Either ISPs are common carriers (the postal system is a prime example, I get lots of 'junk mail' for every legitimate piece of mail, but at least they're getting paid to deliver the crap,) or they aren't (and NOBODY wants that.)
Its like the telephone itself.
Its NOT the phone company's problem if people call you in the middle of the night and threaten to cut off your balls.
Why pay money when the amount of 'mail recipients' is down to 5% because filters have become so efficient?
That empties the possible pool of suckers out there so you might as well give up and find some other scam. (Remember, there zipper-heads want to get your money for free. If they can't... Well fuck it...)
There are LOTS of laws you can break along with making a buck (and are probably breaking.)
Ignorance of the law is not MY problem. If you're asking this question, it might very well be YOURS.
I worked on an expert system which had governmental regulations as a domain. You wouldn't believe all of the contradictory rules we found in the R&R (Rules & Regulations) manual.
Basically, if you were able to get ANY money from that department, its because somebody up there liked you.
Run afoul of the management (ANYBODY in the management,) and you were out of luck and had just made a generous donation to the department.
he maximizes return on the share holder's money by minimizing expenditure and maximizing cash flow (though the actual mechanisms can vary.)
Otherwise he can be:
1 looking for another job (shareholder revolt)
2 looking for a defense attorney (when the SEC caught on,)
or
3 working for a private capital company (in which case the SEC has nothing to say.)
or
4 scrabbling in the dirt, digging his own grave with his bare hands. ("Tony Soprano" is a major investor.)
Regardless, these 'savings' programs are always couched in terms of 'insuring future customers' just like product recalls are.
I had a Mac 7200 running Linux, a PC running Slackware which died and now a new Ubuntu Linux box, (and my three live Macs and a Window's box running XP.)
And podcasting I have a lot of toys [ like mixers, mikes and USB and FireWire interfaces, and Marantz and Roland crap,] to use...:-)
This after Balmer calls Linux 'communist' and threatens law suits for alleged patent/copyright violations? (But doesn't seem able to carry through to court, where they want proof.)
To claim that "99% of the world's Windows users don't give a shit about the updates, and will click anything that pops up on their PC" sounds like somebody's having a bad day.
But then I am a Mac user on 3 boxes, Linux on another and XP(SP2) on a third, cowering behind a firewall (or two.:-)
The issue of "provenance" and the acknowledgment of such is the key issue.
The lack of transparency (you just plunked down your money but WHAT IS IT THAT YOU REALLY BOUGHT?) is the real problem.
Most people don't know what they have bought. (The album cover SHOULD reflect the person who really gets the $ Its no use saying "Radio Head" on the cover if they don't get any of the proceeds. [Like all those "Elvis" or "Kobain" or "Hendrix" albums put out by a bunch of dentists in suburban LA, or some such scheme to sucker you into buying them by trading on the popularity of the artist.] The info should either be on the cover, in proportion to the portion of your dollar going to whom, or for existing albums, that information should be on a CDDB type database. [Along with track names and cover art])
----
Likewise the expression "all rights reserved" should NOT be taken for granted.
What ARE those rights?
I would also list them in a CDDB type database
Most people don't know what rights they have after shelling out their money.
The people(TM) either have a right to know, or the sellers should NOT be allowed SELL THE FRIGGIN' MUSIC.
This requires NO DISCLOSURE of any confidential information. (no volumetrics).
----
Shine a light on the contracts (and see which companies run like cockroaches when you turn on the light in the kitchen.)
but when its me and thee, some wedding pics and a song or two and you're NOT going to use it for generating profits, the **AAs should get their noses out of our butt-cracks.
They just end up with something like egg on their faces, used egg.
The problem is that she is a human being, who is probably going to pay for the rest of her life for the "copyright violation" of just making the stuff available, rather than a corporation, who could either afford it or just go out of business, while the corporate officers pocketed the money and go on to start up the next shady deal.
