Funny, yes! But Insightful? Maybe the modder forgot that neuralizers are fictitious devices. Perhaps he or she is the victim of a neuralizer episode. Maybe I've forgotten that they're real. In that case, maybe I'm the victim of... oooh, pretty light! Lemme see, lemme see!...
Not to mention that it sidesteps the CSI plot gimmick of "Hey, you thirsty? Want a drink?... I'll just take your glass..." --> *DNA testing*. That's the most drama many episodes get!
I spot upscaling DVD players for 50 bucks or so quite often in Ontario, I bet prices are near wherever you are (although maybe you're looking for features that these don't have). But here at least, I don't see HD-DVD players selling that cheaply in retail.
The thing about Quantum Leap was that you could only leap within your own time - you couldn't before your beginning or after your ending (thus avoiding all that "grandfather paradox" mojo). Fans of Quantum Leap would be especially confused it aired before it's start time, or after it's end time!
They spend lots of money promoting artists, encouraging them, and risking their all important finances (they're a corporation after all) in doing so.
It may well be the most gut-wrenching, life destroying, and expensive *encouragement* the artist will endure. Too often, the artist winds up below broke, even while the label profits on the investment. There are record labels and impresarios who genuinely care, who work as partners, but they're a rare breed. Their influence isn't felt at the head offices of the large corporate labels - they work for the "indie" labels. Some of them sell a lot of records, too. True North, Arts & Crafts are a couple of the Canadian ones that I can think of. (There's an interview with the co-founder of Arts & Crafts here: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/strategy/article.jsp?content=20071019_154318_5700)
If you're already a winner, the guys with the big guns are with you every step of the way... if you're not, the label doesn't risk as much as you do, but they make a bigger noise. As an artist, you are expected to pay most of that money back - if they don't get it, it's because you went destitute trying and/or left music entirely. Your not taking the label's fair share - the label was already taking more than their fair share. Many, many contracts still deduct for breakage on digital downloads, FFS. No, many labels aren't out for their "fair share" - like a lot of corporations, they're out for every dam* penny they can get, whether the demonize the customer or screw the artist to get it.
The future of the recording label's business is going to be in the service of the artist - as a business manager, consultant, and agent. Not as the purveyors - although the end of the distribution for profit model is farther off than they like to complain it is. They'll help artists with (and take a larger percentage of) organizing live shows, merchandising, and boutique content (digital downloads of live shows are currently quite popular). Maybe we'll *actually* see record labels nurture and develop their artists/partners again. And, maybe we'll see the decline of the superstar, and see a return to the journeyman musician. I think that overall, that would be better for music, musicians, and the fans too.
From the article linked above:
CB: Charlatans have announced they are going to give away their next album for free, and just make money off touring. Is that a viable business model for bands? JR: On some levels it is. It definitely means that you're going to have to always be touring. And what we're seeing happen in the live market is everyone, on some level is realizing this, and so the traffic and the choice in terms of what concerts you go to as a music fan are getting broader and broader. You open up the street weeklies in Toronto and the amount of concerts every night is getting limitless. Every club's full every night. Lots of great bands coming through. So that's what I mean about the music business being healthy, but you can only go to so many shows.
CB: It seems like a fan's paradise. JR: Absolutely. You have so many options. And, because you have so many options, no single band gets a large swath of the pie.
Well, I'm willing to bet that a Ferrari mechanic would charge a lot more money for his time. Partly because he'd need to have bought a license from Ferrari to allow him to reverse engineer (repair) the copyrighted works (engine). There could still be a business model. And some yutz would probably replicate a gun and steal your Ferrari rather than photocopy his own...
But what would the money be for? Land? With this mythical technology, food, clothes, luxury and anything else you could think of would be plentiful. You'd need to figure out how to control the "where to put it" - but there would be all those abandoned stores. People wouldn't need to make/work to eat anymore. We wouldn't need stores anymore, and we wouldn't even need storage - just bust whatever your using down to it's component atoms again, and re-replicate it, brand new, when you wanted it again.
The only finite I can think of would be physical space, and by association, travel. Everybody's gotta be somewhere (I'm replicating me a trillion dollar sub), and we can't have all of idle North America going to Vegas at the same time! Would we gain a new currency in land rights? Travel credits?
Would they still sue you when they can have all the diamonds they could possibly imagine?
What if we could conceive of a new material - a stronger, lighter polymer ideal for building towers miles high, say, but didn't know how to concoct it. What if we could program the molecular formula into the front end of the replicator and invent new chemicals/substances/materials? Or... what if we could replicate anything but the energy consumption was enormous? Say... what a Coke bottling plan uses in a day, to replicate a bottle of Coke? What if the replicator was the size of a bottling plant? Now it's a controllable resource, and we can't all have one in the living room.
