Slashdot Mirror
Apple to Announce iTunes Movie Rentals?
An anonymous reader writes "Think Secret is reporting that the next Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference may be the company's platform to announce movie rentals via iTunes. The files would probably have a built-in shutoff timer, or only allow a certain number of viewings." From the article: "Apple is said to have ironed out agreements with Walt Disney, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros., and is currently in talks with other major movie studios as well. It's unknown to what extent content will be available come the August 7 announcement, or whether Apple will announce all of its studio deals at that time ... Apple had been trying for months to persuade the movie studios that the a-la-carte model of buying individual titles, as the iTunes Music Store offers with music, was the way to go. The studios, however, have been fixed on offering only a subscription or rental-based model."
This is why I use allofmp3. No DRM that I'm locked to (and them tightening the noose every other day)
I wouldn't mind if a DRM-free service like allofmp3 was more expensive, I use it out of principle to avoid pirating the music. I would be willing to go with something closer to the iTunes pricing scheme if it weren't so DRM-filled.
I like this idea. I have a fairly heavy movie consumption (1-2 a week). If we could get DVD quality rentals from iTunes for $2 a day. I'd be happy. Cheaper than going to the stor and faster. As long as it can get theough our restrictive firewalls on campus....
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
Pirates announce a hack you can download from some website that turns off whatever that flag is, the studios go berserk as millions of copies of movies circulate from ipods onto some movie-napster-like site, and we start the whole music-anti-piracy rigamarole again but with ipod movies. Will no one ever learn?
stuff |
I agree. I would much rather they had online movie sales where you burned a DVD as the final product instead of renting a movie. If I'm going to take the time to download gigs (if you want good quality) of information, I want to be able to keep the movie once i've downloaded it. I realize it would be impossible to stop people from copying the burned DVD for all their friends, but that's pretty much the way it is now with DVDs and CDs, so I don't see why they should be afraid. Also, I want to be able to watch this on my home theatre. My computer monitor/speakers just don't cut it when it comes to movies, and video out on most video cards is highly inferior to what you get straight from a DVD player. Also, it requires that you have a computer in the same room as the TV.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
If Netflix is on top of their game, they had better move quickly and setup deals with the studios to offer movies for download, or else they will quickly see themselves cast to the wayside.
You need to be tech savvy to understand the concept of renting? You need to be savvy to understand you're looking at a small screen? What are you talking about?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
... the widescreen iPod?
I'm still appalled by audio DRM! And now they're trying to shove this down my throat? Yet another useless, restrictive technology that I will boycott (vote with your pocketbook).
Hell, it seems to me that more restrictive formats give rise to more piracy (arrrr).
noobcake or noobmuffin? It is the same price...
Dvd jon ... start your engine.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft is more successful. Both companies love proprietary software and DRM. Both companies screw over their customers.
:)
Apple fanboys are about to mod me down.
Say it ain't so.
I can't wait to see the sugar coating.
Frankly, he should have told them to stuff it. I figure what happened is that they went full on developing the video iPod and supporting software figuring they could bully their way over the studios. Now with the hardware in hand and no progress he is being forced to do something to move the new product.... aren't shareholders wonderful - can't let the carpet ride end.
Still, no way, no how. I don't care who packages the DRM of this sort. Its wrong. If I pay for it I want access to it when I want to access it. Otherwise refund me when it expires.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
NEWSFLASH: The reason allofmp3 is so cheap is because they don't ask the artist's permission before they sell their songs. You might as well be pirating, it's basically the same thing. Honestly, if you want an artist's music, you can't double-dip and make your own rules about how you obtain it. They get to decide. So if you don't like buying DRM infested files, well, you have no other legal options to buy their music if that's how they want to sell it. And don't tell me allofmp3 is legal; it's only scantily legal because of Russia having fucked up copyright laws. (Read that "No copyright laws".)
If it only costs a couple of bucks, and I can load it on my iPod, then connect it to my TV, I'm good. The music I've downloaded from iTunes I've listened to hundreds of times. Most movies aren't worth owning, and many of the ones I do own I've only watch a few times. If they can keep it under $3, my video store is going to lose a lot of money.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
What I'd like to know is that if it's the case where you're only allowed to watch it, say twice, does it count if you start to watch it? I mean, it's a film, so it's going to be longer than an hour. What if I pay my $28, download it, start to watch it and get a BSOD because I've got a buggy codec (and also, hey, it's windows)? I reboot, do the same to make sure it wasn't a freak incident and it BSOD's again. So now I've started to play it twice (say my limit is two) and been unable to watch more than 5 seconds of it and can't fix the problem and watch it again because the file's gone and locked itself.
Do I get my money back?
Not even that, lets say I get an hour through my hour and a half film, and there's a corruption in the file which causes it to stop playing. The player crashes, so I load it up again, navigate to 59 mins and it crashes again. Do I get my money back? How do I prove that it was corrupted on download and that I didn't fire up notepad and let my mind go beserk.
This isn't so much of a problem for music, because the files are relitively small. With film, I'd guess that there is a higher chance of a problem just because the files are bigger and the codecs more complex.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
> Please state what functionality the updates took away. Making it harder to circumvent is not removing functionality, as circumvention was never promised.
Well, they changed the number of burns to CD. That is removing a function you could do (the 8th copy, or whatever).
> If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Do you get your money back from iTunes if you decide you don't like the change? No? Well, it's too late, then.
A significant number of people, sucking down 5-8Gb every day or so. I think we'll start to see the ISP's enforcing their (unwritten) bandwidth limits.
Fromlawgeeks
Surely you knew that Apple reserves the right to change the terms you can use its music under?
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
I don't and I won't, however as I'm a helpful person, I'm letting others know the potential dangers in buying any DRMd music.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Renting 320x240 videos? Not like you can see any real decent amount of detail in such a small screen, without bringing it close to your face and squinting, anyways. And personally, I'd much rather Apple fix their current problem with their new iTunes update, which has prevented my fiancee's iPod from syncing up with his computer. (Computer sees iPod, iPod sees it's connected to the computer - iTunes fails as the intermediary transfer program.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
... not an official announcement.
It's funny to see everyone commenting and producing all kinds of opinions based on a rumour from thinksecret. How many rumours have they actually ever gotten right?
It seems unlikely to me that S. Jobs who has already explicitely stated he does not like the rental model on several occasions, would suddenly change his mind (though I would not rule it out as an option). And he "managed to be convinced by Disney et al."? That must be real hard for Disney to do(considering he is the single biggest shareholder of that company and notoriously difficult to convince of anything).
Jeez lighten up. It's a rumour. On a site. That barely ever gets anything right.
J.
Now if they could only get my iPod battery to last long enough to get through more than 70 minutes of video... I really don't think that movies on an iPod are going to be viable until the batteries improve. Either I will have to watch a movie in two parts or I will have to watch it tethered to my PC in which case I might as well use a service other than iTunes.
Chill out dude. Hollywood keeps coming up with lame distribution models, and people keep ignoring them. No big deal.
And why shouldn't they? After all, you are renting the video. I don't see any particular problem in this specific scenario
I dunno. Do you ever visit Blockbuster or use Netflix? Then this may be "too good to be true" as long as the price is reasonable (read: WAY BETTER THAN BLOCKBUSTER), the selection is good, and I get a whole week to rent it. I've used Movielink for a similar service, and I have to say that it's actually quite nice.
While I have a few nits with MovieLink, the only real complaint I have is that their selection sucks. When a new movie comes to DVD, you can forget about finding it on Movielink. First you have to wait to see if it's a failure, then you can rent it three months later. Gee, thanks MPAA members. You're killing your own movie rental service that was supposed to pave the way to the future. (Actually, I think it was to keep Congress off their backs.)
I for one look forward to Apple's offerings. And if you don't like it, don't buy it. No one is forcing you. Besides, Apple also offers the purchase of movies and TV shows for oddballs like you who wish to own every movie they watch. (Really, I think you're probably complaining because it's going to make DVD burning habits look even less legit.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It is not known exactly how the coding system will work, but industry experts tell Think Secret that the software would likely either limit the number of playbacks
1) Download screen and audio capture utility (google)
2)Download movie
3)Install screen and audio capture utility
4) Run screen and audio capture utillity
5) PLay the movie in full screen mode
6) Burn recorded movie to DVD 7)Enjoy! and/or Profit!
or provide unlimited viewing for a period of time, after which the movie will be "turned off" and no longer available.
Unless you have to phone home every time you want to watch the movie, this timer would probably be based on the system clock. Remember those old demo's that only allowed you to play them for a month or so? Remember how you could always get around that by simply changing the system clock to an earlier date (hell you could do it for older versions of Adobe Illustrator)? Yeah.. I'm not sure how many ITMS users are computer savvy enough to make changes to their systems BIOS, but those that are won't have any trouble doing this.
Ah, I had to look that one up. That happened with 4.5, which was before I started using it, so I didn't know
Still, the number of burns to a CD was for the same exact playlist. Granted, they shouldn't remove what they promised you, but 8 CDs of the same playlist?
How many times do you even burn 7 CDs from the same playlist? Even if you do it's easy to get around, just add one more song to it and it's a different playlist so you can burn it 7 more times. It's not so hard so quit acting like it is.
This is one of the real big threats to the telcos cable TV roll out. I have Verizon's FiOS 20Mbps service and a Mac mini hooked up to my HDTV. I wonder how Apple's service will compete with Verizon's video-on-demand. I would think that it would be a pretty serious competitor to VOD. I hope that I can access the video library via my mac remote and frontrow.
Assuming Apple uses some sort of P2p system like is being rumored AND it becomes wildly popular (Apple seems to have the Midas touch). Can you imagine the load that will be put on ISPs?
Even if it DOES NOT use a p2p system all those people downloading multi-gig sized files is gunna really piss of the likes of comcast, cox, ect.
Okay, moving on...
They also increased the number of computer you could authorize from three to five.
Obviously. So?
I've got a feeling that Apple wouldn't be able to sell anything without DRM attached; it's the record companies that require this. Last I checked, pretty much every "legitimate" online music seller has some sort of DRM attached and requires being played with "crippled" software.
Really? You asked them?
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
Limited viewing wouldn't be a very good route to go; considering that other services are already allowing you to purchase a downloadable copy of all available movies which can be viewed indefinitely, and according to this CNET article, they're also expanding to allow you to burn them to DVD.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft is more successful. Both companies love proprietary software and DRM. Both companies screw over their customers.
Let's see, one company is pushing for it's DRM, arguing that it offers the most restrictions available, and the other is pushing the *AAs for less restrictions, arguing that the DRM they want is both impossible and undesirable.
Yep: The same. Exactly, to a "t".
You can't take the sky from me...
Yah, thanks, I looked that part up when someone else mentioned it. I have only ever used iTunes 5.x :)
Honestly, WHY do you think buying music on allofmp3 is different then pirating it? Why do you want to buy the music? I see two possibilities: 1. you want to thank the artist and give him some money 2. you feel guilty if you use eMule, so you go to allofmp3 and download the songs for a very cheap price.
You know full well the artist is seeing NO compensation when you buy his stuff from allofmp3. If you still want his songs, just steal them yourself already, instead of hiring goons to do it for you.