I'm not recommending it, but it would illustrate her plight if she would commit "sepuku" in front of the RIAA offices for TV cameras, in exchange for her kid's safety, as this would illustrate the actual attitude of the RIAA (I like to think that the sight of a woman gutting her self like a fish all over their carpet might give some of them nightmares, but I don't really think it would.)
Basically, she was a single individual going into a system designed for corporations to KILL each other.
Now her life is ground meat. She'll spend her life paying for the mistakes on lost of peoples' parts.
In old Imperial Japan, her head would have been separated from her body.
The suckage of the RIAA's client's 'product' is legendary and I see no need to support it in any way.
Unfortunately, is still too expensive to make movies because there isn't an independent movie market place for the CREATION of movies, but its coming as production equipment, (like film cameras, lenses and editing software,) keep getting cheaper and better.
It will become possible to finance the creation of movies, the distribution of movies over the internet through something like podcasting. You can pitch ideas on the 'net, see what sort of an audience would be interested (that gives you an upper limit on budget,) and go produce it.
The same with movie houses trying to compete with 1080p and 41"+ screens.
They are going to be in real trouble in a very few years.
But back to the RIAA:
There are lots of indie artists who's record companies get my money instead.
The RIAA is one last gasp of any industry trying to hold back the tide.
Like buggy whip makers, they are trying to force cars off of the roads. We all know where that led.
I'm going to quite myself from next Monday's podcast, ("bad form" I know), but the RIAA only represents a very few clients:
I mean "Nazi zombies, aliens from the planet Transexual (they look like Ann Coulter and Tim Curry), Hitler in combat exoskeleton with dual Gatling guns, lesbian mermaid vampires, Xenu and Krishna in a battle royale," sounds like a friggin' comedy film.
83 languages spoken by 5,000,000,000 people (and a great many people speak more than one,) means that its no tragedy when an obscure language lapses into disuse.
Comparing a language to a species is the kind of muddle-headed thinking that makes me wonder if English is a dying language in this ass-hack writer's tongue.
if your competition is able to prove the capability of their software to evolve to meet changing business requirements, the competition will get the business, not you.
(M$ Vista versus Linux on the server and OS X on the client, anyone? That's the real reason Vista sucks and Linux and OS X rock. And M$s customers are starting to be aware. [Microsoft, the Erie-Bucyrus of the software world.])
the Amazon music store might as well be Apples, its certainly no threat to Apple's hardware sales (neither was the Zune but that's because it was built by committee and the chair person was a tone-deaf lawyer.)
Apple now has the market lock necessary to 'survive' the creation of a competing music store. The synergy that the iTunesMusicStore brought to the iPod is now no longer necessary. It was initially created to provide a legal outlet for music to be bought.
The record companies are getting greedy(ier) (but are in fact slitting their own throats by trying to pressure Apple with a competing store, [not realizing that competition will have to occur on price per song alone, and will lower their take, {all the while selling even more iPods.}])
If I was a stake holder in any of these record companies, well... To the record company exec who came up with this brilliant sales strategy I would only say "Thanks... Moron!"
Since I'm not, I can only say "Thanks. You're my kind of moron."
Slashdot Mirror
I have a GMail account I created for my business that started getting spam almost immediately.
(Some of the spam is REALLY funny [Hello {company name} why is your dick so short {no proper punctuation}]).
The amazing thing is that I have NEVER given out that address to anyone, at anytime, for any reason.
NOBODY knows it but the spammers so I claim the best/worst mail/spam ratio: 0% mail/100% spam.
Either ISPs are common carriers (the postal system is a prime example, I get lots of 'junk mail' for every legitimate piece of mail, but at least they're getting paid to deliver the crap,) or they aren't (and NOBODY wants that.)
Its like the telephone itself.
Its NOT the phone company's problem if people call you in the middle of the night and threaten to cut off your balls.
They're just the messenger.
Why pay money when the amount of 'mail recipients' is down to 5% because filters have become so efficient?
