You are just hurting yourselves here. I don't know why people feel as though downloading copyrighted (as opposed to copylefted -- i.e. permission granted by the artist) music is *okay*.
That's a question I can answer. The older people (me, for instance) around here grew up legally making tapes off the radio and even albums and trading them with friends. This was considered fair use, and more than one band Metallica and the Grateful Dead are good examples became megaplatinum artists because of this. Once we wanted to hear more than tapes could give us, we went out and bought the albums and we went to their concerts.
The younger people here had parents who did this. So there is no culture of kids who grew up being taught that recording music and giving copies to friends is wrong. Parents had no interest in teaching kids that recording music is wrong and saw recording into a computer as the natural extension of what they were doing when they were growing up. Which it is.
The only reason why this is considered copyright infringment (only "useful fools" and RIAA publicists call this stealing) is because the RIAA bought politicians to make the extention of common analog practice onto the Net illegal.
Well, they have the power to make it illegal. They do not have the power to make it wrong.
128K/broadcast quality MP3s are promotional giveways of no intrinsic commercial value in and of themselves.
Their only value is in persuading people to buy the actual products, which are CDs or higher-than-broadcast quality digital tracks.
Do you know of any place where 128K MP3s are actually available for sale and people are actually buying them? Neither do I.
Why do you think that software patents should be banned and you think that the RIAA should be encouraged in their insane attack on the customers for their intellectual property?
Look for an increasing number of RIAA label musicians to disassociate themselves from the music industry's position on rabid attacks on fans.
Regardless of their own feelings on the matter.As the boycott takes off, this is going to become the only safe public position for a musician to take on this issue, repeating the RIAA party line is going to have an immediate downside for the musician in terms of smaller concert audiences and reduced record sales.
In fact, I expect musicians to be told by their labels and publicists to denounce their employers as soon as the boycott picks up steam.
Denouncing the labels is going to become the smart, safe thing to do... just as denouncing the War in Vietnam was the smart, safe thing for musicians to do in the '60s. It's called the marketing and commoditization of protest, and it can be very profitable. Well, this is a good thing, as long as all the money goes to musicians who aren't working for the RIAA labels.
Don't be fooled by major label musicians who denounce the industry and above all, DON'T buy their records just because they're saying cool public things about the boycott, buying their records just weakens our position..
If a musician not only denounces the RIAA, but immediately breaks his contract with the label and starts selling on the Web and uploading MP3s to P2P and Internet Radio, then reward him by buying.
However, in the meantime, just make sure all the music you buy is from independent artists and spend just as much on music as you usually do.
Every dollar spent on independent musicians is another nail in the RIAA coffin.
Let's nail the lid on the RIAA coffin nice and tight.
Shop via used cd's if you must. It will help show their loss in the upcomming year (used sales are Not tracked). Ebay/Amazon/Local stores/Whatever.
Buy music from independent non-RIAA artists, many do have their sales tracked. One doesn't have to be Own3D by an RIAA label in order to get Soundscan tracking. The main requirement from a musician POV is a (registered) UPC bar code.
If tracked sales go up for independent artists, the industry won't have any excuse to take to Congress and say "Of course they can refuse to buy from us, they're stealing it instead and we need NEW LAWS to protect OUR STARVING ARTISTS." no matter how far their sales drop.
The message we need to send to the RIAA labels and to Congress is We WILL buy music. But not from a bunch of thugs.
Or do you simply mindlessly repeat their propaganda?
It's more akin to putting a computer with a CD burner on your front porch along with your entire cd collection and hundreds of blank cds, then going and staking signs around the neighborhood about how the computer is there and so are the blank cds, and listing which cds you have, and your phone number in case they would like to ask you if you have cd XYZ song ZYX.
No, it's the digital domain equivalent of swapping analog tapes. Swapping analog tapes is perfectly legal and considered "fair use". Swapping files is only illegal because the RIAA paid off politicians to make it so.
Perhaps the same people who paid off politicians to get the laws changed paid you off to spread their FUD here?
If you aren't being paid off, I suggest you contact them and hit them up for money. You might as well get yours while they can, they won't be around much longer.
Spend just as much music as you usually do, but spend it on NON-RIAA ARTISTS.
Not spending money on music will cut sales, and the RIAA will go to the press and Congress and say "Of course they're refusing to buy, they're stealing our music instead."
Buy indie artists instead and the music press will notice where the money is going instead of to the major labels. The mainstream press will take it from there. A major label whose brand name turns off users is something to run away from both to the multinational that owns it,and to its artists.
