Or if you don't want to destroy the audio quality perhaps a little audio dithering would do the trick. Personally I'm fond of using the Crane Song dither when mastering audio.
In reality I'd love this stuff to work. But I don't see it happening. It's just not an easy problem to solve - they will only catch the stupid/lazy criminals.
While I know my copy of XP is the real deal as I bought it off the shelf at a box store, I have something loaded on my machine that doesn't get along with genuine advantage update - and that update blows up midway through install. Thanks Microsoft. I didn't need those security updates anyhow, right?
Well it IS true. Gates suggested that people not buy electronic music since DRM is broken, and said people should just buy CDs and rip their own music. When he did it, it was a stunning moment of candor. Jobs only did it after dozens of recent editorials condemned the way that Apple is benefiting by the FairPlay virtual lock in to the iPod player platform.
The scary part is the DRM is built into the foundation of Vista - even as installer programs are only allowed to run with full admin priviledges. Which to me sounds like all of Vista's security is about catering to the major media companies. It would be more jawdropping if Gates addressed this.
I wonder what measures are in place to prevent abuse of this by non-owners of the materials. For example say I don't like what you wrote about me - could I tell Google that I own the content, please take it out of your cache.
I'm fine with the idea that people should be able to say who does what with their original web content - but there are simple technical ways for them to prevent caching. So really this seems to just open the door to abuse ala the DMCA and Michael Crook.
This is one of those cases where the industry itself stand to shoot itself in the foot. Arguably a better solution is to allow a legal scheme to pay a royalty to use a song in certain contexts (samples, mixtapes, and other creative re-purposing scenarios). While you can license the right to perform a song, no such similar scheme exists (outside of radio and music venues) to allow royalties to be paid for use of things like samples. Because each needs to be negotiated one by one, the legal encumbrance becomes so great that sometimes going the "For Promotional Use Only" route is the only way to go. While this is clearly copyright infringement, it also is often a creative act onto itself.
While the music industry is hardly ready to embrace this (and indeed looks to be going the opposite way with laws they are pushing regulating internet radio) arguably reform in this area would open new models for everyone in the music industry to profit.
Well the "without supervision" comment points to something that is key in all of this. First, no parent can really prevent their kid from seeing things the parent might not like. So parents must be there to provide values to their children so that they grow into adults that can understand the world around them and learn to make their own judgements.
I would rather have kids see things like the hatred that often sits in the hearts of many of the most impassioned supporters of the anti-imigration movement - and see how they often cloak this hatred with political sophistry. But it takes parents and educators to help them see how ideas are marketed in deceptive ways. Seeing this and understanding these nuances is an important developmental skill. We can pretend that we live in a perfect society where we all respect each other's difference, but the reality is that hatred exists and the people doing the hate are a mixed lot themselves.
But a lot of parents, educators, community and religious leaders sadly aren't up to the task...
I've had the Chicago USPS lose entire sets of mail at once - when your credit card bills and mortgage are in there, you tend to be unappy. I've had letters that were correctly addressed to me clearly and correctly returned to sender as "no such address." People are stealing checks from the mail and rewriting them to take money. When a package comes for me, I can expect to wait in line as long as 1/2 hour to get it - when there are only 8 or 9 people in line ahead of me.
The USPS is a wreck. After the second time that they lost my bills I decided that it was time to go to autopay on my bills. I don't care about the stamp. I walk by a post office every day. So cost and convenience were never the issues.
The issue is - will my mail get to it's destination on time... or ever?
The biggest showstopped with most compressed and DRM formats is that they add gaps into the record. This messes up everything from DJ Mixes to Mars Volta to Joe Jackson's "Night and Day."
I'd buy online if I could get non-DRM'ed FLAC files. But outside of a few innovative artists like Coil, few are going this way.
These are all good points. Add in the mess your code becomes when, rather than using good OOAD, you instead do everything in proceedural code (even Java stored procs affect a proceedural style).
Neat separation of layers for UI, Business and Data Access is pretty much manditory for any large scale application - anything else and you are creating unmaintainable, unreusable, spagetti that will not work well in an SOA. Stored Procs won't get you there.
Learn to bind your variables or use Hibernate or use any one of a zillion other techniques besides using stored procs. Don't use them for anything except simple CRUD operations.
