This entire argument is a tax scheme by the telcos to screw more money out of the gummmint and out of our pocket.
The argument makes no friggin sense.
For example, the iTMS sells EVERYTHING via pod and vod catching.
The fidelity of the music & videos is dependent on the bits I play on my computer, it is NOT dependent on the speed of the line at all.
A faster line would get me nothing.
A faster computer wouldn't get me much either, except for being able to multi-task better.
And they have all that dark-fibre buried in the ground and NO fibre to the home.
Guess what we were charged for in the first place? Fibre to the home. And now they want us to pay again for their failure to deliver after we've paid already.
Well guess again Telco.
The line speed to my home is adequate.
With pod & vod catching, the line speed doesn't really matter anymore.
You are of course aware that the RIAA has been against EVERY reprographic innovation since the invention of carbon paper.
From the invention of the player piano, to radio, to the jukebox, to xerography, to the cassette player, to the MP3, to.. well EVERYTHING, they have fought tooth and nail against every innovation which ultimately brought them more money.
These Luddites are incapable of thinking of how to monetize anything. Their knee-jerk reaction is to stomp it out of existence, what ever it might be. (What do you want? They're lawyers. The only thing they can do is sue and try to get laws passed so they can sue.)
What they are waiting for is for somebody to PAY THEM NOT TO SUE. All it takes is enough money, anyone with seep enough pockets will do, and they will do what the almighty dollar says.
They have been proving their far-sightedness since the 18th century. They have opposed EVERY technological innovation, without exception. If they would have got their way, we would be playing our palor-pianos by gas light (while dying from every preventable disease from syphilis to eating spoiled meat.)
Can someone please figure out a way to make money from technology and join them (to make them provide a united front, declare 'victory' and NOT fight amongst themselves,) OR just pay them to STFU?
Bill Gates could do it single handedly. Steve Jobs did it with the iTMS. All it takes is money or a will to go around them like the podsafe music network.
I am fascinated by the use of this. The resolution sesme to be limited to 600x800. It might seem like enough, but it isn't though unless I could scroll a reactive 'landscape' under it.
The project at http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/ is just a reactive screen with.1" resolution. It uses any image that can be 'back projected' onto its surface.
Quite apart from the "Minority Report" flat-screen object/relationship presentation level aspect, it ccould be combined with another project at the Media Research Lab of New York University which traces 'social networks,' and labelling the 'rays' between objects could be used to support multiple Relationships/connections between object instances.
That would make navigation of a complex database a great deal easier, either at the schema level, with the addition/deletion of Objects and Relationships, or at the instance level with the creation/deletion;connection/disconnection of instances.
I know that some people would like to see the spammers go to jail but they hide and try to maintain a low profile. Besides, they're only in it for the bucks.
But attack the 'penis pill pushers' who hire these spammers, ridicule will do for a start, and they'll stop wasting their money on spammers.
a non-creative job. And that is fine for 99.9% of humanity 99.9% of the time.
Success is so personal elusive and fleeting that if you don't happen to use the same metrics as everyone else, you can be a success and not even be noticed by anyone else.
Jane Siberry is a prime example. She is a success writing an album for her dog if her dog happens to like it. If it doesn't sell, so what? She wasn't writing it for your wallet.
Most of the 'meteoric rise' is due to the facts that 1) rap is extremely CHEAP to produce, 2) most rappers are talentless youth, 3) most rap audiences are in love with the throb of the bass line, 4) it helps if they pay no attention to the lyrics.
There's the occasional shooting of some unknown, who is immediately elevated to stardom, or some hanger-on, to keep the name of the studio/record company in the 'news' and to make some buzz with the advertisers.
As long as it fills in the gaps between the commercials, you're caught in the crap trap with rap.
DRM is fine, unless you're a podcaster.
on
Songbird Flies Today
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I have permission from a performer, in writing, to put some of his music on my htp:///msb.libsyn.com podcast media site but the album I just bought/downloaded from the ITMS doesn't let me convert it from a protected AAC to an MP3.
