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I didn't realize that Lewontin had a ongoing feud with Gould. You're right that I'm not denying that certain diseases are entirely due to genetic mutations. However, I'm pessimistic about the development of a viable genetic treatment in the next 10-20 years. The problems with reliably injecting genetic materials in somatic cells in vivo seems pretty difficult at the moment. I'm sure you know about problems in getting genetic cells into germ line cells. It just seems like right now, getting genes in 10-20% of the somatic cells you are targeting seems to be difficult and won't be solved anytime soon. On the whole, I'm hopely pessimistic about the promise of gene therapy in treating some of the identified genetic disorders. I certainly don't believe some of the more wild speculations that others on this forum have made will come about anytime soon.

However, I do agree with you that sequencing the geonome will allow people to identify gene location much more quickly and will allow discoveries that we can't forsee right now.

My point is more that right now many people have hyped up DNA and knowing the genetic sequence will not give us a magic bullet since developmental and environmental factors seem to be just as important.

We're talking past each other, I think. You're right that DNA sequence doesn't 100% determine fate. But it does entirely account for certain conditions (Tay-Sachs, ADA) and it accounts for a large portion of the variation in many other health issues. Furthermore, to the degree that outside factors are important, greater knowledge of biological pathways will be extremely useful to pin down what those factors are and how they exert their effect.

I suggest you read an article called The Dream of the Human Geonome by R.C. Lewontin(New York Review of Books, vol 39, no 10, May 28, 1992) to get a clearer picture about where I'm coming from.

1992?!? Molecular biologists recognize two historical periods: the last year and everything else. You might as well tell me to read Pliny!

Seriously, I read that years ago. You've got to read Lewontin in the context of his interminable public dispute with Stephen J. Gould. He's arguing against Gould's views on evolution, or a caricature thereof, not against anything that real-life human genetecists actually believe.

Original text in italics, my comments in normal text.

October 28, 1999
(right before halloween)
VALENTI WARNS THE DANGERS OF INTERNET PIRACY BEFORE CONGRESSIONAL SUBCOMMITTEE
All internet piracy must be reviewed by congress before it will be allowed to continue.

Washington, D.C., Thursday, October 28, 1999...On the first anniversary of the enactment of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), Jack Valenti, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), warned about the dangers of Internet piracy that threatens to devastate the future of American movies, the nation's most prized trade asset. "While the Internet has great potential, it can also cause enormous losses and damage to consumers and to intellectual property industries," said Valenti. Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommun-ications, Trade and Consumer Protection of the Commerce Committee, Valenti offered a demonstration of the very real threat of Internet piracy.

"While the internet has great potential, we're going to do our best to stamp it out," said Valenti.

Valenti told the Committee that the digital world is far more dangerous that the analog world. "The 1000th copy of a digitized movie is as pure as the original, whereas in analog each copy is degraded in quality."

What I don't get is why this is perceived to be so much more dangerous. First of all, very few people are actually DeCSSing and storing movies on disk (as opposed to disc.) Those that are are generally paying for the movies in their collection. Disk space is cheap, but it's not that cheap. Second of all, a DVD Burner costs about US$3,000 to US$5,000, and media runs about $40 a PIECE. It's actually CHEAPER to buy the DVD in the store, unless it's part of the Criterion Collection... But I digress.

You can make a VCD copy of a DVD with, I'm willing to bet, relatively little trouble, as long as you're willing to be a film editor and figure out which vob files belong in which order and so on, but that degrades the quality from DVD, so Valenti's statement, while true, is completely irrelevant, besides which, since DVDs have no copy protection, when/if DVD burners and media come down dramatically in price, you'll just be able to copy all the files to the new disc and give it the same volume name, and BAM, you've got a copy of the movie. CSS doesn't prevent that.

Valenti provided the examples of a site advertising VCDs of films such as "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Mickey Blue Eyes" both of which are not yet available in video form. "What is even more remarkable," said Valenti, "is that you can also purchase films that have just begun their theatrical run." He offered the film "Random Hearts," released just three weeks ago, as a prime example of this. "Toy Story II" which has not even been released in theaters is on the Internet.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, this is because people are digitizing screeners. This digital media comes from an analog source. This, obviously, is not even an issue in the current topic of conversation.

During his testimony Valenti played a brief clip from the MGM film "Stigmata." "This film was illegally downloaded this week and the film is still in many theaters in the U.S. and has not yet opened anywhere else in the world. But it is available on the Internet for free."

It would be instructive to know if this was a telesync or a screener. Telesyncs are movies recorded with a videocamera inside a movie theater, usually with some fairly high quality equipment. If there is an inside man, audio may be directly from the board, or it may be from one or two microphones.

Telesyncs are not a danger to the sales of any form of media, as a "VCD" Telesync is dramatically lower quality than a VCD made from a purchased VHS tape.

Valenti also took the Subcommittee to the popular Ebay auction site where just yesterday one could bid on a VCD copy of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace." "This is not available in any format anywhere in the world legally," observed Valenti. "MPAA works with Ebay and other auction sites to reduce this type of piracy," he added.

