The owners rob the workers. Why does an owner of a large company deserve to make 50-1000 times the amount of money their workers earn? I would think 50 workers would be working harder than one man driving around in a limo, who does not even cook his own food.
"or how about all the adults dying of something like aids globally and the not being able to save them because US companies hold the patents and wont let go even to save fucking lives. "
Remember when slashdot posted the story about Brazil deciding to ignore American companies patents on AIDS drugs and produce it themselves and pay the patent owners a reduced price? Alot of virulent conservatives were producing justifications for why Brazil's act of humanism was wrong. The United States forced Bayer to produce pills to treat anthrax for a very reduced price. I wonder what those conservative idiots who think money is worth more than Brazilian lives have to say about this. I bet they would rather remain silent.
Corruption in America is institutionalized is the best way of putting it. The best thieves are the men who do nothing all day except own a large corporation and soak up profit from their thousands of workers. The best crooks throughout history have always been 'legit'.
You are hilarious! I assure you corruption is rampant in every country. If you have enough money you can buy the law anywhere. Under capitalism everything can be bought, everything.
"you can pretty much skirt nearly any sort of law."
Same thing in America. In America OJ Simpson the famous murderer, was lucky to be rich enough to get away with murder. Apparently men cannot skirt paying alimony no matter how rich, but if you kill the harlet you can get off! America sure is a twisted country.
I prefer yellow snow. It is hard to keep the snow cold, because it is warm in my dorm and the process of transforming the snow into yellow snow, melts alot of the snow. As a bonus no one asks to use my computer.
50 floppies! That must take forever to install. I simply would not do it. Who has the time to insert a floppy disk in, wait..., eject and repeat the process over, 50 times?
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful: 4/5 StarsExcellent, with a few flaws, October 24, 2001 Reviewer: A reader from CA, USA This book is an excellent compilation of many interesting arguments that are often not heard in mainstream culture. It encourages critical thinking and fosters the ability to question much of what we hear everyday.
This book exposes (among many other things) the myth of religion (mostly about Christianity), the truth of US war crimes and the bloody foreign policy of the US, the cultural whitewashing in history textbooks, some myths of environmentalism, the child sexual abuse witch hunts, the distortions, fabrications, and suppression of the media, the power of large corporations and their subversive influence in the media , etc.
I found two (there probably are more) possible mistaken arguments in the book. One is the Nutrasweet scare - I believe that the threat of aspartame, while not yet certain, has been greatly exaggerated (not to say there might not be some threat however).
The other is the "Forbidden Archaeology" chapter - it seems to be very implausible and far-fetched, although I do not really know enough about it to question it.
Excellent book, with a few possible mistakes. Remember, this book encourages critical thinking - apply it not just to the mainstream media but this book also!
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful: 2/5 Stars A pretty poor grab bag, December 27, 2001 Reviewer: mrliteral (see more about me) Analogy time: Imagine being at the movies and snacking on a trail mix. Every now and then you get something sweet like an M&M or something tasteless like a cracker. For the most part, however, you're getting either lima beans or rocks. This book is that trail mix.
Although there is some good stuff (just enough to give this a two-star rating), for the most part the articles are pretty poor. Interestingly, they vary as to why they are so poor. Some of the authors are paranoid, some are incoherent and some are delusional. Many are tedious. Some are just plain wrong: especially outstanding in this area is one article that dismisses Osama bin Laden being a terrorist.
The major fault lies with Russ Kick who edited this book and apparently didn't subject the contributors' works to any real scrutiny. Many of the allegations are based purely on anecdotal evidence (yet they tend to dismiss others who rely on such evidence). Some present outlandish scientific theories: one states that humans have been around for hundreds of millions of years on only scanty evidence...in the end, he goes further and says that humans are actually devolving from some other spirtitual plane (maybe interesting, but not scientific).
Unfortunately, there are too many articles to really critique all of them. And it's a shame, because some of the issues raised are important, even if they are presented poorly. This could have been a good book, but it isn't. If you decide to read it, watch out for those rocks.
9 of 14 people found the following review helpful: 5/5 stars Stellar Guide to Escaping the 21st Century Consensus Trance, April 11, 2001 Reviewer: Alex Burns (see more about me) from Melbourne, Australia Spearheaded by editor Russ Kick, this massive volume skewers the most "sacred cows" since Adam Parfrey foresaw the Apocalypse Culture. Whatever your belief system, worldview, political or religious affiliation, there will be something here that probably both offends and inspires you. Filled with some heavy thinking, from Noam Chomsky and Howard Bloom to Riane Eisler, Douglas Rushkoff and Peter Russell, but always in an accessible style (and with helpful footnotes, references, and a further reading list), the material ranges from media studies and alternative politics to science, history, environmental and feminist thought, magick, psychology and more.
The book also collects together countercultural and conspiratorial explorations by key writers, including Richard Metzger, RU Sirius, Kenn Thomas, Preston Peet, Nick Mamatas, Robert Sterling, Cletus Nelson, Mickey Z, David McGowan, and myself.
