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Help wanted: CTO at Warner Music.
Gill_Bates writes "It looks like Warner music group are looking for a CTO. I'm intrigued by the sentence that reads "Builds prototypes and evaluates alternatives for on-line music delivery, P2P warfare, copy protection, etc." " How many job descriptions include the phrase "Warfare"?
"How many job descriptions include the phrase "Warfare"?"
If Donald Rumsfield is your boss, the answer would be "All of them."
It pay's money - so there will always be someone applying. - Money make people do stupid things. - As always. Money often win over ideology. - I hope they find some braindead sucker that will do a pisspoor job.
It's time for the mucichians to wake up and understand they can do their own distribution. - The time for the big record labels are numbered. Soon they will wanish in a fading cloud of historydust. And the no-talent marketingdroids that claim they know what the "market" want will be no more....
Yes, I have an utopian dream, help me get to it.
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
God this is entertaining entertainment.I have noticed at least two tv ad campaigns that feature consumers downloading and burning music. Implying it is a cool and totally normal thing to do. I think the majors are fighting a war they have already lost.
"Don't Follow Leaders." Bob Dylan
Not many companies would put 'warfare' in a job descriptions firstly because few are in a mindset that they at war (i.e. the goal is to destroy, not that the goal is to make profit by selling goods), and secondly because not many companies can get away with it. People would think Coca-Cola completely daft if they asked for a CTO to help shut down Pepsi's website. Now mind you, pretty much everyone admits that Pepsi's actions are more or less legal. That, however, doesn't make it any less excusible because vigalantism is supposidly illegal. That's my 2*10^-2*dollars.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
It surprised me that they were declaring p2p warfare OVERTLY, but then again, didn't Congress pass a bill that would give blank checks to allow p2p networks to be hacked by record companies, ie. distributing fake-hashed files to corrupt everything on the network and so forth?
/. effect the job application -- posting "p2p warfare" is a blatant display of corporate immorality and thuggery, and it threatens our freedom.
We should all mass apply and
How about some guerilla action here?
Wouldn't it be fun to apply for this job, and once you're in the interview process, begin espousing pro-P2P views. What if, one after the other, these guys had to confront a parade of rabid, file-sharing geeks with CTO-level qualifications?
Even better, *don't* mention your views until after you've accepted the job. Then work to sabotage Warner's "P2P warfare" efforts. Yeah, that's the ticket.
There's probably enough of you unemployed CTO's out there - who've undoubtedly spent your idle days using Kazaa - to pull of this Ken Kesey-style prank.
C'mon, baby, kiss The King.
This one?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
According to Monster.com, 335 job descriptoins include the phrase "Warfare". You can hold such captivating jobs as:
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At this point, Warner can do one of two things to survive: (1) change their business model, or (2) "go to war" against the many innovations that are making their business model obsolete. So it doesn't surprise me that they use the term "warfare".
It would appear that Warner is not capable of significant change. And that's easy to understand - Warner is a very old company, stuck in it's way, and hasn't had any ground-shaking innovation in the past 50 years. When you feel like crap, it's more satisfying to "go to war" than to intellegently address a serious issue.
It's kind of like Apple in the early 80's. Apple could have stuck with the comfortable Apple II line, or change. Apple changed and propelled the entire marketplace forward.
It's like IBM in the 90's... it could continue to be a big-iron shop, or change. It changed. IBM is much more of a service oriented company, embrassing the likes of Unix, Linux, and Java. They leveraged their former glory with new innovations.
But remember, like them or not, Apple and IBM have ALWAYS been innovators. Warner is more like US Steel in the 80's. US Steel could have continued to be an old-school steel producer, or change to react to new steel producing innovations happening overseas. US Steel decided to stay the course, and the steel industry in the USA is still plumetting and out-of-control.
Warner has chosen the path of US Steel.
Umm, what I read wasn't P2P warfare.. I read this:
"... evaluates alternatives for on-line music delivery, P2P warfare, copy protection, etc."
later I read:
"Analyzes all industry wide technological developments and initiatives related to music and music distribution in an effort to help company sustain its competitive advantage in the music technology marketplace."
Alternatives to P2P warfare. I think they realise its just not cost-effective to have a bunch of people sitting around trying to hack everyone who's running KaZaa.
Looks to me like they want someone to come up with realistic solutions and strategies that will work in the real world. Seems they want to 'Adapt or Die'.
"Requirements
A college degree or equivalent experience is required in engineering, computer science. Specific knowledge and experience in new media and new technologies is required."
Purely speculation: Their old CTO probably favored the old-school 'sue em all' approach, that's probably why he's lining up for food stamps, and why the particular wording of the job offer. Looks like they want a new direction, not to just bump another talking head into the post.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"Warner Music is cool. Wait... are they part of the RIAA? Argh"
Exactly.
Ever heard of a decoy? Someone to take the anger of consumers, someone who isn't recognisably the same as the Warner Music you might be considering buying a CD from?
Do the truth a favour: next time you want to critisize the RIAA, pick one of their member companies as your target instead.
"And Warner Brothers, who represent the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, are campaigning to make it legal to sabotage your computer in the name of 'compliance'"
Honestly this is a job I would consider doing.
I will now pause for everyone to finish going rabidly insane.
OK.
Yes, there are one or two phrases in the job description that are, at least on the fact of them, objectionable to the Slashdot crowd.