That empties the possible pool of suckers out there so you might as well give up and find some other scam. (Remember, there zipper-heads want to get your money for free. If they can't... Well fuck it...)
JapScat images just popped into my head there...
There are LOTS of laws you can break along with making a buck (and are probably breaking.)
Ignorance of the law is not MY problem. If you're asking this question, it might very well be YOURS.
I worked on an expert system which had governmental regulations as a domain. You wouldn't believe all of the contradictory rules we found in the R&R (Rules & Regulations) manual.
Basically, if you were able to get ANY money from that department, its because somebody up there liked you.
Run afoul of the management (ANYBODY in the management,) and you were out of luck and had just made a generous donation to the department.
he maximizes return on the share holder's money by minimizing expenditure and maximizing cash flow (though the actual mechanisms can vary.)
Otherwise he can be:
1 looking for another job (shareholder revolt)
2 looking for a defense attorney (when the SEC caught on,)
or
3 working for a private capital company (in which case the SEC has nothing to say.)
or
4 scrabbling in the dirt, digging his own grave with his bare hands. ("Tony Soprano" is a major investor.)
Regardless, these 'savings' programs are always couched in terms of 'insuring future customers' just like product recalls are.
I had a Mac 7200 running Linux, a PC running Slackware which died and now a new Ubuntu Linux box, (and my three live Macs and a Window's box running XP.)
:-)
And podcasting I have a lot of toys [ like mixers, mikes and USB and FireWire interfaces, and Marantz and Roland crap,] to use...
What can I say, I'm a hardware geek...
I don't suck at anything. :-)
"alarmist blog'? 'fud-ish?'
:-)
This after Balmer calls Linux 'communist' and threatens law suits for alleged patent/copyright violations? (But doesn't seem able to carry through to court, where they want proof.)
To claim that "99% of the world's Windows users don't give a shit about the updates, and will click anything that pops up on their PC" sounds like somebody's having a bad day.
But then I am a Mac user on 3 boxes, Linux on another and XP(SP2) on a third, cowering behind a firewall (or two.
The issue of "provenance" and the acknowledgment of such is the key issue.
The lack of transparency (you just plunked down your money but WHAT IS IT THAT YOU REALLY BOUGHT?) is the real problem.
Most people don't know what they have bought. (The album cover SHOULD reflect the person who really gets the $ Its no use saying "Radio Head" on the cover if they don't get any of the proceeds. [Like all those "Elvis" or "Kobain" or "Hendrix" albums put out by a bunch of dentists in suburban LA, or some such scheme to sucker you into buying them by trading on the popularity of the artist.] The info should either be on the cover, in proportion to the portion of your dollar going to whom, or for existing albums, that information should be on a CDDB type database. [Along with track names and cover art])
----
Likewise the expression "all rights reserved" should NOT be taken for granted.
What ARE those rights?
I would also list them in a CDDB type database
Most people don't know what rights they have after shelling out their money.
The people(TM) either have a right to know, or the sellers should NOT be allowed SELL THE FRIGGIN' MUSIC.
This requires NO DISCLOSURE of any confidential information. (no volumetrics).
----
Shine a light on the contracts (and see which companies run like cockroaches when you turn on the light in the kitchen.)
but when its me and thee, some wedding pics and a song or two and you're NOT going to use it for generating profits, the **AAs should get their noses out of our butt-cracks.
They just end up with something like egg on their faces, used egg.
By an odd coincidence, it was the Fifth Dimension.
flipping us the bird?
This really put "oomph!" into the phrase:
"Apres Moi Le Déluge..." -Louis the 16th...
overlords.
Breaking "time's arrow" will really fuck with our verb tenses.
But I worried about that tomorrow...
for listening.
I know someone who's deaf.
She'd be the only person NOT liable for the 'tax on ears.'
The problem is that she is a human being, who is probably going to pay for the rest of her life for the "copyright violation" of just making the stuff available, rather than a corporation, who could either afford it or just go out of business, while the corporate officers pocketed the money and go on to start up the next shady deal.
