. The vaudville performers that didn't go on to become movie stars went the way of the buggy whip as well. If Holly wood wants to survive it has to figure out a way to live within the new paradigm. The asteroid has hit and the dinasaurs are in deep trouble.

And here is the #1 group of pirates they should fear!

These MPAA clowns are the same bozos who said the VCR was the movie industry's biggest threat a couple of decades ago.

No, the stakes ARE higher. See, nobody needs the majors any more!

The old Napster was the RIAA's wakeup call - that is, Napster and Roger McGuinn (of the '60s band "The Byrds"), who was playing in bars for peanuts, all his albums long out of print, when P2P introduced a new generation to his music. McGuinn credited P2P for the resurgence of his career.

Just as it could reintroduce a long-forgotten artist, it could introduce a new one. You can "download" the entire top-40 from your radio, legal and for free. The RIAA doesn't mind a bit, since they know good and damned well that if you like it, you're most likely going to buy it (or McGuinn would still be playing bars for peanuts). That is why they killed internet radio and are trying to kill P2P - they can't control it. You might hear an indie you like. If you buy two indie CDs, that's an RIAA CD you can no longer afford (since the RIAA CDs generally cost twice as much).

The "pirates" they're really after is their legitimate, legal competetion.

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was the MPAA's wakeup calll. If you haven't seen this flick, do so, it's as funny and well made as any MPAA fare. And it was done by amateurs for a pittance. I'm sure there are yellow stains on every major film executive's chair!

The majors are no longer needed, not by the artists or the audience. So it is indeed a life or death situation. Either they kill the internet or die trying.

R.I.P., M.A.F.I.A.A.

-mcgrew

There are a lot of legal bittorrent downloads. Most linux distros are available this way as well as a large number of public domain movies.

http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/
http://www.starwreck.com/download.php
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Ever seen Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning? Now tell me, your "normal" motion picture (think ("Live Free or Die Hard") cost $175,000,000 to produce. Star Wreck cost a couple thousand, including CGI, sets, costumes, the whole shebang.

Money does not equal quality. You do not always get what you pay for. If the salesman says "you get what you pay for" hold on to your wallet, sucker. Any Linux-using nerd should know that you don't always pay for what you get, either. I mean, what, $500 for Vista and $0 for the infinitely superior Ubantu.

There's no reason a game should retail at $60 while a movie retails at $15, and no reason why a game needs a big budget. The original DOOM was done by half a dozen guys and nobody has yet to equal its fun, not even the high graphics, big budget successors.

-mcgrew

PS- methinks the ESRB may become gaming's version of the RIAA, eventually existing only to squeeze out new players as the RIAA now does with its fight against P2P and internet radio.

...and after finding the link to their number, 1-800-394-4263, at their Contact Page, I called to get their take on this. I asked why they'd choose to alienate their fan base like this, and was told "to protect our IP". I asked just what the rationale was for this decision, and the response once again was "to protect our IP." I asked who made the decision, and the CS rep wouldn't say, just restating that it was their IP. "I know," I told them, "but using Star Trek as an example, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was lovingly made by fans of ST and Bab5 as a nice spoof. They weren't sued; they were encouraged." The rep once again quietly parroted "but it's OUR IP...", and I gave up.

You know, the biggest ripoff of all has got to be ever extending copyright. Everytime recorded media is about to loose it's "protection" the industry buys an extention from congress. Movies and music that were made with copyright protection of 25 years is still protected 100 years later. Each time the industry does this, they rob the public of what the public was due when the material was produced. When copyright is extended beyond average life spans, the public domain is never enriched with relevant material.

A more insidious issue is one of cultural control. It's not even done because studios think the old material is a revenue maker, they are afraid of competition that can take away their control. The older material could compete for mindshare and it carries it's message with it. That message can be jarring to someone locked inside the broadcast monopoly box, and that disturbance is the start of independent thought. It does not happen when all of the messages you get are consistent. Broadened taste is something industry and government abhor. Concentrated production can't keep up with real popular taste and government can't control distributed production.

This has already happened, to a small extent with net flicks and to a larger extent for those willing to risk punishment for file swapping. Netflicks circulation numbers show that people will take choices when offered. Something goofey, like 90%, of their titles are in circulation at any given time - people want it all, not just the blockbusters.

A free market for movies and music will emerge, but the broadcast monopolies are doing everything they can to thwart it. Physical distribution can't really keep up and electronic distribution will end their monopoly. Anyone can put a movie on the internet. This is why Disney would rather you not download Steamboat Willy and why all the studios are desperate to end network neutrality. YouTube is killing them. Not because people are watching their old crap, because people are watching what they want.

With a net worth equal to three and a half years of NASA's budget, it's a wonder why he doesn't build his own space program to the ISS, instead of simply paying the Russians for a seat. He could probably even build a space armada. Plus, to be a contender in the world-wide alpha-geek competition these days, you've got to go above and beyond what's already been done.