You may not agree with everything here, but after browsing through You Are Being Lied To, you'll "know" that the cosmos is a stranger place than you previously imagined it to be.
Record Labels' Answer to Napster Still Has Artists Feeling Bypassed
By NEIL STRAUSS
In their bitter battles against Napster and other free music downloading services, record company executives have wielded one moral argument that has placed their position beyond self-interest: the fans take the music without proper permission and don't pay the artists a dime.
Last December, the major record labels responded with two Internet services of their own where fans pay monthly fees to download songs. Under this arrangement, however, the performers still don't get a dime: for each song downloaded, they stand to get only a fraction of a cent, according to the calculations of disgruntled managers and lawyers.
And, artists and their managers say, the labels, like Napster, aren't putting the music online with proper permission either.
"I'm not an opponent of artists' music being included in these services," said Gary Stiffelman, who represents Eminem, Aerosmith and TLC. "I'm just an opponent of their revenue not being shared."
Because the sites are new, no payments have been made yet, but the payment plan has so infuriated scores of best-selling pop acts, including No Doubt, the Dixie Chicks and Dr. Dre, that their lawyers have demanded their clients' music be removed from the sites, with some even sending cease-and-desist orders. Only in some cases have the major record companies complied.
Since Napster was born on college campuses in the late 1990's, peer-to- peer file sharing services have become the bane of the established music business, with, at their peak, some 60 million Napster users sharing nearly 40 million songs illicitly. Even after a federal district court shut Napster down, other free services proliferated, with Kazaa and Morpheus attracting an ever-growing base of users sharing not just music but movies and software as well.
In December, the music business responded with Pressplay and MusicNet, both pay-to-use subscription services where users can listen to or download a specified number of songs each month. Pressplay is a joint venture between Universal and Sony Music, and MusicNet teams BMG, EMI and AOL Time Warner (news/quote) with Real Networks.
"All of my clients had their attorneys advise the labels that if they did use my clients' music on Pressplay or MusicNet, they would be in breach of contract," said Simon Renshaw, who manages the Dixie Chicks, Mary J. Blige and others. "Some artists they took off, but some they didn't. It's becoming very obvious to me and my peers that we're becoming victims of what is a huge conspiracy."
Representatives of the five major record labels would not talk on the record about the payment system or their rights to use the music. But in comments not for attribution, several executives at labels and their subscription services did not dispute the accusations regarding the payment plan. They said their first priority was to make the services attractive to consumers and that the details of compensation could be worked out afterward.
In a letter responding to a lawyer who is trying to remove an artist from Pressplay, the head of business affairs for several Universal labels, Rand Hoffman, set out a company position. It is a view shared by other record executives, who say they are investing heavily to fight piracy and develop a fair compensation system for artists who are ungrateful.
"We are now spending tens of millions of dollars to help launch Pressplay in the hope that a legitimate response to the illegitimate services will provide an attractive alternative to consumers," Mr. Hoffman wrote in the letter. "Pressplay is committed to making music available on the Internet in a manner that is legal and that ensures that artists and publishers will be paid. This is truly a time for artists and record companies to be working together."
He added that it was "beyond logic" that artists would choose to leave their music off Pressplay and "effectively encourage the use of illegal services."
Though the two new services don't appear to be widely used, what worries artists and managers is that a precedent is being set, so that if the labels finally come up with a viable online music subscription service, they won't have to share a significant portion of the proceeds with artists and can claim that this is the way business has always been done.
The crux of the debate over artists' compensation involves whether they should get a licensing fee or a royalty payment.
When their music is used in movies, in commercials and on Internet sites, artists are paid a licensing fee, which, after payments to the producer and the publisher, is split 50-50 between artist and label. Although Pressplay and MusicNet license the music, the bands are not paid a licensing fee. Instead, the labels pay their artists a standard royalty for each song accessed by a fan, as they would for a CD sold.
This means that the artist gets on average less than 15 percent instead of 50 percent. But, out of that, 35 to 45 percent is deducted for standard CD expenses like packaging and promotional copies -- expenses that obviously don't exist in the online world.
As one rock manager computes it, if a consumer buys the standard Gold Plan on Pressplay, paying $19.95 for 75 songs downloaded to a hard drive and 750 streamed so that they can be heard only once, an artist, after these deductions, gets $.0023 per song downloaded. To earn a penny, more than four songs must be downloaded.
"I did the math with several other managers and lawyers, and the labels and Pressplay get just under 91 percent after they've paid all the artists for all the downloads," said Jim Guerinot, who manages No Doubt, Offspring, Beck and Chris Cornell. Other managers come up with other figures that they say are even worse for the artists.
The artists' managers and lawyers say the record companies have not committed their payment system to writing.
Representatives for Pressplay and MusicNet said that the payment schedule was a decision made by the labels. "Pressplay licenses its content from record labels and in turn packages the music on our service," said Seth Oster, a spokesman for the company. "The compensation of artists takes place at the label level."