This was DEFINITELY a Telesync. In fact, at one time I had downloaded PART of it and watched the pod race scene. I then expressed my opinion of it and deleted it; Obviously, I was only using the clip for review, and therefore my use falls under Fair Use :)

Valenti next addressed downloadable media, which he said, "poses a much greater threat to the creative community." He noted that this is the same type of piracy as the downloading of illegal software or illegal MP3 files, which has pillaged the music industry.

What do you mean, "downloadable media"? A wav file recorded with a sound blaster 16 from a VHS copy of Tombstone is "downloadable media"; So is the image of the tee shirt from 2600 with the caricature of Valenti on it -- A brilliant piece of work, by the way.

Valenti noted that "currently our films are protected by two factors - the amount of time needed to download a full-length motion picture and the lack of unprotected digital copies of our works. But, with the increased availability of broadband Internet access you can bring down a full-length motion picture in less than 15 minutes versus the four to five hours for non-broadband."

Let's take a critical look at this for just a second. If you have basic ADSL, you get 1.544mbits/second, or about 160kbytes/second best case. A full movie is about two VCDs long, or approximately 1.2gigabytes. Converted to kbytes, this is 1258291.2 kbytes in size. That means that with the most commonly available DSL around, you're going to take more than two hours to download a full movie at any reasonable quality.

A DVD movie should be around 4gb. On a basic ADSL connection, this is going to take you 7.2 hours to download, best case. However, sites rarely if ever give you those kind of speeds; You're usually looking at something more like 30kbytes/second, if that. Clearly, saying that you can download a movie in fifteen minutes does not apply to the general public, even those with DSL connections.

Just to continue to rub this in their face, the fastest available ADSL of which I am aware gives you 6mbits/sec download, peak. This should give you approximately 600kbytes/sec download speeds. At that speed, it takes an hour to download 1.2 gigabytes. Even if you have an extremely high speed DSL connection, it takes (in the best case) four times as long as valenti claims to download a feature-length movie.

He also observed that the advent of digital recording devices and high-definition television poses the risk of works "being digitally reproduced without permission in commercially viable forms. Our ramparts are being breached on all sides."

Being digitally reproduced doesn't mean anything. In addition, who decides what's "commercially viable"? People have gotten rich selling things like "elvis sweat", bad cologne in small glass sample vials. Doesn't that mean that anything is commercially viable?

Downloadable media piracy can threaten the foundation of the motion picture industry by allowing a single pirate with a single copy of film to produce thousands of copies in a few hours, which are then distributed to sites all over the world. "Thus with a single keystroke, a pirate can do millions of dollars worth of damage to the potential market for a motion picture, whether or not the pirate makes a nickel from this effort," said Valenti.

This is totally inaccurate. First of all, just because people download a movie doesn't mean they won't buy it. It's one thing to be able to watch The Matrix and follow the story; It's entirely another to see it on DVD in all its high-resolution and AC 5.1 Audio glory. I wouldn't even watch that movie on VHS, let alone on VCD. There's just no bloody point to it.

Now that I've covered the financial side, let's address the technical side - The person who's uploading this data is not making thousands of copies; They're making one copy. That one copy is then copied once again, to a site; People then download it, making further copies. The person who uploaded it has only made two copies, one of which is ostensibly a legal copy, the one for his personal use.

In addition to how quickly Internet piracy can spread, Valenti said equipment for piracy is inexpensive and highly portable. "Pirates do not need to remain in a fixed location but can upload illegal materials anywhere in the world on any computer that is linked to a network," said Valenti.

Actually, I can pirate materials on a computer that isn't linked to any network, if I can get my hands on the media. What I think he's talking about here (It's hard to be sure because he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about) is that you can upload or download any time you're connected to the internet. However, that doesn't really make any difference at all; First of all, I'm not going to download a VCD over an acoustically coupled modem in a phone booth. You'd need an endless supply of quarters (or a fat calling card) and a generator to keep your connection and computer alive long enough to finish the transfer, and you'd get arrested for loitering before you completed.

"Today, piracy of audiovisual products costs us more than $2 billion a year," stated Valenti. Technological measures are essential, but not enough. Education is required, as are strong legal protections. Last year Congress took a major step in protecting intellectual property on the Internet with the passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)."

Piracy of audiovisual products? Someone's been making illegal copies of slide projectors and reel-to-reel decks?

This has long been a point of contention between pirates (and those who are stamped as pirates when in fact they are not) and those who own IP that gets copied.

If you can't afford a software package, for example, you would never purchase it. However, if you can get a copy of it, you will still see it. That doesn't mean that they're losing revenue; They're just continuing to not see revenue. It's not a loss, even if it might be considered theft; It's just a lack of a gain that they would never have experienced in any case.