My personal concerns about this are whether this is a real CTO job, where there is a person who can set technology direction on behalf of the company, or whether you would be one CTO among dozens, and have no real power to implement changes at any fundamental level.
Unless it's the real thing, it's likely not going to result in anything at all, and you can all stop your paranoid worries. And if it *is* the real thing, and they get someone competent (a big "if"), you can all stop your paranoid worries.
Now look at the big picture: why is the music industry afraid of P2P and other online digitial distribution, when it's pretty clear that the primary use for these channels is for content that they would not usually consider distributing themselves?
My answer to this question is that the eventual results of this technology, if it prospers, is going to be disintermediation of artists and consumers.
There are a number to consequences to this which are -- believe it or not -- generally undesirable, and there are a number of *other* consequences to this which break their revenue models, and damage their ability to continue to do business.
To paraphrase what I think they've realized, "you can't piss in the wind"; it's reasonable for the company to seek alternatives to protecting their revenue model -- and, as a side effect, protect the generally desirable things which come with that revenue model, such as the ability of individual bands to make enough money that they can *be* bands full time, and have a reasonable chance of paying the rent when they are 65 and no longer interesting to their former primary markets. Bands die out because they're old, or because they've lost their social relevence, or their superstar lead singer has died, or any of the dozens of fates which can befall a band. If you have to stay in school for that accounting degree "to fall back on", in the full expectation of "falling back", it *will* effect your ability to make music.
At least Warner is looking out there, and noticing that things have in fact changed out from under them, and that they need to do something, other than just "business as usual".
Actually, there are literally dozens of ways they could deal with these issues technologically; several of them even involve the record companies themselves setting up *real* P2P networks, which don't actually suck for their revenue models, like Napster or GNUtella (the first because of the central control given to a single company, the second because of lack of scalability -- neither because of real piracy concerns).
It's amusing that they've emphasized "Agile development" (corporate code from a particular corporation for "Extreme Programming"). Most likely, they already have someone in mind, and the posting is to satisfy legal requirements.
-- Terry
lets restate those choices:
- 600 bands a year shoved down your throat,
but each of them with some moderate chance
of being able to make a living from their
music if people like it.
- 100,000 bands available on a P2P network, with
almost no chance of making a living because
there are no effective social networks in
place to allow discovery to take place.
i'd much rather have (b), but neither you nor anyone else has made any serious suggestions how the discovery process is going to work. mp3.com already has tens of thousands of bands listed - no mechanism exists for me to decide if i like any of them. the main mechanism i use these days is to listen to echoes (echoes.org) and check out the echoes website. what mechanism exists to get stuff "released" over p2p into the "forums" or "contexts" where i'll believe its even worth me trying a listening session?i can't disagree with your characterization of the radio business, but almost nobody does! defining the radio business like this isn't the issue - finding a workable alternative to the way it currently works is. and frankly, all the alternatives i've seen (including one that i set up (Equal Area)) have the implication that the vast majority of musicians that don't draw large crowds to live performances can forget about making a living.
CTO
.30 caliber, .50 caliber), 500.000 rounds of medium caliber ammunition (25mm) fully compatible with NATO weapons system, a set of the finest machine guns and a license to kill.
Location: Inner Bunker, CA; New York, NY
Position Type: Attack
Position Duration: Full-Time 24/7
Warner Music Group
Job Description
Warner Music Group seeks a heavy duty cyborg or mutant preferrably with stealth capabilities, and with desire to kill.
We offer a competitive salary and full benefits package, including, but not limited to, 1 million rounds per month of the finest ATK small caliber ammunition (5.56mm, 7.62mm,
Requirements:
Must obey, specially directive 4, and be tolerant to baby food.
Knowing ED-209 assembly is a plus. Also desirable is experience with flamethrowers and chainsaws.
If you are interested in this position, please submit your resume, including number of manslaughters you're accused of being involved to: acmearmy@warnerbros.com, subject: CTO.
They're declaring intent to break, enter & pillage
If somebody tried this in person, they'd get shot. Its called self-defense. This is a terrorist act using Gestapo tactics by a group which produces nothing and contributes nothing to society. If YOU tried this, you'd get shot at too.
Now we're going to have to back-up all our data (we'll need to buy lots of CD & dvd burners. Bet they'll love that. And that won't disrupt P2P sites that they are alleging to go after.) Wrecking P2P hosts is not exactly neat and clean. There'll be collateral damage. Somebody's systems are going to get wrecked.
The first time that someone loses corporate data on their servers due to an xxAA attack, the lawyers will have a field day. The activity may have been caused by an employee who was using extra bandwidth in a dubious manner but a company which get its data munged by the RIAA will send the RIAA the bill and about a dozen lawyers to collect their damages.
This will DESTROY the xxAAs. Ripping MP3s might have cost some sales (and I really doubt that,) but this virtual Gestapo tactic will back fire in the worst possible way.
Attacking your clientelle is totally stupid. Beyond stupid. Its suicidal. The xxAAs clients are in for a real shock. The backlast will hit them too.
Imagine a two month stretch where NOBODY buys a CD or goes to a movie of any xxAA member. We all buy for non-members and fuck the membership.
Anf their political friends will hang them absolutely out to dry the first time a government P2P server get reamed.
The xxAAs will be legislated OUT of existence using cyber-terorist laws.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
It's a word originating in 1967.
It means, in this context, "removing the middleman". The original definition is "removal of the intermediary".
-- Terry