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Music Labels Working On Digital Album Format
Nerdfest writes to mention that just weeks after Apple announced their new "Cocktail" digital album project, the four big record companies are moving forward with their own project dubbed "CMX." The new digital album will feature songs, lyrics, videos, liner notes, and artwork. "However, this may be of little interest if CMX isn't compatible with iTunes, the default music software for iPods, iPhones and Apple computers. Whereas labels are eager to resuscitate the album format in an age of singles, Apple is concerned with selling hardware, including a tablet computer rumored to be launching this fall. The major labels plan to launch CMX, which is just a working title for the format, in November. It will reportedly be 'soft-launched' with a few select releases."
Their business model is dying, and again they're trying to come up with ways to corner a market they've already lost, with a format that will fail.
You must eat it.
(If, by any chance, this format is not DRM'ed and patented to Hell and back, count me impressed).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
to see what kind of drm scheme they come up with...
I spend some time removing art and crap like that from mp3s so they don't waste space on my iPod - why re-invent the wheel?
Here's hoping that any format battle leads to an open format. We don't need another format that must be licensed or a fragmented market. There's no word in the article about whether or not either format supports or requires DRM.
This format won't add anything new to the software world, it's just a new complication. There's absolutely nothing new or exciting about this format, we can get the same effect with folders and multiple files -- or just cramming a few files together and splitting them apart when needed. This is just a pathetic attempt to keep control over people's software -- if it's their format, they can dictate what people can do with it. They might as well advertise this as "new exciting ways to force you to use our software how we decide."
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
the subject says it all, unless its a cd/dvd hybrid I don't think they will get the market, too many digital formats to deal with for multimedia, not to mention a DRM nightmare for the consumer if they decide to go that route.
1) CMX will be used to facilitate DRM
2) CMX will be used to facilitate unwanted bundling (i.e. without offering singles)
3) CMX will be patent riddled
4) CMX will be designed to exclude FOSS
Excuse for why is your room always messy?
While doubtful, I want to know if the people in charge of this product are going to give us the "what the consumer wants" that WE want, what they THINK we want or SOS with a higher price tag. At some point these executives need to catch on that they're middle men and have a shrinking role in the game unless they work on increasing their assets rather than controls.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
"songs, lyrics, videos, liner notes, and artwork". Brilliant! Although I think I found a better technology for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_(file_format)
it won't really matter. if there's one thing the labels can be relied upon to do, it's to provide something that people don't want.
Sounds like both Apple and the Major Labels are infringing on my patented Digital Album Format. The working project title is 'Directory', but it looks like I'll now need a TLA to compete with Big Media - 'DIR'? DIR can hold any reasonable number of 'tracks', or even multiple albums and movies, each of which is 'tagged' with all the relevant data and album artwork, and all of which are already compatible with iTunes! Recently I've also implemented 'a brand new look, with a launch page and all the different options.' Like CMX, 'When you click on it you're not just going to get the 10 tracks, you're going to get the artwork, the video and mobile products'. Obviously I can't give away too many details at this point, but I can tell you that I'm thinking of calling the DIR launch page 'index.html'.
Several colleagues of mine pointed me to this story and I just have to say: the labels - again - still don't get it, and they apparently never will.
I can understand why some artists create full length works. Few can argue that an album like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" or The Beatles' "Abbey Road" work very well as complete pieces. The reality is: how many current artists are making albums that consistent? I can think of only three that actually make the cut for me: Queens of the Stone Age, The Mars Volta and until lately Nine Inch Nails. With only that last example, their audiences are not earning them in the tens of millions in sales. The only artists which are are the artists which are responsible for this massive audience shift away from album purchases!
Britney Spears is the veritable poster-child for why albums are failing: even if you are a die-hard fan, you really only want two songs, at most perhaps five, from any of her full length albums. That says: you don't want to spend $15 - $20 for a complete CD / $9.99 per digital album download. You prefer to purchase individual tracks. (That and: you'd probably still prefer they cost around $0.49)
On the other hand, if their audience are "classic rock fans", I still don't see the point. If you're a Led Zeppelin fan, you likely already have all the remastered reissues and re-re-re-issues you care to spend any money on in the first place. (And the Beatles re-re-re-re-masters are coming out imminently as well, marking something like the eighth time those have been re-issued of re-packaged in one way or another.)
