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NBC Chief Slamming Apple
On the heels of the beta of NBC's and News Corp.'s less-than-killer Hulu music store, NBC's chief Jeff Zucker is speaking out and saying the darnedest things. First, news.com reports, with derision, that Zucker demanded a cut of Apple's iPod revenue. That'll sure happen. Next, AppleInsider caught Zucker urging colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.
Go ahead, scream motherfucker, for all the good it'll do you!
expandfairuse.org
Ah... Hey Zucker, go shit in your own hat.
No, seriously. You want a cut of iPod revenues? Do you make hardware? Do you demand a cut of the manufacturers who produce DVD players? Do you demand a cut of the Internet carriers? Come on now. How about sticking to content creation and paying good writers to create quality content?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Looks like the rats are going to complain instead of jumping ship.
They are trying to promote torrent use, by getting rid of legal alternatives. First make it to expensive, and then watch a black market form. It's happened before :(
news at 11. Remember when they wanted to raise album prices to $20-$25 because at $15 an album, they could only afford to buy Gulfstream 3's instead of Gulfstream 4's?
I just wrote quite the comment on the previous story on HULU, of what I think about the traditional Media Industry: my view
it's complete rhetoric, but I believe networks like NBC have lost their usefulness in light of real choice based network (ie internet).
He is just showing the world that they are building their revenues on monopoly, and that they do not like competition, as it has the tendency to lower margins. This is the behaviour that our politicians are protecting with new privacyinvading laws and software patents.
...when the movie/music industry execs get their panties up in a wad and behave like crybabies, insisting that they "deserve" a cut of profits on hardware sales. Each successive generation of corporate big shots is increasingly afflicted with the seemingly unstoppable disease that is called self-entitlement. "I'm going to cut in line because I'm busy and can't wait." "I'm going to swerve across 4 lanes of traffic while talking on my phone because I'm more important than everyone else." "That money is mine because I say it is."
As children, these folks were the ones who stood alone on the playground at recess, holding the ball, because for all intents and purposes, they believed the entire world belonged to them. And they haven't grown up since then. The only reason why they've gotten as far as they have in life is because their limitless greed and egotism is repeatedly mistaken for ambition and confidence. The sad truth is that they only have as much power as others are willing to concede to them, and so their existence is more a reflection of the inability of our society to stand up and refuse to reward such psychopathy.
Y'know, perhaps if they'd spent the last seven years concentrating on monetizing the net for media distribution instead of sinking millions into lawyers and DRM systems they might actually have beaten Apple to it.
The simple fact is Apple stepped into what was in effect an empty playing field while everyone else was still arguing over lockers in the changing room.
You can't circumcise 'em.....there's no end to the pricks.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
My heart bleeds.
Apple isn't the cause of his woes. His real problem is that the Internet and the associated competition are driving the cost of his product towards the incremental cost of production, approximately zero. Artificial monopolistic barriers, such as intellectual property, are no match for the tsunami of the market.
he sees what is happening to the RIAA and is scared. Labels are really no longer necessary for a large number of bands to get their music out, with digital distribution, significantly lower production costs etc. And a lot of bands are dropping their labels as fast as they can. The reason the RIAA hates iTunes is that iTunes isn't controlled by them thus has no qualms about selling independent content. They want to launch their own service that only has bands signed by them to try to force bands to stay signed, but its just not going to happen.
NBC is worried about following in their footsteps. While the bar for TV shows is a bit higher, its certainly not out of reach. For instance, how much would it really cost a group of independent people to make the next Seinfeld? Not a lot, esp. now that good video editing tools are pretty cheap(if not free in some cases). Look at how "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" started, the pilot episode cost them less than $100 to make. Imagine if they promoted that on iTunes instead of selling it to a network? They probably could have got enough money to continue to make more episodes and live comfortably. NBC sees its own irrelevance and is doing everything it can to try to stay relevant, but long term its just not going to happen.
Monstar L
Why don't such people demand a cut in revenue for Office and Windows? they're vastly overpriced for what they are.
Is that the pricing models (especially the 99c per song) take away the media corps ability to use price as a marketing tool and a way to get consumers to buy the content the media corps what them to buy (instead of what they really want to buy)
I'm that kind of idiot. I'd been watching Battlestar Galactica via iTunes -- personally, I don't mind paying a reasonable amount for content and $2 for an episode seemed reasonable to me. However, it is obvious that NBC is not interested in my money at all. Fuck NBC. It's easy.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I am not sure whether this happened, but it cant be that infeasible. the lookout saying "captain captain, there are ice pieces on the water...". Captain: "laddy, this is TITANIC! LARGEST ship and UNSINKABLE! icebergs should melt when we hit them!"... "oops! glug... glug... glug..." do media company execs lack every kind of vision? good luck sucker, emm.. zucker! and bon voyage to the bottom!
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
Apple pays the record labels for every download they sell. If they're not paying them enough, the labels have the right to take their business elsewhere but (except for NBC) they don't, so by definition they're making enough money.
The key to understanding his complaint is his phrase "in terms of pricing". What that means is that the labels can no longer monopolistically control the price of recordings any more.
And I think this is a good thing, good for the fans, and good for the people who really deserve to benefit from it: the musicians.
I think such a loss of control is the reason the labels are so opposed to Internet radio: because everyone and his dog can run a streaming radio station from their home, Internet radio takes away from the big labels the ability to decide who the big stars are going to be. Payola just doesn't work anymore when fans have a choice of thousands of streaming music stations to listen to at every computer.
The result of this is that I've noticed artists who were first made popular at places like Radio Paradise getting airplay on traditional broadcast stations. And I can't remember the last time I listened to a ClearChannel station.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
This is what i don't get. The concept of MP3s has been around for years, long before Apple decided to dip it's toe in the water. How much warning did the record companies needd that this was going to happen?
... .atrac which only works with their hardware and so never took off.
/. discussions but in this case, hey, they deserve everything thats coming to them.
What should have happened was this
1)Record companies seen this coming.
