When a band can distribute its albums by posting a zip file on a web site, there's a lot less incentive to turn to labels.
I used to think it was the musicians that made the money and it was the record companies that took their share. But now I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. Most music is almost entirely indistiguishable from each other. Big bands become big because good marketing makes people think it's better than the rest of the crap. Or said another way - there are a million people who can play music at a high level and they would all do most anything to become rich and famous. This puts them in the same bargaining position as, say, a McDonald's employee. When there are more people willing and capable of doing what you do than others are willing to pay for, you're never going to get rich.
If you want proof, think of this - how many super rich Indie artists are there? Now, how many super rich artists are there who are represented by major labels? Who is creating value for whom?
For me as a music consumer, I think it would be great to get the music direct from the artist. But to think that the artists will somehow come out better without record companies seems to be unsupported by the evidence.
.. Or not allowing patents on anything made from steel because, after all, steel is just a doorstop unless you make something from it.
How does the/. community feel about computer hardware patents? Computer hardware is undoubtedly physical, which should satisfy the parent's parent's concern about patenting physical inventions. But most (digital) chips these days are designed not in schematic form but in hardware description languages (HDLs), which are essentially programming languages. From a given HDL description, commercial tools are used to convert them eventually into a GDSII layout - which would most closely resemble what most people would think of as a chip "blueprint" if there was one - before being turned into the various masks used in silicon fabrication. A patent on the physical chip without a patent on the underlying HDL description would make the patent useless because all of the non-obvious R&D is in the HDL "program".
The point is that software in all forms is really just a blueprint. Whether that blueprint is in a software language like C, a hardware description language like Verilog or a CAD package like Pro/E doesn't change the fact that it's still a blueprint. And blueprints should be patentable.
Now if the issue is whether most existing software patents should've been granted, that's a different story. But that's not the same as saying that software as a concept should not be patentable, which seems to be the point around here.
I think patents should only be limited in use to preventing actual financial damage. So if you have a patent but no product, someone else's use of that patent causes you no financial damage, so you have no recourse. Or, if you have a patent and a product, and someone uses that patent in an unrelated work that does not compete with your product, again, you suffer no damage and thus have no recourse. This should put an end to much of the trolling, which is the real drain on the system.
In addition to this, there's a piece involving the broken American civil court system (which is broken in more than just patent law). Trials need to be sped up and costs need to be reduced to prevent the guy with the deepest pockets from simply draining the other guy until he gives up.
I've never understood the standard/. position on this. Most/.ers support the GPL, which is nearly identical to DRM, at least in theory - both protect the original creator of a copyrighted work from unauthorized redistribution by others (the GPL doesn't forbid redistribution, but does force derivative works to be distributed under the terms of the GPL, i.e. open). The motives behind the two are completely different, but the theory is the same - content creators control the rights of redistribution.
Or is it that/.ers aren't opposed to DRM per se, but just the current implementations? If DRM worked in practice the way it works in theory - that is, by preventing redistribution while allowing free use for private purposes - would/.ers support it? If that's the case, then I wouldn't entirely disagree. But, then I wouldn't say I don't like DRM - I'd say I don't like the current implementations, the concept of DRM being sound. But that's not the impression I have of most/. posters' positions.
The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Charlie Chaplin, B.B King, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Martin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick, even Steven Spielberg created their work in a pre-DRM era and somehow managed to sell their work. DRM = Digital Rights Management. I don't think any of these people had to fear digital reproduction of their content when they made it. Or did your IBM 650 vacuum-tube machine have an LP duplicator?
but when it comes to the government, that is not the case at all. They give you money to do research in a particular area.
Well actually, the government gives almost no money to climate change dissenters. This sends a pretty clear message: "If you want to get funding next year, give us pro-climate change findings." The only difference between the government and Exxon in this is the use of ex post, rather than ex ante incentives. But the incentives are there just the same.
Re:They seem to be forgetting something...
on
Oceans Empty By 2048?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Ack! No!!! If the price increases to $300/can because of some government intervention to put a floor under prices (the way they do/have done for many crops) then yes, it will lead to more fishing. But the price isn't increasing because of this - it's increasing specifically because there are fewer fish, meaning it now takes almost $300 to CATCH a can of fish! In a well functioning market with low barriers to entry like tuna catching, the marginal price roughly equals the marginal cost. Which means the profit on a $300 can of tuna is going to be roughly what it is on a $3 can of tuna, which is to say probably a few cents. So given that almost NO ONE will buy $300 tuna, I'm not seeing a lot of money in the $300/can tuna industry.
