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File-Sharing Ethics Taught In Classrooms?
shams42 writes "According to the New York Times, the movie/record industries are taking their concerns about P2P file sharing into the classroom (free reg. req.) Among other activities, they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free."
I think I'm going to brainwash little kids too.
We'll play a game called "Let's sue 12-year old girls!"
I wonder if they tell the kids the artists are starving since the RIAA gives them $0.00000083 for every CD sold.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, consult.
gosh, like sueing 12-year olds wasn't enough, now they are starving them too...
When will the RIAA post the list of "Starving Artists" who directly benefitted from the lawsuit against the 12-year old girl? And not only her, I want to see the list of starving artists that are aided by each and every lawsuit.
In school they told me that smoking was bad, I should eat a balanced diet, I shouldn't drink, and I should never smoke pot.
And look at me now!
I remember when I was in the early grades of school and TV networks went berserk over teachers using VCRs to tape shows and play them in class. I thought at the time that it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard of, and I am sure that will be the reaction of the kids today in this analagous situation.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
The children will also participate in a club called the Spies where they learn to turn in dangerous dissidennt traitors.
Can your child meet the expectations like Suzie Q. did last week when she overheard her parents saying that the RIAA should be ashamed of itself for sueing children and the elderly. She marched right over to the local police station and turned them in.
Can your child be as happysafe as Suzie Q.? You had better send them to the Spies and make sure!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Lets see how many different business models the students create that the RIAA could use. I wonder how long it will take for a student to say that he's going to make money by actually PERFORMING the music in a public venue?
Okay, so they're teaching kids that stealing is wrong. Perhaps not the same way I would, but that's the lesson.
What's the news, other than this flies in the face of saying there are no absolutes?
- B Ewbank
The best way to get a young kid to do anything is to tell them they are not alowed to do it. How many smoke because they are told it is bad ? As soon as they find out it is bad they want ot know why so they try it. I think this will make the problem worse.
they could submit their music to mp3.com and maybe even make some money instead and see that the market is shifting..
btw. most of the records I bought the last few years I wouldn't have heard of if it wasn't for p2p-software..
but then.. I'm the kind of the consumer the RIAA doesn't want.. one who choses what he wants to listen too.
- I choked on the red pill and now I'm stuck in limbo
This'll be about as effective as...DARE
they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free.
is this how they are scouting new acts or something? god knows these kids would probably come up with better crap than is being put out today.
Things were so much easier. The record execs had a game where we cut an album, then spent the next 4 years fighting to get paid, only to realize that our shady lawyer had stolen all of our profits and we were flat broke and unable to support our drug habbits. Wow- the things I learned in middle school.
Presumably there will an advanced course where students will look at how a artist can market his work in an age when record companies monopolise the retail channels and are interested only in supporting artists conforming to some corporate identity.
not
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
the kids will go home and download the perfect album they just created, or discover that their teacher lied to them.
How does this help the RIAA?
More like cocaine-starved music industry exec.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free.
Moral to that seems to be that the album's headed the way of the 8-track because you've gotta compete with free to sell an album... so go make your money at concerts.
they force that down childrens necks to, nothing like brainwashing to build strong character right ?
1) Their CD will be sold for $20 of which they will get 20 cents.
2) Their new and creative song will be played once per day while they have to listen to boy bands have their song played twice per hour
3) Their CD's will be used to test the latest anti-copying technology which winds up ruining their bands reputation.
4) They will have to pay their own money to make their own tape, and the "record industry" will give their music to a prettier classmate to create a cover song for a totally lame commercial that ruins any hip appeal their song might have had.
Can anyone else think of anything?
check out that crossword on the right. What does "3. Take music off the computer" correspond to -- "Digital theft" or "Download" or "Piracy"? And "14. Online Stealing"? Is that "Piracy" too? Arr, matey!
Good lord. "4. Software that traces a person's usage" must be "Spyware" -- are they teaching that Kazaa is evil (must not sleep, clowns will eat me), too?
Not a curriculum for me, thankyouverymuch. Unless it's in a lesson about corporate control of American schools, and they buy all the kids free Pepsis out of the vending machines with which the school has an exclusive contract.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
It can be the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not upset the RIAA (which is, obviously, a variation of He is not the Messiah, he's a Naughty Boy).
... RIAA as a religious cult. No, really, I can see that: brainwashed members, superstition, oppressive practices, etc.
Although this might, of course, infringe upon the separation of State and Church rule.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Suppose you come up with lyrics, cover art, and other original ideas... You still have yet to get this to the finished stage where at least a master copy of a CD exists. You know, do the singing, then all the studio work... I'm no singer, but making print-worthy cover art's not that easy either - I've done it, and puzzling through the printer's requirements took a while by itself, satisfying them took even longer.
They're planning to convince kids that all it takes to make an album is to make lyrics, cover art, and poof, here it is, somewhere? That's plain sick.
P.S. No, I can't RTFA. Damn NYT...
In Soviet Russia... RUSSIANS comment on YOU.
Does anyone know if the RIAA has hired Wolfram and Hart yet?
I love it where is says:
"There is no issue in my life I take as seriously as this," said Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of the News Corporation, which owns 20th Century Fox. "This is going to be with us for the rest of our careers. But if we remain focused on it, maybe it won't kill us and we won't have to panic."
Clearly they have already panicked, and frankly, I hope it does kill them. Extinction isn't so bad for an industry who has gouged the public for so long. Also, lets not forget that the artists get very little money as it is, because they grab most of it..
But there is a growing contingent who fear the threat is closer than some in Hollywood want to admit. Already industry analysts suggest there could be as many as 500,000 copies of movies swapped daily.
Could be.. maybe so, maybe not.. What should we do? Panic, I guess..
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
I have a better game in mind:
Starve the record company executive!!
It is much funnier...
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
C = child, T= Teacher
;)
C: Yes, so I'll make the CD, the album art like that, and it will have 12 tracks...
T: It's already available on the net (smiling)
C: Hmmm... let me think... How many downloads? Yes, they seem to like it, hmm... Yeah, good, so now I'm famous. Let's prepare my next concert around the world.
T: !!!
Starving artist? No way! An artist to play for the public, to have tours around the world, yes!
A good artist will never starve because his art is priceless.
P.S. The "Starving Artist" game is stupid, as showed above
...and if I catch wind of the RIAA propaganizing my niece during her school hours, I'll be meeting the spokesperson out on the playground.
cool, where can I get it?
If the students come up with good ideas, the record labels can steal them. So, the students will create great ideas only to have them stolen by corporations and distibuted for free by online traders.
I can't imagine a better real-world education.
I've got one. It's called screw the customer.
After suing a 12 yr old, knowing that they did it, and STILL they settled for $2k US? I think they should play a game called "Greedy Lawyer". Here the kids go up infront of the class, make a band, songs, album art, etc... then the RIAA says "Hey thanks for that, you get 1 cent an album we sell!".
Is this even legal? They are not a public entity like the Fire Dept or Police Dept that can come in and give lecutures on safety and saying no to strangers. They are a privatly owned firm of lawyers that will brainwash our kids to think their way. I really don't want my kids comming subjected to that. Yes, I could keep my child out of school that day but then they would lose any other classes that they would have that day also.
Is this what the education system is comming to these days now? Coperate sponsed education? It's bad enough that M$ is pushed in all the schools (nice that they get free computers though) now we're going to have the RIAA pushing their ethics? What's next? No, seriously, this is frightning to me. My two childern are just entering the school system now and with things like this croping up what will they be learning?
It's called - concidentally - "Starving Artist", where you play the part of an aspiring star, sign up to a record label, make your first song a hit, and end up in debt to the record company.
Teacher: Hello, children. Today we have mr. Valenti of the RIAA to speak to you.
Class: "Hello, mr. Valenti."
Valenti: "Hello, children. Do you like music?"
Class: "Yes!"
Valenti: "Do you think the artist should get paid?"
Class: "Ofcourse!!"
Valenti: "Well, now, we have Stuart Smith here in the class room. Stuart?"
Stuart: *getting red* "..eehh yes sir?"
Valenti: "We scanned that you have at least 1000 illegally pirated mp3's Do you know that the artists are starving because you don't buy their records?"
Stuart: "errrrrr"
Valnti: "Did you notice how thin and skinny some of the artists have been lately? The hungry look in their eyes? The artists are dying, stuart!"
(in the classroom, the kids start showing signs with the text "-1, troll" on them)
where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free.
Sounds like a game that is going to get real old, real fast.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I'm sure the RIAA will quickly get a reputation for being so incredibly cool and streetwise that kids will diss each other for daring to P2P.
Or perhaps exactly the opposite? I've always thought that a good way of teaching kids that something is incredibly cool is to tell them, in school, why it's a bad idea.
Go RIAA!! You are just hastening your own destruction. Ever thought that people share because it's something they feel is innately a good thing? Ever thought that you cannot, by definition, educate people out of innate behaviour? Ever thought that when the rules are broken by a majority of people, the rules have become meaningless?
Very amusing.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
...only to be told by teachers that the album is already available...
If the album is already available, then someone else has made it previously. So how is this any different from the plagiaristic cookie-cutter crap they put out now?
It was only yesterday, I think, when I was reading the /. stories about anti-spam services being taken down by ddos attacks, etc, I was thinking: what a depressing news day. The world looked pretty messed up then.
And then, *this* happens. Well, I take it all back: this is without doubt the most worrying, disturbing, depressing, troubling thing I have read in a long time. I'm not a parent, but if I was I'd being doing everything in my power to ensure my kid wasn't subjected to this propaganda in the classroom. Scary, scary times.
Why are they always suing in civil proceedings rather than prosecuting with a criminal trial?
this is sick and twisted. what ever happened to some good 'ole Oregon Trail. =( Shame on you RIAA for even contemplating these things. I'm beggining to see more and more an Orwellian country in the making here.
DARE is beyond worthless. I remember getting these lifesaver candies on a necklace that we had to wear all day, and try not to eat. (Supposed to emulate resisting drugs) I ate mine within 5 minutes. And, also if you think about, what they were really teaching us is that drugs are like candy.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
This does seem remarkably stupid. When I was 12 (quite a while ago) tape to tape cassette recorders were all the rage, and in the UK and doubtless elsewhere, the record companies had a campaign called "home taping is killing music" which we all thought was hilarious. I don't remember if they actually sued anyone with a large collection of D90's or not but I always escaped. When I first got into music I taped music from everywhere - radio, TV, friends collections, I mean everywhere. I couldn't afford to buy this stuff on the minimal pocket money I had and from cleaning cars and whatever but I developed a passion for a huge range stuff much of which I still love. Now I'm a ludicrously overpaid programmer (and a ridiculously underpaid keyboard player) I buy CD's. Lots of them. I don't imagine I would buy in anything like the volumes if I hadn't been able to get hold of stuff for free in the first place for the simple reason that I don't think music would have become that important to me.
They can just download it from the net. Just pick some obscure title the teacher would not know.
For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!'
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
I thought they weren't supposed to allow child predators in schools.
I can see it now... teachers trying to express some kind of values system to a class either teeming with people whos every tantrum was rewarded with the object of desire to shut him/her up, or trying to preach that "stealing is wrong" to a class of poor, lower classed, gang ridden classmates.
You'll probably get maybe 3 or 4 people in a class (the ones I picked on in school) sitting there nodding their heads in agreement. The rest will sit through it like a high school trig class. Physically there, and barely that.
(Those students will probably be taken by RIAA and branded for later collection to go to their "gifted" classes)
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
Ok thats fine, except in most cases you can slot in "Fat bloated multi-national record company". Often the Artist is only getting a tiny % of proceeds, and the ones who get a big % are not particularly starving. Why not encourage kids to buy tracks from the *real* starving artists, the small guys who sell thier work more or less directly..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
According to the lesson, the volunteer would then "ask them how they felt when they realized that their work was stolen and that they would not get anything for their efforts." What a great lesson in what is feels like to sign on with a major record label.
Kids are the only ones who are as self-serving and bullying as the RIAA so it would seem to suit well - kids are the only ones who might sympathise with the RIAA...
Will that make any reference to the Blues and Jazz artists shameless ripped off by the musicians owned by the record companies?
How about people like John Williams recycling Stravinsky's music in such places as Star Wars and Jaws while paying no royalties?
Maybe they'll mention Frank Zappa and all the legal hoops he had to jump through to get control of his own music so it could be released?
Perhaps if you buy the `starving artists` pack you get the `raving coke-head` pack absolutely free?
I hope the teachers will make it clear that, while slavery was abolished many many years ago, the recordcompanies basically still treat their 'artists' that way...
And ofcourse they'll explain how, with record sales going platinum, you'll *owe* the record company money (see TLC, they declared bankruptcy).
And hey, while we're at it, try explaining the 'record breakage fee' of 10% (if i remember correctly) which is still in place, while records haven't been easily breakable since they went to vinyl (ok, you'll probably have to explain what vinyl is too.).
I could go on for a while, but i'm sure you get the picture.
They see through things like this.
So the kids do all this hard work only to be told that it was all for nothing because people can get their imaginary music for free...blah, blah, blah.
I wonder what the teachers' responses will be when some kid asks why Justin Timberlake can still afford a Jaguar.
What happens if the kids decide to write lyrics to existing (in copyright) music? Or variants on existing lyrics? As kids can get carried away with enthusiasam I can easilly imagine some then distributing it. One thing I am sure of is that this is going to go wrong (for the RIAA) in unpredictable ways, at best it will be ineffective. This is a sign of desperation.
Teacher: So, how do you guys feel about having your works pirated over the internet?
Student #1: Eh, no big deal.
Teacher: No big deal? But...
Student #2: We don't make shit for royalties. Like it matters.
Teacher: Language! But it's being stolen!
Student #3: It's not stealing, it's technically copyright infringement you stupid twat!
Student #4: Hell, it's more like free publicity. Fuckin' A!
Teacher: I said langua...
Student #5: And why the fuck do I have to wear leather pants? They fucking stick to my crotch!
Teacher: Enough of the language!
Student #6: Fuck you and fuck the RIAA for ripping us off!
Student #1: Wait a second, we never signed a contract with this cunt! We don't owe you shit!
Student #5: And you made me wear leather? You sick bitch!
All students: Lynch mob!
At least that's what my class probably would have done back in the day.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
I remember at school being encouraged to share with my peers because it was nice, now big multinationals are giving early lessons in consumerism, what the heck happened?
I'd love to see their reaction when some of the kids, on being told that they're not selling any albums at $/ 13.99 because it's available on the net, suggest charging /$ 1-2 for it instead.
Escoutaire
When a dream dreams the dreamer, the dreams the real.
Aren't they responsible for putting enough children in early graves already.
I would imagine, one could find intent with acknowledged consequences through papers (assignments and so on) wrote through out university.
Lord of The Flies II - The Return
The boys, now in their late teens, decide to hold a reunion on They Island. They all get there, except Piggy, who is now running a rubberwear franchise in Taipei and can't make time.
After five hours on The Island, their Net link goes down and the Boys find themselves cut off from civilisation. It's Deja Vu all over again!
The group splits into two, the first half decide to call themselves "the Lost Artists" and they try to recover their cultural heritage by recording every pop song they know (acappela) onto a portable MD player.
But they only get as far as BoyzRUs, "Gotta little itch", before the second part of the group, who have ripped their t-shirts and now call themselves the "Island Pirates", descend in fury and steal all the precious minidiscs.