"Pressplay was developed as a legitimate service to make sure artists' rights were respected and artists were compensated," he added.
A spokeswoman for MusicNet said, "We are deeply committed to artists' rights and to ensuring that copyright holders are compensated."
Another irritant for the artists, several lawyers and managers say, is the distribution of the $170 million settlement from MP3.com, an Internet company that offered a music storage service in violation of copyright law.
The labels were to share that money with artists whose music was put online without authorization, but several artists' representatives said nothing had been distributed.
Spokesmen for Sony (news/quote) and BMG said those companies were arranging to distribute the money. According to Warner Brothers and Universal Music, the money has been distributed, although it may not have been spelled out exactly in the accounting statements artists received. EMI did not call with a comment.
For many acts, suddenly there appears to be little difference between the illicit file-sharing system and record-label services.
The arguments the labels are using, said Jill Berliner, a leading music lawyer, are exactly the ones Napster made. "And, from our perspective, if the technology is going to be out there and the artist isn't really going to make money, we'd prefer that our fans just get it for free," she said.
Another complaint is that the labels are licensing music to the subscription services without seeking permission from the musicians.
"All of a sudden this thing launches," Mr. Guerinot said, "and myself and a lot of other managers and lawyers had never even been asked about it. We have coupling rights in our contract, which means they can't just take our music and put it wherever they please. When I try to talk to them, they say that they don't have to discuss this."
Mr. Guerinot said he sent cease- and-desist letters on behalf of Offspring, Beck and No Doubt. As a result, he said, music from No Doubt and Offspring was removed from Pressplay, but not the music of Beck.
One manager of million-selling acts, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "We've written them letters and put them on notice up front, as did most managers and lawyers, saying, `Don't put our artists' music up.' But they'll do it anyway. They're so arrogant. They're taking the position of: `We don't care. Let's just do it without asking.' They're ignoring their contracts. It's ridiculous. Obviously it will be litigated."
Some managers, however, said that they felt bullied into including their music on the services and were powerless to do anything about it. "Of course we're upset about it," said the manager of one male artist. "But he hasn't even turned in his record yet, so what leg do we really have to stand on?"
To try to avoid future protests, most major labels have added a clause to their standard recording contracts allowing the label to sell an act's songs on the Internet, including all subscription and pay-per-use services. It is very difficult, said Mr. Stiffelman, for a new band to have enough leverage to remove this clause from its contract.
I think the best way to describe the site is by telling more about its name. "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Anderson. A group of swindlers hustle an emperor into paying an exorbitant amount for magical clothes that are ostensibly magnificant; simpletons and people unfit for their office cannot see the clothes. In reality there are no clothes and everyone pretends they can see the clothes lest they be rendered unfit or simple.
This is a great metaphor for what goes on in America. Most Americans are incredulous to believe in anything other than the moralizing of the media; moralizing of the worst kind. Every country, or foreign head of state who is our enemy is evil, and we are self evidently good. This is a vile and simplistic caricature, yet so few even question it, the truth no longer matters. There is no moral reasoning behind America's actions but most Americans only see the media's illusion. The emperor really has no clothes. If you go to the site it will contradict a lot of the media and government's lies and unlike the New York Times, BBC, CNN, etc., they cite their sources for you to check.
A group of serving secret agents claimed Tuesday their superiors had ordered them to assassinate Boris Berezovsky (pictured), the controversial billionaire with close ties to Kremlin chief Boris Yeltsin and his family...Political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky said the furore was ironic given charges by Yeltsin's former chief bodyguard, Aleksander
Korzhakov, that Berezovsky had asked him to have rival business baron Vladimir Gusinsky eliminated in 1994.--Reuters, Nov. 19
(Boris Berezovsky is pacing back and forth in front of Boris Yeltsin's desk in the Kremlin. Yeltsin is busy writing)
Berezovsky: Boris Nikolayevich, you must do something!
Yeltsin: (without looking up) I am doing something, Boris, I'm working with documents.
Berezovsky: (looking at paper in front of Yeltsin) You're doing a crossword puzzle!
Yeltsin: I am TRYING to do a crossword puzzle. I'd be making much more progress if you weren't distracting me with your whining and complaining about people trying to kill you.
Berezovsky: (outraged) People? People trying to kill me Boris Nikolayevich? It's the KGB trying to kill me! The KGB!
Yeltsin: How can the KGB be trying to kill you when there is no KGB? There's the FSB...the "toothless shadow of a former Russian intelligence organization." Five across.
Berezovsky: Toothless? It may be toothless but it's still armed Boris Nikolayevich - and the FSB is trying to kill me!
Yeltsin: That's about the best guarantee of long life you could have.
Berezovsky: That's easy for you to say, Boris Nikolayevich, but for me it is a source of constant worry!
Yeltsin: (still concentrating on puzzle) Boris, if you found out that the mafia was trying to kill you, then I would say go ahead and worry, but the FSB? Who goes to the FSB when they want someone killed? Do you go to the FSB when you want someone killed?
Berezovsky: No, but...hey, what makes you think I get people killed?
