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MIT's Music Net Shut Down Over License Issues
aurum42 writes "MIT's LAMP music-over-cable initiative has been shut down due to licensing concerns, as reported on The Boston Globe. Ars Technica has a good summary of the story. It appears that Loudeye did not have the rights to sell music to MIT for distribution over cable, although they apparently assured MIT that they did in fact have those rights. Murky, unexplored legal quagmire or RIAA influenced revisionism?"
Murky, unexplored legal quagmire or RIAA influenced revisionism?
Neither. Cockmongering, chode loading asshole would be the correct answer.
FP!
First, there was a plan: how to bring together the different development groups at work? My boss said there was a sort of tension he thought could be eased by some social interaction. Not easy. Almost all of the different development groups despised each other, each thinking its "art" was more important and eloquent than the others'.
There was the kernel extension developer group, coding mostly in C and some PowerPC and x86 assembler. They worked on making our PCI board work with Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, QNX, and Solaris. They worked "special hours," coming in at one and staying late, supposedly, until seven or eight at night. They enjoyed Red Bull and had a penchant for ThinkGeek t-shirts and cracking jokes about Win32 API calls and the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.
We had XML developers too. They worked on our website, documentation formatting, and simple apps to configure the driver software. They used HTML, XSL, JavaScript, and a bit of Java. They typically dressed casually, drank coffee and tea, and liked to work straight from the spec: no "Learn XSL in 30 Days" books were to be found in their cubicle farm.
Then we had the guys who wrote full-out UNIX apps. These guys and the products they wrote had been acquired from another company, and were the source of most of the tension: they'd never really been integrated into our group except that they were physically present with the rest of us. They all had beards or mullets or long, unwashed hair. Many wore suspenders or the afore-mentioned ThinkGeek clothes; some even had Penguin tatooes or small C app code tattooed on them. Their cubicle farm was known for the bleating laughter that exploded when one of them found a "silly" bug on someone else's code, and for the rotten, fetid stench that could only be compared to three-day-old shit reeking from inside a rotting corpse's abdominal cavity.
So, in order to get the guys to "know each other" my boss had asked me to organize a during-hours, alcohol-friendly party. My ideas ranged from a keg or two to live entertainment, AKA strippers. But as to what to get them to actually talk to each other in a human manner I had no clue. So I let it go til the last minute and decided to let my inherent creativity mull it over in the back of my head.
When the day of the party had arrived, the catering company brought in a few trays of lunch meat, chicken, pizza, and side dishes, I had picked up the kegs (all four) from the local brewery, and the big-screen TV and DVD were set up ready to blast the Matrix into the eyes and ears of my co-workers. The eagerness in the the air was encouraging and I thought that loosening up and smiles going on even now were a good sign. I even saw some of the guys who'd known each other previously begin to bunch up, bringing along the co-workers they knew from everyday work.
The first thing everyone did was hit the food line, loading up their plates and grabbing a cup for beer to wash it down with. A few approached me and thanked me for the food; it seems appeasing the belly really did tame the beast. After a few minutes of silence and eating and a few second and third courses, they guys were ready to sit down and be entertained. After asking if anyone needed anything else before the movie started, the lights went out and the Matrix began playing. I heard a few enthusiastic comments and jokes being told.
About half-way through the movie I noticed a lot of the guys, especially from the UNIX app group, were getting up and presumably going to the restroom. No suprise, as the second keg was history by now and the third was probably half-way gone. I also noticed some of the guys bumping into things and stumbling. Alcohol's the social lubricant, eh? Well, not long after, my bladder beckoned and I answered. As I made my way to the restroom, I had a self-satisfied smile on my face: my little plan was working, my boss would be happy, and it might even a Christmas bonus or a promotion (even if in title only).
Well, as soon as
I for one welcome our new copyright overloads
Giggity-giggity-giggity-giggity!
Capitalism is the most effective way of distributing scarce resources, however when a resource is not scarce(music can be duplicated easily at practically no cost), there is no reason for capitalism.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park