The pirates stop only to smash everything they can find, snort some cocaine that was handily lying around, and then flee, laughing evilly, into the hills.
Our heroes, stunned by the barbarism of it all, take a few minutes to collect their senses, and some precious original Brittney CDs, then they give chase.
Hours later, in a craggy valley high in the hills, the two groups confront each other. "You stole our music", cry the white-shirted artists. "It was just lying around", the black-shirted pirates retort, throwing stones and the occasional piece of dried hog dung. "Property is theft," they continue, "it all belongs to the people, and we are the people, so fuck off!"
The artists can take no more. They play their Brittney CDs, which being 100% legal, have none of those nasty bumps and scratches, at full volume on a salvaged boom box. The pirates collapse onto the ground, unable to resist the pure power of Brittney as she hits them with that Asian sound. The artists take large rocks and smash them onto the pirate's heads. "Steal our music, yeah?" SMASH!! "Property is theft?" CRASH!!!
Just then, the Internet link comes back up. A voice comes over the mobile VOIP: "Hey sorry for that 5-minute downtime, our router was being fixed. It's all OK again now".
The artists collect themselves, thankful that civilisation has rescued them from total descent into barbarism.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
... are hopefully smart enough and go home and look at MTV and ask themselves, does these guys look like they are starving or at least afford not to have that third diamond pinky ring?
*bling bling*
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
...Let's devote classroom time to teaching kids not to share MP3s. They already spend *way* too much time learning math, science, and history. Just look at how American students compare to other countries in standardized tests!
Well isnt it nice to know that education isnt revolving around history, math, literature, science and technology, etc.. Its about how to become a comsumer for the bigger companies. And some people wonder how the american education system seems to falling apart. I think this answers it.
They don`t have the kids playing Fat-Cat execs, who take all the money from record sales, and give none of it back to the artists.
Spend their time working out how to clone the next one hit wonder.
Set their lawyers onto 12 year old "evil-scourge-of-the-music-industry-pirate-scum" girls, and totally innocent computer users.
But then I'm sure that the school would not want to show a bias in anyway either...
CJC
I find it a whole lot easier to sympathize with the plight of the movie industry when the topic of file sharing is considered. When I buy a movie, I'm getting only the material I want at a price that I feel is reasonable. I'd imagine that a lot more people are involved in the making of a movie, so if I end up paying twenty or thirty dollars for it, that's pretty good. Plus, there's usually a wide selection of used films available, at a good discount. Furthermore, there is a huge industry in movie rental, so if I'm not sure I want to buy a movie, I can almost always rent it first.
Music is often bundled in a way that forces me to buy ten songs I'm not interested in to get the two that I am. Granted, this allows me to listen to music to which I would otherwise not be exposed, but I've observed that it is usually music that I wouldn't have purchased, had I heard it beforehand. Given this, the price of a music CD is too high for the enjoyable content I receive. If I knew I was going to enjoy all twelve tracks (or all 18 tracks, heaven forbid), twenty dollars would be a fine price. Used music is difficult to come by. The local music shoppe has a room devoted to it, but the CD's are often scratched and the selection is very limited. There are also few, if any, avenues for music rental.
Overall, I think that the movie industry has fostered a system that allows me to get the most out of my purchase and still leaves them a profit. The music industry has fostered a system that often causes me to get far less from my purchase, even than I was led to expect I would get.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
Do they really think a fifth to ninth grader would fall for this?
T:Those albums you worked so hard on are now available to download for free!
5th to 9th: umm.I haven't sung or played anything yet (pfft, idiots).
Anyway, who do the RIAA think they are!? It's not like they are able to change the education system. They seem to just pull so many random shocking stunts. Really it gets so annoying hearing news about what evil incarnate is doing this week to prevent piracy.
Karma: -2^0.5 . Mainly due to the imbibing of dihydrogen monoxide
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit.
Robert Heinlein
I think they should play "Starving music industry executives", where the music industry executive buys a Porsche and lots of cocaine, only to be told he can't afford them, he's been sacked because his company's business model is obsolete.
If they want to play Starving Artist, why are they changing the rules?
Shouldn't there be a phase in gameplay where they introduce these kids to cocaine and hoes to further indenture them? What about the ironclad contract these students have to sign before they get to play? And where is the record executive sitting behind each players back, dictating the moves these kids are allowed to make?
This is simply a mind controlling project. I have yet to meet a person under the age of 30 that does not understand its "wrong" to download music they haven't purchased. They simply dont care.
Chances are most of the students attending this bunk will be sharing files on their laptops during class.
I remember when Anheuser-Busch came to my classroom in the 4th grade to talk about alcohol abuse. (I'm not kidding). You might ask yourself, what kind of school system would allow something as silly as the RIAA to talk about 'stealing music', or Budweiser to talk about alcohol abuse, or Joe Camel to talk to your kids about smoking? (Phillip Morris talked to my school too). But keep in mind, these schools are so strapped for cash that they'll probably let Ron Popiel in to hock those grills, if he agrees to bring lunch for the kids. And those 'fundraiser' magazine and candy sales are nothing more than marketing. And don't get me started on textbooks with advertising.
Adequately fund your schools or this BS will happen all the time.
Copyright is a privelege, and like any other privelege, when abused, it ought to be taken away. If copyright were used as intended, that is to offer some degree of protection to the author from the publisher, this "education" would make sense. If copyright were used as intended, Eric Clapton, and John Fogerty would not have been sued by their former labels for perfoming their own songs. Who owns the music?
Remeber kids, Don't Copy That Floppy!!!
And effect
It also explains:
Of course, stranger things have happened, like Coke and Pepsi sponsoring schools. What, I wonder, would the teachers make of it if a student piped up and said they were going to give the album away for free anyway? Would they be carted off to RIAA-retraining camp?
The "starving artist" sells millions of records and becomes famous popular.
Then the record companies come and beat it out of him, take everything he owns, and leave him starving.
mommIE, why are all the other kiddIEs saying we're poor now.
well, it's because daddIE's bosses needed even more monIE to buy yachts & stuff, so they took daddIE's monIE too.
are they going to give it back to US?
that's a gooed won honIE, just eat your fudggIE flakes, & be quIEt now.
Actually, come to think of it, if it was possible to stop crime by teaching children in school that it is wrong, then perhaps the government should be doing it already. Sure, it would cost money, but think of the savings in police and prison costs.
Bottom line: If this was going to make any difference then others would already be using it, so its just a waste of the RIAA's time and money.
You're a small manufacturer and you just realized that none of the major retail chains will carry your product because they already cut a high-volume deal with the existing large manufacturers...if you need to make it media specific, you can make yourself a small independent film maker...
Or how about, some of the kids are the shareholders, some are CEO's and some are rule makers. The kid shareholders make money by giving their monies to the kid CEOs that make profits. However, according to the rules of the free market the kid CEO's can't make consistent profits without cheating the free market rules...the CEO's then make appeals, promises, and payments to the group rule makers to change the free market rules...they aquire property via these rule changes and then further argue that they this property is protected. The more property you get, the more effectively your arguments are evaulated.
NYT: Studios Moving to Block Piracy of Films Online
Now, while I'm *pretty* sure this is a troll (and if not them I sympathise with your family position), I'd just like to point out a few inconsistencies...
1) You own a "family oriented" record store with a huge christian section, but you say things like "Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back."? That's very christian and tolerant of you!
2) "Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame." You don't know whether people prefer to do other things, but you DO know that Internet piracy is to blame?? Very perceptive of you! Or alternatively this is just your opoinion!
3) "People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected pirates to a hotline, similar to TIPS." Ah - perfect! A "dob-in-your-neighbour" scheme. The perfect vehicle for people to get revenge on those they have a problem with.
4) Finally, I think your idea is just about outrageous enough that the RIAA might actually take it seriously! Given how they have so far flown in the face of public opinion by implementing extremely unpopular solutions, I expect your proposal to be implemented within the next few weeks. The only problem is that it will probably drive the entire record industry out of business as I can't see people wanting to have to identify themselves in order to buy some music.
The music industry as a whole needs to take a leaf out of the film industry's book. The RIAA are fighting a losing battle, but if instead they encouraged record labels to use some of that incredible store of creative talent, then they could come up with some great solutions to the problem.
Think about the market for DVD's for instance. If the music you could buy in shops came with booklets/video snippets/multimedia additions/extra artwork etc then more people would be encouraged to buy the original to get the whole experience.
If less new bands were mass produced *blah* then the record buying public might become excited about music again and buy more.
If new distribution possibilities were explored with the aggressivity that the RIAA are applying to "fighting" piracy, then you and other record retailers might be able to find exciting new markets, such as print-on-demand music sales, sales of single tracks (at reasonable prices) for immediate download onto portable music players and much more.
The answer to the problem isn't legislation against progress (because while piracy is a problem, the move towards more and more digital music formats is undoubtedly progress), but instead to explore creative new solutions to the problem. Instead of wasting your time on anger, why not focus on new creative ways to get people back into your shop. I'm sure it is possible, but it may not be as simple as sitting back and letting the RIAA try and legislate the problem away (which they will surely fail to do).
A little planning goes a long way...
Maybe the kids would be more interested in playing "Rich Record Company Executive", where the kids get to make the decision to release a bunch of shitty albums, snort high quality coke off the tits of expensive hookers in a Learjet, and fuck the 'starving artists' in the ass!
Among other activities, they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free.
Let's play a numbers game. It's a great CD but only 2 million copies are sold. $17 * 2 million - (2 million * ~.35$) - RIAA = $19.95. That's still enough for plenty of Ramen.
When you download mp3s,
You're downloading COMMUNISM
Why are private companies allowed to provide teaching services? Why not Coca-Cola "Why Pepsi tastes like rat's urine" lessons? Oscar-Meyer promotional periodic tables?
Oh, not this one again! Maybe if these record execs wouldn't take such a huge profit off sales, the 1 out of 10000 or so (probably bigger) won't have to eat at a 2 star and go to a 3 or 4 star.
Sheesh, starving? I mean, really. Compare the ratio of starving artists to starving normal people. I'd bet you anything regular people are going hungry around the world at a higher percentage than artists.
In addition, maybe if artists were creative (read, true artists) and came up with their own stuff, they wouldn't be "starving"! (?)
teachers already use p2p in the schools and 5th graders and up already know about it.
-Tim Louden
fact is, unless you're eminem, michael jackson (jacko was at the top for years) or someone similarly successful with record sales (ie. worldwide #1) the take from album sales and royalties is a pittance once you have been charged all the expenses.
ever listen to Tom Petty's song with the lyrics "Don't wanna live like a refugee". that was a protest song over the screw deal the record label signed him to. he had hit songs and debts so high, he'd never be out of hock. this is still happening today. the record labels sign artists deceptively (with so-callled "A&R" reps) to long term agreements without mechanism for release at the artists discretion, then use these agreements to either lowball the artists, or keep their music off the shelves. its a dirty, dirty business.
fact is, the artists won't starve from filesharing. they are starving from being robbed blind by the big 5! damn shame.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
"Among other activities, they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that they will only get $1 for every album sold and then still be $1,000,000 in debt to the record company. Then teachers will tell them that they'll be spending the next 3 years like slaves performing 6 nights a week, unable to see their family or friends because they're travelling the country, living with 8 other people in a van with a $10 per diem, and showers once a week. Then the teachers will tell them to keep their fingers crossed because they have a solid 1 in 100,000 chance of hearing their album on MTV.."
This is a good replacement for sex classes indeed. For when are prayers in classroom and teaching creationalism due, again ?
mighty nice of you to tell people that sharing is wrong...sounds very christian.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
How bout this game, call it rockband.
95% of the kids are told to form bands.
the remaining 5 % are broken up into record execs, AR men and lawyers
The kids in the bands all have to try to get the attention of the AR men, when they do the AR men have to get them to sign a letter of intent.
Once the bands have signed a letter of intent they can then negotiate with the record companies. After going into debt to both the record companies and their lawyers they can then record their album.
Then you can have the fun part. The royalty statement where, the bands can find that even though they have sold 32 million dollars worth of CD's they still haven't made a profit. Matter of fact they are in debt to the record company. And, Their effective earning power would have been better if they were at 7-11
Now you can tell the kids in the band that their fans are downloading their songs.
This is the kind of game I wouldn't mind seeing in schools. You could follow it up with other fun legal games like, Make the laws benefit you, Patent Grab, and sue your competition out of business.
P2P filesharing is a demonstration of classic american values. Whenever in this country a small group has managed to buy laws that are significantly out of line with reality the bulk of the country just ignores them.
Seems like the upper management at Enron, Worldcom, NYSE, and a lot of others should have paid more attention to ethics. Go Figure
Wherever you go, there you are.
How does "coming up with an idea..." to do something have anything to do with copyright? You have to actually produce something first. If this demonstrates anything, it demonstrates the issue of prior art, where they are not permitted to pursue their dream and copyright it because someone else already did.
If you want the kids to really get an idea, they're going to have to spend all their time and effort working on something, tell them that they'll be able to sell it when they're done, and then after months of effort, take away the fruits of their labors and tell them you were just kidding.
Of course, the problem with this is, they'll have to actually create something that someone would be interested in purchasing, and it's unlikely that the average 5-9th grader will be able to pull this off, no matter what it is, and most especially not a product of an intellectual nature. Sure there are the rare exceptions, but this is a project aimed at ALL students, not the TAG crowd.
So at best this will be another boring assignment that the students will only half heartedly pay attention to. And at worst, the few students that have yet to figure out what "that there interweb" thing is all about will suddenly realize that they're missing out on a ton of free music.
This is probably another one of those sugarcoated efforts to make the public cry for the poor starving artists that are being robbed blind by the malicious 12 year olds who download their music, instead of realizing that the record industry is the one robbing them blind.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
But he sure knows that Kazaa is the root of all that is wrong in the universe.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
yeak...k&e. in my highschool, candy necklaces were band for being drug paraphanlia
I have another game, where you plant a tree, wait for it to grow, cut it, and use the wood to painstakingly make a table, using your bare hands and a pocket knife. After all your efforts, you find out that tables better than yours are available everywhere for almost nothing, done by machines.
So you stop making tables. Big deal.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Well, I cannot think of a more natural and inherent human right than sharing information: stories, songs, music, etc. We as a civil society have limited that right for the temporary benefit of content producers to promote the useful arts and sciences - in theory at least. The quote at the end of a recent article linked to by Slashdot really burns me.
Rather than encourage children to think of creative ways to use the Internet to share, the recording industry would be much more comfortable maintaining the status quo. This really is Newspeak!
Sharing music online may be illegal, but we (in theory) have the ability to change the law. We have the ability (let me be optimistic) to invent new methods of temporarily compensating content producers to promote the useful arts and sciences. The RIAA want to introduce a framework of thoughts and words that make such a system seem inherently immoral.
Gawd, I can't believe the NYT fell for this one...
I think the RIAA must have missed the kindergarten lesson on sharing.
GL
Now, while I'm *pretty* sure this is a troll (and if not them I sympathise with your family position)
In the unlikely event that it wasn't a troll the first time it was posted, I think it's safe to assume it is by the thirteen millionth or whatever we're up to now.
this is really sick, brainwashing little kids, they ought to be sued for slander, because last time i checked having 2 benzes, a hummer, and a bently, while living in 90210, is not exactly roughing it. not that the artists would see a dime more, even if their record sales did jump 30 percent
Does art exist only to provide money for those who make it? Should an artist be happy because people enjoy his work and at the same time he also gets more popularity. And that means more people will be listening him live.