2)They should have developed a file format of their own and licensed it to Apple and M$ and Zen and iRiver. It might have DRM, it might not. As it would work with all the players out there it doesn't really matter. This is in contrast to Sony and
3)Come up with their own on-line music store. Well, duh! One between them all or one each. If you don't have to pay the cd store or Apple then its more money for you.
4)Profit.
As it is all they can do is stand there and watch as everyone elae has a slice of their pie. I am normally pro record company in
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
I don't think that makes any sense at all. I'd wager that the iPhone is getting AT&T a significant number of contracts; AT&T is not helping Apple sell iPhones. In actuality, it's probably making the iPhone less appealing to consumers. Based on that, it makes sense that Apple gets a cut of AT&T's revenue.
Likewise, NBC is not helping Apple sell iPods/iPhones with their content. Ask anyone who owns an iPod/iPhone; NONE will tell you that they got it to watch officially sanctioned NBC/big time media corporation content on their devices. Most of them can get their media through other means (and these means are more likely than not illegal). If anything, Apple is doing these companies a favor by presenting the media in a highly accessible/available/cheap format for the more conscientious consumer. If anything, Apple is helping them sell content that would otherwise be pirated.
Now, it can be argued that the conscientious are provided more incentive to buy an Apple media device with the availability of officially sanctioned content. But I highly doubt that the content would draw significant numbers to warrant Apple giving up revenue. I feel that having video playback capability in the media players is enough to draw customers, even without the availability of actual content, especially when content can be user generated.
I'm no advocate of Apple. I generally think that people who buy there products value style over substance, but if NBC are whining about them, they must be doing something right.
If Itunes is making profits impossible then the companies will stop selling the music on Itunes or go bankrupt, Itunes will stop having music to sell and will go bankrupt. Or maybe, just maybe, the companies are making profits from Itunes sales, they simply want more profit. In that case, STFU.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
An appropriate Halloween metaphor for the media middleman industry.
You media conglomerate networks and telecom provider companies don't seem to get it. We (the viewers) want you (the companies in control of the wires and the infrastructure) to simply deliver to us what we like. Without a hassle. That means that until I can get my Bill Maher every Friday night, until I can grab my Jon Stewart and Bear Grylls and Stephen Colbert and Ellen Degeneres and Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers and Alton Brown and Mike Rowe and Keith Olbermann, on demand, by paying something to you for it, I'll get what I want for free, via torrents or video blogs or other means.
As it stands right now, I would have to subscribe to a cable company's entire digital cable lineup to get all of these stations, and I'd be subsidizing Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS, Home Shopping Network, Lifetime, Hallmark, and who knows what other garbage.
I'm not doing that anymore. I've nearly convinced my mom to drop her cable along with me. That's $55 something per month each, $110 * 12 = $1320 per year, we're paying for 100 ad-drenched channels, most of which we never watch anyway. Do you see how useless you've become in the internet age? Wake up and fix your problems, or you'll be gone in less than a decade.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I hear this "Oh in ten years the labels would be wiped out." or "Because you will have wiped out an oligopoly that leaches from everybody."
Look at this database: http://www.1212.com/labels/usa/home.html
How many labels are there in the US? Thousands... So what is your problem? Is there price fixing? Maybe, but then again thousands of labels seem to be going along with it. Sure some charge less, some charge more.
BUT, maybe, just MAYBE.... The price that you are charged is the optimium price? Maybe it does cost quite a bit of money to market, and bring content to the consumer. Maybe artists are struggling EVEN with today's prices...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
This post just goes to show: not all of those that pirate aren't going to stop just because a legal alternative comes up. Chasing after these people is pointless, which is why you don't see companies hopping on the e-bandwagon.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Profitable rates do not equal the ass raping the "traditional providers" envision. I'll be glad when the baby boomers are all dead and I am one. The sense of entitlement they have to insane amounts of wealth is grotesque.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
How friggin dare anyone out there make fun of Itunes after all she has been through !!!
She lost "THE OFFICE", she went through six updates and 12 new versions
NBC turned out to be a user, a cheater, and now shes going through a custody battle. All you people care about is making money off of her.
SHE'S A HUMAN!
What you don't realize is that Itunes is making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her. She hasn't performed in years.
Her songs are 0.99 a pop and you cannot get "give me more" for a reason because all you people want is MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE. LEAVE HER ALONE!
You are lucky she even performed for you BASTARDS! LEEEAVE ITUUNNES ALLLLLONE!.....Please.
Perez Hilton talked about professionalism and said if Itunes was a professional she would've pulled it off no matter what.
Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publically bash someone who is going through a hard time. Leave Itunes Alone Please.... Leave Itunes alone...right now....I mean it.
Anyone that has a problem with her you deal with me, beacuse she is not well right now. leave her alone
In Soviet Russia, Gundam is in charge of CowboyNeal..or something..
Basically, in other words his statement reads: Competition undermines the ability of the media cartel to engage in price-fixing. Over the last 150 years, America's love of the free market has made America into the most powerful economy on earth. Now the media cartel wants to drag us into the 19th century, and up to now, our politicians are doing their best to help them for the most part.
...where we have COMPETITIVE markets, not fixed ones. Seriously - music companies seem to think that they can just demand that no one compete with them, and get away with it. If their costs for media production are so high that they can't make a profit at the same rates Apple can, perhaps it is they who need to look at their production costs. Obviously, if Apple weren't making a profit out of the iTunes Store it wouldn't continue to exist. The networks and labels need to realize that they have to adapt to the market, because the market isn't something to which they can say "jump" and have it ask "how high?"
Yeah, and the oxcart is the #2 4-wheeled mode of transportation..
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I always assumed NBC had some more legitimate reasons for ditching iTunes, and didn't necessarily disagree with them -- especially since they've been offering the shows for free on their site.
However, this guy's comments strike me as being completely deranged. Even if NBC's executives really are opposed to online distribution, having such a loose cannon on board could become a huge liability to them. In other words, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he gets fired in the next few months.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I don't even have iTunes installed, no version for linux, so how exactly does your logic work?
My content of the iPod comes in the form of Mp3's which I can pretend I got legally (fair use is still firmly enshrined in dutch laws, for now) but won't.