Yeltsin: Oh, I was speaking purely hypothetically, of course. So what would you do if you wanted someone killed?
Berezovsky: (with an air of giving the question serious consideration) Well, let's see. I guess I'd send them somewhere dangerous. Like Chechnya. Or Miami.
Yeltsin: Assuming you can't send them anywhere. Assuming you have to do the job here in Moscow. What would you do then?
Berezovsky: Well, I might - and this is purely hypothetical of course - I might stand behind him in a crowd in Red Square and yell "So YOU'RE the one who got us into this financial mess!"
Yeltsin: Hmm, clever, but not altogether reliable.
Berezovsky: (warming to his theme) Or I could replace his briefcase with one of those nuclear suitcase bombs Lebed is always on about.
Yeltsin: In which case, you'd wipe out most of the region. A bit excessive, I'd say.
Berezovsky: Yes, I suppose - okay, how about this? I send him to the next Communist Party convention in a "Lenin Sucks" t-shirt.
Yeltsin: Yes, that would probably do it. But you notice, you haven't once said, "I'd go to the FSB and ask them to knock him off," have you?
Berezovsky: No.
Yeltsin: So are you ready to admit that you've overreacted to the idea that the FSB is trying to kill you?
Berezovsky: Well...maybe...
Yeltsin: Good, then all's well. Give my regards to your family.
Berezovsky: (leaving) I will. Good-bye Boris Nikolayevich.
Yeltsin: (returning to puzzle) Four down - "one who is easily duped, a sucker." B-E-R-E-Z-O-V-S-K-Y...
Apropos recent events, in case you're wondering what will become of all the unemployed KGB men in the event of a change of regime in the USSR, I was talking to a German friend recently and asked him what had become of all the former Stasi secret policement of East Germany.
"Oh they're all taxi drivers now," he said, "it was the obvious solution."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Simple," he said, "you just give them your name--and they know where you live."
As a CIA employee, whenever I hear that the Agency is programming people's minds, I have to laugh. I don't want to laugh when I hear this, but I have to because that's the way the CIA programmed my mind!
CmderTaco, I know it is you. Just let me get some karma dammit. I assure this joke was popular in Russia. It has proliferated on the internet because it is so damn funny.
If you go to this new thread, I adapted the post to this story. I added:
A.D. 2001: World slows and starts warming.
A.D. 2050: World is now going so slow its orbit is reversed.
A.D. 2040: World is going backwards in time now because of the reveresal. Time from now on will repeat the past.
A.D. 2030: Repeat of A.D. 2030.
Etc.,etc. After this the World gets real boring, nothing but a cycle of reruns!
A.D./B.C.???(Date Unkown) God after the torture of watching nothing but reruns of the World writes an 11th Commandment, and then kills himself.
11th Commandment I know my son Commienst has trolled much in the past, and that this post is redundant, but he has decided to repost it now that it is rendered more hilarious and ontopic. His karma as of 2/18/01 at 4:55 AM is -4, it is my last commandment that he be rectituded, before my death. Mod this up, ye faithful, IT IS MY FINAL COMMANDMENT.
I did not add much, but you should mod the thread up, so new people can see the better version, instead of reading the one you originally read.
By the way, I have the post saved on my hd, but not the whole thread. Here is what I did not paste:
"HISTORY OF THE WORLD (Score:5, Funny)
by Yu Suzuki (dural@doramail.com) on Tuesday May 23, @09:27PM CDT"
Yu Suzuki, is the guy who made Shenmue. He is really fucking funny if you read through his posts, you can tell it was him who wrote it. Jraxis just fucking pasted it. I do not know why you think he wrote the original. Jraxis is remarkably unfunny.
I cannot find the original thread, slashdot has such a shitty search. If you read Yu'sother posts you can surmise that he wrote it, originally.
Place and time: somewhere in the Soviet Union in 1930s.
The phone rings at KGB headquarters.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this KGB?"
"Yes. What do you want?"
"I'm calling to report my neighbor Yankel Rabinovitz as an enemy of the
State. He is hiding undeclared diamonds in his firewood."
"This will be noted."
Next day, the KGB goons come over to Rabinovitz's house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept, break every piece of wood, find no diamonds, swear at Yankel Rabinovitz and leave.
The phone rings at Rabinovitz's house.
"Hello, Yankel! Did the KGB come?"
"Yes."
"Did they chop your firewood?"
"Yes, they did."
"Okay, now its your turn to call. I need my vegetable patch plowed."
Slashdot Mirror
"Remember back in high school when you were busting your ass learning stuff while other kids slacked off and ostracized you for doing it?"
Hey, do you remember when you were sleeping in English class?
The owners rob the workers. Why does an owner of a large company deserve to make 50-1000 times the amount of money their workers earn? I would think 50 workers would be working harder than one man driving around in a limo, who does not even cook his own food.
I pasted that excerpt from: http://www.tenc.net/analysis/whyisn.htm
Read the whole story.