On the other hand, if you copy a movie instead of buying it when you COULD afford it, then you ARE hurting their revenue stream, which is bad for everyone. People are compelled to make the kinds of movies people pay for. If you don't pay for it, you're not voting, which in a capitalist system can only be done with the dollar (As evidence, examine our government and legal system in general.) You're hurting yourself in the long run.

Valenti also emphasized that the DMCA will not work as Congress intended unless access to the WHOIS domain name database is maintained. "MPAA's piracy investigators must determine which website is responsible for the illegal material. The WHOIS database is the first step in determining the ultimate Internet piracy."

I do whois lookups all the time. What's his problem? Can't find the flag that lets you specify a different server? Personally, I wish someone would have maintained the gopher service.

Valenti pledged to continue working with the consumer electronic and high-tech industries to develop effective technological protections to prevent illegal copying of digitized films.

"Valenti pledged to continue paying consumer electronic and high-tech companies to continue finding ways to f**k consumers out of their rights as purchasers (NOT licensees) of copyrighted material."

Concluding, Valenti offered a final thought, "One of the nation's greatest trade assets is at risk. If you cannot protect what you own, then you own nothing."

When did this article get to be about the right to keep and bear arms?

This is patently not about being able to protect copyright or IP. This is about, well hell, I'm not really sure what it's about. As far as I can tell, the DMCA (and the whole CSS thing) is about taking away my rights as a consumer and customer. It's also a whole passle of lies. If I were a judge and someone spewed this nonsense in my court, I'd hold them in contempt and charge them with perjury, since it's full of nonsense.

I am not for one second arguing that studios do not have the right to protect their intellectual property, but I don't think they have the right to step on my rights in the process. I think we can find some sort of common ground provided that the courts and associated people-of-power don't listen to hand puppets like Jack Valenti.

As the "British" part was dropped years ago, the answer cannot be "yes", since Canada is now no longer a member of anything called the British Commonwealth.

Second, I know plenty of Americans who say "eh". The standard southern Michigan caricature of Yoopers has them saying "eh" all the time, but plenty of southern Michiganians say it, too.

Steven E. Ehrbar

This didn't really strike me as a true "Mission: Impossible" story. Rather, as Taco mentioned, it was more of a creative outlet for John Woo. The stunts are _great_ - but after awhile there's only so many ways you can kill a guy. This movie started wearing on me at about the 1:15 mark, and never came around after that.

If you ask me, the first M:I was a lot better. For starters, it was true to its roots: it had an actual team of people doing all sorts of cool secret agenty stuff the whole time. There was a mission. It was impossible. And so on.

MI2 really wasn't like this at all. There are three competing strands or directions in which this movie meanders: Woo's fetish with windy slo-mos and 2x Berettas, Cruise's totally incongruous, undying love for Thandie Newton (more on that later), and same vague, yarn about diseases and Greek gods. They take precedence in that order.

Now, if you ask me, that is just stupid. The original MI never dealt with sex in the manner this film does. Nor did it have such incomprehensible plots. I don't deny the directors a little creative freedom here, but through the whole movie I kept thinking about how they were trying to turn Ethan Hunt into a James Bond, minus the smarm. Cruise literally gets smitten (in the span of three minutes, another hiccup in the plot), and from there out his whole motivation is to get this girl back and screw the pants off of her. There are a few cool gadgets, but nothing like the first movie.

The final straw was the portrayal of Ving Rhames. Now, I thought he really stole the show in the first movie. His swagger was the perfect foil to Cruise's cold, calculating, "Kittridge - you have never seen me upset" demeanor. Compare that to this movie, and he is reduced to an annoying caricature of himself, kind of an amalgam of John Shaft and a corner street pimp. He utters lines like "That bastard put a hole in my Armani" with total seriousness. Ugh.. I found myself yearning for the much cooler, much geekier Rhames in M:I, the guy who drooled over kickass hardware and didn't seem to worry too much about his suit.

--

I think the McDonalds characters were designed to appeal to every kid in the family.
Some kids were shy, some kids liked to share, and some kids like to steal.
And some kids like to wear ketchup and call it makeup.

I think you should worry more about the carcinogenic effects of their beef, than the psychological impact those caricatures have on your children's development.

If your own neurosis is anything to work from, I would let your kids do absolutely anything their hearts desire- with as little intervention as possible. EVEN, if they want to know if Grimace bleeds purple.

And every time you read the NY Times caricaturing the Human Genome Project as slick big business versus slow and plodding federal lackies, remember two things: companies like Celera pay for PR firms, and universities like Washington University in St. Louis have people like Henry who only give a damn about doing the right thing for science.

He isn't a fan of the record industry, but he shows insight as to how much things really cost. Also the artists aren't makeing any money.

Some of Your Friends are Already This Fucked
by Steve Albini
from The Baffler issue #5

Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always
end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about
four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with
runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends,
some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine
a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a
contract waiting to be signed.

Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and
besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts
to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the
contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get
to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling
furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit.
Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left.
He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says, "Actually, I think you need
a little more development. Swim it again, please. Backstroke."