Big Bird: Look Elmo, I downloaded all this neato music on the 'In-ter-net'.
Elmo: That's stealing. People who pirate music should die of cancer. You're going to hell. Hehehe, that tickles.
Obvious Sequel to 'Starving Artist':
'Dead Artist', where the music industry buys the tracks from the grieving life partnet/family member for a piddlin' amount, and then makes a bundle on 'tribute' CDs.
(Someone else can make the Sally Struthers/Christian Children's Fund riff -- I need more coffee.)
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
...I mostly listen to J-Pop and they don't, as a rule, have blondes. :)
But you can't replace typographic design with a blonde anyway. ;)
In Soviet Russia... RUSSIANS comment on YOU.
Haven't we had enough of morally deviant predators grooming little kids to turn them into compliant bitches?
Now, I'm all for teaching kids (and adults) about the consequences of their actions, but the action that the RIAA are objecting to isn't file copying, it's not buying music. There's a distinction, and I want them to be honest about what they're saying.
What these kids are really being told is: "If you don't do buy Freshy Q's new CD, the police will take your mommy away. Sorry, I mean, Freshy Q is going to die in the gutter."
Now, sure, Freshy is dead meat if you don't buy because you're downloading his m3p, but the thing is, he's just as destitute if you don't buy because you're happy listening to him on the radio, or by streamed webcast, or on MTV-a-like channels, or (shocker) if despite - or perhaps because of - the many ways that the RIAA pays to get the music to you, you simply choose not to buy a CD.
That's the message that the RIAA is giving, once you strip the bullshit away. Buy more music. Buy music, or you've killed Freshy Q. It's not our job to persuade you to pay, it doesn't matter how generic or plastic our miming meat puppets are, the fact is, Billy, it's your responsibility to pay, and frankly, you should pay whether you like the music or not. It's all about stopping poor Freshy Q from starving.
Spooky prediction? Next year, it's Driver's Ed, but first a short message from our sponsors, the Ford Motor Company Inc.
"Hello class. I'd like to tell you the story of Wally Doe. We had to lay Wally off because you selfish little bastards are walking to school instead of pestering your parents to buy you a Ford Weener. Now Wally has to give handjobs for food. Say, kids, how would you feel about choking the chicken of a 400lb trucker to make ends meet?"
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I'm okay with the RIAA teaching kids the reality of the music business, not their limited vision of it. In addition to teaching them how the major labels will screw them, we could teach them other important lessons like:
1) How distrubting your music for free can lead to people buying CD's, swag and concert tickets.
2) How most artists will fail to make any money under the old system and thus stand to lose very little to the file swappers.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Wow, I didn't know John Ashcroft owned a record store as well as have a recording career while still having the time to be our Attorney General! Good for you John.
The gesstapo starts now
Channel One is the root of all evil. When I was in high school we were required to watch Channel One and we could not do any homework or do anything that would distract us from Channel One. Also, Channel One it self is mostly just adverstising. It never tells you anything new news-wise, and all the stories that it does present have some sort of coprate spin to the.
The artists are already starving in comparison. Why don't they just tell the truth and call the program "Starving Corporate Executive".
They could show the horrors of the poor RIAA execs who could only buy one BMW this year, or the trauma of having to sell one of their estates.
Your argument is flawed. Yes, all those things you allude to are true -- the RIAA sells CD's for a lot more than they give the artist, they control the distribution methods, etc.
But so-called "file-sharing" eliminates all other alternatives for an artist to make money by selling his music. If an artist put out a CD for $10, managed to control his own distribution, and wound up making $5 per CD, you'd still download it. You have no idea how much money each artist makes from their CD sales.
You're a hypocrite. You justify your theft because you're taking money from a large corporation, yet you have no problem taking money from artists too.
When's the last time you mailed a band $1 because you liked their CD, you downloaded it from the internet, and you want to compensate them. Never? I thought so.
Rather than sit around whining about the evils of it all, why don't you characters on the other side of the fence get some people into the schools campaigning about the other point of view?
Expecting your point of view to carry the day simply because you're convinced it's ethically preferrable is childish and naive.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I understand both sides of this issue. In general the RIAA scared to death about file sharing. More so then other forms of coping because of 3 major problems.
1. File Sharing is easy and inexpensive to do.
2. Copies and be distributed with the same quality every time.
3. It is an extremely easy to mass produce.
Compared to the Traditional RIAA Business model. File Sharing is a direct competition to their business and what is worse is that this competition uses the RIAA expenses to make itself popular. The RIAA help make the artist popular and a big seller then they provide the professional recording studio which costs thousands if not millions of dollars upfront and cost to maintain. So after they put the expense to put together an album a fraction of the people buy the product then the rest download it off the internet for free.
But on the other hand the RIAA is handling this problem completely wrong. They should stop their instinct to Sue everyone under the sun and use their money and resources to change their product to make it more palatable to their customers. The first thing that comes to mind is lowering the Cost of their product, $5-$10 per CD is a fairer price for CDs. With these cheaper CDs put more music on a CD, Using a compresses music format (like MP3 or whatever) so for the $8 per CD and you get 8 hours of fairly high fidelity music. Realizing not all the people who file share would go out and buy their CDs (Like a 12 year old girl who doesn't have money to buy every CD of her favorite Boy Band), but this can be an advantage, because you begin to get a good handle on what people like and they dislike so they can concentrate their efforts in making a product that people want to buy.
Unfortunately in todays day and economy when they find they have competition they find ways to sue the competitor, which is a Communist way of handling with the situation because they look to the government to make any problems in their lives better. While the true capitalistic way is to go and make a better more competitive product, to compete. Innovate or Die, should be a Capitalistic call, not who uses the taxpayers government resources or die.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hopefully music pirating behavior in our youth will be as successfully stopped as drug using behavior has been, thanks to these wonderful school programs.
What's next... honest policitian!
Give me a break. Only the real artists are starving. Not the record companies or their stable of play it again...the same way you did before... roster of musical acts!
This rubbish has NOT place in the classroom.
Did we mention terrorists... oh ok we did, good.
...and let the kids and their parents work out the ethics.
yeah, yeah, yeah, and "aggravated manslaughter" technically isn't "murder."
The DOJ doesn't buy the "copyright isn't theft" defense.
Traditionally, theft involves taking something from another person without their permission. In short, you deprive that person of their property and they can no longer enjoy its use. Some have argued, particularly in the context of online or digital piracy, that infringement or misappropriation really doesn't deprive the victim of their product because it is merely being copied, so infringement or misappropriation is not truly theft. As criminal prosecutors, we focus on the conduct, regardless of the label that might be applied. That said, in the cases we prosecute, we believe that using the term theft is not misleading. While there may be technical differences between certain types of infringing activity, conduct that triggers the criminal statutes is analogous to theft.
not theft?
tell it to the judge.
That is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Thanks.
Anyhow, this guys a troll, Wal-Mart is doing more to put him out of business than Kazaa is, considering they sell the exact same crap.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
If the summary is accurate, all authors of political satire should sue the RIAA next for making it impossible for them to do their work - how can you top that?
A friend of man had a little fun with Channel One when he was in HS. He made a tape that was filled with an extra nasty Ron Jeremy scene looped over and over. The Channel One master VCR was in a little room all by itself. He went in there switched their tape for his, locked the door AND put superglue in the lock.
For once, the kiddies actually paid attention to Channel One that day.
Apparantly great minds think alike. A job ago, a couple of troublemakers in one the high schools I worked in did the same thing. They knew they would get the blame so they just turned themselves in after the gag came off.
Ah! I kinda thought so!
I've only seen it the once though - I guess my other internet addictions have been taking time from my Slashdot reading!
A little planning goes a long way...
All parents should immediately contact their children's schools and inform them that your child will not be exposed to this kind of propaganda. Let them know that you and a group of other concerned parents will be filing a class-action lawsuit if this event is allowed.
We must let the RIAA know that their shit about rights, et. al., is not acceptable. If it is learned that the schools are being given "incentive", another class action should be opened.
This kind of manipulation should be illegal.
P.S. My daughter is in Kindergarten.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
However, by middle school the lessons on advertiser manipulation are over and the lessons move to the realm of fiction. A minority of the content is supported by peer reviewed research. Most of it is the opinion of the writers of the pamphlet. The ultimate insult is that such fictional content is presented in science class, and therefore steals instructional time from the actual useful development of higher order thinking.
In both cases we could continue the early training and just teach the kids that they do not need to consume. Many kids, and i believe adults, steal music because they are compulsive about owning the content, a compulsion fueled by the machines of the respective industry. The problem is that teaching kids they do not need to consume music would probably do more damage to the music industry that just allowing them to steal it, just like teaching kids they do not need drugs to cope would do more damage to the legal drug industry.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Bart: Sounds like a pretty crappy game to me.
Principal Skinner: Yes, well... Get started.
-- ``Bart the Murderer''
Manufactured, pad're? Ya mean the audio_crack and video_morphine that gets pimped by major lables? Heh ... the 13-year-olds girls gotta ( SNORT-SNORT )look up ta somebody, and they need a GROUP ID ! The Hollywood pimps will sure donate that. Grab yer ax & stroll Melrose any evening ...
"Among other activities, they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free."
The teacher will phone them this information from the Bahamas and tell them that they've got to produce four more albums in line with the standard contract.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
So, any special interest group gets to push their morals and agendas on our kids? In their classrooms? It's one thing to transmit their propaganda over the TV and radio, but its another to hold the kids captive and force them to listen/participate in such a way.
Hopefully, parents will be given the option of opting their children out of such activities. If not, let's hope one of these kids has lawyers for parents.
What next? The Right-To-Lifers get to stage a school "assignment" that's really just preaching the evils of abortion? The Brady Bill nuts get to do the same preaching the evils of firearms? Where does it stop?
Hey - why stop there? Let's get Coca-Cola to come in and "teach" how their product is superior to Pepsi. And let's get Dunlop to come in and teach how their tires are superior to Michelins.
This is just stupid.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
When I was in kindergarten, I learned to share....
Now the MPAA is going to teach me that sharing is bad?
Kid1: Huh? You can download music from the Internet?
Kid2: Yeah, just Google for Kazza.
Nerd: Don't use plain Kazaa - they can track your IP address, and all those ads are annoying.
Kid2: Huh? Nerd: You need a different P2P app with anonymizing features.
Kid1 and 2: Huh?
Nerd: If you use Kazaa, you might get into trouble, and your parents may take away your computer.
Kid1 and Kid2: What should you use?
Nerd: Here, write this down...
Note: I'm suggesting that a nerd in the class educate the other children. None of you high-school or older nerds should go down to the schoolyard saying "Psst - hey kid, wanna anonymizing P2P app? First CD is free..."
If that were the case, you'd think that the RIAA would have a hard time finding bands willing to sign contracts, and 7-Elevens would be inundated with job applications from band members who didn't make any money.
But of course, there never seems to be a shortage of new bands polluting the airwaves, so I have to conclude that either your facts aren't entirely true, or aren't entirely complete. Afterall, SOMETHING is driving these bands to aspire for a big contract, and it's not poverty.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
RIAA: "see little timmy, instead of eating big juicy sirloin steaks like me, I've robbe.. err um I mean P2P has robbed my artists so they only get the moldy bread they found in the dumpster. Look how hungry they are!"
Then maybe after the game they should hand out subliminally enhanced CD samplers and tickets to thier Full-length Motion picture, with accompanying video game, depicting "little timmy" valiantly fighting off the terrible hordes of evil filesharers!
Im sorry that your business is going down the hole, but Internet piracy isn't affecting your sales...
... treating your customers like you did is the way to go, man! grab all kids that talk about Internet, or say something that you don't wan't by the collar, your store will be the more popular in the neighborhood!
kids download mainstream music, with a preference with music with profanities, sexism and cop-killer rap. Marylin Manson and the likes, you know?
by the way
Maybe someday even the father of the "friend bitch" appears at your store to say a thank you for saving his daughter from the sin of her ways! This or beat the shit out of you...
Listen, if I'm sitting in the catbird's seat at a major label, I wouldn't be punking these kids out about how filesharing hurts artists, I'd be showing them how the pros do it - legally.
Vanishing royalties, recoupable expenses, double-standard accounting, ball-gripper contracts, long-term litigation - by the time these kids are finished with the class, they'll be dying to work in the industry instead of in front of it as performers. Screw the multiplication table, show 'em how to do math using the Royalty Calculator. Those proficiency tests will get hammered, at least mathematically.
Anyways, your mileage may vary.
Peace.
Last year I waa out of work, and to be competitive I needed to upgrade my skills with a particular (expensive) software package. I downloaded and cracked a copy, taught it to myself, passed the cert test, and got a job.
:-)
Was that stealing? Damn right it was stealing. It was like stealing bread to feed my family.
Interestingly, the maker of that software package was a major offshorer. So a little rationalization helped me resolve my moral dilemma.
Oh, and I did eventually buy the software. And I can even afford a few CDs now, too
RIAA teaching ethics in class? Coca-cola and Pepsi days? Every time I talk to USians about their school systems I am baffled by how little critical thought is applied before College-level. And I can't help but think that the corporatification of the educations might very well have something to do with it. HJ
The Mini Repository - more links
Kids, look at P Diddy.
Someone shared his songs on the internet now he can only afford ten hookers for ech party instead of the usual 30
Look at Beniffer
If no one had shared their movie on the internet, they would have married by now.
blah,blah,blah
how long until
How is it a private business organization can have this kind of influence in public schools, especially young children?
What's next, Nike kids about the evils of Rebok?
A troll? Come on, how can anyone think this is anything other than pure classic tongue-in-cheek comedy?
Liz Phair was on Real Time with Bill Maher a few weeks ago. She was pleading her case and yada yada and over and over again she used the word "stealing". Whether or not she actually believed what she was saying (or being told to believe it) was unclear.
.40 calibur handgun trained on her temple.
It was rather sad though that Bill wasn't having the slightest bit of an opposition on this one. I would have loved for him to ask "How much do you get paid per album anyway?".
In any case, I'd like to think the camera man just neglected to show the man stage left that had the
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
I find it particularly disgusting that the MPAA feels it necessary to push that stuff at us while they're in the midst of a record setting box office year.
As wrong as the RIAA is with their math and their logic - at least their business -is- actually going through a belt-tightening.
while the legality is pretty clear (unauthorized downloading for private use is clearly a civil crime, for profit is criminal) - the morality just isn't that easy.
teaching children that download is theft (which it isn't) along with whatever propaganda they feel like sharing (i'm sure they'll guilt them with fictional jobs losses) seems to be overly intrusive of the industries.
The most notable omission by the RIAA is not their repeated trumpeting of popular album sales declines (which are only down -globally-) but a complete lack of being able to identify even a single -job- (let alone many jobs) that have been lost due to piracy.
How many factory workers pressing CD/DVDs have been let go? How many cover artists/set painters have been downsized? How many production assistants are unemployed now? Oh? The industry doesn't work that way? Why not? They -say- piracy is costing jobs; at the least they heavily imply it.