I doubt they can charge a lot and see it get used a lot. Frankly, an ad driven site that actually provides accurate content without all the malware would be great and might do well for them and for the songwriters (yes these folks will potentially get money, especially the more recent ones since agreements have gotten better for them). Tying it into Gracenote's services would be fine for most consumers, but not me (I'm a FreeDB kinda guy). Trying to charge a monthly fee for this would probably fail and per use micro payments doesn't seem like a winner either.
The Fight Club phenomenon existed before the book or the movie (ask the Author as he, like me, participated in some of these gatherings).
But there is a far better alternative. Take up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or Boxing or Submission wrestling or any one of a zillion other MMA disciplines. The MMA world is flourishing thanks to the UFC, there are lots of places to study. You learn technique and you spar hard - and you do it in an environment that is safer. The fights are far more intense because everyone knows what they are doing - so they are more satisfying and you learn techniques that will help you hold your own should you ever need to.
I study at the local Gracie Jiu Jitsu academy We still get the broken ribs and the bloody lips and noses and bruised ribs - or worse stuff like torn ligaments. These things happen in other sports as well (skiing anyone?) But you are actualy learning to fight and ultimately you are learning how to spar safely as well.
The guys you spar with are far tougher - but you will learn to stand your own and that is far more rewarding that some of the silliness in these backyard battles.
It's good to see Mad Mike keeping true to his vision. Since the time he first released "Message to the Majors" a lot had changed in the industry - much of it for the worse.
For a lot of us in underground music scenes like techno, rap and punk taking control of the means of production and distribution has been a huge goal - and slowly technology has enabled that vision. DRM schemes run contrary to this spirit and stores like iTunes may be hip, but they aren't nearly as benevolent as their fans believe.
Hopefully we'll see more underground music stores like this. While it pains me to see my neighborhood record store go, if that is the cost of eroding and maybe ending the stranglehold of the majors, so be it.
At least you don't disagree that something went wrong. Regardless of whether or not one party or the other actually benefited, most citizens would be happier knowing that our votes are counted correctly.
Right now that is in doubt. It's scary (and maybe telling) that so few politicians are taking this matter seriously.
If you are concerned about the legitimacy of our democratic system it is worth looking at John Conyer's report on the irregulaties in Ohio's results - including three references to Diebold.
It's about 100 pages long, covers a range of issues, including the machines, and is very objective.
In certain places they even charge a monthly fee (i.e. where they have people from the surrounding areas that are near, but which don't pay the taxes that support that library).
I interview lots of tech folks. The things that set the best of the best apart are leadership skills, ability to think in a deep analytical fashion that starts with looking at the assumptions, curiousity and ability to communicate with good, articulate answers and thoughtful questions.
Very few techies have these skills - anyone that does is so amazingly useful to us that we'd never be able to oursource what they do.
The problem is that I don't know if these skills are the sort of thing you can just learn. I've seen plenty of techie MBAs that have no aptitude for leading.
Well I've probably purchased at least a couple dozen CD's because, having heard a song on the radio or covered at a shows, I was able to type in a snatch of lyrics into google and find out who did the song.
I've never purchased a CD just to find out the lyrics (and many of them don't have the lyrics anyhow, anywhere, for sale or not).
Well count me out of your 'experience.' I don't buy DRM'd CDs and I'm boycotting the whole Sony family. When I DJ I won't play DRM'd records on the radio or in clubs.
Anyhow even if most people don't care, maybe they *should* care that crap software is messing up their machines and eating whole percentage points of their CPU even when the DRM software is not being actively used for listening.
Just because people are stupid, doesn't make DRM right. For those bands that appeal to a better educated demographic I find it hard to see how they could avoid being affected.
Every time you skip on buying a CD because of DRM, write a letter to the artist explaining why. Yes this is work, and in some cases these letters go nowhere (or are just read by label staff). But many groups have their own people reading their fanmail, and in some cases the trend will be noticed by the bands. They will not be happy, and they can add pressure from other angles.
I'd like to think so - with Ms. Bush's power she should be able to make certain demands, and I was fairly bitter when I went to buy the CD only to learn that it was Sony.
The again what's Outkast's excuse? What about Pharell?