Guess what podcasting needs? Right.
I'm going to have to use someone else or he's going to have to send me the original files as an MP3 (Thank Heavens nobody records to tape anymore.)
You're missing the point., but its pointless.
on
Songbird Flies Today
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If SongBird could replicate the iTMS experience of looking for cinema, music, video and podcast as media from anywhere on the 'net that would encode their music as an XML enclosure in addition to the actual media file, DRMed or not, it could be a front-end and generate business for ANY store.
Just by replicating the MP3 tags, you would be able to set up a store. Of course processing of payments would be something your store would actually have to do.
This means any indy artists with CD burners, label printers and PayPal accounts just got themselves a way in as powerful as the 'majors' with their DRMed content and their current lock on the market.
As for the 'major' labels, it means that they can charge as much as they want for their music, which is a major sticking point with Apple.
Hopefully it will be a humbling experience when they suddenly have competition on a equal footing from the very artists that they dismiss as 'non commercial' (meaning that they can't generate enough of a revenue stream from to support their continuing mismanagement.)
But it won't be more that a commercial outlet until the customers/consumers can contract for the content they want.
The 'pull-side' of the market place is currently ignored and grossly underserved by a 'push-side' economy; despite staging protests against the distribution channels which cancel the contracts for the content consumers/viewers/listeners want because they figure that they can maximize profit with some other content.
As long as the 'push-side' can push aside the considerations of the 'pull-side' we're never going to get what we want.
Business, not artistic, considerations will always interfere and bring us whatever crap they hope we'll fall for.
Don't like a Brittany Spears?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced a Brittany Spears, instead of what YOU need/want to hear.
Don't like the latest bal, uh, block-buster?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced the latest drek, instead of what YOU need/want to see.
Don't like the latest Danielle Steele?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced the latest Danielle Steele, instead of what YOU need/want to read about.
This article is pure BS because I seem to remember something like 15 digits of precition on either side of the decimal point (999999999999999.999999999999999). These machine and their algorithms are PRECISE. There isn't any rounding float error because they don't really round. So its not the software or the hardware.
They do segregate some accounts because of the sheer volume of transactions but the database systems and transaction handling systems are on separate 'farms'
of machines so this article seems to be utter fabrication.
Basically, you have to say "Fine you say we've violated your patent." The courts are backing you.
Now how do you propose to handle the transition?
We'll be shut down as of .
If you're not up and completely able to pick up the service seamleassly as of , you've essentially told all of your customers: "Oops. RIM were supposed to blink, roll over, and shove lots of lovely money at us. We never intended it to go this far. Sorry."
What is your plan for taking it from us? Do you have a capital plan? Resources? Communication bandwidth allocated, etc..
I suggest that until you come up with such a plan, and not just to sell it to somnebody else, we continue operating exactly as we have without having to waste money on your lawsuit.
Then RIM comes off sounding good, maybe able to win for losing and fuck the consequences.
And the US Patent Office get a deserved black eye from the lawyers who just realised that being better is more important than being first, or even being "right."
They would have got a 'F' on hydrodynamics or something and Math was utterly beyond them so they get their revenge by screwing with a history of incremental improvements (you're gonna get sued,) or revolutionary ideas (Okay, there aren't any revolutionary ideas... Really.)
You end up 'needing' layers of lawyers to cushion you from the blows of other lawyers.
Shakespeare had it right: "First thing we do," says one of the followers of the rebel Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part II, "is kill all the lawyers."
I just love the way the stars in their eyes fade to be replaced by the circles and bags under where the glow was.
Congratulations. You're beginning to wake the fuck up.
Rule 1: Companies need to generate profits. Cash flows from the customers pockets to the stock holders pockets. In order to maximize profits, there must be as little spent on things that are known in accounting circles as expenses.
There is no rule 2, only legal complience issues.
Training is an expense. Training is expendable.
Hell, you are an expense. If you weren't being paid so much, or at all, the stock holders would be delighted.