-Commienst
"or how about all the adults dying of something like aids globally and the not being able to save them because US companies hold the patents and wont let go even to save fucking lives. "
Remember when slashdot posted the story about Brazil deciding to ignore American companies patents on AIDS drugs and produce it themselves and pay the patent owners a reduced price? Alot of virulent conservatives were producing justifications for why Brazil's act of humanism was wrong. The United States forced Bayer to produce pills to treat anthrax for a very reduced price. I wonder what those conservative idiots who think money is worth more than Brazilian lives have to say about this. I bet they would rather remain silent.
Corruption in America is institutionalized is the best way of putting it. The best thieves are the men who do nothing all day except own a large corporation and soak up profit from their thousands of workers. The best crooks throughout history have always been 'legit'.
You are hilarious! I assure you corruption is rampant in every country. If you have enough money you can buy the law anywhere. Under capitalism everything can be bought, everything.
"you can pretty much skirt nearly any sort of law."
Same thing in America. In America OJ Simpson the famous murderer, was lucky to be rich enough to get away with murder. Apparently men cannot skirt paying alimony no matter how rich, but if you kill the harlet you can get off! America sure is a twisted country.
I prefer yellow snow. It is hard to keep the snow cold, because it is warm in my dorm and the process of transforming the snow into yellow snow, melts alot of the snow. As a bonus no one asks to use my computer.
50 floppies! That must take forever to install. I simply would not do it. Who has the time to insert a floppy disk in, wait..., eject and repeat the process over, 50 times?
4/5 StarsExcellent, with a few flaws, October 24, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from CA, USA
This book is an excellent compilation of many interesting arguments that are often not heard in mainstream culture. It encourages critical thinking and fosters the ability to question much of what we hear everyday.
This book exposes (among many other things) the myth of religion (mostly about Christianity), the truth of US war crimes and the bloody foreign policy of the US, the cultural whitewashing in history textbooks, some myths of environmentalism, the child sexual abuse witch hunts, the distortions, fabrications, and suppression of the media, the power of large corporations and their subversive influence in the media , etc.
I found two (there probably are more) possible mistaken arguments in the book. One is the Nutrasweet scare - I believe that the threat of aspartame, while not yet certain, has been greatly exaggerated (not to say there might not be some threat however).
The other is the "Forbidden Archaeology" chapter - it seems to be very implausible and far-fetched, although I do not really know enough about it to question it.
Excellent book, with a few possible mistakes. Remember, this book encourages critical thinking - apply it not just to the mainstream media but this book also!
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2/5 Stars A pretty poor grab bag, December 27, 2001
Reviewer: mrliteral (see more about me)
Analogy time: Imagine being at the movies and snacking on a trail mix. Every now and then you get something sweet like an M&M or something tasteless like a cracker. For the most part, however, you're getting either lima beans or rocks. This book is that trail mix.
Although there is some good stuff (just enough to give this a two-star rating), for the most part the articles are pretty poor. Interestingly, they vary as to why they are so poor. Some of the authors are paranoid, some are incoherent and some are delusional. Many are tedious. Some are just plain wrong: especially outstanding in this area is one article that dismisses Osama bin Laden being a terrorist.
The major fault lies with Russ Kick who edited this book and apparently didn't subject the contributors' works to any real scrutiny. Many of the allegations are based purely on anecdotal evidence (yet they tend to dismiss others who rely on such evidence). Some present outlandish scientific theories: one states that humans have been around for hundreds of millions of years on only scanty evidence...in the end, he goes further and says that humans are actually devolving from some other spirtitual plane (maybe interesting, but not scientific).
Unfortunately, there are too many articles to really critique all of them. And it's a shame, because some of the issues raised are important, even if they are presented poorly. This could have been a good book, but it isn't. If you decide to read it, watch out for those rocks.
9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5/5 stars Stellar Guide to Escaping the 21st Century Consensus Trance, April 11, 2001
Reviewer: Alex Burns (see more about me) from Melbourne, Australia
Spearheaded by editor Russ Kick, this massive volume skewers the most "sacred cows" since Adam Parfrey foresaw the Apocalypse Culture. Whatever your belief system, worldview, political or religious affiliation, there will be something here that probably both offends and inspires you. Filled with some heavy thinking, from Noam Chomsky and Howard Bloom to Riane Eisler, Douglas Rushkoff and Peter Russell, but always in an accessible style (and with helpful footnotes, references, and a further reading list), the material ranges from media studies and alternative politics to science, history, environmental and feminist thought, magick, psychology and more.
The book also collects together countercultural and conspiratorial explorations by key writers, including Richard Metzger, RU Sirius, Kenn Thomas, Preston Peet, Nick Mamatas, Robert Sterling, Cletus Nelson, Mickey Z, David McGowan, and myself.
You may not agree with everything here, but after browsing through You Are Being Lied To, you'll "know" that the cosmos is a stranger place than you previously imagined it to be.