But really all you need to do to see how insane this guy is, is to translate it to other situations. Should brewers get a cut from the glass industry? Even if people are brewing their own?
Should cable tv get money from say Sony to make up for people having illegal cable hookups?
Or far simpler, should casette tape makers pay music makers?
Frankly we are giving far to much weight to content producers and their demands.
The iPod is a device for playing music and video. HOW that music and video gets on there is not Apples concern. They do happen to offer ONE of the many ways through iTunes. They do busines with iTunes on their terms. NBC can choose not to do business that way but demanding money from hardware sales as part of selling content is just insane.
Note that what Apple does is not at all unusual. Not so long holland had a small story when Albert Heyn (supermarket chain) offered a jumbosize product at a price the manufacturer thought was too low. AH responded by dropping the product and selling their own version for cheaper, screwing the sales of the manufacturer. That is free market. AH is free to go as low as it wants as long as it does not sell below costs (else it counts as a promotion) the manufacturer has NOTHING to say about it except to stop selling it.
If NBC doesn't like Apples pricing in iTunes, then it is free to not supply. What next, they want a cut of pc sales as well? A cut of tivo? A cut of HD's? A cut of the chips industry (the eadible kind)?
NBC can charge what it wants for their content. NOTHING is stopping them from offering their OWN content through their own shop. It would also be trivial to post it in formats compatible with the iPod.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The problem is that less than 6 control the industry. That is the very definition of oligopoly.
How good are those top ones doing? Just fine. How are the others doing (it is far less than a 1000; it appears to be less than 500)? Well, we do not know. I am guessing about half of those are just name companies. How much do they charge? Presumably the rest are running the gamut. Now, how are the artists doing? If they are in the top 100 groups, they are doing great. Otherwise, they are doing lousy, EXCEPT where they go on their own. Having a system set-up that helps bands go out on their own is NOT a bad thing. In fact, is there any reason why you would argue against seeing groups get more of theirs? In addition, what I proposed is nothing more than allowing these 4 to be LOSE content providers. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. But I have no doubt that if musicians are given a low cost way to get their music to the markets, then the labels will disappear. In fact, that is what is currently happening. 15 years ago, None of the top musicians were start on their own. Now a number of indies are just that. They exists in the market without a label. And they are probably doing better than they would have with the label.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I got lazy last week and just paid the 99 cents to watch an episode of The Office that I missed on Comcast's "On Demand" service.
IT HAD COMMERCIAL INTERRUPTIONS
At each normal commercial point they showed a 30 second ad for some NBC show.
Never again. I was steaming.
I would have thought it was the skateboard myself.
:o they could probably lose $1000 on every Zune sold and still not really care, as long as it hurts Apple somehow..
Microsoft are giving evil money grubbing corporations like themselves the wrong idea
which is totally what she said
Since I listen to music and watch tv/movies, I want a cut of the profits too--after all, without (people like) me, they wouldn't have a business at all.
Or maybe I'll just send The Pirate Bay a donation and download this season's "The Office"
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
"unable to set profitable rates" = "unable to rip everyone off anymore"
grunka-lunka-dunkity-dahfitable,
we don't care if your service is profitable!
stuff |
The optimum price for media content is clearly different for Apple and the content providers. Apples main source of revenue is the hardware while the content providers main source of revenue is (tada!) the content. Since lower prices on content leads to higher hardware sales Apple will prefer lower prices than the content providers. The content providers on the other hand prefer to sell less content but at a higher price. Negotiations will then potentially lead to a price between the two optimums.
With that in mind Zuckers demand is not that unreasonable and could lessen the difference between their optimum prices.
At least in my country, saying "lets all get together to drive this guy out of business" is criminal, plain and simple. I hope these comments expose the "content industry" for the illegal price-fixing cartel it is. I also hope Steve laughs himself to sleep.
Except that's not what he did. NBC's explained why they left iTunes and how they think the content sales model should be structured. Other companies are free to follow their lead or ignore it; most will probably sit on the side lines and watch how this plays out. If Apple wins they will stay put; if NBC builds a viable and profitable product they will copy it.
The key issues are:
1) How bad does Apple need the content to sell iPods? As a hardware company they seem to view the content as a tool to drive profitable hardware sales and want it to be as cheap as possible to lock people into their hardware. OTOH, they are not stupid and if they can raise prices without significantly impacting sales then probably would do so.
2) How bad does NBC need the iPods to drive content sales? Given they can distribute content in iPod compatible formats independent of Apple not being on iTunes doesn't seem to be that much of an issue; but that means they are at Apple's mercy for compatibility. Apple could "break" something in an iTunes upgrade that makes it impossible to load non-iTunes DRM content onto an iPod, just as they changed the way video out works so that devices need new electronics to still work with iPods (a strange move given how neat the Philip's DVD / iPod player combo is).
3) What level of pricing are consumers willing to pay? NBC could, for example, develop a tiered pricing model - free for ad laden content up to a premium price for an ad free version. In addition, they could do a bundle where the original purchaser of the DVD gets online content as well, such as additional scenes or an iPod ready version of the movie in an attempt to limit the value of used DVDs in the resale market.
In the end, it is not unusual this rift occurred - both sides want to maximize their slice of what the consumer wants to pay. So far Apple has done that better than the content providers; now that the market has matured the content providers will start flexing their muscle and trying to get a bigger slice of the pie.
Personally, I think we will see a resurgence of the subscription based model; with a slightly different look. Consider a content provider / MS / Blockbuster / Tivo alliance - MS produces a player OS (and hardware in conjunction with other manufacturers) with strong DRM; Blockbuster expands it's online offerings to include a subscription to d/l content as well as keeps the DVD by mail/ return to store get a new movie model, Tivo provides the set top box to play d/l content on the TV and the content providers provide content. Getting everyone to play nice will be a challenge but the pieces are already there.
Blockbuster already has the content via subscription model with their Blockbuster Online operation; TIVO has the pieces for d/l and storing content for TV viewing; and MS makes cell phone OS's so they are familiar with the loss leader hardware to sell services model.