That well has run dry. Why they don't face this fact is confusing.
I know that individual tracks aren't going away, and I know that digital sales on their own aren't necessarily resulting in booming profits for any of these labels, but my point is: as someone who has been a voracious consumer of music since 1979, I see utterly no legitimate business case for this "new" format, and it baffles me completely that any major label would seriously consider this as the saviour of their industry.
I would have been far more excited to hear that they decided on a $0.40 per single purchase price for new artists - big marketing campaign or not - rather than this ridiculous additional format. That or that they finally decided to give the artists more of a cut of the digital download price, since printing, shipping and manufacturing costs are of course greatly reduced for any digital download format. (Not saying it doesn't still take a creative team to create artwork, but there is no shipping, and no printing involved.)
I've already made a few wagers: I give this two and a half years at best before we see an unsurprising news story claiming that this did not significantly improve any digital music sales for anyone.
What a waste of money already. They still have a full year before they even release the first one.
ad
Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
... but was the Apple tablet dragged into this article just because Slashdot is the only site not spreading that rumor?
The music track will use the Ogg Vorbis format, included videos using Ogg Theora, liner notes and lyrics being XML formatted with various included XSLT stylesheets for 10 different attractive layouts as chosen by the artists, as opposed to the music label! The CMX sales will be supported by donations and revenue reaped from immense sales of concert tickets, thanks to naked girls performing in the pauses as they serve Ubuntu Cola!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
seriously... if they were going to give us more they should do this, make up for their sacd/dvdaudio f*ckups by putting out an open standard drm free high definition audio format and sell tracks that way. then maybe they'd get back some good will, demonstrating they are giving customers more for their money, not just doing things out of pure greed. anyways itunes already has told them exactly what consumers want, they want the good tracks. the "album" is not dead because of lack of a new format, its dead because people would rather not buy the other 7 shit tracks to get 2-3 good songs.
Will CMX make CMX releases of their albums?
Isn't the venerable Compact Disc a "digital album format" already? That's why it doesn't degrade with repeated playback, after all.
Just a thought...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Believe it or not I still buy CDs. It's nice to "import them into Windows Media Player using the protected WMA file format" and still have a CD on my shelf that give me that old school music library look.
then we don't want the whole album. Sorry, Charlie but welcome to the future.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Coming from the group that just recently announced their paying customers should not expected DRM encumbered music already paid for to work indefinitely, their follow up announcement of yet another new format surely isn't inspiring any confidence.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
... it's very popular and easy to use, has an open specification, and allows users to convert easily into formats playable on all popular music players.
The spec is at http://www.aboutthescene.com/images/scenerules_mp3_2007_v2.png .
The problem with supporting an effort like this is that 90% of your payment goes to middlemen. Artists need to stop making the deal with the devil for promotion, and increasingly they don't have to. Set up your own online store (not hard) or find an artist friendly aggregated store that gives the vast majority of the income to the artist, charging a small percentage for the service (not more than 20%!)
I believe there is an excellent business model to be had by setting up an artist friendly website. The trick would be to get a few major artists onboard for this effort in the beginning to attract attention. If I had time and VC capital, I'd run of and do this today.
What is needed is a mass abandonment of the ASCAP/BMI regime, so that it will collapse. How much of your 99 cent purchase at the itunes store goes to the artist, when the music is being licensed to the itunes store through traditional record companies? Very little, from what I have read. pennies on the buck. Itunes is part of the problem.
This whole thing has gone on far too long. Artists who are -good- should be able to stand on their own without the help of the major record companies, with all the tools that are available to the artist directly these days.