Record Labels' Answer to Napster Still Has Artists Feeling Bypassed
By NEIL STRAUSS
In their bitter battles against Napster and other free music downloading services, record company executives have wielded one moral argument that has placed their position beyond self-interest: the fans take the music without proper permission and don't pay the artists a dime.
Last December, the major record labels responded with two Internet services of their own where fans pay monthly fees to download songs. Under this arrangement, however, the performers still don't get a dime: for each song downloaded, they stand to get only a fraction of a cent, according to the calculations of disgruntled managers and lawyers.
And, artists and their managers say, the labels, like Napster, aren't putting the music online with proper permission either.
"I'm not an opponent of artists' music being included in these services," said Gary Stiffelman, who represents Eminem, Aerosmith and TLC. "I'm just an opponent of their revenue not being shared."
Because the sites are new, no payments have been made yet, but the payment plan has so infuriated scores of best-selling pop acts, including No Doubt, the Dixie Chicks and Dr. Dre, that their lawyers have demanded their clients' music be removed from the sites, with some even sending cease-and-desist orders. Only in some cases have the major record companies complied.
Since Napster was born on college campuses in the late 1990's, peer-to- peer file sharing services have become the bane of the established music business, with, at their peak, some 60 million Napster users sharing nearly 40 million songs illicitly. Even after a federal district court shut Napster down, other free services proliferated, with Kazaa and Morpheus attracting an ever-growing base of users sharing not just music but movies and software as well.
In December, the music business responded with Pressplay and MusicNet, both pay-to-use subscription services where users can listen to or download a specified number of songs each month. Pressplay is a joint venture between Universal and Sony Music, and MusicNet teams BMG, EMI and AOL Time Warner (news/quote) with Real Networks.
"All of my clients had their attorneys advise the labels that if they did use my clients' music on Pressplay or MusicNet, they would be in breach of contract," said Simon Renshaw, who manages the Dixie Chicks, Mary J. Blige and others. "Some artists they took off, but some they didn't. It's becoming very obvious to me and my peers that we're becoming victims of what is a huge conspiracy."
Representatives of the five major record labels would not talk on the record about the payment system or their rights to use the music. But in comments not for attribution, several executives at labels and their subscription services did not dispute the accusations regarding the payment plan. They said their first priority was to make the services attractive to consumers and that the details of compensation could be worked out afterward.
In a letter responding to a lawyer who is trying to remove an artist from Pressplay, the head of business affairs for several Universal labels, Rand Hoffman, set out a company position. It is a view shared by other record executives, who say they are investing heavily to fight piracy and develop a fair compensation system for artists who are ungrateful.
"We are now spending tens of millions of dollars to help launch Pressplay in the hope that a legitimate response to the illegitimate services will provide an attractive alternative to consumers," Mr. Hoffman wrote in the letter. "Pressplay is committed to making music available on the Internet in a manner that is legal and that ensures that artists and publishers will be paid. This is truly a time for artists and record companies to be working together."
He added that it was "beyond logic" that artists would choose to leave their music off Pressplay and "effectively encourage the use of illegal services."
Though the two new services don't appear to be widely used, what worries artists and managers is that a precedent is being set, so that if the labels finally come up with a viable online music subscription service, they won't have to share a significant portion of the proceeds with artists and can claim that this is the way business has always been done.
The crux of the debate over artists' compensation involves whether they should get a licensing fee or a royalty payment.
When their music is used in movies, in commercials and on Internet sites, artists are paid a licensing fee, which, after payments to the producer and the publisher, is split 50-50 between artist and label. Although Pressplay and MusicNet license the music, the bands are not paid a licensing fee. Instead, the labels pay their artists a standard royalty for each song accessed by a fan, as they would for a CD sold.
This means that the artist gets on average less than 15 percent instead of 50 percent. But, out of that, 35 to 45 percent is deducted for standard CD expenses like packaging and promotional copies -- expenses that obviously don't exist in the online world.
As one rock manager computes it, if a consumer buys the standard Gold Plan on Pressplay, paying $19.95 for 75 songs downloaded to a hard drive and 750 streamed so that they can be heard only once, an artist, after these deductions, gets $.0023 per song downloaded. To earn a penny, more than four songs must be downloaded.
"I did the math with several other managers and lawyers, and the labels and Pressplay get just under 91 percent after they've paid all the artists for all the downloads," said Jim Guerinot, who manages No Doubt, Offspring, Beck and Chris Cornell. Other managers come up with other figures that they say are even worse for the artists.
The artists' managers and lawyers say the record companies have not committed their payment system to writing.
Representatives for Pressplay and MusicNet said that the payment schedule was a decision made by the labels. "Pressplay licenses its content from record labels and in turn packages the music on our service," said Seth Oster, a spokesman for the company. "The compensation of artists takes place at the label level."
"Pressplay was developed as a legitimate service to make sure artists' rights were respected and artists were compensated," he added.
A spokeswoman for MusicNet said, "We are deeply committed to artists' rights and to ensuring that copyright holders are compensated."
Another irritant for the artists, several lawyers and managers say, is the distribution of the $170 million settlement from MP3.com, an Internet company that offered a music storage service in violation of copyright law.