So we're just supposed to assume that a change in revenue that in no way affects staffing is actually hurting the little guy more than the mega-rich guy at the top, because you say so? How does that make sense?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
For some reason it reminds me of "kill them while they are in their mothers wombs" nazi-comunist propaganda. RIAA would rather educate them as soon as possible. I may agree on that , but let's add a Clue101 class as well:
ClueList for Kids
1) People lie a lot
2) Expecially Adult people lie a lot
3) There are a lot of Bad Adults
3) RIAA is all made and runned by "adults"
4) RIAA cares alot about their money
5) You don't need RIAA to pay your favourite
singers and stars, you can pay thme directly
if you so like. This way, bad adults will have
less chances of taking the money away from artists.
only in supporting artists conforming to some corporate identity.
Uh, which "corporate identity" does Marilyn Manson "conform" to?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Or how about raising baby chicks in an incubator, then when they're all hatched, cute and cuddly, the teacher tells them they're looking at next years' chicken nuggets?
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
See at the bottom of the page, though -- I figure this does not apply to artists and their wishes as far as ./ is concerned, right ?
Wow. The album is available for download before it's even been created. Piracy must be more out-of-hand than I had imagined.
Adopt a strategy of [shock!] playing live at concerts, using the MP3s as advertising instead of your revenue stream. You also realise that you can still make bucketloads of money by selling t-shirts coffe mugs and anything with your logo on it, including (horror!) the actual CD. People want to own memories, and a digital recording is not a memory.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
. . . a group of boys who play "execs" by wearing stick-on grey sideburns, wearing wraparound sunglasses and receiving simulated oral gratification in the back of a "limousine" (modified BigWheel) from hopeful recording artists.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
The student say Yeah:
The MP3s on Kazaa are advertisements for the
DVD Audio version that has a full size poster of
the naked female bass player.
Posters don't scan and reprint like the original.
and MP3s suck compared to full 5.1 sound.
RIAA does not want to see tech used to increase value.
MOD THIS!
Well, the students will find out that there is no way for them to win.
So they befriend an eccentric scientist who fell off a toilet and invented some kind of new capaciter.
They will then play the "Let's find 1.21 GW of electricity." transporting them back to before the teacher deciced to play the stupid game. Make their album available for download and then show everyone that you can make it in the world.
Or, the marketing arm of record labels can go find real jobs instead of just wishing they were as good as the people they represent.
Hmm, I'm not bitter.
The 'Starving Artist' game should better mirror reality. Instead, have students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics... only to be told by teachers that their efforts are considered 'work for hire' and that the sole payment they'll ever see came yesterday, in an advance of peanuts. For better impact, the day before this game, the teachers should inexplicably distribute peanuts to the class, muttering complex legal terms for effect.
While working to repay the generous helping of advance peanuts, the students can be comforted that their art is being shared on the net by those that actually appreciate it.
They have fought the War on Drugs with skill...
Where did this imaginative bit of fiction originate? The War of Drugs has consistently raised the level of drug use in the US. If this is your rationalization or your goal, then I think you would probably be better off working in a factory.
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
I wonder how much money the record companies spend to have such an influence in schools. Its a well known fact that kids make up the recording industry's largest market, so why is it that this commercial entity has an influence on children's morality and education? What kind of message is this sending?
Why not play the real starving artist game? The kids can sign a contract and never make a dime off of their intellectual property for the rest of their lives while the record company makes a fortune but still claims they haven't recouped their costs!
Sound waves should be free!
I think this is the most ridiculous RIAA initiative ever. Would you vote for yes? Next could be: The starving manager! or The starving XXth century owner! or what? Methinks
Well my version of the game is that you practice guitar since when you were 13 years old, finally get a good band together, do a few local shows for free, eventually get a once-in-a-lifetime deal with a record label, sell a million records, only to find that you still owe the record company $50,000 because they spent so much 'promoting' you, and that you can't make any more music until the record company agrees they like it. Then the record company decides to stop promoting you, and you have to do infomercials and mall openings since you're no longer allowed to make music without the record company's consent. Now that's a fun game.
$8.95/mo web hosting
In other news:
Former Enron executives will teach investment basics
Former Arthur Anderson accountants will teach how to balance a checkbook
Karl Rove will teach civics
Former Pres. Clinton will teach abstinence
Next you will go on how P2P is "sharing" [which doesn't make sense since you share something by depriving yourself of it
That's total crap. We share stories, we share ideas, we share adventures, we share a good laugh. We share hundreds of other non-material things. There is nothing about the word "share" that implies depriving yourself of anything, nor any implication that the thing being shared is material.
If you want to argue against the term "sharing" being applied to P2P networks, you should do it from a position that makes some sense.
I can't wait for the home game version.
A quote lifted from the interview says much about this company...
They need to get out more....
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
Playground socialization, school bus socialization, lunch room socialization, rest room socialization.
Yeah, it hasn't changed much since I graduated 30 years ago. Kids still pound the hell out of each other, but at least the skidders learned how to write back then.
Is anybody else concerned that the word "sharing" is being changed so that it has a negative meaning rather than the purely positive one it had when I was growing up?
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
"My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of."
And you wonder why your business faces ruin?
Seriously, this makes about as much sense as opening a bike shop and selling nothing but Huffys. You're picking the worst possible product AND aiming toward such a narrow demographic, that you've pretty much doomed yourself to failure, P2P or not.
blog |
So you're saying that running a record label is a bit like being a loan shark?
Constitutionally Correct
we can play this one... We spend decades building the perfect maze for rats to run through... with extra attention spent ensuring that the cows who produce the cheese for the end of the maze, are carefully groomed and slaughtered for our dinners. When all is perfect with our maze construct, we go to get the mice to place in the maze, only to find that they have been hand fed cheese by Apple since birth, and have no interest in walking a maze to get more. :P
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
The $10 I was going to send here have turned into $20. Thank you and keep trolling!
maybe it's just me, but if i were one of those kids, i'd have thought it was cool as shit if my album was available for download because that means so many more people have access to it than i could otherwise have hoped for...i somehow doubt the effectiveness of this campaign^B^B^B^B^B ahem....lesson i mean.
Hey, while we are teaching little kids fun games about real life, let't teach them about starving Bosnians.
The kids will pretend to be raising a family, they will make pretend clothes, and build a toy house. Then while they are pretending to eat dinner we will shell their house, burn their clothes, and tell them they have lost everything in a war!
Yay! This is great. Thanks RIAA. I have lots of ideas for educational games to teach kids about the real world.
Next up: Corporate Greed, The Game!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I think its a good idea
...for the rest of the musicians in the business. J.Lo represents the top .01 percent of musicians in the industry (that's one hundreth of one hundreth of all people playing music for a living). For the vast majority of musicians, a record contract is a fast route to bankruptcy, which is what the "one-hit wonder" phenomenon is all about. More than a two thirds of professional musicians can't make a living wage doing an album, because the contracts are so draconian that they have to be a huge success before they can pull in a dime. It's telling that Glenn Campbell, a fellow who has had hundreds of songs on the radio and twenty successful albums, has said that he has consistently lost money on making records because of the contracts.
Oh, and by the way, less than one percent of albums sold sell more than one million copies. So next time you pick up a million-seller and have trouble shedding a tear for the artist, consider the 99 other artists who didn't get a thing for all the work (while the record company did) or the 54 who had to declare bankruptcy because they owed so much money to the record company that they couldn't pay it back, while the company actually turned a net profit on the whole thing.
Oh, and one last thing. Musical tastes aside, any artist you've heard of on the national circuit is far, far above "mediocre" in terms of commercial success. Puff Daddy may not be to your liking, but saying his success is mediocre is pure insult to the venue bands that play the clubs all around your house, who can only dream of being as well recognized.
Virg
80% of high school students couldn't find Europe on a map.
To combat this, we reduce their learning curriculum even more so they learn about the evils of file sharing.
And people wonder why every other country has higher levels of learning than ours.
Priorities people.
Remember also thats your tax dollars at work. Who do you think lobbied to have this put into our public schools?
Think it's an issue? Take it up with your local congressman. You can email them right from their websites and 90% of them will respond within a day or so.
Slan
-S
-Sternn
Kid: It's done. Cool.
Teacher: Yes. And It's already on the net. So you can't sell it. (smiles broadly)
Kid: How can I find it? I got to tell my friends.
Teacher: Well - I didn't put it on the net. But I could have. You see?
Kid: So how do I put it on the web? I still want to show my mom and friends.
Teacher: Well, it wouldn't make sense to put it on the web because you need a special program to view it.
Kid: And where do I get this special program?
Teacher: You can't. It's only licensed to schools.
Young people lift music, movies and termpapers off the net. They send test answers to each other via cell phones. They put proprietary code into open source code-bases.
What is the world coming to?
The obvious moral to your little story is that trying to make money in the music business is a bad gamble. Is somebody forcing artists into it? No. They are usually driven by pipedream fantasies to the point of being stupid. The music business is a *business*. Get a lawyer. If it's a bad deal, go into a another line of work. If artists did this, the music business as it is would die. It's the unwise artists that keep feeding the machine.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
I think your clearly lost.. As a consumer myself I stoped buying cd's 8years ago when I came to the conclusion that cds were basically 15 songs, and 14 of them being complete garbage, where the 1 song that was good was the one being played over and over again on the radio. I have downloaded a few mp3s, so sure call me a pirate, however I would not have bought the music other wise... I basically downloaded music because the radio station isn't allways playing music so I have burned 3 cds in the last 2 years for my car stereo, aswell one cd of 150songs for my mp3 player... some of those songs came from my cd's. (About half)....
:P
I think its safe to say that your 'smoking something' because its clear to any informed consumer that piracy has not hindered the music industry at all, I personal think its actually helped. That fact that consumers are becoming more knowledgable and deciding that $20 isn't worth one good song that lasts for 3minutes..isn't because of piracy, its because of LOGIC. Do you honestly think a CD is worth $20 for 1 decent song and say 12 shity ones? Interesting is you can get a DVD movie which has a MOVIE and a soundtrack for around the same price, sometimes cheaper then a CD of that soundtrack thats on the DVD. RIAA is just hurting the industry anymore, if I were a Record Store Owner, I would boycott all RIAA members and take a stand.
My $0.02
No, this is
I think it's sad that the industry completely overlooked ways of making the artists more money because they were too concerned about making money for themselves. RIAA purports to be doing all these things in the name of the artists who are being cheated out of hard earned dollars, but the reality is, and everyone knows it, that RIAA is in it solely for their own benefit. It has been shown by several artists and by a number of scholars back in the beginning of napster that artists really make very little from CD sales. The bulk of their money comes from going on tour. CDs are simply a promotion tool to get themselves heard and to get people to go to the concerts. Yes they do make money on CD's, I'm not disputing that. But the labels take such a huge percentage they make more on concerts. A pay per download system could generate artists far more money than they make now. Even some free downloading is beneficial. Its like radio air play. I know a lot of people who download an album or a few key songs and decide they like it and go buy it.
P2p could have been a boon for artists, but now has been painted into other means of operation because the people with the bucks didn't care.
</rant>
Hey here's an idea...let's let everyone with an agenda into our schools. Maybe we could have PETA do a class and maybe the earth liberation front can show kids how to torch SUVs. Ah heck, we could have a new class every week from somebody.
//m
...I have practices as a teacher at school. So, a 16yo kid asks me during a class - "What software for downloading music from the net would you recommend?"
:D
So I think, and answer: "You know, I',m a teacher at work now, and most of the good ones make it illegal. So if you want to know, meet me after the classes and we can talk privately".
Is that the right approach?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Everything is for sale.. even your kids education. Pretty fucking sad.
> Uh, which "corporate identity" does Marilyn Manson "conform" to?
The prepackaged "I'm such a rebel" identity. It's done very well for them.
Chris Mattern
Why are they allowing children to be subjected to biased propaganda when they should be teaching them facts?
When a teacher foist garbage unto a child, it is the parent's responsibility to tell the kid the teacher is full of shit, and why. Of course, that requires regular checks on WHAT the teacher is saying, leafing through the textbooks etc. Lazy parents -> screwed-up children.
There are criminal penalties for certain levels of copying. See U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 5, Sec. 506 [cornell.edu] for the offenses and Title 18, Chapter 113, Sec 2319 [cornell.edu] for the penalties.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
Or maybe they're told that they wouldn't get much from the sale of their album anyway and they're not much worse off.
Or maybe they're told that the only way to make money would be to whore themselves out to cola companies for their commercials, or to be a member of a preassembled boy/girl group.
Bottom line - perhaps it needs to be emphasized that pirating music is wrong, but it's not like the record industry is a bastion of morality.
Schnapple
Yes, the artists are idiots. We always knew they weren't the brightest bulbs on the tree, but your little rant only brings it home. Where will they go if they can't feed the recording industry? Yeah thats right to feeding us! Would you like fries with that?
Do they also have a part in the scenario where the kids have to sign their souls away to the recording industry to get publicity for their album? Do they get the option to send it out on a P2P network to generate a fan-base through the quality of their work? Perhaps this little exercise needs to be a little more in depth than the simple trick question they currently have posed.
You report, Slashdot decides
Prevueing you're poast ownly hellps iff ewe no how two spel inn teh furst plase
Let's play a little game. It's called "kill the artis's music". Sounds like fun to me. How about if we have the kids create an album, pour their hearts into their work, and then buy it from them. Then, we'll decide it doesn't fit into our marketing scheme and shelve it. They can't play the songs, they can't print their own copies, their music belongs to us and they can go sit on a street corner and whine about how no one will ever be able to hear what they have created. Then they'll be broke AND not have their music. Or they can put it up for download and make thousands of people happy and be broke. Clearly everybody wins when they give it to us to destroy.
So the game of "release a $20 album with 1 good song on it, 7 crap songs, copy protection so that you cant make the backup copy you are entitled to and keeping 50% of the profit for ourselves even though we didnt do anything" is perfectly ok?
You're looking for the game of "Somewhat Hungry Record Companies". (It's a real shame that we Yanks don't have the term "peckish" like the Brits.) I don't see Eminem out on the streets. I do see record company CEOs not making their latest yearly bonus, though.
May we never see th
The MPAA and the RIAA deserve to be allowed into schools ... but they should be part of the history class. While I feel strongly that watching a movie in a theatre is still a great experience ... the RIAA needs to face it. They're a dying organization unless they learn to adapt without suing everyone and their brother in the process.
> Given the amounts the artists have to pay out of their advance on basic expenses, there'd be a hell of a lot of bankrupt artists around if most of them had to pay their advances back! It doesn't work like that, few if any artists would even sign up if it did.
Um, there are a hell of a lot of bankrupt artists out there, and they do have to pay the advance back. See, the contract is written to work royalty recoup before expenses. In the example, the band gets fronted $1M for the record, and they hit the studio. Expenses end up on top of that (say $200K). Now, when the record starts to sell, the record company pays the band 20 percent of the proceeds, but then takes it back to recoup the original $1M. If the record grosses $5M, they recoup the entirety of the advance. Now why that doesn't count as having to pay it back is only academic. It's true that the band doesn't have to pay it back if royalties don't cover the advance, but they still have to pay it back before they make any money.
Oh, and did you forget the $200K in additional expenses? If the record makes $4M, not a dime of the $200K is paid off, and that money is indeed recoverable, which means that the record company makes $2.8M (that's the $4M in sales minus the $1M advance minus the $200K) and can sue the band for the $200K expenses (but not the leftover $200K in unrecouped advance), which forces the band to declare bankruptcy and break up, never to perform under the now-defunct name again. Since they got advanced $200K that they never repaid, assuming five members in the band, they each made $40K for one year, and had to drop the band at the end of that one year. The national average for a manager at a convenience store in the U.S. is $38K a year, and you get to keep the job from year to year, and you get a benefits package.