The question is will Apple do this with the content providers or will someone else?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
How have they destroyed the music business? Everywhere I go, especially when I ride public transit, I see people listening to iPods.
They haven't destroyed the music business (yet), but there's a lot of ambiguity about what's on those iPods. Less than 4% of the content was sold by iTunes, something like an average of 20 tracks per iPod were sold. We don't know how much of the rest was legally obtained or not. My sister builds her collection by borrowing CDs from the library.
Am I the only one who thinks that $1.99 per ep is too much? At that rate you might as well buy the box set, then at least you get a decent resolution and you can always re-encode it to fit the ipod later.
Honestly, these hippies and their money, give it to me if you're having problems spending it.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If no one buys our buggy whips, what will we sell?!?!?!
All is lost! Lost, I say!
Apple has destroyed the honorable profession of making buggy-whips!
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
Err... Borrowed music (from a library, from friends, off the airwaves) are how a lot of people have been getting music for decades.
In the early 80s I used to occasionally make mix tapes for friends overseas so they could hear what was new in the U.S. I don't know if this is legal. Then again, George W. Bush stated on the record that he received a mix tape from one of his daughters, and he hasn't been sued yet. My thought is that this falls under fair use.
Libraries are great resources for all types of media. If I end up with an extra copy of a music CD, or if I upgrade a VHS tape to a DVD, I always give the old copy to the local library.
My dad has several hundred music CDs, which he is quickly converting to mp3 to put on his iPod. I can pretty much guarantee that none of his music is available on iTunes, as much of it was brought overseas and is in another language, and the stuff he bought in the U.S. is limited distribution stuff not from any of the big labels.
So, as two data points, I rip my own CDs and CDs I borrow from the library or friends under "fair use", while my dad rips his extensive CD collection of stuff not available on iTunes.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
"After all Zucker is in charge of creating content."
Actually, he's not. He's in charge of getting content from TV production companies and then figuring out a way to get people to watch it and make money on it.
Jay Leno aside, of course.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Jeez, my kids don't behave as bad as these sploit brats. "Boo hoo, his toys are better than mine!". "I want that one! No not the blue one, the green one that XXXX has!". As my Nan would say, you lot need your heads knocking together to get some sense into those thick skulls of yours.
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
It happens that, while my wife knows how to use a Mac, for reasons I find hard to understand, she prefers the Windows user interface, so she has an XP laptop. I have spent a great deal of time fixing problems with it, or explaining to her how to do things. It took several hours for her and one of her university's IT people to get her configured to use their wireless network for example; on Macs, you just turn the Airport on from the menu bar, select a network, and enter any necessary passwords.
I gave my Mom and Dad a Mac back in '96 that ran System 7.5.2. It served them well for many years, but eventually the video went out. Mom wanted a new Mac, and wouldn't consider a Windows box. At my recommendation, she got an iMac, and had no trouble at all picking up OS X.
Aunt Peggy (Mom's twin sister) wanted a computer, and again at my recommendation she got an iBook. She's very happy with it, and the two sisters email each other every day.
I have never had to do any IT support for either Mom or Aunt Peggy. Their Macs Just Work. Mom has asked me to upgrade her software when I visit for Thanksgiving, but even if I didn't do so, her old software would continue to work just fine.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Well, they will stop. But charging $2/episode for 1 TV show? That's a lot. Especially considering I already pay for cable, and Tivo. And Tivo lets you copy the stuff to your PC to watch it there. I could record it to my DVD recorder instead, I suppose. The big difference between music and TV shows is the networks already "give" this stuff away for free to the customer. So trying to charge $2/episode for something that they already gave me seems....um... expensive.
Now, if you make the argument that you don't subscribe to cable TV, and are only interested in 1 show, then yes, that's a better deal. I suppose there's something to be said for the novelty of watching content on your iPod (especially the Touch).
They could make a great case for just releasing this in an open format with the ads in it. Make it easy and convenient and people won't even cut out the ads.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
If anything, Apple is helping them sell content that would otherwise be pirated.
For me, this is certainly true. For all the music industry's complaining about Apple ruining their business, iTunes brought me back to buying music. I stopped buying music because Napster was easier and more convenient than buying. I stopped pirating because iTunes was easier and more convenient than P2P.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
I might end up in a similar situation. My anti-computer mother is starting to think maybe she SHOULD get a computer. I don't really like the OSX GUI, but I can't see Mom struggling with all the crappy Windows problems. Linux might be doable, but there's a higher chance of her running into some incompatibilities. If she DOES decide to get a computer, I'll probably suggest a Mac.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Zucker whines
but unfortunately (for him and his ilk), he's fighting against both the inevitability of technological change and the just rewards (poetic justice, karma, payback, what-goes-around-comes-around,
As an amateur calligrapher with family members who are performers, I can confidently assert that:
Let's see NBC sharing a cut of their profits with a health insurance fund for performers. Then maybe I'll start listening to anything he has to say about being on the receiving end of a revenue-sharing proposal. Maybe.
Agreed. I don't watch Heroes, but two bucks for an hour-long show is fucking insane. $15 is too much for a CD, but I can at least listen to that a few hundred times. $2 for a show? You must be out of your mind.
Do the advertisers really pay that much for our eyes? If so, I feel sorry for them, at least based on my buying habits.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
[fade in from black]
[hip charismatic kid]: Hi, I'm a Mac....
[middle-aged, sorta nerdy guy]: And I'm a P.C......
[insane looking creature who appears to be made from a conglomeration of movie monster parts]: And I'm the Entertainment Industry.....GIVE ME YOUR WALLETS YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Hmmm. I thought it was mostly FDR and WWII which achieved that.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Such as $30 a track for the new Christibritney Popyawnblah atrocity or Boiband 3-Zillion sleep-inducer that nobody really gives a damn about.
Or raking you over the coals for a Beatles track that's been out longer than you've been alive.
Fuck
that
noise!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Most people listen to songs repeatedly, over a period of many years. When I load a playlist onto my MP3 player, I typically leave it there for weeks, as long as a month, before changing it. I hear each song dozens of times before I change the playlist, and eventually the playlist gets reloaded.