The record companies are similar to film companies in that they will obfuscate the profit sheets as much as possible to show a loss. That is why most major film talent now negotiates income percentage on the front end gross as opposed to the back end net, in addition to their fixed salary. The net income from any given film is proving increasingly elusive, if you ask the accounting department at the studio.
the one thing that can prove me wrong is if someone can show me that selling your music the traditional way is still more profitable than going it on your own, due to the sheer quantity of sales.
Bring back the 8-track!
user@host:~$ abcde -1 -M -o flac
The world has moved on, yet the music industry once again demonstrates it hasn't figured this basic fact out yet.
While we /.'ers are all worked up about possible DRM, most of the world doesn't seem to care if it's done right. However I'm certain this format - with or without DRM - will live for a short period on life support, and then will quietly be allowed to die at a young age without a whimper. Nowadays most people just don't care about album liner notes, lyrics, and the like. Heck, even back when I was buying vinyl albums, I didn't care much. I might look at liner notes once... but usually I'd just glance at them while I was pulling the album out of its sleeve. I just wanted to hear the songs then, and that's all most people want from their music purchases now.
#DeleteChrome
I just paid $100 (that's one hundred dollars) for the limited edition of the new Muse album. I get the CD, a USB key with "Muse" on it, a 12in print of the cover, the vinyl version of the album, a making of DVD, and the album in 5.1 sound on the DVD. While high, it is something I'd gladly pay for because I love the band.
Artists that make albums that work well will see sales that reflect that. Artists who insist on putting out one or two good songs per album will have to deal.
If done properly this will be a good idea. /bin can be relied on to contain only certain executables, so if you need one of those things done, check there. If it's a system binary, check in /sbin. If it's other programs that aren't managed by the package manager, check /opt.
/art, /lyrics, /low-quality-music, and /lossless-music or something. Multiple pictures in the /art directory could give a slideshow to display where music players currently just have the album art. (You could even do things like require /art/cover to be the album art if you want.) And music players could go into /lyrics if the user asked for a karaoke mode or something. Then if you only distribute the CMX version on CD (and sell the album as packs of MP3s through iTunes and Amazon and everybody else) the RIAA is giving you an incentive to buy CDs from them again. This could be a win for everyone.
In this idea's simplest form, it can be a tar file which has to follow certain rules about what goes into it and its location. Think about how on a Unix system,
A properly done CMX would have top level directories like
Of course, this is the RIAA we're talking, so it won't be.
All record company politics aside, we need an open source album format. MP3's to date have been individual song formats. They can have limited graphics embedded into them, but they are limited to a single individual file package. What would be good is:
- An open source audio compression which is completely scalable (maybe ogg for one download option, flac for those who really enjoy their music).
- Different price points for different quality (an ogg album for example would be $10, flac could be $20, flac with all media extras including video could be at $30). Nine Inch Nails did this with Ghosts. There were, IIRC, about 6 different options to acquire the album that ranged from free, to $300. AND IT SOLD WELL!!!! (looking at this RIAA???)
- Embedded album art and liner notes. Maybe even music videos. With the speed and availability of the internet these days, downloading a 200mb album with video's should be an option.
- Easily extractable package. It would be good to add an album to your iTunes/xmms/winamp/wmp playlist and be able to pick out songs for shuffling purposes and such.
- NO DRM!
Someone mentioned .tar files. Something similar would be good, but you have to have native support in media players (iTunes, winamp, wmp, etc).
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
CMX will:
- require an "evil bit permanently on" secure audio path to the secure cranial speaker implants, available only under Windows 7 SP19 or later;
- use a new lossy audio coding technique developed with the express purpose of producing an ear-splitting 6 kHz square wave tone and sounding as hideous as possible when transcoded to another format (still, some tin-eared audiofools will still say they can't hear the difference);
- require that the playback device be permanently on-line with RIAA servers via rootkit for user biometrics validation every 20 msec and reporting of usage statistics
- only be available as super-compressed re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-remasters with 4 dB dynamic range;
- cost a minimum of $14.99/track/minute;
- sound like shit;
- be nothing but a bad memory by 2012...