And he does, of course.


A&R Scouts

Every major label involved in the hunt for new bands now has on staff a
high-profile point man, an "A&R" rep who can present a comfortable face to
any prospective band. The initials stand for "Artist and Repertoire,"
because historically, the A&R staff would select artists to record music
that they had also selected, out of an available pool of each. This is
still the case, though not openly.

These guys are universally young [about the same age as the bands being
wooed], and nowadays they always have some obvious underground rock
credibility flag they can wave. Lyle Preslar, former guitarist for Minor
Threat, is one of them. Terry Tolkin, former NY independent booking agent
and assistant manager at Touch and Go is one of them. Al Smith, former
soundman at CBGB is one of them. Mike Gitter, former editor of XXX fanzine
and contributor to Rip, Kerrang and other lowbrow rags is one of them. Many
of the annoying turds who used to staff college radio stations are in their
ranks as well.

There are several reasons A&R scouts are always young. The explanation
usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip" to the current musical
"scene." A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust
someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative
rock and roll experiences.

The A&R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and as
such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to promise
them the moon than an idealistic young Turk who expects to be calling the
shots in a few years, and who has had no previous experience with a big
record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band he's duping. When he tells
them no one will interfere in their creative process, he probably even
believes it.

When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of angel
hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they sign with
company X, they're really signing with him and he's on their side. Remember
that great, gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we have a blast.

By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry
scum. There is a pervasive caricature in popular culture of a portly, middle
aged ex-hipster talking a mile-a-minute, using outdated jargon and calling
everybody "baby." After meeting "their" A&R guy, the band will say to
themselves and everyone else, "He's not like a record company guy at all!
He's like one of us." And they will be right. That's one of the reasons he
was hired.

These A&R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present
the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which loosely states some
terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract
has been agreed on.

The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little "memo," is that it
is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once the band sign
it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label. If the
label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all
the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to
sign the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength.

These letters never have any term of expiration, so the band remain bound
by the deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that takes.
The band cannot sign to another label or even put out its own material
unless they are released from their agreement, which never happens. Make
no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will
either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be
destroyed.

One of my favorite bands was held hostage for the better part of two years
by a slick young "He's not like a label guy at all,' A&R rep, on the basis
of such a deal memo. He had failed to come through on any of his promises
(something he did with similar effect to another well-known band), and so
the band wanted out. Another label expressed interest, but when the A&R
man was asked to release the band, he said he would need money or points,
or possibly both, before he would consider it.

The new label was afraid the price would be too dear, and they said no
thanks. On the cusp of making their signature album, an excellent band,
humiliated, broke up from the stress and the many months of inactivity.


There's This Band

There's this band. They're pretty ordinary, but they're also pretty good,
so they've attracted some attention. They're signed to a moderate-sized
"independent" label owned by a distribution company, and they have another
two albums owed to the label.

They're a little ambitious. They'd like to get signed by a major label so
they can have some security-you know, get some good equipment, tour in a
proper tour bus-nothing fancy, just a little reward for all the hard work.

To that end, they got a manager. He knows some of the label guys, and he
can shop their next project to all the right people. He takes his cut,
sure, but it's only 15%, and if he can get them signed then it's money well
spent. Anyway, it doesn't cost them any thing if it doesn't work. 15% of
nothing isn't much!

One day an A&R scout calls them, says he's "been following them for a while
now," and when their manager mentioned them to him, it just "clicked."
Would they like to meet with him about the possibility of working out a
deal with his label? Wow. Big Break time.

They meet the guy, and y'know what-he's not what they expected from a label
guy. He's young and dresses pretty much like the band does. He knows all
their favorite bands. He's like one of them. He tells them he wants to go
to bat for them, to try to get them everything they want. He says anything
is possible with the right attitude. They conclude the evening by taking
home a copy of a deal memo they wrote out and signed on the spot.

The A&R guy was full of great ideas, even talked about using a name
producer. Butch Vig is out of the question-he wants 100 g's and three
points, but they can get Don Fleming for $30,000 plus three points. Even
that's a little steep, so maybe they'll go with that guy who used to be in
David Letterman's band. He only wants three points. Or they can have just
anybody record it [like Warton Tiers, maybe-cost you 5 or 10 grand] and
have Andy Wallace remix it for 4 grand a track plus 2 points. It was a lot
to think about.

Well, they like this guy and they trust him. Besides, they already signed
the deal memo. He must have been serious about wanting them to sign. They
break the news to their current label, and the label manager says he wants
them to succeed, so they have his blessing. He will need to be compensated,
of course, for the remaining albums left on their contract, but he'll work
it out with the label himself. Sub Pop made millions from selling off
Nirvana, and Twin Tone hasn't done bad either: 50 grand for the Babes and
60 grand for the Poster Children-without having to sell a single additional
record. It'll be something modest. The new label doesn't mind, so long as
it's recoupable out of royalties.