Slashdot Mirror
In reality I'd love this stuff to work. But I don't see it happening. It's just not an easy problem to solve - they will only catch the stupid/lazy criminals.
While I know my copy of XP is the real deal as I bought it off the shelf at a box store, I have something loaded on my machine that doesn't get along with genuine advantage update - and that update blows up midway through install. Thanks Microsoft. I didn't need those security updates anyhow, right?
The scary part is the DRM is built into the foundation of Vista - even as installer programs are only allowed to run with full admin priviledges. Which to me sounds like all of Vista's security is about catering to the major media companies. It would be more jawdropping if Gates addressed this.
I wonder what measures are in place to prevent abuse of this by non-owners of the materials. For example say I don't like what you wrote about me - could I tell Google that I own the content, please take it out of your cache. I'm fine with the idea that people should be able to say who does what with their original web content - but there are simple technical ways for them to prevent caching. So really this seems to just open the door to abuse ala the DMCA and Michael Crook.
This is one of those cases where the industry itself stand to shoot itself in the foot. Arguably a better solution is to allow a legal scheme to pay a royalty to use a song in certain contexts (samples, mixtapes, and other creative re-purposing scenarios). While you can license the right to perform a song, no such similar scheme exists (outside of radio and music venues) to allow royalties to be paid for use of things like samples. Because each needs to be negotiated one by one, the legal encumbrance becomes so great that sometimes going the "For Promotional Use Only" route is the only way to go. While this is clearly copyright infringement, it also is often a creative act onto itself.
While the music industry is hardly ready to embrace this (and indeed looks to be going the opposite way with laws they are pushing regulating internet radio) arguably reform in this area would open new models for everyone in the music industry to profit.
The industry is wildly exaggerating their size:t imates_.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/04/media_overes
Go figure...
Actually I would say the Democrats do these things - but they do them to the Green Party...
Well the "without supervision" comment points to something that is key in all of this. First, no parent can really prevent their kid from seeing things the parent might not like. So parents must be there to provide values to their children so that they grow into adults that can understand the world around them and learn to make their own judgements.
I would rather have kids see things like the hatred that often sits in the hearts of many of the most impassioned supporters of the anti-imigration movement - and see how they often cloak this hatred with political sophistry. But it takes parents and educators to help them see how ideas are marketed in deceptive ways. Seeing this and understanding these nuances is an important developmental skill. We can pretend that we live in a perfect society where we all respect each other's difference, but the reality is that hatred exists and the people doing the hate are a mixed lot themselves.
But a lot of parents, educators, community and religious leaders sadly aren't up to the task...
I've had the Chicago USPS lose entire sets of mail at once - when your credit card bills and mortgage are in there, you tend to be unappy. I've had letters that were correctly addressed to me clearly and correctly returned to sender as "no such address." People are stealing checks from the mail and rewriting them to take money. When a package comes for me, I can expect to wait in line as long as 1/2 hour to get it - when there are only 8 or 9 people in line ahead of me.
The USPS is a wreck. After the second time that they lost my bills I decided that it was time to go to autopay on my bills. I don't care about the stamp. I walk by a post office every day. So cost and convenience were never the issues.
The issue is - will my mail get to it's destination on time... or ever?
The biggest showstopped with most compressed and DRM formats is that they add gaps into the record. This messes up everything from DJ Mixes to Mars Volta to Joe Jackson's "Night and Day."
I'd buy online if I could get non-DRM'ed FLAC files. But outside of a few innovative artists like Coil, few are going this way.
Hell is in Livingston County - very close, but not quite Washtenaw:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Michigan
Still it is on the Dexter trail:
http://www.hell2u.com/more_hell.htm
These are all good points. Add in the mess your code becomes when, rather than using good OOAD, you instead do everything in proceedural code (even Java stored procs affect a proceedural style).
Neat separation of layers for UI, Business and Data Access is pretty much manditory for any large scale application - anything else and you are creating unmaintainable, unreusable, spagetti that will not work well in an SOA. Stored Procs won't get you there.
Learn to bind your variables or use Hibernate or use any one of a zillion other techniques besides using stored procs. Don't use them for anything except simple CRUD operations.