Hint: When ever you hear somebody say "Our employees are our greatest asset" they're lying, or they don't understand basic accounting, or they're slavers and illegal after-market organ transplanters.
If management doesn't seem interested, its because they aren't. All the arguments about it being counter-productive and costing more in the end don't matter.
If Apple and the iTMS die tomorrow the iPods will still play and there are plenty of other sources for MP3s.
With Microsoft's approach, if you're late with the credit card payment, there's just wind blowing between in your ears.
While that approach might work for someone who just plays elevator music, in elevators, it truely bites the big one for any music fans.
Gates doesn't understand the first thing about what Apple has done and why its meshed in so well with Joe Sixpack, his wife, his sons and daughters, and what they want from a portable music player.
He'd probably try to shove Windows in it and tell them they should WANT to edit a Word document.
who are best compared to kings sitting in chairs on the beach commanding the tide not to rise.
It was entirely predictable too.
Music is a pre-hominid, semi-simian, refexive action/reaction. It demands instant gratification. In the internet age, that means music delivered over the ether.
Because of the medium, the scatter/gather packet distribution, the "priviledged communication" nature of the channel, the end-to-end control, podcasters are going to eat the lunch of the broadcastering RIAA represented.
The fact that podsafe music is incredibly more effective at getting people's music out there cheaply and without requiring compromise by the artists, that the only lazy or stupid people will sign up with them.
The RIAA will go away once enough of their members go broke, like the ticks on the necks of the vampire bats that are feeding off of the artists.
The Pod Safe Music Network, Pod Cast Delivery Network (representing growing legions of 'indy' artists) and iTunes Music Store (representing the drying up pool of major label 'signed' artists and 'aggregating podcasts.)
I'm NOT in favour of then taking a chance on us. I want to make sure that the economic situation is in response to reality (for a change.)
How long can a podcast episode be available, realistically? (I know that its just taking up a few gigs on a server, and that the cost of storage is dropping and so is the cost of transmission but still.)
How many downloads can we expect? (iPod DRMed style, you own the content and you can watch it as often as you want and whenever you want.)
How long can we drum up interest in these shows?
Once we can answer these questions and back the answers with some statistics, we can get the shows produced.
Does that mean that any packets routed over BellSouth lines can't cross in or out of the Bell South system without paying a toll? (There goes the 'inter' in 'internet.')
This smacks of Balkanization as surely as if they'd put up border guards and tariff/toll booths. There will be a huge area of the country that suddenly goes 'dark' as these guys put up their system in place.
But BellSouth isn't a government and has no legal right to act as a government.
Their restriction of trade will cut off millions of customers &| suppliers from doing business together regardless of which state is involved.
The parties will be forced to resort to cable and we can predict an huge and total defection of their current subscriber base.
This will involve just about every level of government and every agency. (How would we ever have heard of hurricane Katrina and been able to mount any responses if the model of the world had shrunk down to a BellSouth and non-BellSouth world?)
This is tantamount to BellSouth tossing out their common carrier status.
Then the federal and state agencies involved would have to go elsewhere for their service while renogatiating their contracts (or more likely abandoning them for their new carriers.)
just like the Taliban used bands of roving youths in trucks and violence to enforce the anti-music fatwah. (If it brought anybody any pleasure, mullah Omar would issue a fatwah against it in a second...)
They were more effective. Afghanistan was a much quieter place than before or since.
If you're going to repress something, use the appropriate mechanism.
We need roving bands of Amish youth going around the country terrorising all users of technology.
The model for popdcasting ('net delivery for content) is a private communication between a private individual entity (the podcatcher) and another (the podcaster.)
This more or less priviledged and protected by common carrier rules of law.
The way the transmission/transaction and state machine runs is:
a) material is recorded/produced and uploaded to a server b) receive a request for material [repeat once per podcatcher] c) send a copy of the from the server to the catcher
(a smart catcher can recover/resume from interuption)
Payment, collection and the remaining commercialization mechanisms are external to this and use/require their own state machines. These may be mediated through the use of the 'net/web but they are entirely separate.