If this appeared without precursor, I believe those with the money/power would, out of fear, do there best to thwart it, clinging to established norms. It's so imaginary a technology, though, that by the time it comes (and if), society would have already gone through so many changes that we just might take it in stride.
Accuracy is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST... (paraphrasing Frank Zappa)
The update reads: note that if Microsoft is claiming that there is no protection for the ideas rather than the expression of the ideas, then this is correct, though it's true for all countries since copyright protects the expression, not the ideas themselves.
I have a fairly dim memory of this story, but it's become a Christmas tradition to tease my Dad with it. One year, I received for Christmas an 18 wheeler truck set. I think the only custom pieces were the windshield and the hinge piece that connected the cab and the trailer. I was, I've been told, so excited I couldn't stop waving my arms.
My Dad and my Uncle opened the instruction book and assembled the truck - I wasn't allowed to interfere. I remember hovering over them and making a helluva fuss about it. Then, once they had built the truck without me, they started pushing the truck around the carpet and didn't let me play with it until my mother stopped laughing enough to whip them back to the couch.
The history of kabuki began in 1603 when Okuni, a miko (young woman in the service of a Shinto shrine) of Izumo Taisha, began performing a new style of dance drama in the dry riverbeds of Kyoto. Female performers played both men and women in comic playlets about ordinary life. The style was instantly popular; Okuni was even asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of such success, rival troupes quickly formed, and kabuki was born as ensemble dance and drama was performed by women--a form very different from its modern incarnation. Much of its appeal in this era was due to the ribald, suggestive performances put on by many troupes; this appeal was further augmented by the fact that the performers were often also available for prostitution.[1] For this reason, kabuki was also written "" (singing and dancing prostitute) during the Edo Period.
In Kabuki theater's nascent period, women were the only performers in the plays. Soon women began attracting the wrong types of audiences and gaining too much attention from men. This type of attention raised some eyebrows and officials felt as if women were degrading the art of kabuki theatre. In 1629 the theatrical appearance of women in the performance of kabuki theatre was banned. When the ban of women in kabuki theatre was passed many thought of it to be very odd because women began Kabuki theater.
Since kabuki was already so popular, young male actors, known as wakashu, took over after women were banned from performing. Young male boys began taking the role of women due to there youthfulness and higher pitched voices in comparison to that of a grown male. Along with the change in the performers' gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Their performances were equally ribald, however, and they too were available for prostitution (also to male customers). Audiences frequently became rowdy, and brawls occasionally broke out, sometimes over the favors of a particularly handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban young male actors in 1652.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki Apparently, the problem was not the self-control of the women (or of the young men), but of the audience.
While Christmas shopping, I saw some software (called Movies on Wii as I remember, I was at Toys R Us) that converted files for playback from an SD card. While searching for that online, I found this software - http://www.riverfold.com/software/wiitransfer/ - it uses a Mac as the server, and the Wii as the client. (Or an SD card.) There is also Orb for the PC - http://www.orb.com/orb/, and Wii Video 9 http://www.redkawa.com/videoconverters/wiivideo9/. Those are both free, I think.
I've not used any of it, and so I can't make any informed suggestions.
It may seem like an unrepresentative, contrived example, but it isn't. The numbers are dramatic, (rounded up for effect, I believe) but not unheard of, especially in the context of a bidding war. Even with those numbers it still holds true. If you're an American Idol winner or similar pop robot, the numbers are even worse. Maybe it sounds like a contrived example because it should be.
I don't see where she said that the fictional band lost there writing and performance royalties, but the publishing royalties (and future royalties of derivative works) are kept by the label. The publishing share is typically 50% of royalties. It's rare that the masters (and control over publishing) return to the artist. It happens most often when an artist hits superstar status, if they negotiate for it. Some artists have been re-recording old material specifically to have better access to publishing revenue from films, commercials, and other sources http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/arts/music/18old.html?pagewanted=all. But for the great majority, once you've written it the label owns it and controls it forever. There's even legal foundation for a suit if you write material while under contract, keep it, and release it later for a different medium or label.
They own your rights throughout the Universe, anyway. Just in case.
There is change happening, and some labels share the risks and rewards better with the artists than these examples describe. But the majors are still lumbering along like drunken, hungry dinosaurs.
I prefer Steve Albini's old piece - it's a shorter read - but it makes the same points. http://www.negativland.com/albini.html To paraphrase his last line, some of my friends are indeed already this fucked. And if you're interested in the homework, you may appreciate Janis Ian's viewpoint as well: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html. She talks more about downloading than contracts, but she makes the same points in the end. (And it's topical to the Radiohead story.)
Slashdot Mirror
Watchit, or I'll raise my dipthong to ya.