Global warming is a cube.
According to the various rumors on this subject over the past few months, Apple was trying very hard to get the movie studios to agree to just what you describe: customers would buy movies rather than rent them. The studios strongly prefer the rental model and, it turns out, they own the content. That's why the original article describes this as a setback for Steve Jobs.
Personally, though, I am not interested in owning a bunch of low-resolution movie files. The rental model makes much more sense for movies than for music. It is a very rare movie that I want to watch more than once.
You need to be tech savvy to understand the concept of renting?
/. guy, at what rate will I be uploading the file back to them so they can have it back and rent it to someone else?
I understand the concept of renting: When I'm done with it, I give the item back to the renter.
So, tell me, tech savy
You can't take the sky from me...
To me it seems retarded to limit the number of views, either by time or a counter. It's not like people watch movies over and over again (unless they're 8 years old) so it won't ring much extra money from the customers, but they WILL resent you for it. iTunes was successful partially because the DRM didn't have a lot of the retarded restrictions that most studios demanded from other such companies. Ebooks have been mostly a failure because publishers insist on stuff like this (except for Jim Baen, who is raking in money like crazy with his ebooks because they lack all of the retarded baggage that normally comes with them).
I'm hoping that Jobs will turn his Reality Distortion Field up high enough to counter the RDF that the movie studio execs live in and force them to realize that if you want people to buy a product, you have to offer something they're willing to buy. Don't worry so much about pirates because they already have much better copies of what you're selling anyway (higher resolution and free), but people will tend to prefer the legal version if given a chance and the legal version doesn't suck too much.
I read the internet for the articles.
You must see some moral incentive, otherwise you wouldn't be an AC. Ta.
Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.
Lots of people are speculating that a movie will be gigs of data and that ISPs are going to freak out as a result. You can already download full 1 hour episodes of TV shows. Without commercials this is probably 40-44 minutes. Any reports that someone's ISP wouldn't take their money and give them a connection to the internet after they bought a season of a TV show on iTunes? Lots of movies come in at the 90 minute mark which is about the same as downloading 4 episodes of Scrubs or 2 episodes of Lost... (both popular on the iTunes video store) News Flash: The internet didn't breakdown when Apple started selling TV shows and it probably won't break down when they start selling/renting/whatever movies either.
Next thing you know, places like Blockbuster are going to ask people for phone and credit card numbers so that people can't just keep the rented movies indefinitely
This is actually the one time I can see a legitmate use of DRM. I've though this for a long time. DRM would be a great thing to allow me to rent* movies over the web as it would automatically delete the file or render it useless after the rental time or number of views was up. If people want to get a hate-on for DRM for legitmately purchased movies, I'm all for it. That's just crap. But for a service like this, DRM is what makes this even possible.
* Not that I would actually do any renting. If a movie is worth watching, it's worth having. The reverse is also true; If it's not worth having, it's not worth watching.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
I wonder if this will mean an end to Netflix. I am not sure if will go to the trouble of downloading a movie, watching it on my computer or burning it into a DVD (if Apple allows it) and watching it on my DVD. Netflix is very convinient right now. I also hear that Apple is having a lot of trouble negotiating with 20th Century Fox about this program. Rupert Murdoch wants more share and stronger DRM.
Dude, get a grip. They have to limit the time period or number of watches. That's why it's a rental instead of a sale.
Frankly, I'm looking forward to this. I fly frequently. Not every flight has a movie, and the movie shown is often completely uninteresting to me. I've tried watching a movie on my laptop, but that is very inconvenient--no tray space left for the drinks and peanuts, have to close down when my neighbor needs to go to the bathroom, etc. A movie on my iPod would work perfectly.
I'd never buy such a movie, but I'd rent it if the price were right.
I bet Blockbuster is jumping for joy to see this announcement. It's bad enough their shares have dropped with just the introduction of NetFlix.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
I'd be more concerned if not for the fact that, on music at least, the DRM has gotten LOOSER since iTMS debuted. You used to only be able to authorize three machines. Now you can authorize five.
Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
In your post, which company is which?
There are some things that I prefer renting over buying, and movies are one of those things. With the exception of a few "classics", movies don't have enough replay value for me to justify paying more to buy them. Heck, if DVD's were as cheap as rental I wouldn't buy them because they would just be one more thing cluttering up the house.
However, the concept of rental clashes with the nature of the online and digital world. Everything that exists can be copied in exact form. You can't return data - you have a copy, not the original. The way I see it there are two options, the concept of rental can be preserved artificially with the introduction of DRM, or it can be abandoned in favor of purchases.
As a consumer I don't have a problem with the general idea of DRM on a rental - my fair use rights aren't being violated, because I don't have the right to backup, timeshift, or format shift rentals to begin with (unlike media I own, for which any DRM is intolerable). Where the problem occurs is the proprietary nature of DRM. At best, the rental DRM would be an "Open Standard" meaning anyone who pays RAND* patent fees and signs an NDA will be allowed to implement a device, and be given keys (specific to them) to decode the data. Then I could buy online rental devices or software from any number of manufactures, and it would be guaranteed to work with any number of online rental stores. This is similar to the legal workings of DVDs, Blueray, WMV. At the worst you have proprietary technologies, where each company has it's own format and player, like with Apple or DVIX (the first one). In both cases there will never be an open source player - the best we could hope for is something like the new Real Player that has an open source core with proprietary plug-ins. Even that is unlikely, as the movie industry is demanding end-to-end security (HDMI, Trusted Computing) which an open source operating system would not provide.
In the other option, the internet utopia dream was that the price of media would drop to the point of making rental unnecessary and removing the allure of piracy from the general public. The media industries are strongly opposed to this model of the future, and the only way it will ever happen is if independent media producers embrace it with success, and eventually put the current media companies out of business. This is also unlikely given the weight that the media companies have in government. Therfore, media purchases will also be hindered with DRM for the conceivable future, and will continue to be priced at traditional rates.
So given DRM on rental verses DRM on purchase, I definitely prefer the previous, but there is another potential risk with DRM rental and it is a biggy. The media companies have shown themselves very fond of the idea of DRM rental, as seen with Napster. They like the model where people don't own copies of media, but instead just subscribe to services that provide them. If too many people embrace these services, we could end up in a situation where everything is locked up. We continue to hear stories about how the original archive copies of important cultural media is being lost due to the extreme length of copyright, and the mismanagement of the copyright holders (Dr Who, classic films). But in most of those cases, at least lower quality copies exist in the form of consumer media. However, if we can no longer record broadcast media, and there are no purchased copies of media, the copyright holders will be the only ones capable of preserving the records of our popular culture. Time and time again they show themselves inept at doing so.
Anyway, I plan on sticking to buying CD's and renting locally for as long as those options exist, and continue to support those independent producers who treat their customers with respect. I'll keep trying to inform my representatives about the issues. But I'm not optimistic. We'll see what happens.
* For the uninitiated:
RAND = Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory
NDA = Non-Disclosure Agreement
I think this is great, actually. I only want to rent a movie about once a month tops, so Netflix doesn't do it for me. Plus, when I want to watch it, I want to that night. Movies for me are spontanious. If I could plug my MacBook into my TV and watch that movie I just have to watch tonight without making TWO gas-guzzling trips to the video store, then I'm down.
Jeez lighten up. It's a rumour. On a site. That barely ever gets anything right.
Indeed, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Jobs has convinced the studios to at least try a purchase model for movies. After all, iTunes has been an excellent vehicle for TV show sales, generating new revenue for the studios. While the media companies obviously see Apple as a competitor, if Jobs can convince them that iTunes is a distribution network that is already proven and ready for action, they may recognize that they'll make more money if they piggyback on the success of iTunes. So far everything they've tried on their own has been rather underwhelming. In the end, these guys will follow the money, and my guess is Jobs has figured out a way to show them the money.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Jobs isn't stupid. An earlier comment said he likely had the video iPod in hand and he had hoped he could just run over the studios...almost certainly true. I'm sure this isn't his preferred method, and I think it's very likely he's actually hoping this does poorly (Rokr, anyone?) so he can go to the studios and say, "See, you were wrong and I was right. Now, do you want to make lots more money?"
Yeah, I'd like to know the same.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
What is it about movie rental service that you don't understand? When you rent a movie, you have to return it the end of the specified time period or pay a fine. Surely you don't mean that you should be able to pay a rental fee and get to keep the movie file forever? So what, exactly, is wrong with DRM that enforces a rental agreement? As someone else posted, if you don't like the rental terms, then don't rent the movie.
Secondly, nobody is even making the slightest suggestion that this time-limited DRM would apply to songs (but see point four below).
Third, the only area where there has been any "DRM creep" is the reduction in the number of times a playlist can be burned from 10 to 7. You fail to mention that DRM was simulatneously liberalized to allow a person to play their iTMS purchased music on 5 computers instead of 3. A slight, practically meaningless, restriction on the one hand, a somewhat meaningful liberalization on the other. You can't even claim "creep" because there is no trend. It is just a fiction.
Fourth, one of the most common complaints about iTunes is the lack of a music rental service, like the one offered by Napster or Yahoo!. If Apple were to respond to this complaint and offer a music rental service, they would have to do something like Microsoft's Janus DRM that causes the music to become unplayable if the user does not check in to show the subscription is current. By your reasoning, Apple's response to this demand is just DRM creep. They can't win, apparently.
Yeah, it might look almost as bad as 240-line VHS.
I've looked at iTunes' video quality. (I got a freebie.) It's watchable for SDTV-sourced content, but not something I'd want to use for a film.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Ahaha... Hum, I would love to see you explaining that to stakeholders. Btw, if you don't like DRM, don't buy music with DRM. If enough people do the same, probably record companies will have to change their minds. But it's utterly their right to sell music they own, the way they want. it is their's property, not ours. I can choose not to buy what they sell, and they can choose what to sell and how. I don't like DRM because it restricts legitimate uses. But blaming apple for it is totally stupid
Your ad could be here!
some other news: artists mostly no longer make these decisions. Perhaps they sold-out, perhaps they are dead. The modern "Stationers" media companies often have the exclusive control.
Some choices to obtain music:
1. Buy music infested with DRM, which may overstep the US legal copyright limits.
2. Buy music from Russian MP3 sites, which may avoid US legal copyright limits.
3. Only subscribe to DRM-free music services like emusic.com.
4. Only buy from opensource/creative-commons music labels like magnatune.
5. No music
If state that only 3-5 are really legally legitimate, many people will ignore the legal or moral problems with DRM music or Russian music, because they do not directly see any negative impact.
Though I would suggest 4 if you really want to encourage healthy legal creativity.
I live in a city, which means the post office does not collect outgoing mail, so Netflix is inconvenient
Huh?
What do you mean, it doesn't collect outgoing mail?
I live in a city too, and you can't go two blocks without tripping over a USPS "blue box." Plus, every apartment building that I've ever been in has an outgoing mailbox, right next to the incoming boxes (which are actually superior to the way you do outgoing mail in a rural area -- where you put it in your regular box and put the flag up -- since it can't be stolen).