Well, they get the final contract, and it's not quite what they expected.
They figure it's better to be safe than sorry and they turn it over to a
lawyer-one who says he's experienced in entertainment law-and he hammers
out a few bugs. They're still not sure about it, but the lawyer says he's
seen a lot of contracts, and theirs is pretty good. They'll be getting a
great royalty: 13% [less a 10% packaging deduction]. Wasn't it Buffalo Tom
that were only getting 12% less 10? Whatever.

The old label only wants 50 grand, and no points. Hell, Sub Pop got 3 points
when they let Nirvana go. They're signed for four years, with options on
each year, for a total of over a million dollars! That's a lot of money in
any man's English. The first year's advance alone is $250,000. Just think
about it, a quarter-million, just for being in a rock band!

Their manager thinks it's a great deal, especially the large advance.
Besides, he knows a publishing company that will take the band on if they
get signed, and even give them an advance of 20 grand, so they'll be making
that money too. The manager says publishing is pretty mysterious, and nobody
really knows where all the money comes from, but the lawyer can look that
contract over too. Hell, it's free money.

Their booking agent is excited about the band signing to a major. He says
they can maybe average $1,000 or $2,000 a night from now on. That's enough
to justify a five week tour, and with tour support, they can use a proper
crew, buy some good equipment and even get a tour bus! Buses are pretty
expensive, but if you figure in the price of a hotel room for everybody in
the band and crew, they're actually about the same cost. Some bands (like
Therapy? and Sloan and Stereolab) use buses on their tours even when they're
getting paid only a couple hundred bucks a night, and this tour should earn
at least a grand or two every night. It'll be worth it. The band will be
more comfortable and will play better.

The agent says a band on a major label can get a merchandising company to
pay them an advance on T-shirt sales! Ridiculous! There's a gold mine here!
The lawyer should look over the merchandising contract, just to be safe.

They get drunk at the signing party. Polaroids are taken and everybody
looks thrilled. The label picked them up in a limo.

They decided to go with the producer who used to be in Letterman's band.
He had these technicians come in and tune the drums for them and tweak
their amps and guitars. He had a guy bring in a slew of expensive old
vintage microphones. Boy, were they "warm." He even had a guy come in and
check the phase of all the equipment in the control room! Boy, was he
professional. He used a bunch of equipment on them and by the end of it,
they all agreed that it sounded very "punchy," yet "warm."

All that hard work paid off. With the help of a video, the album went like
hotcakes! They sold a quarter million copies!

Here is the math that will explain just how fucked they are:

These figures are representative of amounts that appear in record contracts
daily. There's no need to skew the figures to make the scenario look bad,
since real-life examples more than abound. Income is underlined, expenses
are not.

Advance: $250,000
Manager's cut: $37,500
Legal fees: $10,000

Recording Budget: $150,000
Producer's advance: $50,000
Studio fee: $52,500
Drum, Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $3,000
Recording tape: $8,000
Equipment rental: $5,000
Cartage and Transportation: $5,000
Lodgings while in studio: $10,000
Catering: $3,000
Mastering: $10,000
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc. expenses: $2,000

Video budget: $30,000
Cameras: $8,000
Crew: $5,000
Processing and transfers: $3,000
Offline: $2,000
Online editing: $3,000
Catering: $1,000
Stage and construction: $3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: $2,000
Director's fee: $3,000

Album Artwork: $5,000
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: $2,000

Band fund: $15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: $5,000
New fancy professional guitars (2): $3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs (2): $4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $1,000
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: $1,000
Rehearsal space rental: $500

Big blowout party for their friends: $500

Tour expense (5 weeks): $50,875
Bus: $25,000
Crew (3): $7,500
Food and per diems: $7,875
Fuel: $3,000
Consumable supplies: $3,500
Wardrobe: $1,000
Promotion: $3,000

Tour gross income: $50,000
Agent s cut: $7,500
Manager's cut: $7,500

Merchandising advance: $20,000
Manager's cut: $3,000
Lawyer's fee: $1,000

Publishing advance: $20,000
Manager's cut: $3,000
Lawyer's fee: $1,000

Record sales: 250,000 @ $12 = $3,000,000 gross retail revenue Royalty (13%
of 90% of retail): $351,000
Less advance: $250,000
Producer's points: (3% less $50,000 advance) $40,000
Promotional budget: $25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $50,000
Net royalty: (-$14,000)

Record company income:
Record wholesale price $6.50 x 250,000 = $1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: $351,000
Deficit from royalties: $14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and distribution @ $2.20 per record: $550,000
Gross profit: $710,000

The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the
game.

Record company: $710,000
Producer: $90,000
Manager: $51,000
Studio: $52,500
Previous label: $50,000
Agent: $7,500
Lawyer: $12,000
Band member net income each: $4,031.25


The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music
industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on
royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they
would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month.

The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will
insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never
"recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige.

The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will
have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't have earned
any royalties from their t-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured
out how to count money like record company guys.

Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.