Isn't that a DVD?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's obvious that the business model of the record companies are failing. Albums are going the route of a strictly enthusiast-only format while digital distribution of single songs becomes the standard. The radio is dead, MTV is dead -- people don't want to listen to songs they don't want to hear anymore to wait for the songs they do to pop up
So what should they do? Not what they are doing obviously. What needs to be done is they need to put the digital distribution model in the car, in the walkman, in the cellphones of the consumers. Yes, yes, two dollars to download a song is great, right? Well, that's fine and dandy, but when I'm thinking of a song I want to hear, it's an impulse, I want to hear it and I want to hear it NOW. How do you earn money from that? How does McDonalds earn money on hamburgers? Last I heard, about two cents at a time. You don't sell the user the rights to a hamburger, you sell them a hamburger they can eat once and it is done.
So how do you apply that to what's in your pocket? Charge two cents for a single listen. Buy a playlist for a buck, fifty songs, one listen each. Don't wanna pay? Package each song with a small advert. Customization options, shuffle, ability to sacrifice a listen to one song to hear another again. Work it like nearlyfreespeech.net, you pay for what you use. Tie it in with the satellites, lets see how it goes, baby.
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"
"Hey guys...? Remember when you used to buy $20 CD's based on one or two good singles, and the other 10 tracks were just crap? But it had those two songs you really liked, and maybe one more decent one? Can we go back to that? Please? Love, -the RIAA"
We already have a good digital album format. It's called the CD.
Shhhhh. There are many millions to be made selling these idiots the promise of what they want. They're throwing it away. Don't bump the elbow of the entrepeneur who's fleecing them this time.
And wait till they get a look at my painless bulletproof transparent DRM strategy. They'll go bananas for it! It's a vertical solution that brings minute-to-minte control of access to media in a form that people will be thrilled to pay a premium for because the reproduction quality is INCREDIBLE.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
How about selling CD's much less? I am sick of paying EUR15 or US$18 plus shipping for a CD. There are these things called enhanced CD's, that have everything they described: video, artwork, even games (e.g. Deftone's "White Pony").
I love CD's, if you reduce the price, I will buy many more. I get a higher quality and something physical.
GO BLUE!
man man
This time next year, CMX will be entirely dead.
The cake is a pie
...what's wrong with a good old directory containing some mp3s (oggs, wavs, whatever), some jpgs (pngs, tiffs, whatever) of the album art, a m3u or other playlist file, and maybe some html notes and hyperlinks?
Oh, silly me. They want a single album file. gzip's got ya covered there, folks...
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
People say they want liner notes and a CD cover and all that, but when push comes to shove they just want to put a nickel in the nickelodeon and get music music music...
This is another solution looking for a problem.
FLAC and a nice pdf. That's all I want.
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
This is just an arms race between the majors and Apple. None of them has a clear idea why are they doing it, but the simple fact that THE OTHER PART is doing it makes them race even faster.
Then a few years down the road they'll see the public so uninterested in their specs and "results", they'll just pretend it never happened.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
... it's very popular and easy to use, has an open specification, and allows users to convert easily into formats playable on all popular music players.
The spec is at http://www.aboutthescene.com/images/scenerules_mp3_2007_v2.png .
"15. FREE MP3s" worries me. This restriction only serves to prop up works of the major labels at the expense of labels that use Creative Commons -nc licenses.
I always buy good albums. ...Which means I buy one every few years.
I hate to sound like a broken business model, err, record - but if you want album sales to work, try ensuring your slaves, err, artists - are putting out actual albums, and not just one good song and ten tracks of filler.
So the IRRELEVANT seek to obtain more IRRELEVANCE?
Gasping and struggling for that last breath... before they sink and die.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
There used to be this thing called the concept album. And, in order to understand a song, you had to hear it in the context of the album. When concept albums were out, 80% of the tracks on the album were actually good. Now, 20% of the tracks are good and 80% are crap, and most albums don't have a cohesive theme of any kind.
Why would anyone want to buy an album these days?
It's not the model that needs to change. It's the content.
People keep screaming we need a new Nirvana to break out of this rut music is in. We DON'T need a new Nirvana. We need a new Beatles and Beach Boys.