Don't accuse other people of failing economics when you have no idea what you're talking about.
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When a band can distribute its albums by posting a zip file on a web site, there's a lot less incentive to turn to labels.
I used to think it was the musicians that made the money and it was the record companies that took their share. But now I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. Most music is almost entirely indistiguishable from each other. Big bands become big because good marketing makes people think it's better than the rest of the crap. Or said another way - there are a million people who can play music at a high level and they would all do most anything to become rich and famous. This puts them in the same bargaining position as, say, a McDonald's employee. When there are more people willing and capable of doing what you do than others are willing to pay for, you're never going to get rich.
If you want proof, think of this - how many super rich Indie artists are there? Now, how many super rich artists are there who are represented by major labels? Who is creating value for whom?
For me as a music consumer, I think it would be great to get the music direct from the artist. But to think that the artists will somehow come out better without record companies seems to be unsupported by the evidence.
.. Or not allowing patents on anything made from steel because, after all, steel is just a doorstop unless you make something from it.
How does the /. community feel about computer hardware patents? Computer hardware is undoubtedly physical, which should satisfy the parent's parent's concern about patenting physical inventions. But most (digital) chips these days are designed not in schematic form but in hardware description languages (HDLs), which are essentially programming languages. From a given HDL description, commercial tools are used to convert them eventually into a GDSII layout - which would most closely resemble what most people would think of as a chip "blueprint" if there was one - before being turned into the various masks used in silicon fabrication. A patent on the physical chip without a patent on the underlying HDL description would make the patent useless because all of the non-obvious R&D is in the HDL "program".
The point is that software in all forms is really just a blueprint. Whether that blueprint is in a software language like C, a hardware description language like Verilog or a CAD package like Pro/E doesn't change the fact that it's still a blueprint. And blueprints should be patentable.
Now if the issue is whether most existing software patents should've been granted, that's a different story. But that's not the same as saying that software as a concept should not be patentable, which seems to be the point around here.
I think patents should only be limited in use to preventing actual financial damage. So if you have a patent but no product, someone else's use of that patent causes you no financial damage, so you have no recourse. Or, if you have a patent and a product, and someone uses that patent in an unrelated work that does not compete with your product, again, you suffer no damage and thus have no recourse. This should put an end to much of the trolling, which is the real drain on the system.
In addition to this, there's a piece involving the broken American civil court system (which is broken in more than just patent law). Trials need to be sped up and costs need to be reduced to prevent the guy with the deepest pockets from simply draining the other guy until he gives up.
I've never understood the standard /. position on this. Most /.ers support the GPL, which is nearly identical to DRM, at least in theory - both protect the original creator of a copyrighted work from unauthorized redistribution by others (the GPL doesn't forbid redistribution, but does force derivative works to be distributed under the terms of the GPL, i.e. open). The motives behind the two are completely different, but the theory is the same - content creators control the rights of redistribution.
/.ers aren't opposed to DRM per se, but just the current implementations? If DRM worked in practice the way it works in theory - that is, by preventing redistribution while allowing free use for private purposes - would /.ers support it? If that's the case, then I wouldn't entirely disagree. But, then I wouldn't say I don't like DRM - I'd say I don't like the current implementations, the concept of DRM being sound. But that's not the impression I have of most /. posters' positions.
Or is it that
Well actually, the government gives almost no money to climate change dissenters. This sends a pretty clear message: "If you want to get funding next year, give us pro-climate change findings." The only difference between the government and Exxon in this is the use of ex post, rather than ex ante incentives. But the incentives are there just the same.
Ack! No!!! If the price increases to $300/can because of some government intervention to put a floor under prices (the way they do/have done for many crops) then yes, it will lead to more fishing. But the price isn't increasing because of this - it's increasing specifically because there are fewer fish, meaning it now takes almost $300 to CATCH a can of fish! In a well functioning market with low barriers to entry like tuna catching, the marginal price roughly equals the marginal cost. Which means the profit on a $300 can of tuna is going to be roughly what it is on a $3 can of tuna, which is to say probably a few cents. So given that almost NO ONE will buy $300 tuna, I'm not seeing a lot of money in the $300/can tuna industry.
Don't accuse other people of failing economics when you have no idea what you're talking about.