Not pretty, is it?
Virg
Speeding is not dangerous or kills people.
You're definitely wrong. It was, what, last month that some famous NHL coach (the "Miracle on Ice" guy, whatshisname) lost control of his SUV because he was speeding and killed himself and was plastered all over national papers? I don't remember "getting a blowjob while driving" recently causing deaths of anyone I know of. Luckily, his SUV didn't hit any other cards in the process of destroying itself and him, but it certainly could have.
110km/h is just as safe as 50km/h.
No, it certainly is not. If you do 110km/h through a residential neighborhood, you will very quickly commit manslaughter.
May we never see th
Sure. What's driving them there is fame and exposure. I remember one artist, whose name I don't recall, :-) said that she made more money by starting her own label and selling 250,000 albums than she did by selling a million when she was with a major. The tradeoff is, only one quarter the people actually heard her music. Likewise, even if the average artist could make more by independent distribution, they would reach a fraction of the audience -- probably much smaller than my anonymous example since they hadn't sold a million in the first place.
The record companies work hard to maintain this kind of clout, including some $200 million paid to radio stations every year to decide what gets played. (Do a search on salon.com for 'RIAA payola'.) As long as they can decide what gets heard, they could get whatever artists they want, even if the artists had to agree to actual, nonmetaphorical rape instead of the money kind.
Is paying the artists jack squat a requirement in order to support this business model? Of course it isn't. They could easily split off a fifth of that 6.6 million profit. *They don't have to.* It's cheaper to buy an audience, and get the band for free.
So who consumes a larger chunk of the total revenue from a record -- the filesharers or the RIAA members?
And the "marketing is expensive" line that publishers use is amazing. Yes, that's what you do, RIAA folks -- market records. You're expensive. Nobody is arguing with you there.
May we never see th
It is much simpler to go to the library (gets me some exercise, since I have to bike there). Find what I like (the CDs are well organized), listen, then rip what I like. I even get to look at the liner notes (could copy them if I had money for the copier or a scanner).
Seems safer (no lawsuits), simpler, and healthier.
After selling a third of a bilions dollars of recordings for Curb Records, she had, after paying for her parents' divorce out of her earnings, enough to afford a decent wedding.
Now her label has her dressed up like trailer trash, hawking her records to the page3 crowd. That's Curb, as in Mike Curb, Christian Musician.
The RIAA is all about artists, yeah shurrrrrreeeeeeee.
We SHOULD be able to do the same in schools.
While I don't agree that the RIAA should be doing the teaching (It does open up too many opportunities to "brainwash") the fact is, downloading copyright material without the consent of the owner is ILLEGAL.
Period. End of story. There is nothing else to argue. You might was well walk in to Wal-Mart, stick a DVD in one jacket pocket, a CD in the other, and act amazed when they call the cops on you.
Do I agree with their methods? No. Do I agree with the artists right to get paid? Yes. Even if they are multi-millionaires. Because 9 times out of 10 they didn't start out rich. I've watched two local bands have record sales sink immediately after they showed up on Napster. Guys without labels to back them up, or gas in the van to perform all those "live shows" you all promise to go to if their music is free for the taking.
Stealing is stealing. You bitch when someone violates the GPL, this is no damn different.
"Heather Has Two Copies"
They have already heard both sides of the issue and can choose accordingly. Taking this issue to my kids through the school is horrible. Think of it as the RIAA guy walking my kid to school for a couple of days. --Fuck that! I am the parent and they are not.
The day they decide to play that game in my school is the day we go out for ice cream and talk about the real world a little, their place in it, and who exactly the school works for and why this sort of thing is wrong.
The school is not their broadcast arena. We pay for the schools and should have considerable influence over the nature of the education.
Bottom line: The schools work for us, not the government or the RIAA. We pay to have them help us educate our kids, not raise them.
I plan to take this article to my school and let them know my kids will not be attending this program and that I resent the idea of my school being turned into a potential mouthpiece.
Blogging because I can...
I don't have any kids, but I pay a nice big tax to fund said schools, and I don't really want my tax dollars paying for a bunch of corporate propaganda.
May we never see th
I would say it's safe to say that this exercise is probally fixed in the RIAA/MPAA's favor. Going into schools and making examples of kids with a rigged exercise is short of, well, deplorable. Leave it up to the RIAA/MPAA to think up something stupid to "teach thoes theives a lesson".
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
"ask them how they felt when they realized that their work was stolen and that they would not get anything for their efforts."
I felt surprised that someone thought my work was worth sharing.. and I'd felt quite proud if millions of P2P users decided to download it !
Here's a classic case of an artist being robbed. Her and her brother were dominated the music industry in the early 70s and made fortunes for Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, A&M Records. The Carpenters have sold more than 100,000,000 recordings! Few artists today sell as many units as the Carpenters still sell.
She was hooked up with a sleazeball who took most of her money and she had a nervous breakdown, she went into anorexia, and died in the early 80s. Really gruesome stuff.
I have a message to the recording industry - quit killing the golden geese. Just look at the dead artists, Cobain won't be the last.
"Theft" is not a legal term but rather a colloquial term. Those who discuss law seriously find it more productive to use the legal terms such as "larceny," "grand theft auto," "armed robbery," and "copyright infringement" that have different sets of statutes and different sets of case law behind them, rather than some blanket term such as "theft."
Some legal dictionary may actually define "theft" along the lines of "any offense involving the unlawful taking of another's property." But now define "taking," and define "property." If the copyright in a work is in fact property, why don't copyright owners have to pay property tax?
Will I retire or break 10K?
That sounds like fun! I want to play! Do I really get my own pocket knife!? They nurse said I couldn't have pocket knives anymore after I left that other one in the record executive. They said I'd be here until I knew why leaving that pocket knife in the record executive was bad, but I already feel bad about it because it was a good pocket knife. I like pocket knives. I promise I won't ever leave my pocket knife in my table. I want to get to make a table with my new pocket knife, but if that nurse tries to take it away... I like pocket knives.
It is not ONLY speed that kills.
<dea>You're right. It's not just speed. It is also crack, MDMA, heroin, alcohol, and ESPECIALLY marijuana!</dea>
Will I retire or break 10K?
You've never boughten a classical CD have you?
[rant]
I've been complaining to Apple to add all the text info in the liner notes for classical music on iTMS since it opened.
Maybe someday they will realize that people buy other types of music besides pop and rock - music that is greatly enhance if you have the liner.
[/rant]
That unless there was a leak, it won't be available anywhere until you make it available. So since there must have been a leak, one of the students must die.
Then they can also learn to bring a gun with them to shows to make sure they get paid. Even gospel bands do that.
This reeks of Seventies-style sensitivity training. So what happens when students create their mock album, and direct their energies toward exploiting P2P instead of resisting it? Would they get graded as fairly as students reaching the programmed conclusion that free downloads are works of the devil? I doubt it. A classroom may be a captive audience, but not passive one like the RIAA is banking on.
Actually, this may be exactly what the P2P movement needs: a thousand little focus groups developing, critiquing and refining ways bypass the RIAA through direct distribution. And they're the right age: only a few years away from forming their own bands (and, more importantly, their own labels). Before long, an artist affliated with the RIAA, no matter how talented, will be viewed with the same ambivalence we feel for the likes of Martin Heidegger or Leni Reifenstahl.
Look how in the world would this be considered educational? Hey skip the Physics we are going to role-play like we are hot pop stars! It just gets old thinking crap like this is worth learning. In know way is this activity a valid educational exercise.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
I discussed the suing of a 12yr old girl to my grade 6 class and we had a huge debate about it. We also discussed ways in which children can swap relatively anyonymously with kazaa lite. I dont want any of my kids being sued by the RIAA.
You know, I wonder how much money the artists are getting from these lawsuits, considering everyone likes to point out that they're trying to protect the artists by not letting people download their songs.
I would be happy to see the record industries go under, and a new way for the artists to make money emerge. Something without insanely rich boy bands while the creative artists starve. All the record industry ever did for me was overcharge for crappy songs.
I wonder if the labels will admit how little they give the artists. Let's see . . . $18 for a CD. $1 goes to the artist, $1 in packaging, another dollar for marketing, another for shipping, the rest is PROFIT FOR the already bloated coffers of the record labels.
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
It's a really big number stored in binary form that only becomes a song when passed through a program or device that converts it into audible sounds. Now, it's illogical to day that I can 'copyright' the number 3, so why should anyone be able to copyright the number 17529569826578961295678923659689561962349169283568 92365986123578968127963589716289561928635892693865 78916348961893568916235896182956...etc ?
You can't steal "3", and downloading mp3's is NOT stealing.
Oh dear! You mean to tell me that the 9 year olds might actually have to get REAL JOBS when they grow up? Dear god, then they'd have to earn a living like every other starving artist on the planet! NOOOO! I should make it my mission in life to make sure there are more whiny, overpaid, underproductive people in the world! Baseball players aren't enough! I WANT MORE! Give me "musicians" who don't write or play their own music! Give me HTML "coders"! Give me "artists" who get paid to hang dead rats on trees! THESE PEOPLE NEED HIGH PAYING JOBS FOR THEIR OBVIOUS CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIETY!!!
Besides the fact that the kids AREN'T being paid for their work makes the "It's already available for free on the internet" think kind of redundant, n'est pas? If you're going to brainwash kids, at least do a decent job of it and offer up something tangible so they might actually get the idea. The way they're doing it now is more a lesson on why copyrights suck ass than anything else. That's right kids, the Pooperprise 5000 has already been copyrighted and patented. Stop talking about it or we WILL press charges.
It's been a long time.
Let the kids think independantly, and creatively, then smash their dreams and ideas.
Just what they do to their starving artists.
Looks like a side benifit will be that the RIAA will continue to have future "artists" they can easily control. Since they'll already be used to the RIAA telling them what they can and cant do.
My subtext is just a figment of your imagination.
"Aggressivity"?!?
Virg
Yeah, it's too bad that most kids' imaginations are well-done by the third grade.
Kids: "Look teacher, we made the new Eminem CD."
Tacher: "Uh, that's already available for download."
Kids: "We know. It actually works, and we're selling copies to the underclassmen."
Teacher: "The lesson for today is... you all get detention."
i bet this guy was also trying to copy a 16 meg file from one folder to another on his old mac. funny stuff, knee slapping funny stuff.
The kids will learn 2 things from this exercise
1. If everyone just downloads music for free from the Intarweb, well...that sucks for the artists, because they get no monetary compensation from it.
2. The current business model being blasted into our brains by the music industry sucks, because they take too much of the money. We pay too high prices and the artists still get little or no money from it.
Some of these little darlings will grow up to become businessmen and women. A few of them even good businessmen and women.
Maybe one of them will come up with a system that actually does work.
$Deity, I hope it doesn't take that long!
There is a growing trend for a number of first-rate artists to do their own publishing and marketing, such as this one and the model works very well, since the people who listen to their music have a stake in making it possible for the artist to keep producing.
It will be interesting to see how well the members of the RIAA stand up to this kind of attrition in the years to come.
What is this world coming to? Next thing you know, people will start teaching kids ethics in their homes! Seriously though, this kind of crap has no place in school. Sure I think that "filesharing" (what a euphemism...) copyrighted crap is wrong, but I don't want some math teacher telling my kids that. It is not the goverment's responsibility to teach morality -- that's what parents are for. I realize this isn't the government's inititiave, but it's just another example of how teachers take it upon themselves to decide what should be taught to our children in public schools. I can't tell you the number of times in elementary and middle school that teachers threw in some moral or another on top of the day's lesson. I'm beginning to ramble, so I'll wrap it up... Teach 'em calculus and physics, and then let 'em go home.
I don't know why we're assuming all artists are on the same wavelength here. Neko probably fears the technology. Good artists can be short-sighted as well. All are human after all.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Share or get booted!
1) Make the kids work hard at coming up with a really great record. .10$ per every album sold, while the record company gets the rest. .10$ with the threat of P2P. ...
2) Tell them that its gone gold and that they are on the top ten list.
3) also tell them that it was work for hire, and that the RIAA owners their work, but they get
4) also cut into that
5)
6) profit.
Thats what they really want.
if you have kids and they are in school, you can tell the school that you don't want some slimy profiteering dirt-bag brainwashing your kids. and that you will not let them attend the class where this propaganda is being inflicted.
Ain't all her recorded work proof enough?
Ethics, morality, absolute truth and reason are woefully lacking in these Post-Modern days.
How is the RIAA getting into schools? That's what I want to know. OK, I can read that they've partnered with Junior Achiement and that Junior Achievement is getting into schools, but what about the rest of the details? Is the RIAA paying Junior Achievement for this? Is Junior Achievement paying the schools to let them spend time with the captive audience? I visited the Junior Achievement site and looked at the financial report, but the answers I'm looking for didn't pop out at me.
Answers? Anyone?
I bet it is maybe 10 cents, AFTER all "start up" costs have been paid.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"I know that, Mrs. Rosen. I released my album on the p2p network over 1 year ago, and those that want to buy it directly from me will, and do. I have no personal interest in becoming a slave to RIAA marketing and hype." :P
Gee....
That must be why all those female pop stars are so thin.
Maybe we should setup a food drive or something? Feed hungry pop stars and record executives?
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
If I were a teacher in this environment, I would be compelled to show the children who, in fact, makes the artist starve. I will show them a group of recording artists (the kind who work solely in studios), what type of music they make. I will then ask them about their standard of living, and how many copies of their work were sold, despite their apparent low middle class status.
Jesus Christ. These people are such flaming hypocrites.
The RIAA gets $2 for each CD recorder. .02% of the manufacturer's sell price for each CD-R and CD-RW sold. This is the "tax" they get to offset the copying of music.
The RIAA gets about
The RIAA has been paid a "tax" for each blank audio tape since the '70s.
Overall, this amounts to millions of dollars.
So, far, no one has found an artist that has received any part of this.
Perhaps, just perhaps, you have already paid for your copies of music.
Sounds like a pretty shitty game to me.
The only thing that could be more lame that that is those respectprivacy.org commercials in the movie previews now.
Something I don't hear too much discussion about is the inherent anti-capitalist nature of this whole question.
I mean the real issue here is whether or not anything can be infinitely valuable. That's what the RIAA is hoping is true. They hope that they have discovered a loop hole in the laws that allows them to print money. They currently print shiny $20 bills in the form of jewel cased CDs. The RIAA is basically counterfitting and they hope that the governemt will be okay with that.
In my defense, notice that it costs practically nothing to make each CD and that after some (admittedly and irrelevently substantial) capital is put in, you can continue to make an arbitrary amount of money with no added effort. Each play of a song or copy of an MP3 in no way takes any effort to create on the part of the RIAA or the artists themselves. They get lucky/are manufactured to sell and then they sit back as the money pours into their bank account. Granted, the artist often gets screwed, and sometimes the Record Company loses money on its investment. That is totally irrelevent.
The concept of intellectual property is abhorrent to a capitalist system in it's very nature, by the infinite reproducibility of intellectual property.
Of course what makes it a good troll is so blatantly obvious, yet manages to push people's buttons to the point that they have long since stopped evaluating it properly. Kudos.
What is wrong with teaching kids that stealing is wrong? Or does slashdot belive that you should be able to "share" something you don't own or have the premission to share?
Ignoring the bullshit "its a copy" excues, I guess by the reasoning here is that it is ok to share and or give away a toy that I stold from the kid next to me. There shouldn't be any problem with that, it is ok because I am sharing!