No thanks, not interested...
A classical symphony of 4 movements is naturally packaged as an integral work. And the consumers, without any coercing from the sellers, naturally buy it as an album. Likewise for opera.
But the pop songs of today? They don't naturally group together as an integral work (generally speaking). If the record companies want people to purchase pop songs in albums, the logical way is to have the artists write a group of songs that form an integral work. And that the consumers, without any explanation required, also feel that the group of songs form an integral work and feel that the proper way to experience them is to play all of them in one sitting and in the order published. That's how classical music fans listen to symphonies, from the first movement to the last. When they occasionally listen to just one movement of a symphony, they are well aware that they are listening to an excerpt of a work. Contrast this to listening to a pop song from an album, no one feels they are listening to an excerpt.
I suspect the zeitgeist of today favours short form music, i.e. a 4 minute song. Song writers convey what they need in 4 minutes. Listeners enjoy taking the bite size emotional journey in 4 minutes. Neither song writers nor listeners look for an emotional journey that takes 60 minutes to walk through (generally speaking). A 4 minute song is a natural unit of consumption and the music business should think of it as a basic SKU and structure their business model accordingly.
Now pay up, you infringing bastard... =)P
I have for the 3rd time AGAIN tried Ubuntu. 1) video do not work properly and skip (matroska container , vlc and another media player used). No skip on windows. 2) updating firefox is an hassle 3) alsa or whatever is called was a hassle and skip 4) email client looked nice, until it started eating my email. 5) installing some apps forced me to go through "man" and there is no GUI equivalent that I have found (why can't you the hell change owner from the GUI freaking screen, and force people through a chown ? Why file saved by *MY* user has not the same user as owner ??? torrent file as an example). Installing some stuff made me go through hoop and loop and scripts. The bottom line is whereas I tolerated this, that is NOWHERE near the reliability or easiness of installation of the average windows stuff. As long as linux proponent do not recognize that, linux will stay a fringe stuff used mainly for server, desktop being an afterthought. And my biggest rant : why the FUCK asking the help system on CHOWN give me 10 crap before I am being shown the main topic (see below after the rant). Heck clicking on some topic just make the help "disappear" (crash?)
/path/to/rails/application/public /srv/samba/share/ /var/log/query.log /home/username/ /path/to/repos /var/lib/one/images/
...presession script would need to be modified to chown
/dev/console to the user:group ...
Search results for "chown"
Clock Manual
sudo chown -r www-data:www-data
Problem showing document
sudo chown nobody.nogroup
Ubuntu Server Guide
sudo chown bind
Five or More Manual
sudo chown -r root:root
Using the Command Line
sudo chown -r www-data.www-data mywiki
Mahjongg Manual
sudo chown -r www-data:www-data
Rhythmbox Music Player Manual V2.0.2
sudo chown oneadmin
Gnome Display Manager Reference Manual
chown manual page
change file owner and group
coreutils info page
chown
coreutils info page
lchown
coreutils info page
lchown
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
No, I'm not surprised the CEO of Microsoft still buys CDs for his Windows Media Player. He's got to blow all that M$ moolah on something.
I'd be surprised if anyone other then a high level M$ executive did, though.
So Steve, when are you going to resurrect the Sonics?
My guess is that the format is really just a way to bundle the autoplay executable, and other "extended extras" found on the data track of modern audio CDs.
Good luck with the autoplay thing... It's outsky in Windows 7.
They're going to decide to use an ordinary zip file with the extension renamed and hope nobody notices.
Technoli
Most readers are too young to remember that CMX is the name of the partnership between CBS and Memorex to develop the earliest computerized editing. This music company project will lose because it tries to "overwrite" a well established name that should not be obliterated or whatever you call it these days. Bob Kiger - Videography Lab - www.vidiots.us
I give you, The League of Evil!!!
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Why create a new file format when you could just create a standard with existing file formats?
How about just a RAR filled with JPEG+PDF covers/booklet, FLAC files and a cue sheet? That's what they need to compete with torrents...