Posting to undo my accidental and improper moderation "click".
I haven't read this fully.
...
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/ge/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070223005120&newsLang=en&ndmConfigId=1001109&vnsId=681
Also
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-hei-bulb.htm
Funny, yes! But Insightful? Maybe the modder forgot that neuralizers are fictitious devices. Perhaps he or she is the victim of a neuralizer episode. Maybe I've forgotten that they're real. In that case, maybe I'm the victim of ... oooh, pretty light! Lemme see, lemme see! ...
I'm sorry, I've forgotten my point.
Not to mention that it sidesteps the CSI plot gimmick of "Hey, you thirsty? Want a drink? ... I'll just take your glass ..." --> *DNA testing*. That's the most drama many episodes get!
The use of ZOMG!! in 1999 would have been more prescient than the rest of the patent.
I spot upscaling DVD players for 50 bucks or so quite often in Ontario, I bet prices are near wherever you are (although maybe you're looking for features that these don't have). But here at least, I don't see HD-DVD players selling that cheaply in retail.
Yet!
Only four out of five of them.
The thing about Quantum Leap was that you could only leap within your own time - you couldn't before your beginning or after your ending (thus avoiding all that "grandfather paradox" mojo). Fans of Quantum Leap would be especially confused it aired before it's start time, or after it's end time!
It may well be the most gut-wrenching, life destroying, and expensive *encouragement* the artist will endure. Too often, the artist winds up below broke, even while the label profits on the investment. There are record labels and impresarios who genuinely care, who work as partners, but they're a rare breed. Their influence isn't felt at the head offices of the large corporate labels - they work for the "indie" labels. Some of them sell a lot of records, too. True North, Arts & Crafts are a couple of the Canadian ones that I can think of. (There's an interview with the co-founder of Arts & Crafts here: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/strategy/article.jsp?content=20071019_154318_5700)
If you're already a winner, the guys with the big guns are with you every step of the way
The future of the recording label's business is going to be in the service of the artist - as a business manager, consultant, and agent. Not as the purveyors - although the end of the distribution for profit model is farther off than they like to complain it is. They'll help artists with (and take a larger percentage of) organizing live shows, merchandising, and boutique content (digital downloads of live shows are currently quite popular). Maybe we'll *actually* see record labels nurture and develop their artists/partners again. And, maybe we'll see the decline of the superstar, and see a return to the journeyman musician. I think that overall, that would be better for music, musicians, and the fans too.
From the article linked above: CB: Charlatans have announced they are going to give away their next album for free, and just make money off touring. Is that a viable business model for bands?
JR: On some levels it is. It definitely means that you're going to have to always be touring. And what we're seeing happen in the live market is everyone, on some level is realizing this, and so the traffic and the choice in terms of what concerts you go to as a music fan are getting broader and broader. You open up the street weeklies in Toronto and the amount of concerts every night is getting limitless. Every club's full every night. Lots of great bands coming through. So that's what I mean about the music business being healthy, but you can only go to so many shows.
CB: It seems like a fan's paradise.
JR: Absolutely. You have so many options. And, because you have so many options, no single band gets a large swath of the pie.
Well, I'm willing to bet that a Ferrari mechanic would charge a lot more money for his time. Partly because he'd need to have bought a license from Ferrari to allow him to reverse engineer (repair) the copyrighted works (engine). There could still be a business model. And some yutz would probably replicate a gun and steal your Ferrari rather than photocopy his own ...
... what if we could replicate anything but the energy consumption was enormous? Say ... what a Coke bottling plan uses in a day, to replicate a bottle of Coke? What if the replicator was the size of a bottling plant? Now it's a controllable resource, and we can't all have one in the living room.
But what would the money be for? Land? With this mythical technology, food, clothes, luxury and anything else you could think of would be plentiful. You'd need to figure out how to control the "where to put it" - but there would be all those abandoned stores. People wouldn't need to make/work to eat anymore. We wouldn't need stores anymore, and we wouldn't even need storage - just bust whatever your using down to it's component atoms again, and re-replicate it, brand new, when you wanted it again.
The only finite I can think of would be physical space, and by association, travel. Everybody's gotta be somewhere (I'm replicating me a trillion dollar sub), and we can't have all of idle North America going to Vegas at the same time! Would we gain a new currency in land rights? Travel credits?
Would they still sue you when they can have all the diamonds they could possibly imagine?
What if we could conceive of a new material - a stronger, lighter polymer ideal for building towers miles high, say, but didn't know how to concoct it. What if we could program the molecular formula into the front end of the replicator and invent new chemicals/substances/materials? Or
If this appeared without precursor, I believe those with the money/power would, out of fear, do there best to thwart it, clinging to established norms. It's so imaginary a technology, though, that by the time it comes (and if), society would have already gone through so many changes that we just might take it in stride.