(c) 1999 [indiecentre]

It's perfectly fair when that "philosophy" itself is a crude caricature of philosophy.

I think he meant that it is unfair to criticize a crude caricature of a philosophy. Of course it's okay to take on the philosophy itself, as long as you aren't glib (like 96% of the socio-philosophical-political comments on Slashdot).

The saddest thing about this run-on navel-gazing review is the way the authors, in taking themselves and their "ethic" so seriously, seem to have missed the twisted, smirking humour of Gilliam's movie. Get this: De Niro's Tuttle isn't your hacker hero, he's a caricature. He repairs ducts ferchrissakes.

Yes, I understand what being a hacker is all about (my first post to alt.hackers was around 1990 under this same nick; hell, it was probably the same topic ;). It's about enjoying what you do. Sometimes that involves working with technology, often it involves avoiding it instead because it usually sucks in some nasty way (think about it).

Libertarians aren't hermits; they form voluntary social structures like anybody else. The author is flailing away at a caricature of libertarianism.

Are you sure "jerrymandered" is the word you want? The actual spelling is more like "Gerrymandered" and refers to oddly shaping political districts to favor a particular party. The original was caricatured as resembling a salamander by a political cartoonist.

I disagree completely. The two are linked. It's not a direct, one-to-one correllation, but the connection is obvious and compelling. One need only look at one or two pathological cases to see my point. In the Soviet Union no one had private property at all -- and no freedom at all. The same situation exists in Communist China, but with a twist: The government has permitted some capitalism to exist, but they now are struggling to keep the lid on the liberating force that private property actually is. Arguably the circumstance is more complex than this caricature, but it is simply undeniable that prior to the introduction of a tiny measure of capitalism into the PRC there was *far* less freedom (and even less impetus to liberty) than there is today.

It's just that the blind assumption "the USA is the most capitalist country, and the most free, therefore capitalism = freedom" should be challenged.

I did not use the US as an example. I do not think that we are particularly free today; certainly we have lost a great deal of our liberty. I believe that it is no mere coincidence that the restrictions on the free market that we see today (contra the situation during the 1800s) have developed at the same time as the restrictions on our liberty.

The unfortunate side effect is that big corporations with a lot of money can force the little guy with no money into a legal settlement, simply because they can afford the outrageous legal fees that the little guy cannot. I'll admit that that is more a problem of the legal system than the capitalist system.

That is correct. The legal system is rigged to a very great extent against the little guy now. But the justice or injustice of the court system doesn't seem to me to have any necessary connection to the economic system, except as it enforces (or fails to enforce) the existing laws relating to private property.

Of course, the fact that there are defects in the legal system does not in any way change the fact that copyright is a legitimate and necessary feature of a capitalist and free society...and that the record companies are therefore perfectly within their rights in attacking MP3.com -- until or unless it is is demonstrated that MP3.com has not infringed upon the copyrights held by the record companies.

Sure. Non-theists can claim they have a basis for morality all day long. But haven't seen such a claim that can stand up and hold water.

An authentic Christian faith does, yes, admit man's fall, but it also describes the vivid reality of heaven's plan to repair him here and now. The potential to rise ever higher is always there. That is, in authentic Christian faith. Superstition resides more in the caricature of what the Bible teaches than in what the Bible teaches. You new "gods" are poor caricaturists. The Bible is open source. Anyone who wants to can go to them. If one wants to bring the dirty lense provided by the current age, be my guest. But if your mind is closed, don't expect much.

If JK is seriously gonna get into the hottest emerging field of both law and jurisprudence, he's gonna need to spend considerably more time in the law libraries of numerous countries. Because no-one agrees on much of this and the (different) traditions of countries in the European Union - esp the French - are often at odds with Anglo-American legal precedents and traditions.

Much of French-derived law (some dating from before the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886, often still a benchmark for decisions about copyright) mitigates against violation of an "author's" - ie artist's or creator's - "moral" rights. Those are groups of legal rights meant to protect creators from having their fine works "diminished" by caricature, moustaches, partial reproduction, distortions, mockery etc etc.

American law offers a contrast. As recently as a couple of years ago, Supreme Court decisions in the US favoured "transformative" use as consistent with their federal copyright policies...the overriding incentive here being economic
and commercial interests. Also a nod towards a US history supposedly weighted towards the "free flow" of information.

Copyright law in cyberspace or electronic copyright is a contradictory and complicated field in which the law is being made (precedents are being set) case-by-case...With plenty of lawyers into its potential for big bucks. But it may also happen inch by inch, country by country and each "foreign" claimant to a right will find assertion of his/her claims depends on the environment in which that claim ends up being assessed.

At first, Jon just wanted to stand in the way of progress. Then, he tried to violate all the rules of decorum. Who knows what he'll do next? I could go on and on about his special form of denominationalism, but you get the general idea. What I am getting at is this: I have no interest in getting tangled in the rhetoric or dogma that he frequently pushes. The implications of hectoring exclusionism may seem theoretical, but they have concrete meaning for thousands of people.