Also note that advertising/promotion, the use RSS for 'catching up on missed episodes', various models for financing or contracting for the production of content, also lie outside of the podcast/podcast.
The abuse of the 'net's inherent 'content cast/catch' nature as a medium for broad or even narrow casting will require an enormous bandwidth requirement and a capability for buffering and streaming that I doubt will ever survive an encounter with reality.
Streaming of content from transmitter to reciever places certain demands on and makes certain assumptions about the nature of the medium. Even at that, it does NOT degrade gracefully, if we can use the term when referring to a 'snow' filled screen. Digital broadcasting is quite annoying because it stops and starts randomly and chopppily and requires more focus from us to 'fill in the lost frames.'
Much like digital TV 'over the air' can only work when and where you have a direct line of sight between transmitter and receiver. It was frankly a waste of my money. "Its foggy tonight? Well, what have I got to read?"
Someone had an idea from a lab demo of a digital TV set and said "Lets make it all work this way." But reality is that the conditions outside the lab it impossible to deliver on.
Likewise the idea of using the 'net as a broadcasting medium will become less appealign the more its is used as such.
Slashdot Mirror
This entire argument is a tax scheme by the telcos to screw more money out of the gummmint and out of our pocket.
The argument makes no friggin sense.
For example, the iTMS sells EVERYTHING via pod and vod catching.
The fidelity of the music & videos is dependent on the bits I play on my computer, it is NOT dependent on the speed of the line at all.
A faster line would get me nothing.
A faster computer wouldn't get me much either, except for being able to multi-task better.
And they have all that dark-fibre buried in the ground and NO fibre to the home.
Guess what we were charged for in the first place? Fibre to the home. And now they want us to pay again for their failure to deliver after we've paid already.
Well guess again Telco.
The line speed to my home is adequate.
With pod & vod catching, the line speed doesn't really matter anymore.
We'll never hear from (or of) them again.
Never has victory left such a taste of ashes in your mouth.
(Yet Another RIAA Tactic Doomed To Failure)
.. well EVERYTHING, they have fought tooth and nail against every innovation which ultimately brought them more money.
You are of course aware that the RIAA has been against EVERY reprographic innovation since the invention of carbon paper.
From the invention of the player piano, to radio, to the jukebox, to xerography, to the cassette player, to the MP3, to
These Luddites are incapable of thinking of how to monetize anything. Their knee-jerk reaction is to stomp it out of existence, what ever it might be. (What do you want? They're lawyers. The only thing they can do is sue and try to get laws passed so they can sue.)
What they are waiting for is for somebody to PAY THEM NOT TO SUE. All it takes is enough money, anyone with seep enough pockets will do, and they will do what the almighty dollar says.
They have been proving their far-sightedness since the 18th century. They have opposed EVERY technological innovation, without exception. If they would have got their way, we would be playing our palor-pianos by gas light (while dying from every preventable disease from syphilis to eating spoiled meat.)
Can someone please figure out a way to make money from technology and join them (to make them provide a united front, declare 'victory' and NOT fight amongst themselves,) OR just pay them to STFU?
Bill Gates could do it single handedly. Steve Jobs did it with the iTMS. All it takes is money or a will to go around them like the podsafe music network.
Tell us more.
.1" resolution. It uses any image that can be 'back projected' onto its surface.
I am fascinated by the use of this. The resolution sesme to be limited to 600x800. It might seem like enough, but it isn't though unless I could scroll a reactive 'landscape' under it.
The project at http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/ is just a reactive screen with
Quite apart from the "Minority Report" flat-screen object/relationship presentation level aspect, it ccould be combined with another project at the Media Research Lab of New York University which traces 'social networks,' and labelling the 'rays' between objects could be used to support multiple Relationships/connections between object instances.
That would make navigation of a complex database a great deal easier, either at the schema level, with the addition/deletion of Objects and Relationships, or at the instance level with the creation/deletion;connection/disconnection of instances.