This doesn't just mean not buying from the RIAA member labels.
That just gives them an excuse to buy even worse laws than the DMCA and "legalized corporate hacking."
Spend every dollar you've been spending on RIAA label music on independent musicians.
You can find some independent musicians, including some with downloadable tracks at CDBaby.
I work with an independent musician with both CDs for sale and downloadable tracks, check out http://www.eliangedeon.com.
Lots of other non-RIAA music on the Web. Google is your friend. No matter what you like, there's probably somebody who makes it who hasn't sold his or her ass to the RIAA.
Every dollar you spend on the good guys is another nail in the RIAA coffin. When music sales go up except for the RIAA labels, the multimationals that own major labels and the artists who work for them will look for a way to bail out.
When this is true, it's over for the major labels. They won't even exist in name, investor groups will be buying artist contracts and catalogues. But not the management who turned multibillion dollar companies into hundred million dollar companies, and not the "tainted" brand names. And make no mistake, a brand name that makes people less likely to want to buy is of negative value.
Don't stop buying records. This just gives the record companies an excuse to scream PIRACY!!! and to get even worse laws out of the legislators they OwN.
Instead, buy from independent non-RIAA musicians and labels. You'll have to look around on the Web to find those, but you should be able to find one to match your tastes no matter what they are. If record sales go up, but the RIAA labels go even deeper into red-ink, it'll be obvious that piracy is not the problem, no more excuses to make bad laws. It really won't take a lot of this to blow the labels right out of the water.
They're losing money anyway. They blame piracy. If they lose money a hell of a lot faster, what good is a "name brand" when customers see the name and automatically buy elsewhere? The label owners will see a bunch of "tainted brands" losing them money. The mulitnationals will unload fast to investors who will only want the catalogs and artist catalogues. Who will want to buy a CEO who managed to turn a $5 billion company into a $500M company?
CDBaby has a quite a few. Some with downloadable music.
Or check my sig to hear another one. We've got downloadable MP3s, too.
If you aren't sure whether an artist is RIAA or not, check RIAA Radar search to see if the artist is listed.
Every dollar spent on non-RIAA label music is another nail in the coffin of the RIAA and its record company members.
As somebody else pointed out, they get paid during the course of their employment on a movie.
And without all the behind-the-scenes experts who generally are seen by the public only during the credits, there is no movie using current generation motion picture industry technology. So they have nothing to fear from piracy.
The Hollywood film industry technical experts only have to fear their jobs being outsourced out from under them and their being largely replaced by the technology we develop.
While a makeup artist is probably going to be necessary for quite some time (though I can imagine the color changes now done in makeup done digitally) for the stars, if the extras don't need either costumes or makeup because their only existence is virtual, there are a lot of jobs going away.
In any case, the issue is control, just like it is with the record industry. They fear that the next Spielberg is going to go direct to DVD and Internet distribution once the technology ramps up a bit and one can do full Hollywood-quality pictures on a desktop and a small video-card based render farm, and they want to make new distribution and promotion channels for independents unavailable.
If they actually gave a fuck about piracy, they'd be going after the Asian pirates with their own DVD pressing plants working and selling more or less openly.
In general, only the suits in the industry have anything to fear from future technological development in the current timeframe, if the movie industry follows the RIAA labels into oblivion, the stars will simply cut deals directly with directors and probably make more money than ever, and the best of the technical experts will keep right on working, probably also making more money than ever.
The procedures recommended by the US Department of Defense for disposal of hard drives used to handle secure documents should work even better on a spammer.
That's easy enough, and even in AU, you can probably get it on the web, otherwise find your government's printing office (whatever it's called there, some Aussie like to help this guy out?) However, if you ask your local Member of Parliament nicely, he'll probably get you a copy free as in beer.
It's called the national budget.
It will be several hundred pages long or more, and it'll be just as easy to read as your first man page was.
This requires that ATMs be retrofitted or custom-built to handle inputs of cash, and that banks be willing to handle cash transfers from individuals to individuals and be willing to accept a far lower ATM reliability level and increased service/maintenance costs at the same time. (i.e. if the cash ID/counting machinery is down, so's the machine)
The potential profits are too low for the risks involved. Also, there are already ATMs that have been retrofitted to accept cash for the purpose of paying bills for defined (telco, utility) customers. Ever see one?