I doubt they can charge a lot and see it get used a lot. Frankly, an ad driven site that actually provides accurate content without all the malware would be great and might do well for them and for the songwriters (yes these folks will potentially get money, especially the more recent ones since agreements have gotten better for them). Tying it into Gracenote's services would be fine for most consumers, but not me (I'm a FreeDB kinda guy). Trying to charge a monthly fee for this would probably fail and per use micro payments doesn't seem like a winner either.
http://www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/RFIDWallet.ph p
The Fight Club phenomenon existed before the book or the movie (ask the Author as he, like me, participated in some of these gatherings).
But there is a far better alternative. Take up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or Boxing or Submission wrestling or any one of a zillion other MMA disciplines. The MMA world is flourishing thanks to the UFC, there are lots of places to study. You learn technique and you spar hard - and you do it in an environment that is safer. The fights are far more intense because everyone knows what they are doing - so they are more satisfying and you learn techniques that will help you hold your own should you ever need to.
I study at the local Gracie Jiu Jitsu academy We still get the broken ribs and the bloody lips and noses and bruised ribs - or worse stuff like torn ligaments. These things happen in other sports as well (skiing anyone?) But you are actualy learning to fight and ultimately you are learning how to spar safely as well.
The guys you spar with are far tougher - but you will learn to stand your own and that is far more rewarding that some of the silliness in these backyard battles.
It's good to see Mad Mike keeping true to his vision. Since the time he first released "Message to the Majors" a lot had changed in the industry - much of it for the worse.
For a lot of us in underground music scenes like techno, rap and punk taking control of the means of production and distribution has been a huge goal - and slowly technology has enabled that vision. DRM schemes run contrary to this spirit and stores like iTunes may be hip, but they aren't nearly as benevolent as their fans believe.
Hopefully we'll see more underground music stores like this. While it pains me to see my neighborhood record store go, if that is the cost of eroding and maybe ending the stranglehold of the majors, so be it.
At least you don't disagree that something went wrong. Regardless of whether or not one party or the other actually benefited, most citizens would be happier knowing that our votes are counted correctly.
Right now that is in doubt. It's scary (and maybe telling) that so few politicians are taking this matter seriously.
If you are concerned about the legitimacy of our democratic system it is worth looking at John Conyer's report on the irregulaties in Ohio's results - including three references to Diebold.
It's about 100 pages long, covers a range of issues, including the machines, and is very objective.
In certain places they even charge a monthly fee (i.e. where they have people from the surrounding areas that are near, but which don't pay the taxes that support that library).
I interview lots of tech folks. The things that set the best of the best apart are leadership skills, ability to think in a deep analytical fashion that starts with looking at the assumptions, curiousity and ability to communicate with good, articulate answers and thoughtful questions.
Very few techies have these skills - anyone that does is so amazingly useful to us that we'd never be able to oursource what they do.
The problem is that I don't know if these skills are the sort of thing you can just learn. I've seen plenty of techie MBAs that have no aptitude for leading.
Can this stuff really be learned?
Well I've probably purchased at least a couple dozen CD's because, having heard a song on the radio or covered at a shows, I was able to type in a snatch of lyrics into google and find out who did the song.
I've never purchased a CD just to find out the lyrics (and many of them don't have the lyrics anyhow, anywhere, for sale or not).
Well count me out of your 'experience.' I don't buy DRM'd CDs and I'm boycotting the whole Sony family. When I DJ I won't play DRM'd records on the radio or in clubs.
Anyhow even if most people don't care, maybe they *should* care that crap software is messing up their machines and eating whole percentage points of their CPU even when the DRM software is not being actively used for listening.
Just because people are stupid, doesn't make DRM right. For those bands that appeal to a better educated demographic I find it hard to see how they could avoid being affected.
The labels see CD duplication as a bigger threat than P2P.
Every time you skip on buying a CD because of DRM, write a letter to the artist explaining why. Yes this is work, and in some cases these letters go nowhere (or are just read by label staff). But many groups have their own people reading their fanmail, and in some cases the trend will be noticed by the bands. They will not be happy, and they can add pressure from other angles.
I'd like to think so - with Ms. Bush's power she should be able to make certain demands, and I was fairly bitter when I went to buy the CD only to learn that it was Sony.
The again what's Outkast's excuse? What about Pharell?