I thought the major reason for going with a record label wasn't for the actual creation of the CD, but to get exposure of your CD to the audience the CD is for. See, if we all go with digital downloads, the RIAA doesn't need to do PR work for your CD, because anyone and everyone can preview your CDs. RIAA is sunk. Their business model is defunct, and they need to go back to the drawing board.
The movie/record industry have always been an indirect influence on the classroom, whether they want to admit it or not:
We have a new generation of parents with no idea of how to raise kids, they forget that growing children are impressionable. Out of habit, they plop their kids in front of the TV or the radio as a babysitter, a distraction.
TV and radio has more foul language, violence, sex, and immoral behavior than ever before. The mass media encourages children to be rebellious to authority. These kids with impressionable minds mimic their TV characters and rebel against their parents. When they see how well that works, they progress to rebel against their friends, against their society, against their teachers, their principals, their law officers, their judges, their politicians, on and on. Unchecked, this behavior is cast in stone into their adult lives.
Think this is ridiculous? The effect of TV is manifested in the Jerry Springer shows. There was a grade school class where the teacher began changing the channel when the Springer show came on. In protest the kids in the class threw chairs at the teacher, mimicing the Springer show.
Another one: Beavis and Butthead episode where one of the characters plays with fire and chants "fire is good, fire is good." Shortly after it aired, a five year old boy set fire to his trailer home killing his little sister. He admitted that he was influenced into the act after viewing the Beavis and Butthead episode. It was never aired again. That is a blatant admission that the media knows the devastating influence they have on culture.
Right here on /. there was a story of a high school counselor who reprimanded a student. In retaliation, the student made false accusations of sexual assault. Despite the repentance of the student when she admitted to authorities that she made the whole thing up, the counselor lost his job and his career. One guess where you think the student saw that immoral behavior...
Movies and TV shows glorify indiscriminate sex and trashy fashion. More and more teenagers are having sex before they graduate high school. The likes of Madonna and Britney Spears have influenced teenage girls to dress provocatively. They're not shy about wearing low rise jeans with the tops of their thongs showing. The jerks that the media is pushing as "male role models" are influencing an entire generation of men, who inherited all the wrong ideas of a healthy relationship and family values.
The result? Unwanted pregancies, widespread transmission of uncurable STDs, broken families, and a whole generation growing up with corrupted ideas of indiscriminate sex with zero accountability for their actions. These are the consequences that movies, TV shows, and records NEVER EVEN BROADCAST.
And now these hypocrites want to broadcast their view of ethics in the classroom. Riiiiiiight...
Take a good look at the late Katherine Hepburn, who has been called a "role model". She married once, and divorced in 1934 as her movie career was taking off. She was quoted "I don't believe in marriage. It is bloody impractical to love, honor, and obey." In short, she rebelled. She then had affairs with many Hollywood men, including Howard Hughes. She then had a long extramarital affair with Tracy Spencer, a married man who refused to divorce his wife. Hepburn rejected everything about marriage and embraced fornication, adultery, and indiscriminate sex. All starting in the 1930s. And todays' women look up to this person with reverance and admiration?!? If you want to find out why today's family culture is so fucked up, look no further than this "role model".
And Hollywood perpetuated this woman, because this crap made them money.
Mae West wasn't shy about her rebellion either. She admitted losing her virginity at the age of seven and her brashness permeated through al
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
the knee-jerk reaction here is that it's the [] industry's fault that the foolish band signed a bad contract
When the major record labels make nothing but a "bad contract" available, and the smaller labels don't offer the musicology services necessary to avoid getting sued by major publishers, guess what happens.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For those who didn't read the article, the Starving Artist game is only a little blurb in the middle. But if that's your hot button and you have kids in school, find out if the school plans to bring in this presentation. Talk directly to the teacher(s) involved. The school also has a PTA or PTSA where you can stand up and object publicly.
Be prepared that teachers in general tend to be unsympathetic toward behavior that seems to break rules. However, they also tend to frown on deceit and deception. Your best argument is the truth about how the music business works. Try this explanation:
Musicians don't make money from record companies selling CDs, they make money by performing. Recording contracts are deliberately written so that all the expenses for producing, advertising and distributing an album are taken out of the musician's share of the profits, which then magically turns out to be ZERO. What musicians get out of CD sales is exposure, which makes them more famous and gets them better paying performance gigs. They get this same exposure whether a person buys a CD, borrows it from a friend, listens to it on the radio or downloads it from the Internet. The record industry's "poor starving artist" mantra is a flat out lie.
Whatever you do, don't beat this into the ground or launch into a tirade about the Evils of Capitalism or whatever. Just tell the real story matter-of-factly and give them a chance to digest it. Tell them you don't want the Recording Industry or any other industry bringing in a marketing campaign disguised as a learning experience.
Dur! If I take something from you, you don't have it anymore. Whereas if I copy it from you, you still have the origonal item.
statutory payments for the song writer end up being something like $0.15 a song as it is (thus its always better for artists to write their own damn songs :-)
Actually closer to eight cents per song, assuming songs of five minutes or shorter, but...
Given the combinatorical improbability of writing music that is in fact original, how do most singer-songwriters do it? I'm curious, as this conclusion is one of the last things preventing me from writing my own music for my video games instead of shamelessly adapting well-known classical tunes.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Teacher: And the album that you all worked so hard on is now available for download on the internet for free!!
Kids: YYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
> students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics
>only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free
OK, when the students here that, they'll think two things:
1. Hey teacher, you're obviously lying. I just invented this myself from scratch. There's no way someone already produced it into a real album and put it online.
2. If that could be possible though, that would be so awesome! All I have to do is conceptualizer some album I want, and it shows up online for free download! That would be the coolest thing ever! File sharing rocks. Too bad they can't actually make the albums I dream up, though. That would be awesome if I could just think them up and everyone could go hear my music whenever they wanted for free, it'd be like being on the radio, I'd probably get famous if that was for real.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Apparently this is to appeal to the millions of future starving artists out there.
There might be ONE kid in the class who wants to become a musician, and that one kid may or may not "get it."
What about the rest of the kids who want to become scientists, mathemeticians, IT professionals, business experts, etc? All it's going to do is bore them to death. Why would they want to jeopardize the one way they have to get music they can afford?
Now, when the economy picks back up, the kids will have more discretionary income/spending money. They will be able to go out and buy the music they like because they aren't FLAT BROKE like most people out there nowadays.
The music industry will declare their propaganda campaign a success because, hey, kids are buying more and not downloading as much.
Idiots.
How about this, students are asked to write a book, and then design cover art for it, and write that breif synopisis on the back...
students are then told that their books are already available for free in the library... what should they do ? OH NO!
I would like to thank all replys like this one, because they do a great job of proving RalphSlate's point.
Tell me the name of just ONE artist that is starving because of file sharing !
"Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." - Nietzsche
Because what they wrote is sooo true. The slashtards have to mod you to hell because the truth hurts so much they don't want to see it.
Slashdot: Where 2+2=5 only when it works in our favor.
Making music is fun!
Getting sued when some songwriter you've never heard of complains that your song is "strikingly similar" to some song you've never heard of is not fun.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Seesh, why don't you save yourself some time and quit wasting it by not replying to the trolls?
I find it odd that this is called Starving Artist. The reason that they starve to begin with this that they receive a small fraction of the revenue from sales of their work. It reminds me of the poly sci folks agonizing about foreign aid to countries with corrupt regimes. The dictator scoops a huge portion of the funds meant for the starving masses which is a huge waste - but the only way to get any money to those masses is through the current regime. So, do you give foreign aid, knowing that it is supporting a repressive regime and keeping them in power - but still feeding some folks - or do you halt aid and wait for the system to collapse under its own weight and hopefully something better emerges? Personally, I think the parallels are actually pretty frightening between the RIAA and say, Sadam Hussein, Mobutu or Idi Amin.
Tell all your kids that Santa's coming soon, and they need to look through the catalog and pick out all their toys. When they come to you with their list, laugh at them, tell them that they are stupid, and that there's no Santa Claus. Or better yet, tell them that Santa killed himself because all the children were so bad.
They'll learn an important lesson from that, I'm sure.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
You have a good point about how music has been different historically than it is in the modern era. It was the rise of the technologies of broadcasting and mass reproducing recordings that led to the rise of music being a big money industry, but what one technology gives, another can take away. Modern computers and networking have made the broadcasting and mass production of information into activities almost anyone can do, eliminating the former exclusivity of such activities that made them so profitable.
Everything is based off something else. Its what YOU bring to it that makes it yours.
But it's what the established songwriters and music publishers bring to court with them that puts all rookie songwriters in grave danger of being sued and either being bankrupted from damages or being bankrupted from legal fees in a pyrrhic victory. Did you even read the page I linked to?
Will I retire or break 10K?
No doubt, they'll conveniently forget to add into the "game" how much the artists make on each album sale, how much they make on concerts and how the number of people listening to their songs (regardless of source and album sales) affects the artists' income from concerts.
Just goes to show that most of the people yelling "Make money on the concerts" are just using it to justify their stealing and would never pay to go to a concert.
Of course these same people will also be quick to point out how they "support" the artists.
5th -9th grade students... prime stuff for a brain washing, I guess.
How about this: a project that teaches how the recording industry really works.
Have all these kids work over an entire semester on their albums. They should do everything that the RIAA wants to teach them, THEN at the end of the project, have pretend sales of each album going platinum (we are pretending, so why cant their albums be as popular as that boyband crap that RIAA spews these days).
Then, hand each student a pretend check for the total sales of CDs at cost to the retailers. Then reduce the check right in front of little Billy's eyes:
1: take out the teachers percentage (agent)
2: take out the vice pricipal's percentage (lawyers)
3: take out the pricipal's percentage (Studio exec)
4: take out the janitors percentage (other employees who worked on the project)
5: take out the school boards percentage (RIAA dues and other fees as may be required)
6: take out the school district's percentage (taxes)
7: take out the parent's percentage (advertising costs).
In the end, give the student the corrected check for $1.50.
THEN tell them they DO get residuals for airplay. show them a penny and a quarter. Then tell them that for every airplay, and tv spot, the student gets a penny, while the execs pocket a quarter.
THEN demonstrate how if they release a couple songs on the internet for free, more customers are going to be willing to buy their albums.
THEN finally, give them a second project where they do all the work on their own, market using the internet, and have some other company make the CDs for them (like independents do) and show them the difference bewteen record company profits and indy profits.
I am not saying that it is easier one way or another, BUT at least they will all decide to not join boy bands or become the next Brittany Spears.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
really, what more proof do we need that public schools are just a brainwashing facility to indoctrinate obedience into helpless children who can't resist the government's mind-control tactics?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You forget the part where the kids in the bands get to have a heck of a lot of fun at work, whereas the record exec kids have to do more homework. People seem to forget that a lot of bands play music because it's FUN!
If the exclusive rights in a copyright are analogous to the exclusive rights in a chunk of real estate in so many other ways, why isn't copyright treated like real estate for tax purposes?
Will I retire or break 10K?
What teacher would allow this as a part of his/her curriculum? Good grief. Here you go kids--create, have fun, but just so you know, it's the money that makes it worthwhile, not the satisfaction and joy that comes with the act of creation and knowing a job well done. What a crappy lesson to be giving our kids. That's as bad as suing 12 year olds, actually worse, because their propaganda is teaching children corrupt and false moral truths. As a parent I'd be pissed as hell to find out the schools were allowing my children to be taught these things. How about teaching them the importance of obeying the law because it IS the law, and if the law is wrong, it can be changed, but that the law is important and the law should be followed?
I always thought the rules of "starving artist" were that you played a bunch of loud, disinterested bars, wrote lots of deep introspective lyrics, had your friend make wonderful art, spent lots of money to get them put onto CD, and then got told by the record execs that they already have your market niche covered. When we played, we would've been overjoyed if people were downloading our music on Napster!
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
you lose nothing except a sale -- assuming that they would have purchased it anyway
If someone copies your album, you gain exposure.
You are making a dangerous argument here. This loss is NOT zero.
There is revenue lost: the number of thefts * the probability of a purchase in the absence of theft
There is revenue gained: exposure from theft * probability of a purchase in the presence of exposure
You are arguing that the revenue gained is greater than the revenue lost, but we don't know what these probabilities are! You can argue that in addition to lost money there is gained money and that it could be the case that the remainder is positive, but you cannot say for sure.
make more money when you go see them in concert than when you buy their album
This is not always true. There have been many, many cases of tours losing money. Sometimes it is because the tour was promotional - to raise awareness of the band and of the latest album. Othertimes it has been because of mismanagement. And there have been a few cases of artists simply making extravagent productions for their fans with no goal of turning profit.
"What do you mean 'lose money in some markets'? We generally lose money in all markets."
[Larry talks about the cost of U2 tours]
The problem with your argument (a very common one that I hear often) is that you forcing a change upon the artist while saying that this change will be generally beneficial to all artists. A much better argument would be to say that artists can still make plenty of money in this new system, but some artists will have to completely change the way they operate or they will lose money rapidly.
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
I have a suggestion for those who would like to continue selling those pieces of plastic.
Include a live video of your concert with your studio release(or hell, just release your live show) Package it all on a DVD or two and sell it for $20.
That's what Rush is doing - and at $20.99 for 3 hours of live music + extras on 2 DVD's, it's no wonder their DVD set is in amazon's top 50 nearly a month before its release.
And really, who is going to try and download 2 DVD's worth of material(8-10 gigs) when for 20 bucks, they can get the real thing.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Tell the 5th-9th graders they can have a gold pimped-out Mercedes that they are TOO YOUNG to drive parked in the garage, and see if they feel the same about P2P file swapping. I kid not, Lil' Romeo has this car and a lot more, so maybe I'll spare myself the weeping for millionaires routine.
pot.kettle(black);
I hope I am not the only one that is violently opposed to public schools trying to teach our children about ethics. First of all I don't aggree with a government organization trying to teach children ethics (whatever happened to parents?) and secondly the teaching of ethics by a heavy handed corporation. This is wrong in so many ways that I have to question the ethics of the school boards that allow such a curriculum in the first place.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Let the school allow the RIAA stooges to come in and preach their bullshit and I will pour every effort I can into nailing that school. My daughter goes to an Arts Infused Magnate school that is taught in part by "starving artists". I will get their funding pulled if they do. That pisses me off. Their corporate business model has no place in the school system! Man this fired me up!
The computer industry's answer to the music industry should be to write better singing synthesizers. Don't steal their stuff, obsolete it.
Try this country and western MP3s generated with Festival Singer: "The Easy Way" No human performers were involved in the making of this recording. You put MIDI, lyrics, and a singer definition in, and out comes music.
The technology needs improvement. A lot of improvement. But it's clearly possible. This would be a good Open Source project.
Lisa: I can't believe you seriously expect us to swallow this tripe! Can you see it's corporate propaganda being shoved down our throats? Principal Skinner: and now, courtesy of our friends at the Meat Council, please help yourselves to some tripe. Ralph Wiggum: Someday, I'm going to graduate from Bovine University!
> That case is only when every single CD sells. If half the CDs sell, or a quarter, or maybe none of them do, then that significantly changes the equation.