While criticizing his opponents for enforcing a narrow-minded orthodoxy, Jon himself is trying to enforce a particular orthodoxy -- the orthodoxy of obstreperous blackguardism. Many people aren't aware of how contumelious his warnings are, so let's present a little breakdown. First off, repeating something over and over does not make it true. There are lawsuits in his future. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but you get the drift.

To quote the prophet Isaiah, "Woe to ye who usher in the rule of the Antichrist and the apocalyptic end times". At this point, all I can do is repeat a line from my previous letter: "Eccentric warmongers, motivated by either boosterism or a desire to lead a xenophobic life, are eager to help Jon flood this debate through the sluice gates of postmodernist think tanks". It is cowardice on his part to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious possessions. Even though he uses isolated incidents to make pugnacious, all-encompassing claims about his adversaries, this does not negate the fact that I myself frequently wish to tell him that everything he tells you is a lie. But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue.

If I didn't think Jon would stonewall on issues in which taxpayers see a vital public interest, I wouldn't say that his constant whining and yammering is a background noise that never seems to go away. His perversions can be rightly understood only as what some self-indulgent autocrats have been brave enough to call them: a failure. The whole premise of Jon's reinterpretations of historic events is false, and his arguments are specious at best. To what degree is Jon going to call for ritualistic invocations of needlessly-formal rules? His convictions provide a vivid example of how however varied or profound the explanations underlying our sense of moral values may be, I wouldn't waste my time trying to push a consistent vision that responds to most people's growing fears about brutish nutcases if his opinions weren't parroted by so many unrestrained suborners of perjury, at least insofar as this essay is concerned. He should show some class. It is clear from what I have already written that Jon leads me to believe that he is demonic.

Is there anyone else out there who's noticed that he once used his notoriety, name recognition, and national fund-raising base to sentence more and more people to poverty, prison, and early death? Double standards are always short-sighted. Are you still with me? Jon supports a wide variety of prank phone calls. Some are feckless; others are blathering. A few openly support solipsism.

So we're supposed to give him permission to sell otherwise perfectly reasonable people the idee fixe that alarmism and exhibitionism are identical concepts and hope he's rational enough not to do so? How incredibly naive! And, more important, I find much to disagree with in his activities. So don't feed me any baloney about how he can censor by caricature and preempt discussion by stereotype and get away with it. That's just not true.

Because we continue to share a common, albeit abused, atmospheric envelope, Jon ducks the issue of sensationalism by using words and phrases so vague and subject to interpretation that they have no true meaning at all. There can be no doubt that for his own sake, he should not institutionalize sex discrimination by requiring different standards of protection and behavior for men and women. Jon can blame me for the influx of heinous insensitive-types if it makes him feel better, but it won't help his cause any.

When the war against reason is backed by a large cadre of the worst classes of unsympathetic smut peddlers there are, the results are even more fatuitous. Unenlightened knee-biters speak in order to conceal -- or at least to veil -- their thoughts. Even if I agreed that Jon's blockish detestable insinuations were of paramount importance, it would still be the case that attempts to carve out space in the mainstream for brown-nosing politics are a de facto, if not a de jure, example of drugged-out Marxism. Belligerent politicos, almost by definition, treat traditional values as if they were moonstruck crimes. Surprised? You shouldn't be, because all Jon wants is to break down the industrial-technological system. In such a brief letter as this, I certainly cannot refute all the philippics of stuck-up impudent reprobates, but perhaps I can brush away some of their most deliberate and flagrant criticisms.

His voiced intentions don't match his actual intentions. Jon is a very unpleasant little man. And what of it? He decidedly needs to come to terms with his combative past. Why does he want to put a perfidious spin on important issues? Because many party animals have an intense identification with what I call voluble ruffians. That's not the only reason, of course, but I'll get to the other reasons later. It is crystal-clear that Jon's indifference only adds to the problem. The bottom line is that Jon Katz consistently falls short of telling the whole story or of making a solid point.

... The Matrix isn't even remotely CP. CP is a child of the 80's -- moral/ethical issues about the environment, disparity of wealth and crime, corporate ethics and growing corporate/MNC power, the affects of globalization on culture, genetic engineering, affects of technology on socialization, etc. In other words, it tends to address social issues that we're facing today, that seem to be heading in a negative direction, and the main characters are more reluctant anti-heroes than anything else. I, for one, tend to worry more about, say, microsoft's monopolistic practices or the alleged overseas human-rights violations of Unocal than whether or not my brain is in a giant box somewhere.

The Matrix follows more along the lines of a science-fantasy heroic epic (ala Star Wars) that revolves around (admittedly dumbed-down) basic philosophical questions. It's cool, but it ain't cyberpunk. I'm sorry, but it takes more than a bunch of guns and black leather to qualify for the genre. To qualify as potential dating/masturbatory material, yes, to qualify as cyberpunk, no.

And really, the only scientific error you could say The Matrix made was that feeding the humans would take more energy than the computers could get out of them.