I'd say that Netflix is much more convenient/practical for people in urban areas than in rural ones, since the delivery turnaround times are usually faster, and in many cases you can send the discs back faster. When I lived in a rural area, I'd stick them in my mailbox and wait for the carrier to pick them up the next morning; now that I live in a city, I put them in the USPS box on the corner, and they go out that afternoon (pickup at 4:30 pm), effectively cutting a day off the mail-in time. When I'm feeling lazy, I just put them in the box on my house and they get picked up the next day.
I can't think of any situation where you can receive mail, but not send it back out. If you use lockable boxes, there should be an outgoing-slot or receptacle nearby. (I think this is required by the DMM.) If you use a box affixed to your house without a flag, then you put your outgoing stuff in it and the carrier will take it out before putting the incoming mail in, and if you have a rural streetside box, then you put it in there and set the flag up.
Any carrier delivering mail will also accept it (assuming it's of "nominal amount" -- you can't hand them a 20 lb package and expect them to carry it around the rest of their route), so if you have mail delivery, you should have a way of sending it back out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
TFA doesn't mention anything about if you can watch on a regular TV. Does it still have to be watched only on an ipod. I've never owned an ipod and fall smack in the middle of the I love'em and hate'em crowds but is this really something that ipod owners want? I can't imagine watching movies on it unless I can plug it into my tv.
But why would you want to rent a movie to watch on your computer screen? I think this will be the breaking point for any online movie service. If you can't watch it on your home theatre, then only a small percentage of people will use this service. I think the rental model makes a lot of sense for movies too. However, there's no way with the current technology to get something you can only play for a limited time, and that you can't copy.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
AllOfMP3 is insanely easy to use. Have you tried their new software, AllTunes? It's as easy to use as iTunes, and still lets you choose the encoding of your music. Neither my parents or my wife were willing to mess around with trying to search and download stuff using newsgroups or other file sharing programs, but they use AllTunes without any problems.
If I go to newsgroups, or other file sharing services, I can't always get the encoding that I want. There's also a good chance that the stuff is mislabeled, or is totally corrupted. Those aren't problems when buying from AllOfMP3.
Basically, I don't use AllOfMP3 because I feel guilty, I use it because it is by far the easiest way to get music in the format that I want, and I don't have to worry about it installing crap on my computer when I play a song.
Well, we don;t know the price yet do we? If, for example I could rent a movie to watch on my PC for 5 days at $0.99c I'd be tempted.
It's DRM, but as long as it is transparent what you are getting, and the price reflects the restrictions, that's OK by me.
Am I the only one who remembers when they tried this with DiVX? It didn't work then, it's not going to work this time either. Not to mention, for the majority of this country, I bet those movies will take a day to download... that sounds like fun!
WRONG! The People have an inherent Right to their culture; the only "right" that artists have to restrict that is a bargain created for the purpose of "Promoting the Progess of Science and the Useful Arts." The artist's permission is not required in order to distribute in Russia, nor is it required here in the US (depending on the circumstances -- see "Compulsory Licensing")!
Allofmp3.com IS LEGAL IN RUSSIA, and you have no right whatsoever to tell the Russians what laws they can or cannot make for themselves!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"I'm hoping that Jobs will turn his Reality Distortion Field up high enough to counter the RDF that the movie studio execs live in and force them to realize that if you want people to buy a product, you have to offer something they're willing to buy"
You are talking about Hollywood here, right?
You've heard the Myspace genereation is tech savvy? Somebody stop the Earth, I'd like to get off too.
I see mailboxes, but if I leave the bus to put discs in a mailbox, I lose my bus fare and have to wait 60 minutes for the next bus.
Third possibility: you don't want to use eMule because you want to easily get the songs in a particular format, with guaranteed quality. Allofmp3 does provide that value, you know.
In my opinion, the best option is to get music from either p2p or Allofmp3 (depending on how much you care about possibility #3) and then just (anonymously) mail the artist some cash. It's still not legal in the p2p case, but it least it's more ethical than paying the RIAA.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The original Netflix plan was downloading. But that depended sufficient broadband. Colleges with InterNet2 can download two hours of quality video in minutes, but it is still on the order of an hour for your average home broadband.
1. Show me where culture writes are written down on legal documents.
2. If Russia wants into the WTO they'll get rid of AllofMP3, which is exactly what will happen.
Got any other justifications for piracy?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
the failed DIVX experiment...sans the media. At least with DIVX we got a pretty cool comic character. I mean look at him. Drunk electronic are funny, what do you think made Bender so great...
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
I don't know how accurate this may be...
I can see buying a movie online, at DVD quality (or better yet 720p), for $10. That I can live with, I'd probably do so for some titles.
I can possibly, possibly see renting a DVD quality movie online that went "Dark" after, say, a month. For... let's say $1. No, say $.50.
That's why I can't see the rental angle here. How do you make any money at all when bandwidth charges for a movie are greater than any fee you could charge that people would accept? A Bittorrent like delivery system may alleviate costs, but I'm not sure even that would be enough.
Also, what about the iPod - is it going to be able to play these time-limited movies?
The whole thing just sounds really suspect to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They also increased the number of computers it is usable on from 3 to 5, which is far more useful than the number of times you can burn the playlist (not playlist, not song).
Actually, I welcome this. As many people have pointed out in these discussions before, people treat movies and music differently. You watch a movie or TV show once or twice. Maybe you have a favorite that you keep around, watching it a total of 10 times, but that's pretty rare for me.
Therefore, if a company offered legit downloads of movies, giving me this choice:
In that example, I would choose the $2 for 95% of the movies I bought from them. Of course, I'm not sure either of those options are as appealing as the Netflix-ripper model, where $10 a month gives you a DRM-free mpeg4 every couple days, but that isn't entirely legal.
That's irrelevant. If they can change the terms after the fact in that way, they can change the terms in any way. It's entirely possible (albeit unlikely) that tomorrow Apple could force you to start paying $10/day to continue to listen to your music, and you would be able to do nothing whatsoever about it.
That kind of risk should make DRM completely unacceptable to everyone; AFAICT the only reason it doesn't is that most people don't understand and realize it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The quality of AllofMP3.com is a lot better than you can get off of P2P, at least reliably.
There's no fucking around with downloading an album, only to find out that some idiot ripped it at 128kb, which I think sounds worse than a bag full of angry cats. Or you find out the file is fake, or loaded with spyware, or that you have to open a bunch of ports through your firewall in order to get the P2P app to work in the first place, etc.
With AllofMP3, you click on the album, choose your quality level (all the way up to uncompressed 44.1kHz, in some cases) and you get your music. No messing around.
Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"- The "if you don't like it, don't buy it" excuse isn't good enough in this case, because Apple isn't saying "buy encrypted songs only playable with Apple products", they're saying "buy music online". I know that Apple's music store sells encrypted files that can only be played with crippled software, but most users do not realise this and Apple does not make it clear to them."
So the number of people who care about the files being encrypted, would that be in the high or low hundreds?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
It doesn't matter. The bottom line is that Apple could change the terms to anything it wants after the fact, and you have no choice but to bend over and take it.
That's what's so bad about it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
After the smashing success of television shows being sold on the iTunes Music Store your question surprises me. To make it clearer, YES people will rent a movie to watch on their computer screens and even smaller iPod screens. LOTS AND LOTS of them.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
"If enough people do the same, probably record companies will have to change their minds."
We've already seen what record companies do; they say people arent buying because of 'piracy', and promptly bribe and/or trick politicians into enacting some law intended to give them money anyway.
"But it's utterly their right to sell music they own,"
Bullshit. They have exclusive legal monopolies on the reproduction of certain data because it suited the English royalty four centuries ago to have monopolist sockpuppets doing their censorship for them in exchange for protection from competition.
It's time to get over that now. Intellectual monopolies are a hinderance to the free market, damaging to the economy, disasterous for the flow of information and the evolution of culture and science, and are rapidly proving themselves to be dangerous to democracy and they need to go. Now.
Can I buy a movie that will be full-screen DVD quality and play it through my Tivo Desktop to my television? That would be cool. TivoToGo http://www.tivo.com/4.9.4.1.asp, is compatible with iPod, but would it be compatible with iPod video downloads (iTunes), rather than recorded programs? I don't want to buy and watch a 2+ hour movie on a tiny iPod screen, if that's where this is going. Oh, and I'm not buying, I'm renting according to the article. Not as good, but I'd try it. I guess a high quality download would be too big. Would it? How big is a 2 hour feature film download at good or very good quality?
Apple has
1. A powerfull, widespread and high quality media system (QuickTIme)
2. A powerfull, widespread and high quality distribution system (iTunes)
3. A powerfull, widespread belief that Apple is high quality (the Market, seeing ITMS success)
So in other words, it is perfect for Apple, they are in the best position of any company out there to succeed with this. Combine with a Media Mac, FrownRow software, shake, and you have a lovely competitor to WinXP Media Center. (:
Cheers,
. Knut
I admit, I have felt a bit locked in to an operating system by my iTunes music. My iTunes music is one of two things keeping me from dumping Windows for Linux. But I knew when I started buying music that it had these restrictions, so while I wish Apple would create a version of the iTMS for Linux users, that was never part of the agreement.
I love how every new idea presented on Slashdot is reacted to as if it's the end of civilization as we know it. You wouldn't think that a community of programmers would be luddites. And you wouldn't think that a community full of open-source zealots would be upset at a new service that gives them more choice in how they view movies... isn't "more choice" supposed to be one of the big benefits of open source? And it's not like Apple's holding a gun to your head to install iTunes.
Comment of the year
I agree 100% with yur point. However I was criticizing my PP for saying "I use it out of principle to avoid pirating the music". If THAT is his reason, he might just as well use P2P.
Global warming is a cube.
I'm sure that many of those people are buying them to watch on video iPods more than on computers. People download HD movie trailers from apple.com to watch on their computers...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I'm not quite sure how this comment justifies a flamebait moderation, but its parent doesn't.
I think it's more like Apple keeps its original software closed, but anything it uses that's free or open source (e.g. BSD-like license), it continues to release their changes whether or not they're required to do so.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I'm an Apple fanboy (kinda) and I'm not going to mod you down.
I am, however, going to point out the major difference between Apple and Microsoft: Apple uses lube.
If this is like netflix with downloads instead of DVD, it would rock. I already pay about $20 a month to netflix to get movies. If i get unlimited downloads with the same amount, i would gladly shell out the money and cancel my cable subscription at the same time. This has the potnetial to really hurt netflix AND blockbuster really hard. Combine this with some sort of mac mini home theater set up and you are all set.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Have you never rented a movie to decide if it is worth having/watching?
At what point did anyone say that iTunes was going to use peer to peer transfers? Apple knows better than to do that.
So what, they're not going to. If you think they're just going to make it so you can only burn 1 CD for example you don't really know Apple.
Airport with HDMI output. It already streams your music to your TV, so throw in a HDMI and it can talk to high-def TVs without losing any of the copy protection (Yes I know...) and voila!
With a bit of luck, they will have the sense to have an option to include the iTunes visualiser in the AirTunes stream. Result: Watch your movies in high-def on your proper screen, or listen to any of your music with a high-def visualiser. Most WiFi networks can take the strain nowadays.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
What's this got that DIVX ain't got? DIVX, backed by the might and power of Circuit City?