There are cheaper and more cost-effective ways to do this than via ATM, I filed a provisional patent app for one years ago.
who can afford to set up the network?
on
Wozniak Unveils WozNet
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I think all of us, including the Woz, know the answer to that.
Sounds perfect for Homeland Security funding.
Well, if one is going to sell out, it's reasonable to get the best price one can.
Apparently Wozniak was far more unhappy about not becoming a billionaire like others far less talented in technology than he ever told the press.
I remember looking into an IWM (integrated woz machine) on an Apple II design and seeing a work of engineering art.
In general, if you usa webmail account, you can assume that any IP you log into it from is recorded at login and is part of a log which will be kept until any law enforcement agency anywhere on earth asks for it.
I think the AU "problem" is simply a matter of technological ignorance on the part of the police.
Not that I'd be in any hurry to enlighten them, the AU government seems to be establishing the kind of legal framework to legalize actions that will put them in the "worst human rights abuser" category someday.
"People always get the kind of local goverment they deserve"
E.E. "Doc" Smith
As for independents, I don't know if I can support them. I'm afraid that they will get more successful and change their tunes or join an RIAA company, at which point I've helped another person to get into the system. It's a tough call for me.
I wouldn't worry about that. Musicians aren't stupid, and getting on board with a major label at this point is like buying a ticket and boarding the Titanic while it is visibly sinking.
Anyone getting a contract now is liable to find that by the time they've finished their first album, nobody's around at their label to service their account because it's just been sold to somebody with no current connection to the music industry and the few people left have no idea who's running things.
When the labels go down, it's over. All the investors who buy the "tainted brands" will want will be catalogues and artist contracts. Why would they want the management that made the labels affordable by running them into the ground? The people who can magically transform $10B companies into $1B companies are not exactly in great demand. We saw enough of that during the dot.com crash.
My analysis of news and trends says... we're no longer talking years before the major labels go down. They've got a few months to go if they are very, very lucky.
And when they start getting sold by their multinational whose patience with the label CEOs PIRACY!!! excuses have run out and fear their own stock prices dropping if they continue public association with the RIAA labels, they'll get sold at fire-sale prices (what good is a brand that people go out of their way to avoid?) to investors who will have something entirely different in mind and whose first move will be to take their labels out of the RIAA.
The claims admin will take the word of anyone claiming 5 licenses or below to a maximum of $100. Just as well, because I don't know if I've got my old 486 box or any of the paperwork.
MS owes me for... DOS, W3.1, W95, W98SE, and Office 97... I'm still using Office 97 and W98 just like a shitload of people and businesses. Surprise, just because one uses Windoze doesn't mean one jumps through the hoop just because MS says to.
Though the processor and the hard drive in the box 98 is running on have been upgraded, and if this had come along earlier, it could have paid for the HD where Red Hat lives on this computer.
While $100 isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things, getting anything back from those scumballs puts me in a good mood.
"The voucher amount will be determined by multiplying the number of licenses to use each software product by the per unit amount. Thus, a family which purchased one copy of Windows 95, two copies of Windows 98 and one copy of Office would be entitled to receive a voucher in the amount of $77.00 (3 x $16 plus 1 x $29). A business which purchased 100 copies of Windows 98 and 100 copies of Office would receive a voucher in the amount of $4,500 (100 x $16 plus 100 x $29)."
If you lived or had a business in CA during the time period dealt with, you're part of the class whether you're an individual or Hewlett-Packard.
HP can't claim the licenses they bought for resale, but they can claim every single license for Windows or Office or unbundled Excel or Word puchased for every single workstation they used internally as end users between 1995 and 2001.
MS is going to be less than pleased when some company that had 30,000 workstation seats shows up demanding compensation for 2 OS (2 x 16) + 2 copies of Office (2 x $29)=$80 X 30K... that's $2,400,000 .
Especially since thanks to their agressive pursuit of licensing offenses, those companies should still have the records of software purchase for every single workstation.
MS owes me $78, and something tells me that I'm not buying MS products with it.
One other thing. This is an out of court settlement. Apparently MS was afraid that it would have cost far more if this had gone to trial, so if you know anyone involved in a class action about this in another state, encourage them to go to trial.
You're confusing performance of the song -- playing it over a radio with very strict rules as to how the listeners can control what they're hearing -- and distribution -- getting a copy of the recording of the specific song you want.
I regard this as a distinction without a difference from the point of view of exposing the audience to promotional material.
Yes, artists want their songs to get a lot of radio performance so that people will *buy* the actual distributions of the recordings.