I know that some people would like to see the spammers go to jail but they hide and try to maintain a low profile. Besides, they're only in it for the bucks.
But attack the 'penis pill pushers' who hire these spammers, ridicule will do for a start, and they'll stop wasting their money on spammers.
That will nip the problem in the bud...
a non-creative job. And that is fine for 99.9% of humanity 99.9% of the time.
Success is so personal elusive and fleeting that if you don't happen to use the same metrics as everyone else, you can be a success and not even be noticed by anyone else.
Jane Siberry is a prime example. She is a success writing an album for her dog if her dog happens to like it. If it doesn't sell, so what? She wasn't writing it for your wallet.
absolute shit.
Most of the 'meteoric rise' is due to the facts that
1) rap is extremely CHEAP to produce,
2) most rappers are talentless youth,
3) most rap audiences are in love with the throb of the bass line,
4) it helps if they pay no attention to the lyrics.
There's the occasional shooting of some unknown, who is immediately elevated to stardom, or some hanger-on, to keep the name of the studio/record company in the 'news' and to make some buzz with the advertisers.
As long as it fills in the gaps between the commercials, you're caught in the crap trap with rap.
I have permission from a performer, in writing, to put some of his music on my htp:///msb.libsyn.com podcast media site but the album I just bought/downloaded from the ITMS doesn't let me convert it from a protected AAC to an MP3.
Guess what podcasting needs? Right.
I'm going to have to use someone else or he's going to have to send me the original files as an MP3 (Thank Heavens nobody records to tape anymore.)
If SongBird could replicate the iTMS experience of looking for cinema, music, video and podcast as media from anywhere on the 'net that would encode their music as an XML enclosure in addition to the actual media file, DRMed or not, it could be a front-end and generate business for ANY store.
Just by replicating the MP3 tags, you would be able to set up a store. Of course processing of payments would be something your store would actually have to do.
This means any indy artists with CD burners, label printers and PayPal accounts just got themselves a way in as powerful as the 'majors' with their DRMed content and their current lock on the market.
As for the 'major' labels, it means that they can charge as much as they want for their music, which is a major sticking point with Apple.
Hopefully it will be a humbling experience when they suddenly have competition on a equal footing from the very artists that they dismiss as 'non commercial' (meaning that they can't generate enough of a revenue stream from to support their continuing mismanagement.)
But it won't be more that a commercial outlet until the customers/consumers can contract for the content they want.
The 'pull-side' of the market place is currently ignored and grossly underserved by a 'push-side' economy; despite staging protests against the distribution channels which cancel the contracts for the content consumers/viewers/listeners want because they figure that they can maximize profit with some other content.
As long as the 'push-side' can push aside the considerations of the 'pull-side' we're never going to get what we want.
Business, not artistic, considerations will always interfere and bring us whatever crap they hope we'll fall for.
Don't like a Brittany Spears?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced a Brittany Spears, instead of what YOU need/want to hear.
Don't like the latest bal, uh, block-buster?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced the latest drek, instead of what YOU need/want to see.
Don't like the latest Danielle Steele?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced the latest Danielle Steele, instead of what YOU need/want to read about.
THAT is when the revolution will happen.
Now let's go to Nerdo and Monkey Boy's house and show them some broken windows.
This article is pure BS because I seem to remember something like 15 digits of precition on either side of the decimal point (999999999999999.999999999999999). These machine and their algorithms are PRECISE. There isn't any rounding float error because they don't really round. So its not the software or the hardware.
They do segregate some accounts because of the sheer volume of transactions but the database systems and transaction handling systems are on separate 'farms'
of machines so this article seems to be utter fabrication.
Need I say more!
Basically, you have to say "Fine you say we've violated your patent." The courts are backing you.
Now how do you propose to handle the transition?
We'll be shut down as of .
If you're not up and completely able to pick up the service seamleassly as of , you've essentially told all of your customers: "Oops. RIM were supposed to blink, roll over, and shove lots of lovely money at us. We never intended it to go this far. Sorry."