I'm not recommending it, but it would illustrate her plight if she would commit "sepuku" in front of the RIAA offices for TV cameras, in exchange for her kid's safety, as this would illustrate the actual attitude of the RIAA (I like to think that the sight of a woman gutting her self like a fish all over their carpet might give some of them nightmares, but I don't really think it would.)
Basically, she was a single individual going into a system designed for corporations to KILL each other.
Now her life is ground meat. She'll spend her life paying for the mistakes on lost of peoples' parts.
In old Imperial Japan, her head would have been separated from her body.
Those ARE the stakes.
for years.
The suckage of the RIAA's client's 'product' is legendary and I see no need to support it in any way.
Unfortunately, is still too expensive to make movies because there isn't an independent movie market place for the CREATION of movies, but its coming as production equipment, (like film cameras, lenses and editing software,) keep getting cheaper and better.
It will become possible to finance the creation of movies, the distribution of movies over the internet through something like podcasting. You can pitch ideas on the 'net, see what sort of an audience would be interested (that gives you an upper limit on budget,) and go produce it.
The same with movie houses trying to compete with 1080p and 41"+ screens.
They are going to be in real trouble in a very few years.
But back to the RIAA:
There are lots of indie artists who's record companies get my money instead.
The RIAA is one last gasp of any industry trying to hold back the tide.
Like buggy whip makers, they are trying to force cars off of the roads. We all know where that led.
I'm going to quite myself from next Monday's podcast, ("bad form" I know), but the RIAA only represents a very few clients:
"* Arista
* BMG
* Capitol Records
* Elektra
* Fonovisa
* Interscope
* Lava
* Loud
* Maverick
* MGM
* Motown
* Priority
* Sony
* UMG
* Universal
* Virgin
* Warner)
Personally, I think the RIAA's lawyers are tone-deaf, evil, profligate dwarves who have neither senses of shame or of proportion.
I will never buy "any" of products from any firms they represent. (There are plenty of alternatives.)
Kiss my ass, RIAA. Kiss my ass."
I mean "Nazi zombies, aliens from the planet Transexual (they look like Ann Coulter and Tim Curry), Hitler in combat exoskeleton with dual Gatling guns, lesbian mermaid vampires, Xenu and Krishna in a battle royale," sounds like a friggin' comedy film.
Where's Mel Brooks when you need him?
Yeah, I don't plan on going either...
83 languages spoken by 5,000,000,000 people (and a great many people speak more than one,) means that its no tragedy when an obscure language lapses into disuse.
Comparing a language to a species is the kind of muddle-headed thinking that makes me wonder if English is a dying language in this ass-hack writer's tongue.
Today's abusive corporations and total networking don't want you to THINK!
We could have "Whoopy" one week, "The Donald" the next, "Britney" the following week (with some crazy, erratic driving) and so on...
if your competition is able to prove the capability of their software to evolve to meet changing business requirements, the competition will get the business, not you.
(M$ Vista versus Linux on the server and OS X on the client, anyone? That's the real reason Vista sucks and Linux and OS X rock. And M$s customers are starting to be aware. [Microsoft, the Erie-Bucyrus of the software world.])
the Amazon music store might as well be Apples, its certainly no threat to Apple's hardware sales (neither was the Zune but that's because it was built by committee and the chair person was a tone-deaf lawyer.)
... Moron!"
Apple now has the market lock necessary to 'survive' the creation of a competing music store. The synergy that the iTunesMusicStore brought to the iPod is now no longer necessary. It was initially created to provide a legal outlet for music to be bought.
The record companies are getting greedy(ier) (but are in fact slitting their own throats by trying to pressure Apple with a competing store, [not realizing that competition will have to occur on price per song alone, and will lower their take, {all the while selling even more iPods.}])
If I was a stake holder in any of these record companies, well... To the record company exec who came up with this brilliant sales strategy I would only say "Thanks
Since I'm not, I can only say "Thanks. You're my kind of moron."