For many many people out there, mp3 sharing over the internet is not the equivalent of promotional performance, but rather the equivalent of getting the distribution.
I regard your second statement as completely unproven, though the claim plays a part in RIAA propaganda. Evidence, please.
You try to write this point off by saying that "128K MP3s are promotional goods of NO commercial value outside their use in getting people to buy the real products." This is simply not true. MP3s are certainly *good enough* for most people as a "real product".
Then why does iTunes make the claim that their format is higher quality than MP3?
A "real product" is something you can get people to pay for. Where is the commercial market for broadcast quality MP3?
While Joe Sixpack may not understand psychoacoustic masking and dynamic range and frequency response and the difference between lossy and lossless compression, he does know that CD audio sounds better on his home or college dorm stereo system. And if the music matters to him, he goes out and buys the CD regardless of whether he got to listen to the MP3 from the radio (128K MP3 is the universal broadcast automation format) or P2P or a drastically degraded Internet Radio stream. If the music doesn't matter to him, he wouldn't have bought it regardless of the medium he heard it on.
Why do you think the online music craze skyrocketed with the mp3 format? I mean, we've had audio compression before then. But it wasn't good enough. Now it is.
For casual listening, certainly. If you're out jogging with a portable MP3 player or driving with a car stereo, you'd better not be concentrating on the music.
And maybe some people don't like the artifacts in a 128K mp3. For many of these people, increasing the bitrate makes it good enough. Where do you draw the line?
128K MP3 is also the universal format used for broadcast automation software packages. I think 128K is a perfectly good place to draw the line between "promotional material" and "digital product", and I believe that 128K MP3 or lower quality should be subject to mandatory licensing for commercial / non-profit use based on the broadcast industry model that has served not only users, but the music industry over the years. If the quality is better than that and no permissions for use have been given, I'll hand the RIAA the book to throw myself.
I work with a musician on getting her material promoted, and that's the line I've advised her to draw. Note that we also have downloadable tracks on our site. In 128K MP3 format.
You're also concentrating on audio quality, and ignoring a very important aspect -- the *on-demand* nature of distribution. Performance of recorded songs, like I said, has strict controls over the listeners' abilities to choose which songs they hear. Too much control, and it can be considered a song distribution medium, not just a performance one.
I regard this as a distinction without a significant difference in this context.
Anyway, I hate the RIAA. They take too much money out of the whole process purely for profit, charge way too much for CDs, and give the artists way too little of a cut. I do think artists should get paid, but I wish I could do it more directly. I do download illegal music, but if I like it enough, I pretty much always go out and buy the actual CD.
In the world I'm suggesting, there would be 4 reasons other than the general public for MS to play nicely.
Apple, HP, Dell, and IBM... Note that these companies are in the hardware business, too.
Plus a 5th reason. If the price of a major label drops to the point where anybody but MS would consider it affordable (MS can pay list with $55B in the bank), it'll be proof that the old "control everything" business model doesn't work in music.
Would MS put DRM on a music player for any other reason than to lock people into Windoze if Hollywood didn't tell them to?
MS has two "homes of the future" demos in Redmond... the Hollywood DRM future (download to PC and it stays there) and the one where you can get audio and video from any room in the house. Which do you think MS will believe easier to sell?
This is about people who are re-distributing works that they do not have rights to. The number of distinct titles is irrelevant to the legality, moralilty and actual damages of the act.
A broadcast quality MP3 is a promotional product of zero actual commercial value.
There is NO market for them.
Putting a MP3 on a P2P network is the moral equivalent of getting it a few free airplays on a commercial radio station. Stupid, maybe, but immoral?
You can argue that it's illegal. While you state the legal position correctly, this is only true due to RIAA buying laws to order.
Arguing that it's immoral suggests you should find some other basis for your thinking than RIAA propaganda.
If it pisses you off. Never give them money again.This is not a "boycott" which has the overtones of people who are willing to go back to buying once the companies clean up their acts. This is a "lifestyle change" where you realize that they will lie and fuck you over so you never give them money ever again. No matter how much they protest that they've "cleaned up" down the road
The problem is that if a large chunk of the public did this, the record labels would scream PIRACY!!! about "lost sales" and use this as an excuse to buy even worse laws from politicians, and their CEOs could go to their multinational bosses and say "The boycott isn't significant, it's just that they're stealing our music instead of buying it."
The answer?
Continue to buy music, but from musicians who are not involved with the RIAA in any way, shape or form.