What is your plan for taking it from us? Do you have a capital plan? Resources? Communication bandwidth allocated, etc..
I suggest that until you come up with such a plan, and not just to sell it to somnebody else, we continue operating exactly as we have without having to waste money on your lawsuit.
Then RIM comes off sounding good, maybe able to win for losing and fuck the consequences.
And the US Patent Office get a deserved black eye from the lawyers who just realised that being better is more important than being first, or even being "right."
They would have got a 'F' on hydrodynamics or something and Math was utterly beyond them so they get their revenge by screwing with a history of incremental improvements (you're gonna get sued,) or revolutionary ideas (Okay, there aren't any revolutionary ideas... Really.)
You end up 'needing' layers of lawyers to cushion you from the blows of other lawyers.
Shakespeare had it right: "First thing we do," says one of the followers of the rebel Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part II, "is kill all the lawyers."
This is a series that just wont die.
Why should it? People are dying for it. Its got the same buzz that StarTrek had before it got screwed up with bad writing.
Let them find funding and NOT struggle with the networks for the show's distribution.
Let them shoot it in HD-TV and podcast it themselves.
I'd download it directly from their servers via the iTMS for $5.99 an episode.
Wanna bet that the next Disney Pixar feature is made available in EXACTLY that way.
Wanna bet that 'straight to DVD' features go straight to podcast instead?
Why pay for even DVD production right when you can get the money right out of consumer's pockets?
That how you make money. By cutting out the middle man.
No theatre to pay for.
No film 'canning' and reproducing to pay for.
No ad-men to pimp out your show with product placement to 'maximize the revenue stream.'
That's what I'm talking about...
I just love the way the stars in their eyes fade to be replaced by the circles and bags under where the glow was.
Congratulations. You're beginning to wake the fuck up.
Rule 1: Companies need to generate profits. Cash flows from the customers pockets to the stock holders pockets. In order to maximize profits, there must be as little spent on things that are known in accounting circles as expenses.
There is no rule 2, only legal complience issues.
Training is an expense. Training is expendable.
Hell, you are an expense. If you weren't being paid so much, or at all, the stock holders would be delighted.
Hint: When ever you hear somebody say "Our employees are our greatest asset" they're lying, or they don't understand basic accounting, or they're slavers and illegal after-market organ transplanters.
If management doesn't seem interested, its because they aren't. All the arguments about it being counter-productive and costing more in the end don't matter.
See rule 1.
Your prices are way too low. Try buying a school book you'll pass out.
to OWN their own tunes.
If Apple and the iTMS die tomorrow the iPods will still play and there are plenty of other sources for MP3s.
With Microsoft's approach, if you're late with the credit card payment, there's just wind blowing between in your ears.
While that approach might work for someone who just plays elevator music, in elevators, it truely bites the big one for any music fans.
Gates doesn't understand the first thing about what Apple has done and why its meshed in so well with Joe Sixpack, his wife, his sons and daughters, and what they want from a portable music player.
He'd probably try to shove Windows in it and tell them they should WANT to edit a Word document.
who are best compared to kings sitting in chairs on the beach commanding the tide not to rise.
It was entirely predictable too.
Music is a pre-hominid, semi-simian, refexive action/reaction. It demands instant gratification. In the internet age, that means music delivered over the ether.
Because of the medium, the scatter/gather packet distribution, the "priviledged communication" nature of the channel, the end-to-end control, podcasters are going to eat the lunch of the broadcastering RIAA represented.
The fact that podsafe music is incredibly more effective at getting people's music out there cheaply and without requiring compromise by the artists, that the only lazy or stupid people will sign up with them.
The RIAA will go away once enough of their members go broke, like the ticks on the necks of the vampire bats that are feeding off of the artists.
The Pod Safe Music Network, Pod Cast Delivery Network (representing growing legions of 'indy' artists) and iTunes Music Store (representing the drying up pool of major label 'signed' artists and 'aggregating podcasts.)