However, most people watch a TV episode just once. Even if it's such a good episode as to bear repeated views, I doubt any TV episode gets as many views as most songs are listened to.
Therefore, I'd say Steve Jobs ought to be charging significantly less for TV episodes than he does for music tracks.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
This is another one of those "Mr Magoo Business School Graduates" that doesn't get it.
::must charge for all media shipped::
SCO had the same kinda leadership, before they sold out to the lawsuit-minded one that has it now. They were charging $1,100 to get the development system (C compiler and tools to help write programs for their OS) and wouldn't back down from it. Imagine: charging people to increase the usefulness of a tool you sell!
There was once, long ago, something useful to mankind in SCO, but that time is long past. There isn't a hard-n-fast link between ideas and cost. You can't just amortize a set of ideas, demand a dollar figure and have people come get it. Software (inc. music, movies etc) doesn't work that way.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Well, Heroes is out on DVD, and for $38 you get 24 or so episodes. That's less than the $2 for the download, with unlimited reuse. Plus you can sneakernet trade with your buddy for his Sopranoes last season set.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
It is simple. Back in the 1950s and even 1960s people would buy a thing called a single. It was a 45 RPM record and is was pretty cheap. It only had two songs on it. If you liked a song by a group you would by the single. Only if you really liked the artist would buy the album. To sell albums artists had make at least most of the songs on the album worth listening to.
On day a brilliant record exec saved the blessed music company by killing the single! Oh how they thought this man was going to bring destruction a woe but they where wrong. He knew that people would buy the album just for one song. You could fill the albums with crap and they would still buy it. So instead of making a little money off a good single from a one hit wonder you could make ten times that from that one song by selling it only on an album.
The money did flow and the people did rejoice.
Then the great evil Jobbs brought back the single. Now sorrow in the land of cocaine and private jets. No more can on catchy tune sell an entire album. And what is worse is that now the great evil villainous hoard called the customer can steal the very bread, champaign, and caviar from the mouths of the noble record company by just buying the songs they want.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
...iTunes are ridiculously overpriced. But hey... Who am I to stand in the way of the record company exec's wet dream of selling stuff that costs virtually nothing to store, reproduce and distirbute (once the neccesary infrastructure is paid for that is) at prices equaling the ones where record store owners and their employees had to get a piece of the action.
If you see a rock violating the law of gravity, then the law is wrong, not the rock!
"suggests to you this person is willing to pay anything for a tv show?"
Not enough information.
But what if you paid $10 for an entire season, and you simply plugged your ipod in once a week and the shows went to your ipod without doing anything. I might even pay for that.
I realize that's probably less than the $100-200 per season (per show!) that Zucker would like me to pay. But to be fair, I wanted a billion dollars last week and nobody gave that to me, either.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
My impression was that after consumers splurge (repeatedly) for new tv's or whatever to view NBC, that NBC then shoves ads down their mouths with the programs. I'd be willing to pay for the electricity and internet provider costs needed if they would just stream or (better yet as it is higher quality) torrent me the programs with the original advertising. An ipod version would be nice but I can't see paying for it. Though I might pay for a whole season at once or back issues. Might even be willing to pay a few bucks, preferably as a donation, when I think something is particularly worthy of it. Or buy a dvd or text transcript of something I already saw that was streamed to me. If NBC wants to do one better than iTunes they should just keep the ads and open a free channel on zudeo. It won't cost them anything and they can sell crap on their website. The airwaves are already "free" to the viewer, it makes little sense to charge now. They could also offer a network based tivo-like archive that lets you go back in time (like Apple's Time Machine) in case you miss a day or month of viewing. They could keep extending the time machine back further in time. Voila, business plan. Execute it, NBC! or FRY!
Slight OT, but I was watching Heroes last night, and one character handed another an iPod with supposedly "hours of videos." The character receiving the iPod apparently had the ability to learn how to do anything just by watching someone do it or by watching TV or video.
Considering how anti-Apple NBC is right now, I'm shocked that that little bit of product placement didn't get nixxed. Obviously the Heroes people don't care, but is NBC pulling any iPod ads or product placements?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Am I the only one who remembers what the MS in MSNBC stands for? I did note that one poster said they got a cut of every Zune sold (that's what, $2.78 so far?)
Get with the program guys, this is an Apple fanboy vs Microsoft fanboy thread! Let us Linux fanboys put on the popcorn and watch you two duke it out.
Meanwhile, we Linux fans have our own download service. And unlike Microsaoft or Apple, ours is MAFIAA-free, DRM-free, and FREE (as in both speech and beer)! And you're not tied to oour platform to use it.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Now why would you go and do that?
Informatus Technologicus
That's why people are switching to other ways to watch the shows they like. I've been recording the following NBC shows in HD so I can skip all of the advertising: Chuck, Heroes, Bionic Woman, The Office, and Friday Night Lights. It's usually 19 minutes of advertising and 41 minutes of actual show. Is it any wonder people are tuning out? And during the show, they keep showing "snipes" saying "you are now watching xxx, stay tuned for yyy," etc.
The revenue model for these studios will definitely have to change. People don't want to spend 32% of their time watching advertising. And I don't know what that new model is. If I did, I'd be a gazillionaire.
There is a problem with your comparison. In the Apple AT&T arangement apple provides support and ongoing software updates for the iPhone. With the proposed NBC Apple arrangement there is no ongoing work on NBC's part.
From Apple's perspective they've built hardware (iPhone, iPod) and software with a built-in store (iTunes) which support the iPhone and iPod.
From NBC's perspective Apple has built a distribution network which is in direct competition of the distribution arm of NBC--one powerful enough to establish pricing, which is a distribution network's job.
Of course NBC wants Apple to go piss up a rope. All it would take is for Apple to start talking directly to the producers of the shows to completely bypass NBC's distribution arm, which is NBC's historic core business. (Remember: most companies such as NBC got into the production game in order to fill their distribution pipeline; they didn't build a distribution pipeline to distribute their production work.)