When the press sees that only musicians and labels making money are not involved with the RIAA are making money, the music industry as we know it is totally fucked.
Their parent companies will probably have to unload the "tainted" brands at 25 cents or less on the dollar.
But to destroy them, we have to keep on spending money on music.
I've suspected for a long time that there are some of us who are being paid to propagandize by PR firms... to spread FUD, to advocate political causes.
Who profits from the stupid idea that all an indie artist needs to do to give his music a fair chance at airplay is to take it to a radio station?
This is like the idea that all one has to do to give one's position on a bill a fair hearing is to write your Congresscritter a letter without a $5000 check enclosed.
Stop crying. Your stealing and the RIAA is going after you. Your basically shoplifting. How is this any different?
How is it shoplifing? The copies are still on record store shelves. Can you count?
So you're stealing music every time you listen to the radio? Well, then, you'd better hide your radio, trollboy. Go away, the grownups have something important to discuss.
A 128K broadcast-quality music track is a promotional good of no commercial value except in that a listener hearing it might be induced to buy it in better quality form as a CD or high-quality digital track like iTunes is selling.
Redistributing that 128K track is exactly like giving a record company free radio airplay. Where's the theft in that?
If they really gave a shit about piracy, they'd be paying off politicians in Asian countries to shut down pirate CD PRESSING PLANTS
This isn't about stealing, it's about control. They don't want media to exist they can't control to play artists who owe them nothing anywhere the public can hear them.
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That's a question I can answer. The older people (me, for instance) around here grew up legally making tapes off the radio and even albums and trading them with friends. This was considered fair use, and more than one band Metallica and the Grateful Dead are good examples became megaplatinum artists because of this. Once we wanted to hear more than tapes could give us, we went out and bought the albums and we went to their concerts.
The younger people here had parents who did this. So there is no culture of kids who grew up being taught that recording music and giving copies to friends is wrong. Parents had no interest in teaching kids that recording music is wrong and saw recording into a computer as the natural extension of what they were doing when they were growing up. Which it is.
The only reason why this is considered copyright infringment (only "useful fools" and RIAA publicists call this stealing) is because the RIAA bought politicians to make the extention of common analog practice onto the Net illegal.
Well, they have the power to make it illegal. They do not have the power to make it wrong.
128K/broadcast quality MP3s are promotional giveways of no intrinsic commercial value in and of themselves.
Their only value is in persuading people to buy the actual products, which are CDs or higher-than-broadcast quality digital tracks.
Do you know of any place where 128K MP3s are actually available for sale and people are actually buying them? Neither do I.
Why do you think that software patents should be banned and you think that the RIAA should be encouraged in their insane attack on the customers for their intellectual property?
Regardless of their own feelings on the matter.As the boycott takes off, this is going to become the only safe public position for a musician to take on this issue, repeating the RIAA party line is going to have an immediate downside for the musician in terms of smaller concert audiences and reduced record sales.
In fact, I expect musicians to be told by their labels and publicists to denounce their employers as soon as the boycott picks up steam.
Denouncing the labels is going to become the smart, safe thing to do... just as denouncing the War in Vietnam was the smart, safe thing for musicians to do in the '60s. It's called the marketing and commoditization of protest, and it can be very profitable. Well, this is a good thing, as long as all the money goes to musicians who aren't working for the RIAA labels.
Don't be fooled by major label musicians who denounce the industry and above all, DON'T buy their records just because they're saying cool public things about the boycott, buying their records just weakens our position..
If a musician not only denounces the RIAA, but immediately breaks his contract with the label and starts selling on the Web and uploading MP3s to P2P and Internet Radio, then reward him by buying.
However, in the meantime, just make sure all the music you buy is from independent artists and spend just as much on music as you usually do.
Every dollar spent on independent musicians is another nail in the RIAA coffin.
Let's nail the lid on the RIAA coffin nice and tight.
Buy music from independent non-RIAA artists, many do have their sales tracked. One doesn't have to be Own3D by an RIAA label in order to get Soundscan tracking. The main requirement from a musician POV is a (registered) UPC bar code.
If tracked sales go up for independent artists, the industry won't have any excuse to take to Congress and say "Of course they can refuse to buy from us, they're stealing it instead and we need NEW LAWS to protect OUR STARVING ARTISTS." no matter how far their sales drop.
The message we need to send to the RIAA labels and to Congress is
We WILL buy music. But not from a bunch of thugs.