Or FlexPlay (EZ-D) "self-destructing" DVDs, launched into the stratosphere by the hit 2004 Christmas movie, Noel?
Or RCA's single-play cassettes that would mechanically lock at the end of one play and could only be unlocked by the rental store with a special tool?
You do remember all of these, don't you?
You don't? That's funny. I wonder why not.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Granted it's your standard NTSC tube set, 20-something inches--not plasma, digital, LCD, or anything like that. But I was really surprised. I downloaded some episodes of "The Office" from iTunes and they really look good on the TV screen, about as good as a DVD actually. There was good color, very good contrast, nice and sharp with no pixel effects visible at all.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
At what point did anyone say that iTunes was going to use peer to peer transfers?
I said nothing about P2P.
You can't take the sky from me...
The success of the DVD market is proof positive that consumers will accept DRM, and that DRM done properly doesn't hurt the market.
After that the success of the iTMS is further proof that DRM is acceptable.
If you really hate DRM that much, you need to be fighting the current DVD industry, too.
GPL Deconstructed
Exactly. Something like this service is coming and everybody knows it. Regardless of if Apple does it soon, or even if they never do it at all. The market will decide if it is cost effective. As for the DRM - obviously Apple's customers don't care. I've bought stuff from them fully aware that I'm getting a lower than CD quality file. Hasn't mattered to me. The DRM can be annoying, but I can burn it as a audio CD and I'm back to the (with less quality) late 90's. Honestly I, and most people, have bigger things to worry about than the providence of my background music.
Sorry, I misread your post and took uploading as in Bittorrent uploading, as seems to be the "buzz" these days.
Eh, that's more-or-less the same as possibility #2.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I agree. I am not too interesting in watching a movie at my computer (or on a iPod either). There are other important possibilities, however. First, I think Apple will soon introduce an under-the-set box to serve as a media center. A lot of people do this already with their Mac minis. The Front Row software was a first step, it just needs to be linked to the movie rental service. I hope it includes a cable card 2 slot so that it can serve as an HD tuner and that PVR software is part of the package (thus replacing the cable company's tuner/DVR). As broadband speeds increase, movie resolution could increase along with it.
Second, there are rumors that Apple wants to use upcoming higher speed wireless networking to allow better streaming of movies from PC to TV.
I like Netflix, but I could see this being a viable alternative over time.
Or, by virtue of being located in a different country, AllOfMP3 actually (legally, at least currently in Russia) provides what the market wants -- easy downloads from a wide catalogue in your format of choice (DRM-less), at a reasonable price. None of this "We rent you" crap.
It astounds me at least a full 7 years after the original Napster came into being that the domestic (U.S.) music industry still can't seem to figure out what customers want.
{ - Generic Guy - }
They're not going to, but they still could. I object to it in principle!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
HDMI provides 5 Gbps of bandwidth, and the recent 1.3 spec of HDMI ups that to 10.2 Gbps. I don't know of any 802.11_ standard that even comes close to streaming HDMI over the air, unless you consider Apple's 320x200 widescreen TV shows to be "HD."
For more information, click here.
Correct about the success of the TV shows, but two things :
1- TV shows are low-res.
2- TV shows are purchased, not rented.
This is not the same thing. However if movie rental has good enough resolution and is quite cheap, I'd be tempted for sure. Here in Europe new movie rental costs anywhere between 2 and 4.5 Euros for 24h.
Also note that both in the US and Europe, people can subscribe to Netflix-like services, which start at about 10 Euros/months here. These are the services an iTMS (M for movies) would have to compete againsts.
"It's still not legal in the p2p case, but it least it's more ethical than paying the RIAA."
The RIAA is a trade group; they don't see a cut of every sale. That's a bit like saying that you pay the AMA when you visit your doctor. A more accurate way to put it is "but at least it's more ethical than paying the record company that produced and distributed the music."
I agree wholeheartedly with your idea (paying the artist directly) if the artist was also the one who did the cover art, engineered and produced the music, planned the marketing campaign, and did all the other things that the record company pays for, cash out of pocket (the costs for which, of course, they recoup from sales, leaving the artist the last one to be paid).
The good news is that people who like the "pay the artist directly" model can find plenty of unsigned artists who do fund all of that themselves; so it's right and proper that you give them cash directly -- after all, they've already paid all the people who helped them make their music, so you're helping to ensure that they end up in the black. But for most of the music out there, whether we like it or not, it's the record company that came up with the funds to make it happen.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Why isn't it okay to sell DRMed music?
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
Newsflash: That's exactly what the World Trade Organization is for. So that I, as a non-Russian, can set up trade laws (most importantly IP laws) that we both must abide by. And you can bet your sweet bippy that those standards will make sites like AllOfMp3.com illegal.
Wake up to the New World Order, kid.
Rentals are essentially what happens with torrents and p2p systems anyway. I mean who keeps a ton of movies on their hard drives? Even Steve Jobs who has apparently "relented" has said that videos are a different animal than music. You listen to a song a zillion times, but watch a movie only a couple of times. Unless it's like LOTR collector's edition or something else I'd like to own, this would be just fine provided the download doesn't take forever and the price is reasonable. Besides it's also a proven business model.
Microsoft is the pusher.
Apple, however:
You can't take the sky from me...
"You shore got a purdy mouth!"
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
but anything it uses that's free or open source (e.g. BSD-like license), it continues to release their changes whether or not they're required to do so.
Aaah - cool! Can you please link me to the latest XNU sources? I can't seem to find them....
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
First of all, the right to culture does not have to be enumerated; it exists by default.
Second, what part of "To Promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts" do you not understand? Not only does that phrase implicitly affirm the public's right to have access to information and culture (i.e. affirms the existence of the Public Domain), but it's also the only thing justifying the existence of copyright (and patents, and trademarks) to begin with. In other words, if the clause that includes that phrase did not exist, no monopoly privilages would be granted to creators of works of intellect at all.
I never did have any justifications for "piracy!" I do, however, have quite a few justifications for copyright infringment, of which I've written extensively about here in the past.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Ok, it is kind of sad this post is +5... lots of people have asked artists to prove they are not fairly compensated by allofmp3 and I have not seen one story to indicate this is the case. The RIAA wants it shut down, not artists. At least not that I have seen yet. If that changes, my opinion will change, until then, stick with the facts.
Would that be slip kid or analog kid? Or maybe you meant New World Man?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If what I hear about record contracts is true, then that's the case for signed artists as well: they have to pay back all the money the record company loaned them before they get a single cent out of the deal. Therefore, my idea is valid wrt signed artists as well.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
That's irrelevant, because the only people who decide if Russia joins the WTO are the Russians themselves. My point still stands.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, DRM has gotten worse since iTMS debuted. It used to be that you could strip the DRM right off the files thanks to DVD Jon's work.
Since iTMS 5 this doesn't work anymore, and I've stopped buying music there, as a result.
I don't really see what the big deal is about having a movie rental DRMed. I mean, come on, it's only for a limited time anyway. You don't own the movie. If you want to watch it in higher quality on DVD than go to Blockbuster. But if you want convenience and want to download a movie rental, and are willing to use the video equipment available on your computer, then except to have some sort of software to limit how long you can have it. Otherwise no one would delete the movie after their "rental period".
I can see with buying music you may want to use it on various devices, since over time technology changes and you get new equipment and so forth--and you actually own it--, but in this case I can't see any reason why you shouldn't have DRMed movie rentals.
And where's your list of poeple who say they HAVE been fairly compensated?
Lots of people (which is Internet for nobody but yourself, and even then only in your head) have asked the government why they killed Elvis and I have not seen one story to indicate they didn't kill him, so thus, it must be true.
You're just picking arbitrarily picking a side and saying "since I haven't seen any proof for either position, my way is right."
My opinion (and based on the same vacuum of official artists stance as yours) is that they lump allofmp3.com in with Kazaa and Limewire and Napster before it and so when they say "stealing our music means we don't get any reward for our work" they are including feel-good-piracy.
Don't tell others to stick to facts when you have none to go on. YOU stick to the facts which is that there is no proof any of this money goes to anyone but webmaster@allofmp3.com.
will be "Big."
Well, let me put a bit of context here,
I have been a loyal ITMS customer since the onset, looking at my "purchased music" menu in iTunes (which includes TV shows) there's almost 900 items there (granted a couple of them are the 4 disc Final Fantasy soundtracks). I'm okay with the lax DRM on it, I burn CD's of the music for friends, and I burn both raw AAC files to DVD and AIFF copies on CD as backups. As I live in Ireland but use a US billing address, I use iTunes to watch the few TV shows I follow, namely Battlestar Galactica. Price-wise, an album costs less than half the price on iTunes than it does in shops here in Ireland (21 for a new album, that's about $29 - $30) so I haven't bought a CD in years.
I also have a couple UMD movies that I got fairly cheaply for the PSP (so I can be a sucker too... But really, UMD was a better format than this is, higher resolution, on a better screen and the occassional special feature. It was killed by 2 things: dumb prices, it should be $10, not more than a DVD, and the fact that they flooded the UMD market with crappy movies from the studios back catalogue. Who's gonna shell out for Cheaper By The Dozen on UMD? They ought to have made all the initial releases out of box office hits and films that got oscar nominations...)
But there's no way in hell I'll get a subscription based file. Thing is, I love movies, I am an animator in training so someday I may be working in movies... but the subscription model was why I could brag that iTunes was so much better than its competitors, now they buy into it... When I buy a movie, I like to scrutinize it privately, to observe editing, shot selection, etc, then I like to watch it with a few friends. I understand there's a hell of a lot of downright awful movies out there, but I dont even bother renting them, I wait for them to come on TV if I am at all bothered to see them. Thing is, the DRM on the iTunes music does allow you to share music with your friends just the same way CD's did, the only thing it stopped you from doing was making 30,000 copies or immediately dumping it onto limewire. It was designed to inconveniance people whose only intent was mass redistribution, but it let me give a copy to a buddy who was interested in it. The TV shows, on the other hand, don't let you burn the video to a readable DVD, thus, if I wasn't using it to keep up with TV shows that aren't in Ireland, it's just too closed for me to really be interested.
The problem is that the industry sees you loaning a DVD to a friend as a threat, a lost sale. This is crap, someone who's only willing to watch something if it's loaned wasn't necessarily inclined to buy it, and if the product is legitimately GOOD, after they watch the loaned copy, they should be more likely to buy it for themselves.
It all comes down to the industry finding ways to maximise profit without fostering good products. Sorry if the post is long and incohesive, I'm off to watch Zhang Ziyi on my PSP...
Yup...
There are already a bunch of other companies that are doing this. I signed up for Starz movie download service called Vongo. The movie quality is pretty decent and you can start watching it while you download. You get to keep the movie for as long as Starz has the rights to it, plus you can put it on any Plays for Sure video player, so you can watch it at home and on the road. Plus, they offer a flat $10/month subscription. All the movies you want for $10. Flat fee subscriptions are where it's at. I watch movies I'd never pay for on their own, some of them I end up liking, some I don't, but if anything it exposes me to more of the crap the studios are churning out. I've passed on other services with better catalogs, only because I like the flat fee. There are some other options with better catalogs that charge about $4 per download and let you keep them for 30 days. I'm not sure what their portable support is. But Apple's folly is that they are offering it through iTunes, which is solely for your iPod. How much video do people actually watch on their iPods anyway. It would be more successful to cater to the media center PC crowd. I'm all about getting my programing on the intarwebs. I just don't want some crappy Apple DRM all over my movies. I want to pop some popcorn and watch a movie with booming surround sound and a big screen, not huddled over my iPod and not tethered to iTunes.