WE the interested parties WANT to watch FireFly.
Would we pay $9.95 to see it?
Would we pay $4.95 to see it?
Would we pay $2.95 to see it?
How many of us are there?
I'm NOT in favour of then taking a chance on us. I want to make sure that the economic situation is in response to reality (for a change.)
How long can a podcast episode be available, realistically? (I know that its just taking up a few gigs on a server, and that the cost of storage is dropping and so is the cost of transmission but still.)
How many downloads can we expect? (iPod DRMed style, you own the content and you can watch it as often as you want and whenever you want.)
How long can we drum up interest in these shows?
Once we can answer these questions and back the answers with some statistics, we can get the shows produced.
This is the beginning of a viewer led revolution.
After a while people tend to suffer from 'statistics burn-out' and become innumerate.
I think a taste test (and a tetanus shot) should be an option.
is routed?
Does that mean that any packets routed over BellSouth lines can't cross in or out of the Bell South system without paying a toll? (There goes the 'inter' in 'internet.')
This smacks of Balkanization as surely as if they'd put up border guards and tariff/toll booths. There will be a huge area of the country that suddenly goes 'dark' as these guys put up their system in place.
But BellSouth isn't a government and has no legal right to act as a government.
Their restriction of trade will cut off millions of customers &| suppliers from doing business together regardless of which state is involved.
The parties will be forced to resort to cable and we can predict an huge and total defection of their current subscriber base.
This will involve just about every level of government and every agency. (How would we ever have heard of hurricane Katrina and been able to mount any responses if the model of the world had shrunk down to a BellSouth and non-BellSouth world?)
This is tantamount to BellSouth tossing out their common carrier status.
Then the federal and state agencies involved would have to go elsewhere for their service while renogatiating their contracts (or more
likely abandoning them for their new carriers.)
just like the Taliban used bands of roving youths in trucks and violence to enforce the anti-music fatwah. (If it brought anybody any pleasure, mullah Omar would issue a fatwah against it in a second...)
They were more effective. Afghanistan was a much quieter place than before or since.
If you're going to repress something, use the appropriate mechanism.
We need roving bands of Amish youth going around the country terrorising all users of technology.
The model for popdcasting ('net delivery for content) is a private communication between a private individual entity (the podcatcher) and another (the podcaster.)
This more or less priviledged and protected by common carrier rules of law.
The way the transmission/transaction and state machine runs is:
a) material is recorded/produced and uploaded to a server
b) receive a request for material [repeat once per podcatcher]
c) send a copy of the from the server to the catcher
(a smart catcher can recover/resume from interuption)
Payment, collection and the remaining commercialization mechanisms are external to this and use/require their own state machines. These may be mediated through the use of the 'net/web but they are entirely separate.
Also note that advertising/promotion, the use RSS for 'catching up on missed episodes', various models for financing or contracting for the production of content, also lie outside of the podcast/podcast.
The abuse of the 'net's inherent 'content cast/catch' nature as a medium for broad or even narrow casting will require an enormous bandwidth requirement and a capability for buffering and streaming that I doubt will ever survive an encounter with reality.
Streaming of content from transmitter to reciever places certain demands on and makes certain assumptions about the nature of the medium. Even at that, it does NOT degrade gracefully, if we can use the term when referring to a 'snow' filled screen. Digital broadcasting is quite annoying because it stops and starts randomly and chopppily and requires more focus from us to 'fill in the lost frames.'
Much like digital TV 'over the air' can only work when and where you have a direct line of sight between transmitter and receiver. It was frankly a waste of my money. "Its foggy tonight? Well, what have I got to read?"
Someone had an idea from a lab demo of a digital TV set and said "Lets make it all work this way." But reality is that the conditions outside the lab it impossible to deliver on.
Likewise the idea of using the 'net as a broadcasting medium will become less appealign the more its is used as such.
OLE (like who uses it, really?)
There's lots of vapourware out there but M$s is amongst the best products announced, and Never to be delivered.