It's more akin to putting a computer with a CD burner on your front porch along with your entire cd collection and hundreds of blank cds, then going and staking signs around the neighborhood about how the computer is there and so are the blank cds, and listing which cds you have, and your phone number in case they would like to ask you if you have cd XYZ song ZYX.
No, it's the digital domain equivalent of swapping analog tapes. Swapping analog tapes is perfectly legal and considered "fair use". Swapping files is only illegal because the RIAA paid off politicians to make it so.
Perhaps the same people who paid off politicians to get the laws changed paid you off to spread their FUD here?
If you aren't being paid off, I suggest you contact them and hit them up for money. You might as well get yours while they can, they won't be around much longer.
Not spending money on music will cut sales, and the RIAA will go to the press and Congress and say "Of course they're refusing to buy, they're stealing our music instead."
Buy indie artists instead and the music press will notice where the money is going instead of to the major labels. The mainstream press will take it from there. A major label whose brand name turns off users is something to run away from both to the multinational that owns it ,and to its artists.
This doesn't just mean not buying from the RIAA member labels.
That just gives them an excuse to buy even worse laws than the DMCA and "legalized corporate hacking."
Spend every dollar you've been spending on RIAA label music on independent musicians.
You can find some independent musicians, including some with downloadable tracks at CDBaby.
I work with an independent musician with both CDs for sale and downloadable tracks, check out http://www.eliangedeon.com.
Lots of other non-RIAA music on the Web. Google is your friend. No matter what you like, there's probably somebody who makes it who hasn't sold his or her ass to the RIAA.
Every dollar you spend on the good guys is another nail in the RIAA coffin. When music sales go up except for the RIAA labels, the multimationals that own major labels and the artists who work for them will look for a way to bail out.
When this is true, it's over for the major labels. They won't even exist in name, investor groups will be buying artist contracts and catalogues. But not the management who turned multibillion dollar companies into hundred million dollar companies, and not the "tainted" brand names. And make no mistake, a brand name that makes people less likely to want to buy is of negative value.
Instead, buy from independent non-RIAA musicians and labels. You'll have to look around on the Web to find those, but you should be able to find one to match your tastes no matter what they are. If record sales go up, but the RIAA labels go even deeper into red-ink, it'll be obvious that piracy is not the problem, no more excuses to make bad laws. It really won't take a lot of this to blow the labels right out of the water.
They're losing money anyway. They blame piracy. If they lose money a hell of a lot faster, what good is a "name brand" when customers see the name and automatically buy elsewhere? The label owners will see a bunch of "tainted brands" losing them money. The mulitnationals will unload fast to investors who will only want the catalogs and artist catalogues. Who will want to buy a CEO who managed to turn a $5 billion company into a $500M company?
CDBaby has a quite a few. Some with downloadable music.
Or check my sig to hear another one. We've got downloadable MP3s, too.
If you aren't sure whether an artist is RIAA or not, check RIAA Radar search to see if the artist is listed.
Every dollar spent on non-RIAA label music is another nail in the coffin of the RIAA and its record company members.
Tell the MIT alumni office now.
And without all the behind-the-scenes experts who generally are seen by the public only during the credits, there is no movie using current generation motion picture industry technology. So they have nothing to fear from piracy.
The Hollywood film industry technical experts only have to fear their jobs being outsourced out from under them and their being largely replaced by the technology we develop.
While a makeup artist is probably going to be necessary for quite some time (though I can imagine the color changes now done in makeup done digitally) for the stars, if the extras don't need either costumes or makeup because their only existence is virtual, there are a lot of jobs going away.
In any case, the issue is control, just like it is with the record industry. They fear that the next Spielberg is going to go direct to DVD and Internet distribution once the technology ramps up a bit and one can do full Hollywood-quality pictures on a desktop and a small video-card based render farm, and they want to make new distribution and promotion channels for independents unavailable.
If they actually gave a fuck about piracy, they'd be going after the Asian pirates with their own DVD pressing plants working and selling more or less openly.
In general, only the suits in the industry have anything to fear from future technological development in the current timeframe, if the movie industry follows the RIAA labels into oblivion, the stars will simply cut deals directly with directors and probably make more money than ever, and the best of the technical experts will keep right on working, probably also making more money than ever.
The procedures recommended by the US Department of Defense for disposal of hard drives used to handle secure documents should work even better on a spammer.
It's called the national budget.
It will be several hundred pages long or more, and it'll be just as easy to read as your first man page was.
The answer to your questions will be in there.