Not to stupid. No, not stupid at all. This is nothing but Video on Demand using existing infrastructure (iTunes client & server) to offer a thing in a way it will work. Rather than the others that are still choking at with windows media player problems, bandwidth problems, active x problems, caching problems and connection problems and compatibility issues (T-Online VoD over here only works with IE and Media Player and Windows).
:-)
Now all we need is an easy way to dump this data into a non-self-destructing format.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Yet, it was Apple that refused to cooperate with Sony/BMG, who wanted to impose DRM on music files ripped from CDs to prevent copies from being made.
o rking.with.ipod/
Apple took risk here. It refused to play ball, meaning that consumers who had bought the Dave Matthews' Band or Foo Fighters albums last year couldn't load them onto iTunes without a stupid workaround. Sony blamed Apple, saying that it was up to them to "flip the switch." The bands posted statements on their web sites telling people to complain to Apple. Still, Apple didn't back down.
http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/05/08/04/cds.not.w
Then, after the Sony rookit debacle, it was Sony that was beaten into submission.
So, although I agree that Apple uses FairPlay to create a lock-in effect, they have often stood up to the record industry as well. If they had played along with Sony, the practice might have become commonplace.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft is more successful. Both companies love proprietary software and DRM. Both companies screw over their customers.
They don't love DRM, they relish screwing over their customers... But they don't love their customers, either. There's no emotion involved here at all. Apple and Microsoft exist to make money, period.
I'm no fan of either company. But I think the "screwing" goes both ways. DRM, proprietary software and other forms of copy protection exist because hacks, cracks and piracy has been rampant since the days of the Apple 2. I'm not saying they haven't gone too far (though in this case, I think the movie studios set the terms, not Apple) but many of us out here in computerland have, to some extent, brought this on ourselves by completely disrespecting copyright laws. Yeah, they're screwing us, but we screwed them too.
Before someone throws open source in my face-- I use it whenever I can, which is often. But how much open source software (OS and apps) is truly innovative, and how much is an attempt to approximate products by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.? You think if all software was open source we would be advanced as we are today? Profit is much more of a motivator to spur innovation than any communal "free beer speech" effort ever could be.
Oh yeah it is sooo "kind of" sad that people disagree with you. Cry me a river.
Global warming is a cube.
Inherently, yes. In fact, that will be the case in a 100 years or so when they become Public Domain. In the meantime, however, we've agreed not to do that as part of a bargain created for the purpose of encouraging the making of new works. To the extent that the creators of the works (in this case, Microsoft and Adobe) uphold their end of the bargain, we are not justified in breaking it.
Conversely, we are justified in breaking the agreement if the copyright holders failed to uphold their end first. In the case of DRM (as well as Windows "activation"), the copyright holders are effectively infringing upon the Public Domain; therefore, we are justified in infringing upon them too.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
if you guys check out ilounge as well as a variety of other video sites, you'll find out that the ipod supports more than 320 by 240 with very high bitrates -- i've watched stuff at very high bitrates in mpeg4 at high resolutions that exceed the quality of dvds that i've rented
The way most record contracts are written today, the artist doesn't see any of the money regardless of where you buy/steal it. They make their money from touring, promotional items, etc. Read Steve Albini's article http://www.negativland.com/albini.html on how you can be a musician with a gold record and owe the record company money!
There's nothing to stop the AirPort implementing decompression locally. You can't stream HD easily, but you can stream something close whilst compressed.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
"...it all comes down to the industry finding ways to maximise profit..."
Actually, the industry is trying to maximise REVENUE, not profit. These business practices might spike revenues in the short term, but it will have a long and - and negative - impact on profit, for many of the reasons you've (correctly) pointed out.
Look no further than the record companies for proof of this.
A message from our sponsor
Like most of Apple's iPod/ITMS-related endeavors, this will probably be highly successful. Apple might have spent 15 years getting pushed around by the PC market, and to a certain extent its recent successes have only happened as it has given in and adopted Intel and Windows pre-installations, but it has consistently made all the right moves with iPod/ITMS, and has consistently been in the driver's seat there. While Microsoft's plans to compete with ITMS will keep Apple on its toes, all indications are that they will be able to fend off the competition.
Concerns that have been raised on this list so far can all be addressed:
Argument: People want to own their media, they don't want to rent it for an established period of time or viewing. That is why subscription services like those offered by Real and Napster have been less successful that ITMS, which sells the content outright. People will hate a subscription service that puts them in a world of red tape.
Response: One big reason for Apple's success has been its ability to understand that consumers hate complex technology and complex agreements. One of the reasons the iPod was so successful was that it is such a simplistic model, both in terms of hardware and the ITMS. The contrast with other companies is very clear, and I think this parody drives that point home better than I can do. If Apple goes with a subscription service for movies, they will present it in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. That goes a long way toward improving consumer confidence. Also, unlike music, people often "rent" movies, so the concept is a familiar one, and will be embraced by consumers if the price is low enough to make the restriction worth it. Also, if Apple is smart it will continue to fight to sell outright ownership copies alongside the rentals, to give people a choice. Finally, it is well-known that the ITMS DRM can be subverted by burning a copy to a disk and then ripping it back - so Apple will probably disable burning for subscription files, but outright owners will probably retain that option in the worst case scenario. I'm not saying this is an ideal solution, and others are right to point out that this makes consumers captive to Apple, but on a purely objective level, if the IMMEDIATE terms don't seem too restrictive, people will ignore potential long-term harms. (Also, if Apple decides to eliminate that loophole, it will probably still be possible to find an earlier ITMS version that still contains it.)
Argument: The resolution on videos sold by ITMS is way too low for people to want to buy movies from them.
Response: I actually completely agree. I have only bought a couple of TV shows from Apple as a result of this problem. However, I think that the movie sales and/or subscriptions will be released in tandem with the new, larger-screen video iPod, with higher resolution on all offerings to boot. That said, for it to really be worth it, the resolution has to be higher than what even this larger-screen iPod can display. It really does need to be sold at basic DVD quality (higher quality is too much to hope for at this point, but "DVD Quality" is good enough for consumers right now). People might buy TV shows at low quality because they're not available anywhere else until years after airing, but DVD's are available in DVD quality in many locations. Apple does need to get beyond the paradigm of selling videos intended only for the iPod video, and start selling for computer viewing. But, again, I think they will probably do this. Certainly they will never sell the videos at 320 X 240. They know that would make them a joke.
Argument: Bandwidth is not high enough for this.
Response: Previews can be offered in lower quality. The people consuming the most bandwidth will be paying for the downloads, so it will be worth it to Apple. They are also paying for their DSL. (IMHO, this is why net neutrality is a bad idea, b
Not all of us sell out our Fair Use Rights so easily.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The ISPs just want to legislate this out of existence (in favor of their own, extra-cost services) instead.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
A significant number of people, sucking down 5-8Gb every day or so. I think we'll start to see the ISP's enforcing their (unwritten) bandwidth limits.
I agree, once the "tubes" start filling up the ISPs are going to start sending out bandwidth over-limit notices to more and more people. How long until we see a class action suit against some of the larger ISPs (Comcast, RCN, Verizon, etc) when all of a sudden your average Joe is finding out that "unlimited bandwidth" is actually limited? Up until now we've only really heard about, shall we say, more suspect[1] customers running up against unpublished bandwidth limts so it's been off most people's radars. And AFAIK these ISPs are still not publishing hard and fast bandwidth cap numbers, even when asked directly by those being accused of going over them. The ISPs of course want it both ways, they want everyone to think it's unlimited, because that's a great selling point, but it only works as long as people aren't even coming close to maxing out their connections. However, once the public at large start transferring gigs/day the ISPs are either going to have to start advertising caps, or upgrading infrastructure to handle the load (fiber finally anyone?).
[1] I say "suspect" because, let's face it, the majority of the people pulling down 10 gigs/day are not simply getting linux distros over p2p. Yes, there are valid reasons for that much data, but a good chunk of it, at least right now, is people pirating movies. Of course with the advent of youtube and other video streaming sites popping up I'm sure the bandwidth usage gap between legitimate users and media pirates is closing.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Show me how to compress 5 Gbps down to 54 Mbps, giving you the benefit of the doubt on both ends (802.11g is much slower than 54 Mbps in real use), with the final result being "something close" to the original. Apple's been going after video on iPods only; their videos look awful on anything larger than an iPod screen.
For more information, click here.
Yes, I have a very strong sense of morality -- and according to my principles, what allofmp3 does is much less immoral than what the record labels do!
As I said before, the best (i.e. most morally sound) option is to send the artist cash. Whether the music is obtained via p2p or allofmp3 is irrelevant except for issues of convenience and quality.
Incidentally, morally speaking information is not property, and inherently "belongs" to all of society collectively (i.e. the Public Domain). I believe in compensating the artist not as an obligation, but as a courtesy.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Three things I feel compelled to point out that...
#1. Contrary to popular belief, the RIAA does not earn money on each song/cd/record sold. The RIAA is primarily financed through membership. These days the RIAA probably makes more money from negotiated settlements with P2P users than anything else.
#2. AllOfMP3.com does not pay the artists, labels or the rights organizations that represent artists or labels. ROMS, one of two "organizations" they claim to pay, has nothing to do with artists rights or the payout of royalties. FAIR seems equally dubious.
#3. Check with Merge Records and ask them how many copies of "69 Love Songs" by the Magnetic Fields have been sold on AllofMP3.com. They won't know because 1.) AllofMP3 is not open to audit as most distributors are (online and otherwise) and because 2.) They have not received a dime from AllofMP3.com.
Morally speaking, buying from AllOfMP3.com on par with downloading via P2P. Either way artists get the same amount of money - none.
And to be on topic, I don't find most basic DRM that evil as long as I know what I'm getting into before I commit my money. I don't think Apple using an expiration date on "rented" videos is a big deal. In fact, I welcome having a new choice in the marketplace.
If I don't like it I won't spend my money on it. Amazing how that works for so many aspects of life.
Umm, no. The WTO has to decide if they want Russia in the WTO. All Russia can do is apply and negotiate. The final decision resides in the WTO and it's current members, and so far the U.S.A. is rather hesitant about letting Russia in.
There are advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the argument...
Sure, in the first half of 2006, revenues for DVD rentals were $3.9 billion and $7 billion for DVD sales. However, the per unit margin and residuals from rentals have continued to rise since 1998 when revenue sharing began to replace fixed cost purchase... Incidentally about the same time the digital video market began to explode in the US.
Now the DVD market is reaching maturity, with rentals and sales declining 3.9 and 3.7 percent, respectively, in the first half of 2006. At the same time, the online rental business in the US and Europe surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time in 2005. So there's tremendous growth opportunity here whereas the DVD is reaching the maturity of its product cycle.