Not for the artist. Read what I wrote again. It's not the advance that does them in, it's the expenses. Since the record company determines the expenses, and does not consult (or need the approval of) the artist(s), the expense list can be as big as the record company wants it to be. Because the expenses are recaptured after the advance, that means that the record company basically determines the point at which the artist starts making any money. Yes, it's true that the risk is more strongly on the record company, but since they stand to gain much more than the artist that stands to reason. The problem becomes when the record sells well enough to make the record company a big pile of money, but the artist doesn't see any of that money because the contract is designed to divorce them from any kind of financial control over the album. Even more importantly, because the contract is written to describe the band as doing "work for hire", the copyrights for the result are held by the company, so even when the band decides to go out on the road to make up the losses they incurred making the album, the record company determines how much money they make (and indeed, whether they can even perform at all). These companies can and have forbidden artists from performing their own work in the past, and even went so far as to forbid Prince from using his own stage name in "unapproved" concerts (I bet you thought he changed his name to a symbol and wrote "slave" on his forehead just to be pretentious, didn't you?).
One other thing you need to consider is that the advance is given to the band for making an album, but it's not "pay" for the band's time. The band needs to spend the vast majority of that money to make the album itself, from paying studio and post-production, to cover art costs and such. Since they own nothing of the result (remember, the company owns all the copyrights), it's synonymous to your boss handing you a $2,000 bonus and telling you to go buy a new PC to work on, which you can only use for the year in which you bought it, only for work use, and it's not yours when you're done. Oh, and the first $2,000 of your paycheck will be recaptured to pay for the PC, but if the company doesn't make any money, it's okay, you won't have to pay back the two grand.
So, no, I don't see any situation where any artist has gotten a decent deal out of a recording contract, and since the industry has become very difficult to penetrate without an established record company to back you up, I don't see that there's enough difference to make the distinction.
Virg
jesus christ.. here we go again...
first of all, there are many kids out there that were like me when I was in school..
and what i mean by that is, when a teacher talks about how "bad" or "wrong" it is to do something, we would go out and do it anyway.. atleast thats how it was with marijuana..
second of all, this RIAA shit has got to go.. jesus god people.. gimme a damn break.. a "starving artist" doesn't make money off their cd sales anyway.. we all know they make money from playing shows, or selling merchandise like tshirts and hats or whatever they have to offer.. just becuz some of the artists are too fuckin lazy, and want special imported portabello mushrooms on their pizza instead of regular ones, or bands that can't book their own shows, or get financial backing, are obviously the kind of people that don't work hard enough and are not passionate enough about what they are doing.. yet we all still care way too much to hear those "catchy riffs" and singalong chorus's, instead of worrying about music that actually takes talent to play, and doesn't warp your mind just by making the song catchy enough to the point where you just like it cuz of how many times you've heard it..
since when do all people in bands have to have huge houses and lots of cars?? so why keepin supporting them?? its like giving money to the queen of england for no apparent reason.. just becuz she is the queen.. and its required..
i will never be required to buy anything.. however i'll hear whatever the hell i want..
- Hi I'm Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux, Lih-nix..
Why doesn't the music industry get it? I want them to go out of business. Then the only way for artist to make money will be concerts and publics events. Without big music companies around to tell the people what music to like the bands that become popular will be those that people actually enjoy hearing in conert, not on monopolistic radio.
not
BURN!
...couldn't help myself
It was called "Degree in Computer Science." Imagine my surprise when I found my employers would outsource my job at a quarter of my salary while getting tax breaks to do it! What a learning experience. I'm so glad I didn't actually get that degree and then spend twelve years of my life seeing the career I love turn into a living Hell--
Oh, wait...
</bitter old man>
Man, that came out a Hell of a lot more bitter than I thought it would be when I started typing it. I'm ashamed enough to hit the "AC" checkbox, but need the catharsis enough to still hit the "submit" button.
Anyway the program is out in pdf files now; It's two files:
Xcellent Xtreme Challenge Parent Newsletter
and
What's the Diff? A Guide to Digital Citizenship - Activity Guide.
The first one is a take-home newsletter that students and parents are supposed to fill out together. The letter contains a "Dear Parent" arnt about filesharing from MPAA; with quotes like:
And statements that the students are suposed to answer to like:
The second pdf is a big file with instructions to the teacher, two "introductions"; What's fair? and Patents and Progress. The students are supposed to discuss the material and learn that "file swapping" is wrong, illegal and hurts the economy.
There is a lot of ranting about P2P and copyrights. There is a introduction to why copyrights exist with some mumbling about the founding fathers. And oops they accidentaly forgot to mention that copyrights originaly expired after a time.
The rest of the pdf is devoted to two "classroom activities"; Living in a fishbowl and The starving artist (I'm not joking the rumors are true)
The fishbowl play is a discussion based role play game where the students gets to play actors, singers, directot, carpenters, producer and computer user.
I'm not that paranoid, but I observe that there is a factor of 5 to 1 in the "good guys" vs computer user. And they forgot to include some vital players like "the lawyer", "the executive" and "the stockholder".
The Starving Artist is a discussion based game where students are divided in group and shall produce a CD but then they are ripped off by "file swapping". "how does this makes you feel?"
Gi figure.Quote
I must say that MPAA got a killer program here.
The smart thing is the "winning of the teacher". Teachers are authority persons to children and getting them to explain why "stealing is wrong" is of course more effective than doing commercials.
There is some old industry saying that says: "get them when they are young" and I think thats the thinking behind this.
The whole project says a lot about MPAA but also about what kind of corporate sponsored projects that are allowed into american schools.
If I had children in USA I would have taken them out of this part of the education whitout hesitation.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Hahahahaha... good one. Well, I actually can't tell if you're being serious or not, but regardless, this is fucking hilarious.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
It's also called 'Starving Artist': students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that they owe the record company lots of money even though they sold many thousands of CDs to fans.
...students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free.
Student: Well that was easy, all I had to do was come up with the idea and it already exists... and you think they should get paid for this?
The only way to end war is for everyone to get a piece!
OK, I have a better idea for a game, and the difference between mine and everyone else's is, it's a viable concept (plus it's open source, which should get me modded up).
This game would be designed for the Web (it'd probably be pretty easy with something like PHP) but could be done in a classroom as a competitive event with the right tweaks. Basically, instead of the RIAA's "starving artist" BS, you give the kids a choice of how they want to pursue their musical career:
- sign with a Big Label
- be independent and tour
- sell directly to the Net
- be a studio musician (or member of an orchestra)
- perform just because you enjoy it
(the last choice would be better if you had a Careers-type goal where you could choose a mixture of happiness, money and fame.)
There are probably other ways for a musician to market him/herself that I haven't thought of because I'm a coder.
Set it up so that along the way, events can happen that change the amount of money you can make. Maybe you're Discovered By A Big Label if you don't take option 1 and you have to decide whether to Sell Out or keep doing things the way you're doing them. Maybe you form a band and now have to split your take four ways -- or maybe you drop out of a band and have to reinvent your career. Again, a working musician would know all the things to look for better than I would.
Think of this as an old-school "choose your path" type game in the mold of Hamurabi or Santa Paravia. I think something like this would give kids a LOT better idea of what options they have in music than just winding them up and giving them a push toward the record store.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Nail. Head. *WHAM*
Where's my mod points when I need them?
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
..taking one of those sex-ed films from the 50's and dubbing it over with things appropriate to the file sharing? "Oh my god! What is Bob the Bunny doing to his computer?!"
and I tell you that I will give you money and you'll get fame and airplay, and you can quit your day job because of the advance, wouldn't you do it?
Absolutely NOT. There's an odd bybroduct of fame- artists no longer become creators, but they become their worst competitors. The expectations of fans, as well as the fear of falling out of favor (and hitting the ground hard) make for all kinds of psychological issues.
I'd rather keep both feet planted firmly on the ground, enjoy my sense of who I am (a rational, drug-free realist), and walk along my merry way. If it means a day job in order to support myself, to be it. I'll take that any day over being 'owned' by my fans and the record company that signed me.
Why am I being forced to pay for this nonsense?
Second, kids will see right through this. One poster said kids today are too dumb to understand the message. On the contrary, they are too smart to be taken in by the message.
Its just like anti-drug "education". Kids generally see through the lies.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
ANY ONE REMEMBER THE 70's "THE WAVE"
Spooky stuff, when Teachers play mind "games"
No one wins
So, set up a premise that making music is about making money, then show them that file sharing prevents them from getting that money.
;)
Hmm. ok.
How about setting up a premise that making music is about becoming famous, then show them that file sharing gets them publicity for free?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about getting laid, then show them that file sharing gets their music heard by more members of the desired sex?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about simple pleasure, then show them that file sharing allows them to share that pleasure with others at no cost, and have others share their pleasure in return?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about meeting friends, then show them that file sharing allows other people with similar musical taste to find and contact them easily?
- - -
Honestly, as a working stiff with a day job who makes and shares music for the pleasure of doing so, this disgusts me. You might as well take a class full of kids who want to be painters, and teach them that painting is about making money -- then show them how people with cameras can make and share copies of your artwork without paying you. Talk about a buzzkill for their enthusiasm! Wouldn't you rather they just learn to enjoy painting?
Heck, I just had two friends over at the house last night, a husband and wife (the wife was singing a track on a new song of mine.) Mind you, she can't sing very well, but that wasn't the point -- enjoyment was. By the end of the evening, they were BUZZING with enthusiasm, and had a great time. They couldn't stop talking about how much fun it is to make music. We're talking about 30-year-olds here; imagine how much fun this sort of thing is for 13-year-olds.
- - -
With luck, this approach will backfire in some schools.
For instance, we assume the kids will say "hey, that's not fair, I worked really hard and didn't make any money!"
However, they might also say "hey, it didn't cost me anything but a little bit of time to write lyrics and make an album cover, and it was fun, and it's fun to share it with other people -- I only need the money if I have to pay off the record company for buying my paper, pens and crayons."
Or perhaps "hey, if all these people like my music, I should put on a show, then those people will all buy tickets, and probably buy a legitimate copy of my album -- and a t-shirt -- as a souvenier!"
Better still, they might say "boy, I guess music is a -- what did the teacher call it, a commodity? -- so I'd better put some effort into making desirable packaging and extras that you can't freely download over the Internet."
Then you'd have some 5th-9th graders with more of a clue than the RIAA.
That isn't a new game. I can't count how many times a teacher asked me to slave over a math problem only to tell me later the solution was published in the teacher's edition!
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/25/business/media/2 5STUD.html?ei=5062&en=7064fc55826fc5a9&ex=10650672 00&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&positio n=
get rid of any spaces it put in
Actually, speeding itself is not dangerous. DIFFERENCE IN SPEED is.
To wit: two cars going exactly 90 miles an hour, side by side, can bounce off each other repeatedly with very little damage and with neither driver losing control.
However, take a car going 50 miles an hour and bounce off a car going 25 miles an hour, and in that moment of contact that 25 miles an hour's worth of energy has to be dissipated in some fashion, so the trajectories of one or both cars is significantly altered, as is the sheetmetal.
Of course, driving 25 in a residential zone (full of objects moving at 0 miles an hour) is better than driving 50 -- but that's because the difference in speed is greater.
That's why it's always safer to go with the flow of traffic than simply obey the limits -- if everyone else is going 75 and you're going 55, you're creating a hazard, just as if you were going 75 and everyone else is going 55...or if you were going 55 and everyone else was going 10.
How 'bout a game where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that they have to give blowjobs to fat-cat Record Company executives, and give up all future rights to their ideas, in order to get their music published?
they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free."
that is so stupid it makes me want to cry.
the album wouldn't be
"already available for free" is if hasn't even been produced yet. am i the only one who sees how ridiculous that sentence is?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
As for public schools, they've been dumbing down American kids for a long time now. Charlotte Iserbyt's excellent book explains all --
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America
If you read nothing else, read Charlotte's article, No American Left Alone. It's an eye opener --
Actually, the Sony Disc Manufacturing plant in Springfield, OR was closed last spring, putting 277 people out of work. One of the reasons Sony gave for closing the plant was piracy.
Of course, what Sony didn't mention was how they stood to make a tidy profit selling the real esatate surrounding their facility (which they got for a song when they moved to Springfield back in the 90's). You see, Sony bought not only the land for their factory site, but all of the adjacent land. The taxpayers of Springfield footed the bill to have streets, utilities, and other infrastructure built to sweeten the deal and convince Sony to build their factory there (for those of you who don't know, Springfield used to be a big mill town, until the timber mills started to close in the 1980's, and is fairly desparate to secure new factory-type jobs. When Sony came to town promising lots of high-paying high-tech jobs, the city council bent over the proverbial rail for them).
So, Sony had greenfield land improved at no cost to them, and is now making out like a bandit by selling it, while 277 more families in a state with the worst economy in the nation join the ranks of the unemployed. But it's much easier to blame those evil pirates than to admit that corporate greed was the real reason why the plant closed down...
BUT...Any charting artists you see on MTV are banking fat rolls at live shows. We did a show with Eminem several years ago (just after his first Interscope release), and we got a discount due to it being a student function. He still got paid over $30,000 for that one show. And that didn't include the costs that went into paying the Roots and other bands that performed.
And that was just after his major label debut. Imagine what he commands nowadays.
Artists bank major cash on shows. Even your well-known indie hip-hop/underground artist gets paid fairly decent (see, $1,000 for a club show + hotel + food + transportation). Multiply that by, say, sparingly, 100 shows per year. That's $100,000 with virtually no marketing campaign to pay back.
Being that it's an indie artist, royalties (or, profit if they paid for it themselves) skyrocket percentage-wise. Like others have said here, making $7 an album because you paid for it yourself, and then selling 30,000 (a paltry sum), just netted you $210,000. Many popular indie artists have banked from being indie. If you know hip-hop, think Company Flow (El-P/Big Juss/Mr. Len) or Hieroglyphics (Del/Casual/Souls of Mischief/etc.). Both groups sold over 100,000 copies of their first, indie-released albums.
Not to mention all the other sources of income that an artist has (guest appearances, show appearances, advertising, sponsorship, etc.)
I work for a company now that sponsors about a dozen (mostly independent) hip-hop artists. They get free clothing from us (we're a clothing company). We're new so they don't get paid (yet), but we have a history together and they wear our stuff. However, that's free clothing and free bags.
Imagine not having to spend money on food, clothing, transportation, etc., during the course of one year.
Show promoters pay for all kinds of stuff. I've been a part of dozens upon dozens of shows. The only thing the artist ever paid for was...um, absolutely nothing.
Now do that for 60 or 100 or, in a lot of cases, 200+ dates per year.
Cha-ching.
Why do you think artists like J-Live and Defari (Alkaholiks) finally quit teaching in the classroom to focus on being artists?
It's easy to figure that most artists make the majority of their money from live shows, etc. (Unless, of course, you count the divas and consistent 10 million + selling artists).
My .02
-SD/WAXDADDY
how can schools allow them into classrooms? are they paying the schools off or what? the way i see it, time is money, and every minute they waste on this crap they are not learning something else that is much more important
Neil Postman wrote an classic book called Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Everyone should read this.