Somewhere.
Enjoy.
The potential profits are too low for the risks involved. Also, there are already ATMs that have been retrofitted to accept cash for the purpose of paying bills for defined (telco, utility) customers. Ever see one?
There are cheaper and more cost-effective ways to do this than via ATM, I filed a provisional patent app for one years ago.
Sounds perfect for Homeland Security funding.
Well, if one is going to sell out, it's reasonable to get the best price one can.
Apparently Wozniak was far more unhappy about not becoming a billionaire like others far less talented in technology than he ever told the press.
I remember looking into an IWM (integrated woz machine) on an Apple II design and seeing a work of engineering art.
Times have changed.
I think the AU "problem" is simply a matter of technological ignorance on the part of the police.
Not that I'd be in any hurry to enlighten them, the AU government seems to be establishing the kind of legal framework to legalize actions that will put them in the "worst human rights abuser" category someday.
"People always get the kind of local goverment they deserve"
E.E. "Doc" Smith
I wouldn't worry about that. Musicians aren't stupid, and getting on board with a major label at this point is like buying a ticket and boarding the Titanic while it is visibly sinking.
Anyone getting a contract now is liable to find that by the time they've finished their first album, nobody's around at their label to service their account because it's just been sold to somebody with no current connection to the music industry and the few people left have no idea who's running things.
When the labels go down, it's over. All the investors who buy the "tainted brands" will want will be catalogues and artist contracts. Why would they want the management that made the labels affordable by running them into the ground? The people who can magically transform $10B companies into $1B companies are not exactly in great demand. We saw enough of that during the dot.com crash.
My analysis of news and trends says... we're no longer talking years before the major labels go down. They've got a few months to go if they are very, very lucky.
And when they start getting sold by their multinational whose patience with the label CEOs PIRACY!!! excuses have run out and fear their own stock prices dropping if they continue public association with the RIAA labels, they'll get sold at fire-sale prices (what good is a brand that people go out of their way to avoid?) to investors who will have something entirely different in mind and whose first move will be to take their labels out of the RIAA.
MS owes me for ... DOS, W3.1, W95, W98SE, and Office 97... I'm still using Office 97 and W98 just like a shitload of people and businesses. Surprise, just because one uses Windoze doesn't mean one jumps through the hoop just because MS says to.
Though the processor and the hard drive in the box 98 is running on have been upgraded, and if this had come along earlier, it could have paid for the HD where Red Hat lives on this computer.
While $100 isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things, getting anything back from those scumballs puts me in a good mood.
If you lived or had a business in CA during the time period dealt with, you're part of the class whether you're an individual or Hewlett-Packard.
HP can't claim the licenses they bought for resale, but they can claim every single license for Windows or Office or unbundled Excel or Word puchased for every single workstation they used internally as end users between 1995 and 2001.
MS is going to be less than pleased when some company that had 30,000 workstation seats shows up demanding compensation for 2 OS (2 x 16) + 2 copies of Office (2 x $29)=$80 X 30K... that's $2,400,000 .
Especially since thanks to their agressive pursuit of licensing offenses, those companies should still have the records of software purchase for every single workstation.
MS owes me $78, and something tells me that I'm not buying MS products with it.
One other thing. This is an out of court settlement. Apparently MS was afraid that it would have cost far more if this had gone to trial, so if you know anyone involved in a class action about this in another state, encourage them to go to trial.
I regard this as a distinction without a difference from the point of view of exposing the audience to promotional material.
Yes, artists want their songs to get a lot of radio performance so that people will *buy* the actual distributions of the recordings.
For many many people out there, mp3 sharing over the internet is not the equivalent of promotional performance, but rather the equivalent of getting the distribution.
I regard your second statement as completely unproven, though the claim plays a part in RIAA propaganda. Evidence, please.
You try to write this point off by saying that "128K MP3s are promotional goods of NO commercial value outside their use in getting people to buy the real products." This is simply not true. MP3s are certainly *good enough* for most people as a "real product".
Then why does iTunes make the claim that their format is higher quality than MP3?
A "real product" is something you can get people to pay for. Where is the commercial market for broadcast quality MP3?
While Joe Sixpack may not understand psychoacoustic masking and dynamic range and frequency response and the difference between lossy and lossless compression, he does know that CD audio sounds better on his home or college dorm stereo system. And if the music matters to him, he goes out and buys the CD regardless of whether he got to listen to the MP3 from the radio (128K MP3 is the universal broadcast automation format) or P2P or a drastically degraded Internet Radio stream. If the music doesn't matter to him, he wouldn't have bought it regardless of the medium he heard it on.