Mind you I am not at all an advocate for MPAA but as a financial analyst I understand their reasoning.
On a qualitative level, there do exist advantages that appeal to a significant sector of the population, but first I'd like to point out a few things:
The movies you want to watch only exist because there's money to be made... They're horrendously expensive to make, whether they're good or bad... so there's always going to be a percentage of the films that bomb horribly for which others have to pick up the slack. Arguing against paying for movies, i.e. rationalizing piracy, is an ironic stance since the most popular pirated titles still tend to be some of the highest budgeted films. If you really hate capitalism, and it's not just a front to justify refusal to pay the market price for what you willingly desire (but ostensibly do not need), then show your support for independent films and stop pirating every crap movie that helps MPAA make a case with legislators for more absurd IP laws.
Mind you I'm not arguing that there's no such thing as art... but given that money simply is a representation of work exchanged for work through an intermediary (currency)... you give something, you get something. If you give nothing, the studios do not owe you Russell Crowe's latest polished turd of a movie.
There are many people who find buying every movie under the sun tremendously impractical... as is pirating every movie under the sun, simply because even with a pile of pirated movies, who has all the time in the world to pirate movies all day long? The unemployed, for one...
So, frankly, those who are less interested in possessing an endless inventory of movies are, more often than not, employed with some disposable income. They work, have less time to watch a zillion movies, owned OR pirated... and also because they work, at least a percentage of them can certainly afford to at least rent, if not buy movies.
So why might they be flustered with Netflix? Well, turnaround time. I can't count how many times I've popped over to Hollywood Video on the spur of the moment when I just didn't want to wait a couple of days (minimum) for Netflix to send me something. In this case, purchasing a download on the spot would be ideal for me. The "for me" is the key part here... Again, we're not talking about trying to replace the DVD distro market... that would actually cannibalize a good chunk of the DVD distribution business, much of which is OWNED by the studios. We're talking about target marketing.
The other advantage for a consumer might be budgetary. Provided there's premiums to incent people toward paying for rentals OR purchases, much like iTunes Music Store has proven they could incent people to buy despite a huge volume of piracy, by providing better interface design, ease of use, higher fidelity (AAC instead of MP3) etc. and consequently outperforming all P2Ps combined in total volume... the product itself is NOT the only reason to pay.
If given the choice between two identical products, repeated studies have shown time and time again that people will pay a premium for the one with greater convenience and better service. That being said, piracy generally does not trump service
Don't you all mean to say, "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame?"
my sig is an honor student
So in other words, it's exactly the same as buying the record from Circuit City or Tower Records... from which the artists get the same amount of money: none.
Buy Text Processing in Python
That's the Apple iShite, isn't it? ;)
Car analogies break down.
But Russia could still have chosen not to apply, and the WTO couldn't force it to join. That was my point.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
as if the artists received any compensation when you buy music from iTunes or any other music sales service based in US.
except for a few big artists who manage their own careers, most of them rely on live performances to make a buck, because the money they make selling pre-recorded music is less than what they'd make in a 9 to 5 job.
What ? Me, worry ?
Now we have some contrary opinion to the "lots of artists have been asked how much allofmp3 gives them and since they don't answer they must be fairly compensated" of a few posts up, we have ends to investigate if we so choose, etc.
In my post I wasn't trying to insist that I had secret insider knowledge into the world of allofmp3, just that the poster above me (who was basing his entire argument on "lots of artists" not making public denials that they don't get paid from a dubious Russian website) didn't have any knowledge either and probably shouldn't tell others to stick to the facts.
Thank you for actually having some facts to stick to.
"If what I hear about record contracts is true, then that's the case for signed artists as well: they have to pay back all the money the record company loaned them before they get a single cent out of the deal. Therefore, my idea is valid wrt signed artists as well."
That is my understanding as well. That is what I was referring to when I mentioned that the artist is the last one to be paid.
I guess it comes down to whether you feel that people who helped create the music you enjoy, but did not happen to be the person whose name is on the cover art (and I'm talking dozens or more people, from the backup singers to the engineer to the graphic artist who designed the CD), deserve compensation (either directly or indirectly) as a result of your enjoying the music.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
If you've ever sent an artist cash after downloading their work off allofmp3/p2p, I'll eat a top hat.
In any case, even sending the artist cash doesn't change the fact that you are operating outside the legal framework. Whether you like it or not, the label, not the artist, holds the rights -- and the artist consented to that.
You are rationalizing your dislike of paying for what you buy. Pure and simple. If you'd just say "I don't think I should pay" you'd have much more integrity than you do when you insult our intelligence with implausible ethical arguments.
Yet, people have trotted off to their local video store for decades and paid more than a $1 for a movie that went "dark" in three days (assuming that's a typical rental period). New releases at my local store rent for $3 for two nights, and I have to get off my lazy ass to go pick it up and return it. Why, then, is it so hard to imagine paying a similar amount for downloading a movie file that would become unplayable after a specified time period?
Mainly because for most people watching a movie on the computer is not as convienient or nice or as easy as watching it on a TV. So they would then want to pay much less to do so to offset the reduction of one of those factors.
Furthermore, consider the rise of Netflix and the demise of local rental places, in conjunction with the recent Slashdot story posted not long after this one - with Netflix, you never have a movie "go dark" because you watch it when you are ready. That may be months later. In the post-netflix world there are a lot fewer people who are going to stand for a service that makes you watch a movie even in under a week. It's just not what people want to do anymore. Even rental places have "no late fee" polices now, which they had to adopt to fend off Netflix. I don't think the industry can go back.
I agree that low-resolution of the movie files could be problematic, however, but I don't see any real alternative for download services right now. It just takes too long to download a full resolution movie at typical broadband speeds. They have to start somewhere, however, and then increase the resolution as broadband speeds increase.
I don't think that's absolutley true - downloaded 720p versions of Battlestar Galactica or not terribly huge, a bit bigger and it still would be acceptible to aquire over a broadband connection. The lack of immediacy for any size video may put some people off the service though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I read an article at one point that claimed that the real reason that allofmp3.com is so cheap is the weakness of the Russian ruble. The article claimed a CD's worth of songs on allofmp3 was roughly comparable to the cost of a CD in RUSSIA. I can't find the article anymore, though. (There are some similar ones on google if you just do a search for "weak ruble allofmp3".) Probably it was written by someone who wanted that to be the case. It certainly tickles my funny bone. The average worker often gets screwed having to "adjust" to globalization while the big companies just make bigger profits, and I like the idea of big companies getting screwed once in a while. Of course, I also found a very balanced article on Slate.com claiming that allofmp3 was probably, but not necessarily, illegal. In any case, I personally don't use it since I don't want my credit card attached to something that has at least a good possibility of being illegal.
Honestly, WHY do you think buying music on allofmp3 is different then pirating it? Why do you want to buy the music?
The RIAA has not sued anyone for buying through allofmp3 and despite all of their posturing it is not clear at all that it is "illegal" to do so. A court would have to rule on that and my gut feeling is that the RIAA would prefer not to challenge allofmp3 in court because if they lose, they lose everything. That would open the floodgates for Americans to buy without fear from allofmp3. So I think a very large reason people buy from allofmp3 is to get the songs without the fear that comes in doing P2P downloads. It's also worth pointing out that allofmp3 offers a variety of formats and bit rates unlike ITunes, etc. You want MP3 at 320 Kbps? No problem. MP3 at 256? OGG at 192? WMA at 224? FLAC? Uncompressed WAV? AAC? allofmp3 can give you those kinds of choices. Some people buy from allofmp3 because they can get their music in the format they want it in instead of having to, for example, buy from ITunes, burn to CD, rip that CD to a PC and then convert that to OGG.
Actually, from what I read, is the Movie studios wanted variable pricing on movies, but Steve Jobs wanted a fixed price of $9.99 a movie. This time, I would have to side with the movie studios. Why would I want to purchase a movie from the 80's for $10? But I'm interested in the rentals. I'm sure the quality will still be ipod quality. And if the price is reasonable, $1.99 or $2.99 at most, then I might be persuaded to rent a few movies. But if the price is $4.99 then forget it. I'll stick with my local video store.
Way better than Blockbuster? I've been using the blockbuster online service for about three months now. As of today I've rented 64 movies online. I've also received 12 coupons for free instore new release rentals (all of which I've used). I pay a little less than $20.00 a month for this. So, that means overall I'm paying less than $1.00 per movie.
They did increase the number of computers that can be "authorized", but what about users who are not happy with this change? Apple did not give them a choice about this. What if Apple reduced the number of CDs that could be burnt to 0, but increased the number of computers that could be authorized to 7. Would that be fair, too?
Then do what everyone else does. Change the playlist... then change it back. Playlist restrictions get reset (back to seven). They're just keeping people from easily making one-step pirate CD-burning factories out of iTunes. Apple's implementation was made to keep honest people honest, to stop the casual pirate. They don't blatantly stop people in their tracks; they give wiggle room for users. Notice that you can load an iPod with as many songs as you want from ANYONE's computer? You just can't casually unload all of them onto any one machine. However, they haven't stopped anyone from working out their own solution. And with authorized machines, you can deauthorize and reauthorize specific computers anytime you want.
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
The concept of rentals, and paying for a limited number of views is fine for most adults who watch a movie once or twice (starwars fanboys excepted)... sure I'd much prefer to own a movie, but I'll settle on a reasonable price to watch it a couple of times.
BUT.. SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Am I the only one who's got friends with children that want to see the same movie again, and again, and again? I hope there's some sort of buy option for movies like Finding Nemo... otherwise they'll be shelling out the GDP of a small nation every month.
I can keep and watch a NetFlix DVD for days, even weeks if I choose. It takes up a slot of my subscription, but I incur no extra fees. Can I do that with a rented download?
Maybe, there's no reason it has to be time- or date-limited. It could be limited by number of movies, just like NetFlix. If you have three in iTunes ready to watch, and try to rent a fourth, you get prompted "please choose a movie to replace with your new rental" and you have to click one to get rid of.
Also, am I willing to spend all day tying up my DSL downloading 8GB of data for a DVD-quality movie? No.
For those who work from home this is probably a deal-killer. I work at an office though, so I wouldn't mind tying up the connection all day. And I sleep at night, so it could be tied up then too. I don't think it would too tough to add a smart downloader to iTunes that pauses or throttles back the bit rate when it detects you're using the Web. I mean you have to wait at least 24 hours to turn your NetFlix movies anyway, so the Apple service does not have to meet a high bar. They just have to beat 24+ hours.
Will downloaded movies that are much smaller have degraded video quality, lack extras and other things that equivalent titles on DVD have? Probably.
Maybe. My guess is that they would include all the DVD extras but take a chance on a more aggressive compression scheme like H264.
Somehow, I don't think NetFlix is going to disappear quickly, even if they don't do downloads.
Definitely true--Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are still around for instance.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Oh come on, Digg is just as full of Apple fanatics as Slashdot is. If you like Digg so much, do us a favour and go hang out there.
...it's exactly the same as buying the record from Circuit City or Tower Records... from which the artists get the same amount of money: none.