The labels were to share that money with artists whose music was put online without authorization, but several artists' representatives said nothing had been distributed.
Spokesmen for Sony (news/quote) and BMG said those companies were arranging to distribute the money. According to Warner Brothers and Universal Music, the money has been distributed, although it may not have been spelled out exactly in the accounting statements artists received. EMI did not call with a comment.
For many acts, suddenly there appears to be little difference between the illicit file-sharing system and record-label services.
The arguments the labels are using, said Jill Berliner, a leading music lawyer, are exactly the ones Napster made. "And, from our perspective, if the technology is going to be out there and the artist isn't really going to make money, we'd prefer that our fans just get it for free," she said.
Another complaint is that the labels are licensing music to the subscription services without seeking permission from the musicians.
"All of a sudden this thing launches," Mr. Guerinot said, "and myself and a lot of other managers and lawyers had never even been asked about it. We have coupling rights in our contract, which means they can't just take our music and put it wherever they please. When I try to talk to them, they say that they don't have to discuss this."
Mr. Guerinot said he sent cease- and-desist letters on behalf of Offspring, Beck and No Doubt. As a result, he said, music from No Doubt and Offspring was removed from Pressplay, but not the music of Beck.
One manager of million-selling acts, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "We've written them letters and put them on notice up front, as did most managers and lawyers, saying, `Don't put our artists' music up.' But they'll do it anyway. They're so arrogant. They're taking the position of: `We don't care. Let's just do it without asking.' They're ignoring their contracts. It's ridiculous. Obviously it will be litigated."
Some managers, however, said that they felt bullied into including their music on the services and were powerless to do anything about it. "Of course we're upset about it," said the manager of one male artist. "But he hasn't even turned in his record yet, so what leg do we really have to stand on?"
To try to avoid future protests, most major labels have added a clause to their standard recording contracts allowing the label to sell an act's songs on the Internet, including all subscription and pay-per-use services. It is very difficult, said Mr. Stiffelman, for a new band to have enough leverage to remove this clause from its contract.
© 2002 New York Times
Reprinted for Fair Use Only
This is actually pretty funny. It should at least get a +1.
-Commienst (anon so I do not lose karma for defending this post)
The Emperor's New Clothes is great alternative to the media.
I think the best way to describe the site is by telling more about its name. "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Anderson. A group of swindlers hustle an emperor into paying an exorbitant amount for magical clothes that are ostensibly magnificant; simpletons and people unfit for their office cannot see the clothes. In reality there are no clothes and everyone pretends they can see the clothes lest they be rendered unfit or simple.
This is a great metaphor for what goes on in America. Most Americans are incredulous to believe in anything other than the moralizing of the media; moralizing of the worst kind. Every country, or foreign head of state who is our enemy is evil, and we are self evidently good. This is a vile and simplistic caricature, yet so few even question it, the truth no longer matters. There is no moral reasoning behind America's actions but most Americans only see the media's illusion. The emperor really has no clothes. If you go to the site it will contradict a lot of the media and government's lies and unlike the New York Times, BBC, CNN, etc., they cite their sources for you to check.
That is because he wrote it in advance of this article and did not adapt it.
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Arkin,+Alan
IMDB is your friend.
Nice one.
I forgot! KGB did not exist back then. They had the NKVD (Narkomat Vnutrennix Del).
"Knock, knock."
"Knock, knock who?"
"CIA."
"CIA who?"
"We ask the questions."
A group of serving secret agents claimed Tuesday their superiors had ordered them to assassinate Boris Berezovsky (pictured), the controversial billionaire with close ties to Kremlin chief Boris Yeltsin and his family...Political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky said the furore was ironic given charges by Yeltsin's former chief bodyguard, Aleksander
...hey, what makes you think I get people killed?
Korzhakov, that Berezovsky had asked him to have rival business baron Vladimir Gusinsky eliminated in 1994.--Reuters, Nov. 19
(Boris Berezovsky is pacing back and forth in front of Boris Yeltsin's desk in the Kremlin. Yeltsin is busy writing)
Berezovsky: Boris Nikolayevich, you must do something!
Yeltsin: (without looking up) I am doing something, Boris, I'm working with documents.
Berezovsky: (looking at paper in front of Yeltsin) You're doing a crossword puzzle!
Yeltsin: I am TRYING to do a crossword puzzle. I'd be making much more progress if you weren't distracting me with your whining and complaining about people trying to kill you.
Berezovsky: (outraged) People? People trying to kill me Boris Nikolayevich? It's the KGB trying to kill me! The KGB!
Yeltsin: How can the KGB be trying to kill you when there is no KGB? There's the FSB...the "toothless shadow of a former Russian intelligence organization." Five across.
Berezovsky: Toothless? It may be toothless but it's still armed Boris Nikolayevich - and the FSB is trying to kill me!
Yeltsin: That's about the best guarantee of long life you could have.
Berezovsky: That's easy for you to say, Boris Nikolayevich, but for me it is a source of constant worry!