Go ahead and blame everybody but yourself. It won't change anything, but you'll feel better. And make sure that Golden Parachute is properly packed, and easily at hand, you loser.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
How is that Apple's fault?
It's your sister's fault the music industry is being destroyed, because she's loading her iPod with content from the library!
GPL Deconstructed
That's not unfortunate at all -- for the rest of us! Given how Big Music tries to control, for Life + 75 now, every aspect of music we listen to, and given how they'd love to charge us for every time we listen to a song now that technology could actually make that possible, I, for one, am glad that they were unable to expand into the newest area of distribution. If it was up to them, CD/DVD drives would be incapable of ever burning music at all, enforced by a ROM area in the firmware. And blank media would be taxed through the roof! And the price of music would be higher every year, even as the costs of production and distribution were dropping like a stone.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What if someone thinks it's wrong both for Apple to fleece AT&T and for NBC to fleece Apple?
You're making an unfounded assumption that people who side with Apple on the NBC issue would side with Apple on every issue.
It's $1.99 but it's also available the next day, not 6 months later. You have to wait for the DVD release. If you're invested in a serial television show you might be willing to pay that so that you don't have to give the rest of the season a pass because you missed one or two episodes. Not everyone has a Tivo. Heck, not everyone has cable--in my area basic cable costs about $45/month. That's a lot of iTunes downloads if, say, a casual TV viewer decided to dispense with that particular middleman.
For him to get fired, someone there would need to have some sense. Good luck finding that among most executives of big media.
"When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." - Mark Twain
I'm really getting tired of NBC. I mean they have some really good shows like The Office but anytime NBC says anything to the media it's totally anti-consumer like they hate the same people who are the reason they are even a company to begin with. I'm over it.
Of course they wouldn't care. 0 * $1000000000 = $0
Subscription models don't work for music. They may work for video, but that remains to be seen.
The whole idea of a subscription means you amortize the money you pay across the amount of content you use. Use lots of content, and you only pay a little bit per item. That sounds great when you first start out, because whoever offers the subscription has a huge library of stuff you've never seen before, so the idea of searching cheaply has an obvious appeal.
Thing is, people tend to re-use music and video. I can read a newspaper or magazine, throw it away, and never want to look at it again. If I hear a song I like, I want to hear it again later.
That's where the problem starts. When I build a library of items I want to use again, every item in that library competes with the others for my time and attention. If "really liking" a song means I want to hear it at least once a week, and I spend about 2 hours per day listening to music, I can only have about 350 songs in my "really like" playlist. Adding more songs means I'll hear less of the stuff I already "really like." The time each new item takes away from stuff already in my library has to be subtracted from the value of adding the song.
Eventually, the cost of adding another song balances the value of having it, at which point the song is basically worthless to me. Having a million songs to explore means I could spend a three years, twelve hours a day, doing nothing but listening to tracks I haven't heard yet, and never listening to anything that I already knew I liked. Very few people want to do that.
Once you start using content more than once, the idea of amortizing the cost over the number of plays starts to make sense. If I spend $0.99 for an iTunes track and play it 99 times, I've paid a penny per play, and the cost just keeps getting lower the more I play the thing.
So subscription models are good for people who want to explore a large body of stuff, and outright purchase is good for people who want to build a library of stuff they'll use frequently.
Get in line!
But seriously, I work for an NBC affiliate, and I'm beginning to get emberrassed by my franchise, soon I'll have to tell chicks that I work for CBS, just to get them to sleep with me. Even their best new shows: Chuck and Bionic Woman have horrific acting that brings down the quality, and makes them very dull and unappealing. I badass new idea can only go so far, unless you have the content to back it up, and NBC has proven that they don't have what it takes, most of the time. Heros seems to be the only thing they've got. Just think, for decades they were the undisputed network champ... how the mighty have fallen. And now this shit. Well, a lot of my friends are Heros fans, and they're kinda pissed that they can't get the show on iTunes anymore. Way to go NBC.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
So not only does that one character learn by watching the videos, Star will have a fortune to buy things to battle the bad guys.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
2) How bad does NBC need the iPods to drive content sales? Given they can distribute content in iPod compatible formats independent of Apple not being on iTunes doesn't seem to be that much of an issue; but that means they are at Apple's mercy for compatibility. Apple could "break" something in an iTunes upgrade that makes it impossible to load non-iTunes DRM content onto an iPod, just as they changed the way video out works so that devices need new electronics to still work with iPods (a strange move given how neat the Philip's DVD / iPod player combo is).
How can NBC distribute content in iPod-compatible formats without using iTunes unless they also forgo DRM (which they won't do)? As far as I'm aware, there is no such thing as "non-iTunes DRM content" that plays on an iPod.
Yeah, that one jumped out at me on first read, and I was looking for a comment (wasn't finding any ... a bit of a surprise) when I found yours near the bottom (earlier) posts.
... corporations always revert to anti-competitiveness when competition doesn't generate the profits they deem are their birthright).
...
..."
In other times, he would have been branded a Communist for such a statement; it is the clearest, most anti-free market statement I've heard coming from a corporate executive in years. (Not that I didn't say it's the only one
I'm going to paraphrase it so others can clearly see what you and I did:
"
charging that the [other company's product] was undermining the ability of [my company] to [charge higher prices] for [my product].
[Original:]
charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.
In fact, Company A undermining Company B's ability to charge higher prices is practically the definition of the object of capitalism and free market economies. It clearly shows how coddled and sheltered these media companies have become. They have a "right" to fix market prices? Time for a wake-up call.
BlockBuster is late to the party.
TiVo is rumored to have a deal with NetFlix, and they already have a deal in place with Amazon-UnBox (who also has a Windows based player).
Amazon is where I usually get the episode or two I miss due to technical reasons (cable channel changed without notice, news break-in).
At $2 a pop its reasonable enough for me and I enjoy watching TV on my TV, especially without commercials.
The fact that I can use my TiVo as the vehicle for this (along with all the usual features I am used to, FF,REW, Pause), is what finally sold me on this as a distribution mechanism.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Or you can stop being a sheep and just wait for the boxset.