Hell, I'm still looking for an online store where I can buy my tracks as FLAC at all - most of the tracks I want are only available as CBR MP3s...
I can think of only three that actually make the cut for me
And at this point your entire argument falls to pieces. Just because you personally can think of only three that, in your opinion, make the cut for you, means nothing. Maybe your musical tastes are rather limited? The music industry caters for a far wider market than you personally. If they cannot sell an idea to you, that does not mean the idea has absolutely no value.
And your Britney analysis is like 5 years out of date. Are you sure you're well placed to be advising the music industry on marketing?
it baffles me completely that any major label would seriously consider this as the saviour of their industry.
I must have missed this in news article. Where is anyone claiming this? Oh, they aren't.
As far as I can see, this is the music industry providing "Value Added" content that everyone is always saying they need to do in order to convince people to actually pay for things. This is them providing an electronic equivalent of the record sleeve that many actually miss. What exactly is the problem with this??
http://www.aboutthescene.com/releases/looklike.html
Please Mr Public, if you can't work linux out without crying, you just shouldnt use it. Go back to Windows and cry there. Leave the big boys alone so they can get the real work done. Thanks have a nice day.
If the iPod/iPhone software doesn't play this new music industry format then why should we care? Yet another file format - where's the value in it? There's value in making a competitor to iTMS that cuts out Apple from the profit stream and works with other devices (iPod, iPhone, Zune, Sansa, etc) and other phones. The value there is cutting out the middle man - make songs cheaper, and give more profit to the artists.
Everything else is just simply uninteresting. If the music industry wants my money, it has to offer me something I want. Reinventing the wheel on an ASX or PLS file format is not it. Both of these playlist file formats are just lists of filenames/URLs.
"Looks like I'm going to have to buy the White Album again."
(Or, more likely, not... the community "invented" this years ago... it's called an album torrent. Pity you weren't interested in selling it to us back then).
I don't buy music anyway, because what little I listen to I already own or get *extraordinarily* cheaply by other, legitimate, means. So I don't really care.
And the reason is simple: unknown compatibility with the higher-end Apple iPod players out there.
Because Apple's "Cocktail" project will probably be compatible with 3G/4G iPod nanos, 5G and later iPod classics, the iPhone and iPod touch, that means the vast majority of the portable music player market will support this format. The record companies can't ignore this--we're talking a HUGE market.
'Albums' as such came about WAY long ago when the standard audio medium was a 78 rpm record. Generally speaking, it was one song-per side, so one disk = 2 songs. So to compile say, 10 or 12 songs by any artist, or maybe put a whole symphony into a single package, multiple disks were put into a bound book of record sleeves (literally, an 'album' of records). When technology changed and brought about 33-1/3 LPs (Long Play, for the kids out there) the same number of tracks could be put onto a single disk; when CDs came along, they just copied the current de facto standard. The idea that you have to continue to somehow package 'albums' within the context of digital distribution is absurd. Sure, bundle tracks that form parts of a coherent whole, or can be mashed-up to, say, feature all recorded versions of a song over the years, but stop forcing artists to come up with filler, and let them do their thing instead.
/late to the part I know
//at least no one has to read my rants
///and *stay* off my lawn.
Another example of CMX in music is the Finnish band.
(Not an acronym though, since you cannot pronounce it as a single word.)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
This time, they are re-inventing a rather mysterious failure. What they named as CMX existed years ago, it is Liquid Audio.
Even (later) support from Real Networks didn't help it. It somehow failed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Audio
I was really impressed with it since I am mainly an album listener guy. It had all those features CMX claims to have, tried, failed... Oh it had DRM too (later acquired by MS).
MS guys could be wondering "wtf?" too...
Please Mr Public, if you can't work linux out without crying, you just shouldnt use it. Go back to Windows and cry there. Leave the big boys alone so they can get the real work done. Thanks have a nice day.
While this is asinine and inflammatory, it is nearly true.
If you're not enjoying it and/or you don't HAVE to use it, don't. That goes for Linux and for everything else.
Open Source is choice, sir. You can choose the alternative...