Actually, I know a lot of musicians and songwriters who earn mechanical royalties on music sold at retail locations. Apparently, these "record stores" have existed for a few years and afforded tens of thousands of people a good living.
I find it sad that no one gave a damn what these people made until P2P came along and they had a reason to question the distribution chain. All of the sudden every P2P file trader is an activist who just standing up to the man. Utter bullshit.
NEWSFLASH: The reason the radio is free is because they don't ask the artist's permission before they broadcast their songs.
Actually, that's not even a little bit true.
1. Radio is not always free anymore.
2. Radio stations always secure permission for everything they broadcast.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
They deserve some money since they do provide an "added value" service (i.e. guaranteed quality, choice of format, and no DRM). Whether their prices are high enough to also provide undeserved revenue is an open question that I'm not knowledgable enough to answer.
Since when was a company responsible for the morality of its customers? Just because the people using the service might be selfish doesn't mean the service itself is not legitimate. Your logic has the same flaw as those who argue that guns should be illegal because some people use them for nefarious purposes.
I disagree. The Internet is the equivalent of the Replicator for nonphysical items, and it doesn't take anything more than an understanding of basic economics to realize that if the supply of a good is infinite the price has to be zero.
You can't come to the conclusion that violating the law is immoral just becuase "laws exist for a reason." You have to examine the validity of that reason first. And -- considering the existence of the Internet -- I'm no longer convinced the reason for copyright law is valid.
It's interesting that you both provided and dismissed the counterexample in your argument. First of all, software is covered by copyright, so therefore the creators of Free Software fit the definition of "artist" for the purposes of this discussion. Also, by qualifying your statement with "generally," you're admitting that some artists are making open source material. I don't believe it's reasonable to dismiss this category of artists; indeed I think it would be possible for this category to completely supplant commercial artists. Or, at least, this combined with the "folk art" and "patronage" models would be sufficient.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Why would they announce this at WWDC? I can't see how this has anything to do with Macintosh software development.
Apple's on it's big media play, that's fine, but let's not waste the time and big money programmers are spending to attend WWDC. Let's hear two hours about Leopard running on the linux kernel and how the IOKit got layered on top of it; that's the kind of stuff WWDC attendees want to hear.
P.S. How do I disable this annoying DHTML "more comments" window that makes the top half of my slashdot window useless? That close X button doesn't work in Firefox 2 on Mac.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think that when a copyright holder decides to use DRM, he has broken the social contract that copyright is based upon because he's infringed upon Fair Use. Therefore, the contract is void and the public has full rights to the work.
If artists want the protection of copyright, they should respect Fair Use!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Sorry, I misread your post and took uploading as in Bittorrent uploading, as seems to be the "buzz" these days.
:)
No biggie, I meant that if it were a rental, we'd have to return it, so we'd download it, watch it, and re-upload it back to them.
We don't: It's not a rental.
You can't take the sky from me...
And let's not forget, that compression is supposed to happen on the fly. Yeesh! Jackson (OP), do you work at CC or BB by any chance? =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It depends. Is the poo in the white box a shiny glossy black?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
"as if the artists received any compensation when you buy music from iTunes or any other music sales service based in US."
They do. Remember a while back when Weird Al was complaining about how he makes less per album on the iTMS than he does on physical CD sales? Compare this to the zero he makes on copies delivered via P2P or the Russian sites.
It may be useful to rationalize that the $0.20 or so somebody would have made from the sale isn't helpful, because $0.20 doesn't get you much. But if a couple of thousand people a month make the choice to buy a track vs. pirating it, then the income may make the difference between paying the rent, and not paying the rent.
Lots of people are of the belief that because artists don't make a particular arbitrary amount via record sales, then it's no harm to simply pirate the stuff instead. But sometimes, the difference between "a little" and "nothing" can be all the difference in the world. I think I'm underpaid, but I wouldn't tolerate somebody cheating me out of money with the rationalization that it's okay because I'm underpaid anyway. Likewise, when I was a kid and making an obscenely low amount for an allowance, I would not have wanted my parents to opt out of paying me because it was such a low amount anyway. How would you feel in these instances, and do you believe that musicians have the same rights as us to be upset if the same thing happens to them?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Not only that, but Apple offers you a glass of wine and plays soft music. So what if the soft music is DRMed? =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I would be surprised to see the movie industry go for this given the fragility of DRM schemes thus far. It would be rather messy if the DRM scheme is cracked and suddenly the iTMS is a dirt-cheap, convenient source for quality movies. Cracking fairplay for music is less of an issue because the consumer has at least paid full price for the content. If the same thing were happening to songs that cost 10 cents and were only supposed to play for 2 days...
"I find it sad that no one gave a damn what these people made until P2P came along and they had a reason to question the distribution chain. All of the sudden every P2P file trader is an activist who just standing up to the man. Utter bullshit."
...and CDs weren't "overpriced" and record companies weren't "greedy." It's rare that I see somebody who acknowledges that they pirate simply to save money. It's too often elevated to some sort of social protest on the order of the Montgomery Freedom March.
This type of behavior really isn't about slashdotters or piracy or music or anything like that. It's simply how we human beings are wired to work. American settlers got along fine with the Indians until we got the notion that we wanted to expand into their land; that's when they became whiskey-fueled savages who spread disease and raped our women. Countless times throughout history, if a large group has had the technology and the desire to take something from another group, the first step is to invent a reason for doing so.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
I think you're trying to make a different argument now than you were before. Did you want the artist to be able to decide how his work is distributed, or not? Because if you did, then it means the publisher failed to respect the artist's wishes. Therefore, it is an issue between the artist and the publisher -- not me.
On the other hand, if you did not want the artist to be able to decide how his work is distributed, there isn't a problem with me just sending cash and your point is moot.
The same way that someone attacking me gives me the right to defend myself.
Your question depends on false presumptions. Or, in other words, I can neither realize nor fail to realize anything because what I'm doing is not immoral to begin with.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's $0.03 for a $0.99 song. Don't lie.
And the first $2 million of that goes to the label for recording, promotion, etc. before the artist sees anything.
Just go to their shows or send them money direct. Seriously.
False. Some people would still produce "electronic materials" (presumably you mean media), because they would derive non-monetary benefits from it. For example, they could do it out of enjoyment, or they could do it to add value to a physical device they're selling, or they could do it to advertise some other product or service. In particular, advertising-supported media such as television would still exist, bands could give away copies of songs in order to encourage people to attend their concerts, member-supported public television would still produce documentaries and such, etc.
"Open source music" has existed for thousands of years -- it's also known as "folk music."
Oh really? Then what do you call this?
If the artist is only in it for the money rather than for the love of the craft, then we're most likely better off without them. I say let all those people be forced to get "real" jobs!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"So in other words, it's exactly the same as buying the record from Circuit City or Tower Records... from which the artists get the same amount of money: none."
"a little" != "none." To many people, particularly when making the choice to pirate or buy, it's the same thing. But since you've written a book, you can probably emphathize with the artists here. You likely don't make much per sale -- maybe enough for a couple of gallons of gas, I'm guessing -- but it all adds up, and my guess is that you would not want a teenager opting to pirate an electronic version of your book using the rationalization that since you only make a little money per sale, it's effectively the same as none. I can guess that your attitude is that if they want to pirate it, then fine -- just don't make up some bullshit excuse about it being okay because you're only making a little money on the sale, which is the same as none.
By the way, when you buy a CD at Circuit or Tower, at the least, mechanicals are paid at around $0.07 per track. That's $0.70 per CD, which is less than you get for each sale of your book, but a CD costs much less than your book. By the way, I know musicians who've made money by selling CDs in record stores... they're more common than you might think. "Musicians don't make money from CD sales" is a common meme among Slashdotters, but it's not as common among professional musicians who actually make money from CD sales.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
There's no reason the artist couldn't be responsible for divvying up any royalties owed to those people (and indeed you could include a letter directing to do so with the payment). Besides, in most cases those people are doing "work for hire" and get paid up front, I think -- they've got all the money they're entitled to before the first CD is sold. (The keyword there, though, is "I think.")
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"It's $0.03 for a $0.99 song. Don't lie."
Mechanicals alone are around $0.07 per track by law. Even if you're only making the statutory mechanical rate, if 1,000 kids opt to buy rather than pirate, that's $70 more you'll have each month.
"And the first $2 million of that goes to the label for recording, promotion, etc. before the artist sees anything."
If the CD cost $2MM to produce, why then yes. That's because it was the record label, and not the artist, who invested the $2MM. The "Spend $2MM on producing a record and let the artist have all the revenue" idea doesn't work if you're trying to stay in business.
"Just go to their shows or send them money direct. Seriously."
This is a good philosophy if you don't believe that all the people who helped make the music happen (the engineers, the session musicians, etc.) deserve to be compensated. It could very well be that you only care about the person whose name is on the CD, and you'd prefer not to think about all the others who made the music a reality, or how they get paid. It's an even better philosophy if you only spend your money on CDs where it's the artist who's invested 100% of the money to get their work out there -- and there's plenty of music out there that fits this model. In this instance, it's only right and fair that the artist gets to keep 100% of the money from the sale.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Unfortunately, there's no way for either of us to verify that the other has actually followed the claimed course of action.
Morality is orthogonal to legality. They often coincide, but don't here, and I prefer to follow the moral route rather than the legal one.
I did say "I don't think I should have to pay," you know. That was what I meant by the "information is not property" bit. Also, I don't dislike paying for what I buy (as long as it's a fair price), but as the RIAA is so fond of reminding us, all you get from iTMS is a "license" -- and that's a load of bullshit.
Incidentally, I highly doubt people like Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin would find my arguments implausible -- their writings are what gave me the idea!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I strongly encourage you to download and read my book, free of charge (http://gnosis.cx/TPiP/). Readers have been able to do this since before the day the dead-tree version was first published. FWIW, I actually have earned past advance, so I *am* starting to get a little bit for each sale; most books don't do that though.
And music labels are a lot worse for artists than semi-academic book publishers. As a rule anyway, a small number of top selling artists get some real money, and better terms. But for the vast majority of music label contracts, artists don't even get a real advance the way book authors do. I got an advance, and I would get to keep it even if my book never sold a copy... it wasn't huge, but it was mine. In contrast, if I had recorded a musical work, my "advance" would actually be an IOU to the record label. If I didn't sell any copies, I'd owe the money back to the label (and they are quite happy to sue artists for it). And as with books, most musical recordings don't "earn past the advance".
So indeed, for 95%+ of recorded artists, the amount *they* get from a sale of a CD at Tower Records is not SMALL, it's NADA, ZERO, ZILCH. Record labels get a non-zero amount from these sales, but not artists.
Buy Text Processing in Python
I've wondered this. From what movie rental services I've seen, they appear to be under the delusion that people will be stupid enough to buy a movie for $10 or some absurd figure, which is view or time limited, or requires a certain player to play and confers no kind of ownership rights whatsoever onto the viewer. As most movies > 3 months are on dvd, that services like NetFlix have an unlimited $9.99 monthly plan, and most movies > 10 months are in the bargain bin, I have have to question who would be so fucking stupid to fall for this.