It's not "being a sheep". It's called being social... if you have a number of friends who like to watch a show it can be a lot more interesting to discuss it when everyone is watching it, rather than watch it later in isolation.
Just like it's more fun to watch movies with friends than it is alone.
That's obviously not true of all shows, I'm just saying there are valid reasons why you might want to keep on track with a show as episodes air.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They make their money by controlling access to TRANSMITTERS and screwing:
* producers (the people who actually put the shows together,)
* consumers (the people who want to watch the shows the producers put together) AND
* advertisers, (the people who pony up the cash for access to the process while getting sold on nebulous "audience share" numbers based on the "facts" that people don't have any friggin' lives, families, pets, bladders or colons to distract them.)
NBC and the rest of the broadcasters are entirely UNNECESSARY on the internet.
No wonder they're running around like buggy whip makers after Henry Ford.
They're all going to get KILLED (and the world will go on fine after they're gone.)
They first show that gets to solicit money directly from the audience is going to slaughter them; absolutely slaughter them.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
How can NBC distribute content in iPod-compatible formats without using iTunes unless they also forgo DRM (which they won't do)? As far as I'm aware, there is no such thing as "non-iTunes DRM content" that plays on an iPod.
That's the rub, eh? They can distribute it with no DRM, reverse engineer Apple's DRM or license it. Given the iPod's markethare I doubt they can ignore it.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
BlockBuster is late to the party.
TiVo is rumored to have a deal with NetFlix, and they already have a deal in place with Amazon-UnBox (who also has a Windows based player).
Amazon is where I usually get the episode or two I miss due to technical reasons (cable channel changed without notice, news break-in).
Blockbuster has one advantage - Brick and mortar stores when people can return movies from online and get another rental in return, plus you get one free game a month. I find I use the online for stuff I can't get in stores and B&M for the latest flicks. TIVO is great but the limited portability, compared to DVD's.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Here's the thing - Apple and the content cartels have always been natural enemies. It's astonishing to me that the cartels have taken this long to figure it out, Apple's known it from the beginning.
The big media companies do not create anything. In one of their business practices, they do enable the creation of content by providing the up-front capital. But because of their lock on distribution, they can extract completely unreasonable terms from anybody who wants to get paid for producing that content. With the way that the business is structured, there's only one game in town - it just has many faces. It's highway robbery in the classic sense - they control a critical piece of the road from creation to the consumer and get to take away as much as they can carry.
That is, there was only one game in town. Now comes the Internet - you don't need a network of affiliates all over the country, you don't need to buy into a basic cable distribution package, you don't need to grovel at whatever deals the incompetent cartel executives tell you are in your best interests and ultimately you don't have to just swallow it when they tell you to dumb it down and add more tits and action. If you can get it created, the Internet will take care of the distribution for what is essentially free (at least, if you can figure out a way to make money, it'll be a tiny fraction of what people will pay).
The content cartels' days are numbered, and they're going to blame everybody they can for the extinction of their business model when it's really just the march of technology that has finally obsoleted their highway robbery.
We're not there yet but Apple, and anybody else who can figure out how to cut the cartels out of the decision making process while still allowing content creators to make money, is going to put these dinosaurs in the ground. And not a minute too soon.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
1: Zucker [explained] that it was "a relatively easy decision" for NBC to walk away from the Apple download service because it had only earned about $15 million from the service last year
2: "Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," he said.
In other words: Although NBC's content didn't drive sales, NBC's content drove sales.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Everywhere I go, especially when I ride public transit, I see people listening to iPods.
That must be the problem. The RIAA just wants people buying music, rather than listening to it. It explains a lot about the boy-bands and skanky-divas of the last couple decades: they're just to look at.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Everybody I hear lately (including some other 'younger than me' forty year olds) waxes nostalgic for TV that they gave a damn about, (way back in the nineties. :-) I. gave up on TV as a medium about then anyway. (Now I'm doing podcasting, instead of sucking on the glass teat. [And no, you're not welcome to listen unless you have MS too, {in which case: "Welcome to the 'cast!"}])
And PBS is not quite the model to do things by.
Its still a network and I can't ignore the hokey cooking shows that take time from Ken Burns documentaries, and vice versa.
Its still a *broadcast network* and if I'm not there at 11:00 PM to watch Charlie Rose, well then I pick up whatever episode I want whenever I want off the web.
So who needs PBS? Charlie Rose certainly doesn't.
The *broadcast model* is BROKEN and the internet model WORKS.
NBC has total control over transmitters.
"We doan need no stinkin transmittters."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
But he saved the country. Without his social plan, there wouldn't be an American economy to speak of - and the Americans would not have been able to enjoy the lifestyle that allows them to come up with new ideas and businesses.
Don't believe the false tripe masquerading as economic scientific knowledge you will find in most history books.Economics is not a science. If anything is "tripe," it's most economic textbooks.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I don't want to have 20 different credit card billing relationships, and employ 5 different downloading and storage systems for the media I purchase. Apple right now has my trust. It demonstrated an understanding that I'd rather buy content on a title basis, and not on a collection basis (CDs or a palette of cable TV shows with -- puke-- ads). What innovation has NBC given me that acknowledged my preferences and assumed a modicum of intelligence in me, their customer? None.
tone
tone
There, fixed it for you
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Perhaps NBC *can* ignore the iPod (& iPhone), for the moment anyway, as it's not clear to me that these devices are used much for viewing video, especially long-form video. But the only way *not* to ignore the iPod (other than dropping DRM, which again, they won't do) is to negotiate with Apple to be on iTunes.
Apple's case for video on iTunes was AppleTV. It will be interesting to see what Apple does, in terms of both AppleTV changes and iTunes flexibility, as that will indicate how important Apple thinks winning this market is. It also might depend a lot on how much leverage Microsoft can get in this space, since a major reason Apple went its own way with AAC and FairPlay was to prevent their entire product line from being marginalized by Microsoft. (So far, that's worked better than anyone could have expected.)