Of course the performance allowed by vanilla X is so godawful, that to get any decent performance at all requires "extensions" to X that basically ignore X architecture and are essentially hacks to provide high performance that wasn't even considered in the decade X was invented.

Next, you will tell me that M$ did it better? Give me a break. I watch movies in X and I've played games in X, it works just fine. Think about it - if X can render high definition movies, like this one, it should also be able to render a game that looks just as good as a movie. I've watched that movie on a 233 MHz PII. It blew up to 1024x768 fullscreen without a problem, just like Intel swore MMC would back in 1998.

The real but surmountable problem is that none of the major hardware makers but Intel are co-operating with free software developers. It's amazing how the X framework is able to absorb those "hacks" when accelerated graphics drivers are available, free or non free. That's why Linux system requirements are usually much lower than M$. When those accelerated drivers are not there, some games can crawl.

Let's say you just hate X because your crazy. That's OK, because you don't really need X for gaming. libSVGA does nicely. PS2 and PS3 also show what can be done when you are not encumbered by M$ legacy crap.

http://www.starwreck.com/

Really well done.

You're still ignoring that Bush has controlled that entire government for 6 years.

I'm not talking aboug "reading between the lines". I'm talking about writing policy as a smokescreen for the real agenda, to put nukes in space.

Michael Griffin was a Star Wars scientist, and now NASA is putting Star Wars tech in space.

Your "order" is nonsense. There is a chance to stop Bush and his Republican government next month on Election Day. If that fails, of course the courts can and will do nothing to stop him, especially as Bush gradually replaces them with his private judges. By the time "ammo" is all that's left, the country is destroyed, with armed gangs ruling the ruins.

If you want to see updated TOS CGI, see Star Wreck, a really silly Finnish fan movie that sets Captain "Pirk" against Babylon 5. The whole thing was done in bluescreen, except for some scenes in a fast food shop.... but really, the CGI ships are cool.

If people actually wanted Viiv-like products, there'd be a lot more do-it-yourself versions while we're waiting for Intel. If the problem were a lack of software, there'd be plenty of open-source projects by impatient hackersthat's how we got Napster and BitTorrent. But the geeks seem uninterested. Where are the obsessive bloggers? The forum feuds? The amateur meetups? Show me any truly hot technology, and I'll show you 100,000 guys who can't wait to tell you about it. Has anyone bored you to death talking about their Media Center PC lately?

This is a joke, right?

People are talking, but you can't do it with free software. Just telling people how will get you tossed in jail, thanks to the DMCA and greedy big media. Rather than buy a big screen TV, I'd love to have a projector and stereo hooked up to computer. I've already got my music collection digitized. The access and convenience of Amarok are awesome. It would be great to do the same thing with movies. The cost of a projector is about the same as a big TV, but it's much more portable and gives better quality. The problem is CSS. I can't watch or archive DVD movies with my software. It's against the law to distribute software that would let me in the US or even tell people what sites in countries with sane laws have it.

Did they name the article "Myth" for kicks or what? So many people talk about Mythtv, it's hard to believe a Slate Editor has not heard of it. It even made it into the EFF's "Corruptables" video.

You can do it with non free software, sort of. The author mentions the miserable death of ViiV. Paul Boutin did not receive his promissed test model and wonders why. He must have missed this Washington Post review where the damn thing did not work at all because of all the DRM nonsense. You might be able to watch current DVDs if you fall all the way back to Windoze 98SE and have a stash of the now illegal Xcopy and other software required. The network and file system restrictions of such a computer would make most people cry, but it's the easiest route for honest people. People unafraid of the law have been swapping movies almost forever, but the effort and risks are way to great for "normal" people who will just rent a video. Yes, you can even find software that works with your free software, it's just a huge pain all around and you will again be stuck with a static system because upgrades will break it. Contraband is not free, it's not convenient and it's hard to trust.

Big Media is the root cause. They do not want their media on computers they don't have complete control over. They want it to act like a cable box, to shove adds down your throat, tell you what you can watch and when and how much you will pay for it all. Given that most media buffs already have a cable box and all the gear, the computer version that does not work looks really lame and big media is happy. There will be no video Napster, they think.The customer is not happy, too bad.

This represents a tremendous opportunity for independent media and it's why Net Neutrality is such a big deal. Already, artists can get great viewings on youtube, google video and other sites. These are just the beginning because they rely on flash and other crappy software. The quality sucks and you can't save them without a lot of effort that's liable to lace your computer with malware. The potential of the media are better seen with stuff like Star Wreck, a free, full length movie. It's a big file and independent productions are going to stay that way due to patents on video streaming and more advanced compression routines. "So what", you might ask, "I've got broadband." That's where Net Neutrality comes in and independent media gets the shaft. Warner Brothers, which so badly mangled AOL and squandered their c

Been there, done that.