Why do you think the online music craze skyrocketed with the mp3 format? I mean, we've had audio compression before then. But it wasn't good enough. Now it is.
For casual listening, certainly. If you're out jogging with a portable MP3 player or driving with a car stereo, you'd better not be concentrating on the music.
And maybe some people don't like the artifacts in a 128K mp3. For many of these people, increasing the bitrate makes it good enough. Where do you draw the line?
128K MP3 is also the universal format used for broadcast automation software packages. I think 128K is a perfectly good place to draw the line between "promotional material" and "digital product", and I believe that 128K MP3 or lower quality should be subject to mandatory licensing for commercial / non-profit use based on the broadcast industry model that has served not only users, but the music industry over the years. If the quality is better than that and no permissions for use have been given, I'll hand the RIAA the book to throw myself.
I work with a musician on getting her material promoted, and that's the line I've advised her to draw. Note that we also have downloadable tracks on our site. In 128K MP3 format.
You're also concentrating on audio quality, and ignoring a very important aspect -- the *on-demand* nature of distribution. Performance of recorded songs, like I said, has strict controls over the listeners' abilities to choose which songs they hear. Too much control, and it can be considered a song distribution medium, not just a performance one.
I regard this as a distinction without a significant difference in this context.
Anyway, I hate the RIAA. They take too much money out of the whole process purely for profit, charge way too much for CDs, and give the artists way too little of a cut. I do think artists should get paid, but I wish I could do it more directly. I do download illegal music, but if I like it enough, I pretty much always go out and buy the actual CD.
Just like everybody else.
And you reinforce the
Apple, HP, Dell, and IBM... Note that these companies are in the hardware business, too.
Plus a 5th reason. If the price of a major label drops to the point where anybody but MS would consider it affordable (MS can pay list with $55B in the bank), it'll be proof that the old "control everything" business model doesn't work in music.
Would MS put DRM on a music player for any other reason than to lock people into Windoze if Hollywood didn't tell them to?
MS has two "homes of the future" demos in Redmond... the Hollywood DRM future (download to PC and it stays there) and the one where you can get audio and video from any room in the house. Which do you think MS will believe easier to sell?
Anyone around here know for sure?
A broadcast quality MP3 is a promotional product of zero actual commercial value.
There is NO market for them.
Putting a MP3 on a P2P network is the moral equivalent of getting it a few free airplays on a commercial radio station. Stupid, maybe, but immoral?
You can argue that it's illegal. While you state the legal position correctly, this is only true due to RIAA buying laws to order.
Arguing that it's immoral suggests you should find some other basis for your thinking than RIAA propaganda.
is that the distinction between file swapping and tape swapping is purely a legal one made by buying politicians.
The problem is that if a large chunk of the public did this, the record labels would scream PIRACY!!! about "lost sales" and use this as an excuse to buy even worse laws from politicians, and their CEOs could go to their multinational bosses and say "The boycott isn't significant, it's just that they're stealing our music instead of buying it."
The answer?
Continue to buy music, but from musicians who are not involved with the RIAA in any way, shape or form.
When the press sees that only musicians and labels making money are not involved with the RIAA are making money, the music industry as we know it is totally fucked.
Their parent companies will probably have to unload the "tainted" brands at 25 cents or less on the dollar.
But to destroy them, we have to keep on spending money on music.
Who profits from the stupid idea that all an indie artist needs to do to give his music a fair chance at airplay is to take it to a radio station?
This is like the idea that all one has to do to give one's position on a bill a fair hearing is to write your Congresscritter a letter without a $5000 check enclosed.
Profitable mythology.
Who profits?
How is it shoplifing? The copies are still on record store shelves. Can you count?
So you're stealing music every time you listen to the radio? Well, then, you'd better hide your radio, trollboy. Go away, the grownups have something important to discuss.
A 128K broadcast-quality music track is a promotional good of no commercial value except in that a listener hearing it might be induced to buy it in better quality form as a CD or high-quality digital track like iTunes is selling.
Redistributing that 128K track is exactly like giving a record company free radio airplay. Where's the theft in that?
If they really gave a shit about piracy, they'd be paying off politicians in Asian countries to shut down pirate CD PRESSING PLANTS
This isn't about stealing, it's about control. They don't want media to exist they can't control to play artists who owe them nothing anywhere the public can hear them.