Modding "man man" insightful (parent's full post) whereas modding me offtopic is kinda.... biased. Both are offtopic or both are interresting/troll/whatever other mod there is.
No. You're just full of crap.
Updating Firefox is a hassle? You mean because you have to put in your password when you click on the package manager update? If you're trying to update beyond what the package manager is offering, you're beyond "Joe public" range, so learn to use the OS.
ALSA was replaced in 8.04, so you obviously haven't tried recently.[*]
There IS a gui for man. it's called gman. Install it. As for chown, again, you're moving beyond "Joe Public" but all you have to do is set up a shortcut to run your file manager as the super user (copy your existing one, and prepend a "gksu -s" to it, could have been solved with 45 seconds of googling.) You will probably hose your system with this since you don't know what you're doing enough to be dicking with it, but hey...
why the FUCK asking the help system on CHOWN give me 10 crap before I am being shown the main topic
Err. Because you're asking gnome help for help on a command line command? You have to ask for help in the right place before you can get the right help, or do you go to your doctor's office to ask him for help re-jetting your carburetor?
Which is not to say that Ubuntu doesn't have it's flaws. ALSA(footnoted above) was replaced, as noted, and pulseaudio (the replacement) is a festering pile of shit that needs to crawl back into whatever dark pit it clawed its way out of. But it generally only causes problems for people who AREN'T "Joe Q Public" and who know what they're doing, but PA won't fugging let them...
However That doesn't change the fact that your "rant" is unmitigated bullshit, and you're just a troll.
Sounds like a dodgy cable-only Country Music video channel to me.
I agree. To me, digital music won't be a satisfactory replacement for physical albums** until I get artwork and lyrics (preferably synced to the music to be displayed when desired) with it.
I don't trust the competence or good will of the record companies to do this right, though, and a .zip file with music, .png and .pdf files is almost good enough. I'd rather have that than some inscrutable proprietary format.
**Even then, I like having the physical album as a backup. To heck with re-buying music over and over to be able to play it on different devices.
Thanks for the education on acronyms being pronounced as a single word. Whatever we call it CMX was a tradename and copyrighted title for the original computer editing company that was a partnership between CBS & Memorex. Would you agree that fact should be preserved? Also what do we call letter combinations that form a new entity but can't be pronounced as a single word...like IBM? One more question. Does anyone know how Memorex magnetic tape technology was related to Bing Crosby? Bob Kiger - Videography Lab - www.vidiots.us
If they want the CD junkies to go from buying physical CDs to buying some digital album format they sure as hell better make sure that this new format is lossless and easy to backup on CD. I can't stand the thought of when I can no longer purchase physical CDs but if that time ever comes, the alternative better be as good of quality as the CD only digital. Considering there are so few digital lossless formats available now, I don't have much faith in these album alternatives being lossless. If all I have available is lossy digital crap then say goodbye to my sales.
(Not an acronym though, since you cannot pronounce it as a single word.)
"See 'em cross"? Fine, that's three words.
You can't copyright an abbreviation.
BTW, TFA doesn't define what CMX stands for either. Apparently it is an internal codename which may not have an expansion.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Yeah, I just noticed I listed "Crisis Management Exercise" and "Crisis Management Exercises" as separate items. Well, if they won't tell us what it stands for, let's call it that.
BTW, CBS-MemoreX wasn't listed at AcronymFinder.com nor AcronymAttic.com.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
This is the pointless struggling of the dying music industry trying to dislodge the pillow from its face as it smothers.
Thankfully soon music will be back in the hands of musicians who will promote themselves with far greater efficiency than a greedy corporation could ever do.
Music is free. Performance is paid. The industry is dead. Let's all get laid.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
maybe artists should make albums with more than 1 good song?
BTW, TFA doesn't define what CMX stands for either. Apparently it is an internal codename which may not have an expansion.
The name of the Finnish band stands for Cloaca Maxima, the main sewer line of ancient Rome. Not a bad description for the current music industry.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Welcome to 15 years ago, music industry! I'm sure these new "digital album" doohickeys will be all the rage.