Yeltsin: (still concentrating on puzzle) Boris, if you found out that the mafia was trying to kill you, then I would say go ahead and worry, but the FSB? Who goes to the FSB when they want someone killed? Do you go to the FSB when you want someone killed?
Berezovsky: No, but
Yeltsin: Oh, I was speaking purely hypothetically, of course. So what would you do if you wanted someone killed?
Berezovsky: (with an air of giving the question serious consideration) Well, let's see. I guess I'd send them somewhere dangerous. Like Chechnya. Or Miami.
Yeltsin: Assuming you can't send them anywhere. Assuming you have to do the job here in Moscow. What would you do then?
Berezovsky: Well, I might - and this is purely hypothetical of course - I might stand behind him in a crowd in Red Square and yell "So YOU'RE the one who got us into this financial mess!"
Yeltsin: Hmm, clever, but not altogether reliable.
Berezovsky: (warming to his theme) Or I could replace his briefcase with one of those nuclear suitcase bombs Lebed is always on about.
Yeltsin: In which case, you'd wipe out most of the region. A bit excessive, I'd say.
Berezovsky: Yes, I suppose - okay, how about this? I send him to the next Communist Party convention in a "Lenin Sucks" t-shirt.
Yeltsin: Yes, that would probably do it. But you notice, you haven't once said, "I'd go to the FSB and ask them to knock him off," have you?
Berezovsky: No.
Yeltsin: So are you ready to admit that you've overreacted to the idea that the FSB is trying to kill you?
Berezovsky: Well...maybe...
Yeltsin: Good, then all's well. Give my regards to your family.
Berezovsky: (leaving) I will. Good-bye Boris Nikolayevich.
Yeltsin: (returning to puzzle) Four down - "one who is easily duped, a sucker." B-E-R-E-Z-O-V-S-K-Y...
Apropos recent events, in case you're wondering what will become of all the unemployed KGB men in the event of a change of regime in the USSR, I was talking to a German friend recently and asked him what had become of all the former Stasi secret policement of East Germany.
"Oh they're all taxi drivers now," he said, "it was the obvious solution."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Simple," he said, "you just give them your name--and they know where you live."
As a CIA employee, whenever I hear that the Agency is programming people's minds, I have to laugh. I don't want to laugh when I hear this, but I have to because that's the way the CIA programmed my mind!
CmderTaco, I know it is you. Just let me get some karma dammit. I assure this joke was popular in Russia. It has proliferated on the internet because it is so damn funny.
A.D. 2001: World slows and starts warming.
A.D. 2050: World is now going so slow its orbit is reversed.
A.D. 2040: World is going backwards in time now because of the reveresal. Time from now on will repeat the past.
A.D. 2030: Repeat of A.D. 2030.
Etc.,etc. After this the World gets real boring, nothing but a cycle of reruns!
A.D./B.C.???(Date Unkown) God after the torture of watching nothing but reruns of the World writes an 11th Commandment, and then kills himself.
11th Commandment
I know my son Commienst has trolled much in the past, and that this post is redundant, but he has decided to repost it now that it is rendered more hilarious and ontopic. His karma as of 2/18/01 at 4:55 AM is -4, it is my last commandment that he be rectituded, before my death. Mod this up, ye faithful, IT IS MY FINAL COMMANDMENT.
I did not add much, but you should mod the thread up, so new people can see the better version, instead of reading the one you originally read.
By the way, I have the post saved on my hd, but not the whole thread. Here is what I did not paste:
"HISTORY OF THE WORLD (Score:5, Funny)
by Yu Suzuki (dural@doramail.com) on Tuesday May 23, @09:27PM CDT"
Yu Suzuki, is the guy who made Shenmue. He is really fucking funny if you read through his posts, you can tell it was him who wrote it. Jraxis just fucking pasted it. I do not know why you think he wrote the original. Jraxis is remarkably unfunny.
I cannot find the original thread, slashdot has such a shitty search. If you read Yu'sother posts you can surmise that he wrote it, originally.
That asshole! He must have found the joke on the internet.
Seriously, shut up, my Karma is up at -1. You are ruining this for me. Lucky for me no one reads at -1, or else a mod might see this.
Yu Suzuki first posted it. Jraxis is a moron, he could never think of something so clever.
My Russian freind told me this joke one day.
Place and time: somewhere in the Soviet Union in 1930s.
The phone rings at KGB headquarters.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this KGB?"
"Yes. What do you want?"
"I'm calling to report my neighbor Yankel Rabinovitz as an enemy of the
State. He is hiding undeclared diamonds in his firewood."
"This will be noted."
Next day, the KGB goons come over to Rabinovitz's house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept, break every piece of wood, find no diamonds, swear at Yankel Rabinovitz and leave.
The phone rings at Rabinovitz's house.
"Hello, Yankel! Did the KGB come?"
"Yes."
"Did they chop your firewood?"
"Yes, they did."
"Okay, now its your turn to call. I need my vegetable patch plowed."