The Original Mad Max movie, made in 1979, cost about $80,000 in today money I think. It is the blueprint for modern action movies, car chases, explosions etc. Compare Mad Max to any big buget Hollywood action movie out now and it blows them away. Even for technical proficency, Mad Max is quite impressive. Just look at the films of Enzo G Castellari and Sergio Martino from the seventies and early eighites. They created action masterpieces on miniscule budgets that were exciting and had beautiful art direction. Other examples of small budgets not getting in the way of big stories is the Exterminator and the Phantasm series. BTW, it's cheaper to produce films now with digital cameras and editing. Even CGI is inexpensive, look at Star Wreck, shot by students in Finland for next to nothing. http://www.starwreck.com/gallery_screenshots.php

I think this is what Mr. Shill is afraid of.

There is no need for such rediculous budgets on "normal" movies, especially with the "revelation" that our desktop pc can render HD on the fly now (see XBOX 360)

star wreck anyone?

You are correct. The MPAA is terrified of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning while the RIAA is terrified of my friends.

Which is why both organizations act as if file sharers are terrorists. What they're REALLY afraid of is competetion. You don't need a record label to make a record, and you don't need a movie studio to make a movie.

If I was in the established movie or music industries, I'd be scared shitless too.

Enjoy!

It appears the star wreck store is offering to ship DVDs anywhere now

http://store.starwreck.com/epages/TP.sf/?ObjectID= 4604&Locale=en_US

They are also accepting donations toward "Iron Sky" at

http://www.ironsky.net/

Please take a look in here: http://forum.starwreck.com/viewtopic.php?t=2269
Glad to be of service :-)

torrents(movie + subtitles) in the download section : http://www.starwreck.com/

I think the fuel cost would be too much, but it'd be interesting to calculate just now much fuel you'd need, and how much it would cost. I think a better solution is to just blow it up with an Enterprise replica like in Star Wreck In the Pirkinning. http://www.starwreck.com/

Your reasoning is less than convincing. It's hard to determine the market reaction to a device that's just become available, so I'm not convinced that "nobody wants the damn thing". Did you throw a chair when you said that? Moreover, Linux will make it work better than you expect. Linux performs better and has better handwriting recognition than M$ does.

600 MHz is more than enough to run media. I know it because my old laptop was a 233 MHz P2. It could play music with JuK or Noatun without skipping while word processing and web browsing and was able to play full length movies like Star Wreck full screen without a problem. Even if the Xscale is skimpy to save power, the PeperPad should do just fine.

I've addressed your strange keypad objection here and talked about handwriting recognition here.

Now, count to ten and take a few deep breaths so you can calm down. A new device is nothing to get angry about, unless you work for M$ and see the new devices as cheaper and better than your last attempt to revive the tablet PC bomb.

I think it's overpriced, but that's the way new devices are generally introduced. Many cheaper and more powerful devices will be made and eventually you will find them selling for $15 in the supermarket check out line. At that price, of course, it will be running free software. Cheers!

The key question is what promise you are talking about. The promise of content implies co-operation with big dumb publishers. Those big dumb publishers have extracted almost every content penny out of Itunes, and left Apple with the crumbs of what they make selling hardware. The artists, as usual did not get anything. The end user gets a more restricted version of what they used to get on CD and competition gets buried if all goes according to plan.

Apple, by moving to Intel, seems to have made some of the same promisses that M$ has about how to enforce their big dumb publisher promises. The speculation is that Apple got suckered into the Intel DRM that the *AAs have promised to pour their content into. We shall see about content availability, but DRM can not and will not work on a general purpose computing device. The only reason Apple stuff has worked in the past is because they were the only snake in their pit. We shall also see how well they get along with Intel and if the new dongles will work any better than the old ones.

The HP eXPerience described above is a preview of what DRM is all about. It's not really new, as anyone who's tried to use WMP knows. The primary problem is that M$ is root and you are not. They have made a system where they can add and remove files and components but you can't. When you multiply this by the problems of non free software, which requires yet another set of rules, you get much more than the sum of your troubles. Each vendor on your system wants to be root and non of them can really co-operate because they keep their source code in a vault. The only way a general purpose computing device can work the way you want it is for you to be root. That pretty much rules out DRM for anything but set top boxes. That would make the *AAs happy enough but not as happy as eliminating general purpose computing.

Every free computer with an internet connection is a potential competitor. See Star Wreck and The internet Archive Music Files. It does not take much to make a movie and even less to make music.

DRM, at best, is a loser. At it's worst, you get what the Washington post reporter saw. The people who want copyright to last "forever less a day" and have sold you the same content on LPs, CDs and now as bits, won't ever give you a good deal. When they butt heads with Bill Gates, you get a real mess.

Seriously http://www.starwreck.com/

Tschernobyl? Tschernobyl!!

Fukov!!!!!!!


- Star Wreck