It might be different if online movies were the same price as rentals, but I have yet to see it happen. It beggars belief that Sony, Time Warner etc. simply don't open a store that sells cheap rentals with limited DRM. After all, TW movies would be fantastic attraction for their ailing AOL brand. Sony could give an enormous shot in the arm to the PSP / PS3 online business etc.
All these derivative, proprietary solutions will rip the market apart just like with music and ebooks before. And people will stay away in droves. iTunes popularity won't extend to movies when most people don't even have a video iPod to start with.
Spasibo Comrade!
You're making a lot of assumptions and outright lying about other things.
... hmmm. CDs are compressed too you know. I suppose you only listen to 96Khz 48-bit masters though. Dumbed down? Brother, that's on Hollywood for spitting out the drivel they do. I don't care what format its in, most entertainment coming out is garbage, so don't even try and tell me that a hi-rez version of Batman Forever is any better than a cheap theatre-shot bootleg. No amount of tech wizardry could make THAT movie better. Same goes for most crap pouring out of the entertainment complex these days. But that's another story.
First, the content isn't jittery. Its usually 30fps, at least 24fps. That's not jittery. Sorry if it doesn't play back well on your computer.
And who says it'll be 320x240? Its been shown that iPods can play videos larger than 320x240 if the total number of pixels is the same or less. So you could have a much higher rez widescreen file with the same number of pixels that would look great on a TV and still play on an iPod. Trust me, I've done it. iTMS video looks fine on most peoples' regular ol' TVs. Contrary to what you bleeding edge types may think, most of us still have 32" or smaller CRT TVs, and iTMS content looks fine on them.
Your questions are valid. Except one: Why wouldn't you be able to view the movies on something other than the iPod? It seems absolutely ridiculous to assume otherwise. Currently you can view them on the iPod, a TV, projector, computer, basically anything that has a video input that will accept composite, S-video, or whatever outputs your computer has. As far as your other questions, IF this actually comes to pass, then you'll know.
As far as the unwashed masses not being 'tech-savvy' enough to realize that the content is 'dumbed down, diluted quality, highly compressed pap' - most people SIMPLY DON'T CARE. I've got one word for you: CONVENIENCE. THAT is the driving force in the economy. CONVENIENCE is what makes consumers drool. EASY is what makes consumers drool. And iPod+iTunes has that in spades. iTMS looks better than VHS in my opinion. Are you saying that people who used VHS are stupid for not going LaserDisc? Or Beta perhaps? Compressed
Keep the FUD to yourself, please.
The artist and Sony have a contract. Sony and I (as a member of society) have a contract. The artist and I do not have a contract (since the artist assigned the social contract to Sony). Therefore, nothing I do can affect the artist.
Look, the artist charged Sony with distributing the music. If the artist has an issue with that, then the artist has to take it up with Sony. If Sony, in turn, wants to take it up with me, then it can because it's the one that was responsible for handling that sort of thing. In fact, unless I'm mistaken if the artist has assigned copyright he can't sue anyone for infringment anymore.
By trying to lock up all media, the DRM thugs are damaging culture itself. You know how the ancient world has the Library of Alexandria, and when it burned down thousands of scrolls containing priceless knowledge were lost? Well, the same thing is going to happen again today if all media becomes DRM'd! Indeed, it's even happening without DRM, because copyright keeps getting extended (which effectively makes it permanant, which is unconstitutional). There are lots of movies from the 30s and such rotting away in warehouses because they're not in the Public Domain (so interested hobbyists can't preserve them) and not profitable enough for the rights holder to preserve.
(Incidentally, although I've only particularly mentioned DRM so far, just the sheer length of copyright is, in my opinion, a violation of the social contract.)
As should you, since you just only asserted that it's not moral also.
I think the fundamental problem here is that we're arguing from such different perspectives that our basic assumptions are incompatible. In particular, you reason from the axiom that a person's ideas are inherently his property, and that he deserves to be rewarded just for expressing them. I, on the other hand, reject that axiom and instead posit that ideas are inherently the property of society because, unlike physical property, ideas become more valuable when given away. Thomas Jefferson said "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." I completely agree with him.
Incidentally, you might want to read this (which is referenced by both this and this, which I ran across while looking up the quote) in order to better understand my position.
What did you expect me to say? I couldn't answer either "yes" or "no" to your question, because it would require me to implicitly confirm your assumption.
How would you appreciate it if I asked you "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" when you had never beaten her to begin with (or were not married, or any other condition that would render the assuption invalid)? The answer to the question cannot be yes or no; in fact, the only single word to describe it is mu (See: "Mu in hacker culture").
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I don't want to have to maintain two separate conversations, so please respond to this in this thread instead.
Suffice it to say, I don't consider having less music to be a problem.
Well, that's almost an argument in my favor, because it illustrates how the market can fail to efficiently allocate resources when the benefit is indirect. To me, that indicates that the government should allocate more funds to pay grants to artists in the same way it should allocate more funds to pay teachers. (It also indicates that law as a profession should be abolished, especially since the laws are supposed to be understandable by every citizen -- but that's a topic for another conversation.)
Well, that's why the musicians start by playing on street corners or in bars, and work their way up.
So increase the size and number of the grants. it's not that hard.
And anyway, you seem to have neglected my other proposal, which is the patronage model. Back during the Renaissance, the way all those great works of art and music got created is that some rich guy paid the artist directly to do it. There's no reason that same model couldn't work today. In addition, today's technology provides for the possibility of "distributed patronage," where many people invest a relatively small amount of money towards the creation of a work. This model is seen in bounties for features on Free Software projects and PayPal links on freeware (and garage band, and desktop wallpaper, etc) websites.
I think all the people who care enough to have worthwhile results would continue doing it as a hobby, at least.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Microsoft is more successful"
In the software market, yes.
In the legal media download market, Apple is taking them to the cleaners.
>It's as easy to use as iTunes
not if you use a Mac.
Of course they can't force them too. But once they start losing businesses left and right as other "free trade" corporations take advantage of cheap outsourced labor and Second World economic corruption to gain the upper hand in the market, they'll sign on.
It's like the cigarette tax. Of course no one is forcing you to quit. If you've got the money, great. But most people don't, and so they quit. Without being forced. Hmm. Funny how that works.
yes. and I shall fight for your right to have babies. even though you can't have babies because you don't have a womb, it's still your RIGHT to have babies and no one should deny it.
It is well known that iTune does not make a lot of money, but iPod does for Apple. Following the same logic does that mean people will start buy Mac mini and the true Video iPod everyone has been talking about? Well the rental system work with a $399 PC from Fry's with iTune and QuickTime installed? This is very interesting......
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
seriously though, 16-20 is not "slightly above 10", because a 60% to 100% increase is not a slight change. you don't have to sway my opinion, i buy tons of movies. i don't think you're going to sway the grandparent poster though, it sounds like he's made up his mind.
So how is using P2P or allofmp3 any different, from the band's point of view, from buying a used cd?
It is not, I suppose. Your point?
Global warming is a cube.
Both Netflix and Blockbuster have major problems when working from a social gathering standpoing: with Netflix, if you have a party, and someone suggests a movie, you have to plan to get back together another day to watch it. With Blockbuster, you have to have someone leave the party, get in a car, drive to the movie place, and bring back a movie. This is why a service like this is going to be a complete boon for any party atmosphere, which makes up a large percentage of movie rentals. This will be especially the case for college students. Sure, it ties up your internet, but who cares? If you're in a social situation where you want to be watching a movie, chances are you're not going to be heavily surfing the web, unless you and your buddies are checking out the latest Strongbad emails, or having a LAN party. Netflix requires PLANNING, which is a huge deal killer... most people don't know what movie they want to watch until a few hours or minutes before hand. Most college students use their computers as their movie players anyway, unless they show stuff in the lounge, in which they, more often then not (from my experience), still use their laptops as the main DVD player. I wonder how many lives this will save, from drunk partiers driving to pick up "the movie".
The other demographic that will totally benefit from this are famillies with small children. "Mommy, I want to watch Spongebob, and I want to watch it NOW!", okay, Netflix is now completely out of the question, and getting the little ones all dressed to go out, hurding them into the car, having to keep them from running into people in Blockbuster, and other shinanigans, make renting out complicated and a pain for many parents. Simply sitting down for 5 minutes, starting the download, and then going out back to play catch with the kids for a half-an-hour seems like a much better option.
Of course, there's going to be a question of how to get the movie on the TV. It won't be long until various media-center PC options become available. Even if Apple doesn't get a Mac Mini media-center device out the door and in everyone's house, iTunes will work on any PC, so Apple will have a fairly seccure infrastructure, if the #1 media center is windows based.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Amarok is a better player than iTunes IMHO.
And SharpMusique does a good job of letting you get things off iTMS -- and your songs come un-DRM-d to boot.
HTH,
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Steve Jobs has long held that he does not envision the computer being television, nor the television being a computer. So if iTunes were used for movie rentals, how would the movies be watched? Is a video Airport Express waiting in the wings?
"Well, we've always been very clear on that. We don't think that televisions and personal computers are going to merge. We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.
Well, they want to link sometimes. Like, when you make a movie, you burn a DVD and you take it to your DVD player. Someday that could happen over AirPort, so you don't have to burn a DVD -- you can just watch it right off your computer on your television set. But most of these products that have said, "Let's combine the television and the computer!" have failed. All of them have failed.
The problem is, when you're using your computer you're a foot away from it, you know? When you're using your television you want to be ten feet away from it. So they're really different animals."
RTFM; please, I beg you.
If I didn't sell any copies, I'd owe the money back to the label...
Slight correction - advances in the recording industry are "recoupable but not refundable." There may be odd exceptions to this rule, but the standard contract will not allow a record label to sue an artist if their work fails to break even against the advance.
Announce iTunes for Linux?!!
ARG!
With iTMS you get your movie in an hour. With Netflix you have to wait a few days. iTMS wins hands down. Just like folks put up with low res music just fine (lossy MP3s) over lossless CDs I don't think many folks will have issues with movies from the iTMS. Extending this, I think the whole HDTV thing is going to have less of a market than most people think.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Honestly, WHY do you think buying music on allofmp3 is different then pirating it? Why do you want to buy the music? I see two possibilities: 1. you want to thank the artist and give him some money 2. you feel guilty if you use eMule, so you go to allofmp3 and download the songs for a very cheap price.
You know full well the artist is seeing NO compensation when you buy his stuff from allofmp3. If you still want his songs, just steal them yourself already, instead of hiring goons to do it for you.
Well, if I want new music I have to steal it due to my financial situation, and allofmp3.com is a legal way for me to do so.
That's right, it's theft AND it's legal. Is it wrong? Yes. Do I care? No. There's no justification in my mind for it--I want it, and there it is.
Truly yours,
-An Allofmp3 user
Latewire
Why do you assume that the movies will be jittery and 320x240 resolution, and not H-264 compressed high-definition versions? The service hasn't even been announced yet, and is still a rumour - so how exactly do you know what format they plan to release in?
... and then they built the supercollider.
It is not, I suppose. Your point?
Obviously, that if allofmp3.com is morally if not legally wrong because the bands don't get a cut, then so is buying used cds. Either way, you're paying for music they created without giving them any money.