Go to Ben's, have the smoked meat sammich. Then, you'll understand. Or any of a dozen other things, Montreal is a fabulous place to be.
Accuracy is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST... (paraphrasing Frank Zappa)
The update reads: note that if Microsoft is claiming that there is no protection for the ideas rather than the expression of the ideas, then this is correct, though it's true for all countries since copyright protects the expression, not the ideas themselves.
I have a fairly dim memory of this story, but it's become a Christmas tradition to tease my Dad with it. One year, I received for Christmas an 18 wheeler truck set. I think the only custom pieces were the windshield and the hinge piece that connected the cab and the trailer. I was, I've been told, so excited I couldn't stop waving my arms. My Dad and my Uncle opened the instruction book and assembled the truck - I wasn't allowed to interfere. I remember hovering over them and making a helluva fuss about it. Then, once they had built the truck without me, they started pushing the truck around the carpet and didn't let me play with it until my mother stopped laughing enough to whip them back to the couch.
If the human race, in millions of years, still has any use whatsoever for hats, I will be too pleased with my incredible longevity to notice.
The history of kabuki began in 1603 when Okuni, a miko (young woman in the service of a Shinto shrine) of Izumo Taisha, began performing a new style of dance drama in the dry riverbeds of Kyoto. Female performers played both men and women in comic playlets about ordinary life. The style was instantly popular; Okuni was even asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of such success, rival troupes quickly formed, and kabuki was born as ensemble dance and drama was performed by women--a form very different from its modern incarnation. Much of its appeal in this era was due to the ribald, suggestive performances put on by many troupes; this appeal was further augmented by the fact that the performers were often also available for prostitution.[1] For this reason, kabuki was also written "" (singing and dancing prostitute) during the Edo Period.
In Kabuki theater's nascent period, women were the only performers in the plays. Soon women began attracting the wrong types of audiences and gaining too much attention from men. This type of attention raised some eyebrows and officials felt as if women were degrading the art of kabuki theatre. In 1629 the theatrical appearance of women in the performance of kabuki theatre was banned. When the ban of women in kabuki theatre was passed many thought of it to be very odd because women began Kabuki theater.
Since kabuki was already so popular, young male actors, known as wakashu, took over after women were banned from performing. Young male boys began taking the role of women due to there youthfulness and higher pitched voices in comparison to that of a grown male. Along with the change in the performers' gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Their performances were equally ribald, however, and they too were available for prostitution (also to male customers). Audiences frequently became rowdy, and brawls occasionally broke out, sometimes over the favors of a particularly handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban young male actors in 1652.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki Apparently, the problem was not the self-control of the women (or of the young men), but of the audience.While Christmas shopping, I saw some software (called Movies on Wii as I remember, I was at Toys R Us) that converted files for playback from an SD card. While searching for that online, I found this software - http://www.riverfold.com/software/wiitransfer/ - it uses a Mac as the server, and the Wii as the client. (Or an SD card.) There is also Orb for the PC - http://www.orb.com/orb/, and Wii Video 9 http://www.redkawa.com/videoconverters/wiivideo9/. Those are both free, I think. I've not used any of it, and so I can't make any informed suggestions.
It may seem like an unrepresentative, contrived example, but it isn't. The numbers are dramatic, (rounded up for effect, I believe) but not unheard of, especially in the context of a bidding war. Even with those numbers it still holds true. If you're an American Idol winner or similar pop robot, the numbers are even worse. Maybe it sounds like a contrived example because it should be.
I don't see where she said that the fictional band lost there writing and performance royalties, but the publishing royalties (and future royalties of derivative works) are kept by the label. The publishing share is typically 50% of royalties. It's rare that the masters (and control over publishing) return to the artist. It happens most often when an artist hits superstar status, if they negotiate for it. Some artists have been re-recording old material specifically to have better access to publishing revenue from films, commercials, and other sources http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/arts/music/18old.html?pagewanted=all. But for the great majority, once you've written it the label owns it and controls it forever. There's even legal foundation for a suit if you write material while under contract, keep it, and release it later for a different medium or label.
They own your rights throughout the Universe, anyway. Just in case.
There is change happening, and some labels share the risks and rewards better with the artists than these examples describe. But the majors are still lumbering along like drunken, hungry dinosaurs.
I prefer Steve Albini's old piece - it's a shorter read - but it makes the same points. http://www.negativland.com/albini.html To paraphrase his last line, some of my friends are indeed already this fucked. And if you're interested in the homework, you may appreciate Janis Ian's viewpoint as well: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html. She talks more about downloading than contracts, but she makes the same points in the end. (And it's topical to the Radiohead story.)