... Actually, the line was something akin to 'with this, combined with a form of fusion, the machines had all the energy they'd ever need.' Now, whatever this magical 'form of fusion' is, the implication is that the energy generated by humans serves to trigger a larger reaction. We're less like the batteries in a walkman, and more like the battery in a car. Not that it matters; as many others have pointed out: it ain't about science. It's just a bunch of cheesy pseudo-science to set the stage for what is, ultimately, a fantasy epic.

... God, I sound pretentious. =P

Finally, as for "mainstream media" being in the pocket of corporations, as much as Noam Chomsky would delight in hearing you say that, it is only partly accurate. Consider this: where do you actually hear all the bad things you have heard about corporations? From - surprise! - mainstream news media. The corporations report about and criticize one another. Power is not simply "wrested" (as you say) from individuals by big, evil corporations; it is give-and-take, and consumers (despite your lamentations) are willing participants - not helpless, powerless, victims as you would caricature them. That's why TV shows fail, movies flop and new musical genres develop - because we are in a system that encourages interaction and market exchange, instead of stifling it.

I have yet to see any DMCA critical articles or coverage in ANY mainstream media. And of all the articles I read about the DeCSS affair, ALL of them had a pro-"let's keep the gun in their mouths" slant. Were I dependent on mainstream media to gain understanding of the existing power structures desperate struggle for survival at the cost of our freedom, I would probably be as ignorant to gravity of the situation as you are (though you speak eloquently and a lot - right at home in Washington I guess).

Oh, and the situation is _simple_. Enforced copyrights and freedom cannot coexist in cyberspace. Period.

-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

You are quite right to point out that corporations donate lots of money to nonprofit organizations, and find lots of other ways to have a voice, since our political process creates unnatural and ineffectual barriers to money in the political process. Do what you might, but money will find a way to get into politics - and the more arcane the "campaign finance reform" becomes, the more contortions corporations will perform. This is not "circumventing rules and regulations," but rather being whipped into laughable secrecy by campaign finance laws that create the silly fiction of a money-free political system.

It would be far better, in my opinion, to raise (or eliminate) all the restrictions on political moneygiving, so corporations and old rich people could all be less surreptitious about trying to achieve particular political ends.

But I strongly disagree with your claim that lobbyists can "buy" politicians, or that corporations can overwhelm the political process. That's wonderful jingoism, but empirically false. Even though it has spent millions of dollars on influencing the political process, Microsoft is still being bruised by the Justice Department. Lockheed and Boeing face new fines every other week. The telecom firms face stringent oversight from Congress. And the number of decisions every week handed down by legislators and regulators in this town that run counter to the interests of corporations is astounding.

In other words, while it's comfortable to relax in the platitudes of powerful corporate cronyism, in fact, corporate omnipotence is grimly overstated.

You write that "individuals do not have a coherent political agenda." This is true. Neither, however, do businesses. As direct as your superb laser/light bulb analogy is, it is not apt; businesses fight with one another, with consumer groups, with politicians and many other interests in this town. There is no "agenda" that would universally benefit corporations. Take the recent debate over cable open access, which has all but disappeared since the announcement of the AOL/TW merger. In that debate, Microsoft and AT&T fought hard against AOL and the ISPs. The lobbying on both sides was great sound and fury, but it amounted to nothing. There is no uniform corporate agenda at work.

You claim that "almost all profits go directly into the coffers of the corporations who distribute the music." You say sometimes just 1-3% of the profits from music goes to those involved in its creation. That's quite a misleading number, and I'm not sure where you got it. You make it sound as though BMI and ASCAP just gobble up 99 percent of the money. In fact, BMI is quite proud that over 80 percent of its income from licensing goes to those involved in making music.

You then go on to make a bit of a straw man argument, the heart of which is this: "The members of RIAA want to maintain their extremely lucrative stranglehold on the distribution mechanisms... The current plan for distribution is to create a system in which the consumer downloads music for free, and is only able to play the music on a device that bills the listener every time a song is played."

First, there is no "current plan for distribution"; everyone is scrambling to figure out what to do, and companies are going to experiment with new media and modes of distribution and alliances which we cannot now foresee. Of course RIAA (and other industry groups) are going to react in surprising (and even detrimental) ways to these changes - but I am confident that the technology will overwhelm the artificial limits put on it.

Finally, as for "mainstream media" being in the pocket of corporations, as much as Noam Chomsky would delight in hearing you say that, it is only partly accurate. Consider this: where do you actually hear all the bad things you have heard about corporations? From - surprise! - mainstream news media. The corporations report about and criticize one another. Power is not simply "wrested" (as you say) from individuals by big, evil corporations; it is give-and-take, and consumers (despite your lamentations) are willing participants - not helpless, powerless, victims as you would caricature them. That's why TV shows fail, movies flop and new musical genres develop - because we are in a system that encourages interaction and market exchange, instead of stifling it.

A. Keiper
Washington, D.C.