I don't think the market for downloadable video is anything close to mature. Microsoft is certainly a player, but Apple can afford to wait a bit to see which way the wind blows. The content providers were reluctant to embrace Microsoft when Apple had no solution. Now that Apple has shown them how DRM can come back to bite them even from a benign source (and yes, I think all things considered, Apple has been a benign source in this area), media companies don't know which way to turn.
Interesting times, at least if you find the machinations of large-scale enterprises maneuvering for control of a market that may collapse into the quicksand of universal piracy interesting.
NBC Chief Slamming Apple
... certainly his thought processes are completely divorced from reality.
IANAP, but sounds like this guy is dissociating in some way
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Ultimately, what you're saying is that large, personal music collections are going to make it harder and harder to sell more music. Oh sure, over the decades people have accumulated enormous libraries of music in vinyl or CD form ... but that's just not the same as a portable MP3 player with fifty or sixty gigs worth of music in it. I don't need to keep shoving plastic discs into a slot: I can just say "surprise me" and receive an essentially endless flow of music that I happen to like because I put it there. Once you have a significant number of songs readily available at the press of a button, the need to keep buying music isn't so great. I think the studios are really competing against large, portable collections of music.
What they can do about that I don't really know.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Nice strawman, because I never said anything like that. The country was facing crisis, people were starving in the streets. There were very few jobs. The social programs changed that, and allowed us to get back to a point where economic wellbeing was possible. How do you think those starving people would have started their own business in those consditions?
Forcing others to spend money on things they are not voluntarily willing to choose makes them worse off then when people voluntarily spend money on things they voluntarily willingly choose.Who said anything about forcing people to do things? They voted for FDR, didn't they? And his measures were very popular. Personally, I think letting people starve in the streets is much worse.
Pretending people who are robbed are better off from being robbed is pure fantasy.What's with you and the crazy strawmen? When did I ever imply that people being robbed is good or better than anything?
."Science" is just a misnomer for "best guess at present" given unknown variables which may or may not exist.Wheras "economics" is just making shit up in an attempt to get rich and manipulate others.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Your mother called. She has a bone to pick with you, troll.
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
---- I can just say "surprise me" and receive an essentially endless flow of music that I happen to like because I put it there.
My first point is that there's a certain amount of effort on your part just "putting it there," and that assembling a truly large library involves a lot of work. My second point is that the more stuff you put there, the less likely it is that you'll hear any given song. Try buying a new album and loading it onto your MP3 player, then listening to a random selection of songs for a month. What are the odds that you'll have heard every song on that new album?
---- What they can do about that I don't really know.
Well, the thing that seems to be working best right now is to get rid of the middleman. A lot of artists sell their stuff directly, skipping that whole "label keeps all but $0.12 per song" business. I can see a day coming when labels don't actually take possession of the music they distribute, and don't have exclusive rights to the stuff they sell.
Another model that makes sense to me would be for artists to fund their next album on preorders instead of advance money from the labels. The artists put their pitch materials on a website -- lyrics, demo tracks, what have you -- then set a series of financial milestones that will trigger further development: at $500, we post all the lyrics for all the songs that we'll produce; at $1500, we'll post melody tracks; at $3000, we'll post rehearsal tracks; at $6000 we ship. Pay as much as you want up front, and you can keep adding to your contribution as you go. Anyone who pays $1 or more gets to download a copy before we release the discs for general sale. Anyone who pays more than $5 gets the download and a pre-release copy of the disc. Anyone who pays more than $25 gets the extra-special not-released-for-general-sale art and the disc will be signed by everyone involved. Anyone who pays more than $50 gets the download, the pre-release disc, the art, and as much other merch as we can shove in the box. Etcetera.
Neither of those is particularly good for the labels, but it seems to me they could combine the subscription service with a direct purchase plan. Sign up for the subscription and explore the library, and build the music equivalent of a Netflix waiting list. After three months, we'll start giving you downloadable copies of the stuff in that list.. say five songs a month on a $10 subscription.
That seems to me to be the best compromise between subscription and outright purchase. It gives users freedom to explore new stuff at very little cost, and also gives them a way to build their own library of stuff they want to hear over and over again.
And I can't remember the last time I didn't listen to a ClearChannel station. That's the point - obviously people have different tastes.
are part two of the problems with/of broadcasting.
When a hurricane, twister, flood, earthquake happens in your location, you can kiss the media good bye. (Its the advertisers who pay these idiots the cheapest rates to get the broadest ad coverage.)
The become irrelevant by design because they are centrally controlled and simply can't afford to give local coverage to anything. Anything happens in your town, unless its a really sturdy major metropolitan center, you'll never hear a word about it.
As for the media cartels you mention, they're largely becoming irrelevant.
They're just not essential. Music may be the food of love but it makes a poor sandwich. The same holds true for any media.
And if we have some other more convenient delivery mechanism, (like not having to put up with ads chopping up and cutting into the content or have to be sitting with asses on the seat at precisely X o'clock) we'll use it, and there's nothing the broadcasters can do about it.
When we set up a marketplace where the consumer can negotiate directly with a producer to get what we want... NBC, et alis 're going to be shown the door and told not to slam it on their way out.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
But taxation is not theft. The government issues the currency in the first place, so when it comes to economics, you never really owned anything. You decided to become involved in the system by using government-issued currency. If you oppose that, you should form your own currency, or only trade in commodities like grain and gold.
This is irrefutable government violence which causes poverty, which forcefully robs people.But without government, you would be even poorer. There wouldn't be an economy. Someone who is stronger or has a bigger army would just work you as a slave, or take your property and rape your wife. Generally, governments enable wealth. They create law and order, and build public infrastructure like roads, without which, trade would be very difficult.
That is, unless they are corrupted. And that corruption typically comes from people seeking profits and wealth.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Sorry, you're fucking insane. What does free trade have to do with preventing violence? "By definition"? Give me a fucking break. It's entirely possible to be free of violence without having any free trade.
You sound like a Randian extremist.
... and then they built the supercollider.
NBC Chief yadda yadda yadda. He's an idiot. Comes from upbringing. Parents are probably idiots too.