Parents should be more involved in their kids' education. You should at least have an idea of what your kids' school is teaching them. Meet their teachers, and if they are teaching your kids something you don't approve of, you have every right to complain. Do not trust the school system.
p2p Helps Independent Musicians, which is why RIAA is utterly opposed. People have bootlegged music recordings since long before the web. This actually HELPS develop exposure. Just look at The Grateful Dead or Phish, who ENCOURAGE bootlegging and trading of their music. Both bands serve as no-brainer case studies on how the free distribution of music HELPS MUSICIANS develop exposure, ultimately resulting in HIGHER REVENUES. That's what the RIAA is really scared of... Independent musicians developing a fan base and becoming successful, without the need for RIAA or Major Labels. For example: Check out the Liquid Lobster website with FREE mp3s and such... www.LiquidLobster.com
can they host concerts, publish parts of their album and art on the net with the rest available for download after paying $4? what compensation do the kids who create albums get if the teacher decides that theirs has not been distributed on the net?
make it real.
artists starve because they sign bad contracts and don't connect with the consumer directly for money and suupport. not because of internet piracy.
math - you're probally not going to get $150,000 per song out of a 12 year old social studies/ethics - history has shown as soon as the music industry has embraced new technologies, sales went up. ie fm radio, tapes, etc english - effective communication is crucial. suing high school and college students doesn't effectively communicate "we want your business" science - do an experiment or two in how file sharing might work. kudos to apple! business - NEVER update your business model, running to your laywers is always more effective! and always remember - anything new is scary and bad.
In Grade 11 our media studies teacher showed us the Cosmos series, (badly) taped off of Channel 17 from Buffalo. Commenting on the poor quality, I asked him if the board couldn't just buy a school copy. He said that even with the "educational discount" it worked out to US$120 an episode, and the school said "fuck copyright, we have to buy books." At the time copyright was pretty much unenforcable, but Canada has since passed laws, and the school board has become increasingly anal about this type of thing. Result? Kids miss out on some valuable material.
I think Carl Sagan, if he were still around, would be more concerned with kids' learning than a few bucks in his pocket.
Now I hear that SOCAN (the Canadian version of ASCAP or BMI) is trying to gouge DENTISTS for their office music. The Dental Association has retained counsel and instructed their members NOT to participate in the shakedown scheme.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
The kids can come up with a cool application, code it, release it to the free market. Then MegaCorp can come along and put them out of business with marketing mega-dollars, FUD, and unfair trade practices.
Seriously, though, since when do companies get to decide curriculum in public schools? I thought that was the job of an overbearing government.
It's all Hood
Then "we don't need no education".
Really, can you think of a better soundtrack?
First, who says what the posted limit is? If it is arbitrarily set at a low point, then the speed cameras are placed where the speed limit is artificially low, then who is that saving? I would argue it increases driver frustration and may lead to more accidents.
Second, you don't seem to understand that there is more to traffic fatalities than speed. The vast majority of traffic fatalities fall into one of two categories: impaired driving, and not wearing seatbelts. People continue to drive under the influence and/or without seatbelts. Speed could potentially kill at 30mph. What do we do? Lower it to 5mph? That'd defeat the purpose of automobiles, wouldn't it? Since you obviously don't live in an area where this is a problem, take a look at this link and find out what happens when automated enforcement gets out of control. On another note: traffic fatalities are already double in Edmonton what they were last year. Goes to show that speed cameras are nothing but a money grab.
I used to listen to my collection of music.. all kinds.. listened to the stuff they put on the radio - downloaded way too much of it...
:D
Then my sisters boyfriend introduced me to www.digitallyimported.com - a trance/disco streaming website.. and its free.
So.. getting to the point.. I ended up deleting my stash of mp3's because It was just taking up Hard drive space eventually...
I used to think that music not on the radio was crap.. but the truth is this stuff is worth listening to... broaden your scope of music you listen to.. perhaps you will find this to be just as true as I have...
Mind you I stil listen to the radio on the bus.. but at home I like freelance stuff
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
In addition to the previous two posters, I'd like to add that speeding is not one-size-fits-all as the law would like you to believe. What's the 100-0 stopping distance of your average sports car? Family sedan? SUV? Semi? Semi carrying 10 tons of cargo? How about the agility of each -- ability to dodge obstacles? Not the same, are they? So why are they all held to the same speed limit? What about driver training and attentiveness? Given the same vehicle, who's more dangerous, someone who is alert and has significant experience in emergency driving situations, or someone who is distracted and has little driving experience?
Speed is only stated as a single number because it's impractical for the law to take all of those factors into account. But they *should* be taken into account. How do we do that? Subjective human judgment. This is my biggest beef with automated speed enforcement -- "too fast" is subjective, and depends on dozens of factors. I can accept a police officer who is reasonable and isn't out to fulfill a quota telling me I'm going too fast because he can factor in traffic, weather, road condition, my demeanor and apparent level of sophistication as a driver, the capabilities and condition of my vehicle, and a whole lot more, and roll all that into a fair judgment. A machine cannot.
Just because this NHL coach was going whatever speed he was going means little by itself. Throw in that he was doing so in not the most capable vehicle, and it means a little more. With presumably less than stellar driving skills (feel free to correct me if you know that presumption to be wrong), and it means a little more. Distractions? Road conditions? Weather? How about that, as the previous reply mentioned, he *FELL ASLEEP* at the wheel? At best, speed becomes a small slice of the overall picture and array of causes. What would have done more to prevent this crash, more speed limit enforcement, or a reminder to people that, "hey, if you're getting tired, pull over, stop, and take a nap."?
-----Chaz
Whats wrong with Corporate Schooling? Think of the positives - no more tax dollars wasted on educating kids, and an unlimited flow of perfect consumers pushing the economy higher and higher and higher!! Whee!
I get dizzy just thinking about it.
air and light and time and space
Now, while I'm *pretty* sure this is a troll
well, last time it was posted, it was part troll, part funny, with a little flamebait for good measure. At least it was ontopic.
And yes, throwing people out of your christian rock store while cussing them out for saying they are going to be l33t and share the music makes you a good seller.
And sharing that music doesn't l33tify, it causes ph34r.
SAILING MISHAP
Actually, speeding itself is not dangerous. DIFFERENCE IN SPEED is.
These two statements contradict themselves. If the entire world was going at the same speed, yes, you're right, there wouldn't be a problem. However:
* Traffic going the other direction isn't going at the same speed. Not a *huge* deal.
* The ground isn't going at the same speed, and neither is anything else not in a car. This means that your handling gets worse at higher speeds, your time-to-stop relative to the ground (i.e. relative to stationary objects like pedestrians, trees, curves, retaining rails, deer) increases, the danger of cars accelerating up to speed increases, and your ease of rolling over increases. Your reaction time is worse relative to all of these.
May we never see th
I'd rather keep both feet planted firmly on the ground, enjoy my sense of who I am (a rational, drug-free realist), and walk along my merry way.
Good luck...it worked for Greg Graffin (lead singer of Bad Religion, who just got his PhD in some ungodly strange field like philosophical biology). However, he did it by working in shifts. Take courses for a while, teach for a while, gig for a while, etc. However, I know plenty of musicians who have "moved on" to careers or scholastics, and their music just stagnates. They just don't have the time to devote to it, so it becomes atrophied. Great music takes nothing so much as time and passion, and if you're willing to write music off as something you don't want to throw yourself into, you may never realize your full potential.
I know a guy...a pianist...who played through college at the conservatoryand was consistantly competent, but not great. Then he quit his job, and wound up in a small apartment with just a yamaha keyboard...over the course of maybe six months, he became a dynamo, churning out soulful energetic jazz that was completely unlike him. His devotion to his art was what did it. That's the spirit of the advance...it's supposed to give you funds to live on while you perfect your skills, so your album is the best it can be. And if you use it for that (as opposed to renting a mansion and a dozen cars to show off to the MTV Cribs film crew), it can be a real lifesaver.
That said, you can still have a lot of fun and be quite creative without buying into the sink or swim world of the record companies. Open mics and local scenes love "amateur" musicians who are willing to goof around while playing great music because they aren't image conscious. We have an open blues gig in our area that is a haven for jobbers who need to get out and wail once in a while.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Artists bank major cash on shows. Even your well-known indie hip-hop/underground artist gets paid fairly decent (see, $1,000 for a club show + hotel + food + transportation). Multiply that by, say, sparingly, 100 shows per year. That's $100,000 with virtually no marketing campaign to pay back.
A show every three days? That's pretty hardcore. Most indie bands I know play more like a show a month (or every few months) at the most.
Even using the $100k estimate, split that up among the members of an average-size band (3-5 members), take out taxes, and it starts to look a lot less impressive.
I do agree that most major-label bands make a ton of money on their live shows though. Especially since the tickets cost $30-$40 instead of $5-$10.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
"Starving Artists"?!
That sounds like a game that they are actually playing with the artists
There is nothing wrong with this post. Slashdot Moderation system is BROKEN.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
but it's not!
Seriously, if our system of education didn't have a nasty habit of cutting the crap out of art departments, I'd be willing to bet that students would already *have* the empathy for artists that the RIAA is trying to install. That's the obvious angle here, hoping that the guilt will grow into obedience as the kids mature. It's not an uncommon tactic, even in parenting. Not uncommon, but certainly despicable.
This is like giving kids a sack of sugar, then telling them that it's a baby and they have to care for it for a couple weeks (yeah, we all know this story if we haven't done it ourselves.) This time, however, at the end of this excercise, the baby dies of cholera. That'll teach you to care for your sack of sugar!
I'm extremely disappointed in the music industry for thinking for even a second that they have the right to bring this in front of the faces of children. I'll be even more disappointed when they succeed. The more crap like this gets into public education, the more I'll gladly save up for private school for my little ones.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
I've got one word for you: groupies. It's not surprising that slashdot readers would ignore/forget that aspect.
"To wit: two cars going exactly 90 miles an hour, side by side, can bounce off each other repeatedly with very little damage and with neither driver losing control."
Only if the two drivers in question are talented enough to handle the obnoxious moment of inertia their spinning wheels have. Torques applied to spinning gyroscopes have the nasty habit of being deflected 90 degrees. Ever wonder why your car's frame rocks more while changing lanes at highway speeds than you think it should?
I think they should play that game in elementary schools.... Kids can work independantly or in groups to make lyrics and music, spend hours making cover art and promotional material, and could do research on current events so that they may make some sort of commentary on life/politics in thier music.
After a few days of this constructive process, they could all listen to each others music, and vote on who the top artit/artists are, thus learning how to review their own music.
Then after voting, the reward or prize for "best recording artist" can be given to the teacher, who recorded "this is the song that never ends" and looped it on a whole cd/tape. She didn't do any cover artwork (it's her "white album"), and her work isn't even original. Why did she win? Because she's the teacher and she decides what's popular. Then the children can be forced to listen to it for a good four or five months....
I think this would best prepare them for the real world...
starving artists in this very country.
If we don't stop the illegal sharing, the artists' millions they have stashed up will never be able to support them!
I think brainwash is a little harsh. If they want their values taught to children, so what? If we don't want them taught, then we fight them and teach something different.
Brainwashing is more akin to depriving people of food and sleep over long periods of time while bombarding them with information, false or otherwise, to get people to believe something. The last time I checked, children are taught their values. Teaching values to children is not quite the same thing as brain-washing, as it's a required part of maturing.
I may hate the RIAA and MPAA as much as the next guy, but they are only acting in their own interests and ethical system. Let's act in our's and compete.
I'll call mine "Old enough to bleed - old enough to breed"
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
For giving us this real world example of why privatizing the schools in America is a shit-for-brains idea, I wholeheartedly thank you.
After I have received the wisdom of good teaching, I will untiringly teach all people. - The Teachings of Buddha
PATENT IT! in which you get to patent your ideas. But the patent office charges lots of monopoly money, doesn't check the patents for prior art or infringement and hence will patent most anything for anyone with the money.
Once you have a patent you get to threaten everyone else with even vaguely similar ideas and get them to pay you so you can buy more ideas and patent them too...
SUE THE BASTARD! Half of the participants are lawyers. They all get tickets with numbers - higher numbers enable them to win cases. The rest of the participants are just ordinary folks. They get numbers indicating how much money they have and they get assigned other "folks" to sue. Money buys good lawyers as usual.
MONOPOLY! Not your old game of monopoly, but the good kind. One person is picked as having a monopoly on something everyone else wants. They get to charge what they want on it. Others can try to challenge the monopoly if they're brave.
And the list goes on. Consider Do Call, Don't Call (also known as SPAM! where people get points for being annoying and for annoying the most other people.) Representative Government where the representatives need money to be re-elected and some people have it - most dont.
Can someone post some support for this? Perhaps a link or two. I'll be your best friend if you do.
0x0d0a: you're right, of course. I meant to type "Actually, SPEED itself is not dangerous." My bad.
Guppy: respectfully, I have to ask this:
How fast do you change lanes at freeway speeds? I ask, because I drive on LA's freeway system daily at speeds in excess of 75mph, and I don't experience anything that could even begin to be considered rocking.
Back to business. Regarding the torque thing, you might be wrong. Check this link, and consider that two vehicles side-by-side at the same speed that bounce off one another will be applying force on the x-axis, which is the axis of rotation of the wheels, so no torque will be imparted. Control will likely be maintained.
On the other hand, if there is a significant difference in speed between the two cars, some force resulting from the difference in speeds will be applied on the y-axis, so the torque would be imparted on the z-axis. That certainly could cause wheel hop or similar, which could easily wrench control from the driver.
They'll probably start showing grainy black and white videos likening kazaa users to rats, infesting the internet. Come'on kids, Lets have a P2P pogrom!
As you drive faster you should leave MORE space between you and the car in front of you - the two second rule.
Anarchists never rule
Theyre trying to break down file sharing by getting to them while theyre young. Its not a solution now, but years down the road they hope to see a significant change. This reminds me of McDonald's advertising campaign. More children recognize Ronald McDonald then Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Thats the reason McDonalds has been so succesful, people of all ages trust the company.
1.make a quality product
2.at a reasonable price
than conduct all this bullshit?
i don't think many people take what "god" has to say about it into account
Have each student create an album, cover art, etc... Have one third of the class try to profit off of their album, but lose their shirts to their record producers. Have the other two thirds try to sell their albums under independant labels, only to find out that record stores are under contract to not sell their albums, and they too lose any hope of making a living. Finally, have each student be sued for the cross remarks they are bound to make about the record company.
...the teaching needs to be in the RIAA board room, in the Congress, in the Justice department. We need:
1. A tax on media, like DVD-R or CD-R.
2. Have it distributed to the artists and filmmakers and such. But not the obsolete distributors.
3. Restore the Bill of Rights, due process and get the vigelantes out of the Net and let us alone!
4. Destroy the Kontent Kartels. DIE! Copyright Nazis, DIE!
what I like from the calculator you refer to is the default fee for 'breakage': 10% This is a shit quality level, even when Vinyl was being shipped. 10% failure rate now is a criminal overestimate.
See my journal, I write things there
See my journal, I write things there
However, I know plenty of musicians who have "moved on" to careers or scholastics, and their music just stagnates. They just don't have the time to devote to it, so it becomes atrophied.
On the other hand, an acquaintance of mine manages an office building, and also writes and performs classical guitar. Last time I spoke with him, he'd finished a symphony, and even had it performed. It's like anything else - set your priorities, and tailor your lifestyle (and commitments) accordingly.
The RIAA will collect royalities on sound, air, and anyone who makes any type of sound will be sued aas pirates.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
It's not the difference between two speeds that kills, it's the change that occurs between them.
you seem to forget that there is a mechanical limit on the safe speed of a vehicle. it doesn't matter if everyone around you is driving 120mph -- it is not safe to drive a standard consumer auto at 120mph. period.
hehehe
the students will start suing each other and stealing each others lunch money...
Although, thats not to different with how it already is.
If we live in a democracy and most people think downloading music is OK, then why isn't it OK?