Even the conversion boxes are going to cost something like $700.
Yeah, and the box with the 10GHz AMD you'll be buying around then will cost $7K, right?
Here's your clue, and I won't even shove it in with a cluebat.
Guess what. Moore's Law applies to the electronics in TV sets as well, other than the circuitry (HV power supply, etc.) feeding the CRT, which will hopefully be obsolete by then. TV chip sets or more likely, single chips will be cheaper for OEMs than they are now. Set-top boxes... the box itself, a chip, about 4 square inches of PCB, maybe, and a handful of jacks... the first generation might cost as much as $100, after which the price will probably drop to the $25 level within a couple of years. (using 2002 dollars and assuming the price is comparable to that of consumer devices of comparable complexity now)
As for what gets done with the freed spectrum, lots of possibilities. How would you like the chance to buy wireless broadband at a reasonable price? You like the current situation? How many wireless broadband channels can you get where you live right now?
You should have waited a few minutes before posting, there were cites in Politech in the very next post pointing to other Federal courts where the anti-junkfax law was upheld. Unless the 8th Circuit upholds the District Court's pro-junk fax ruling, the FCC enforcement continues.
Your post is what happens when you eat MPAA/RIAA sh3t as food for thought.
Free ride? Make that a free promotional tool for independent artists. I'm working on promoting one right now, and my biggest headache is that most of the places I had planned on uploading our promo MP3s to no longer exist thanks to the suits at the major record labels whose rights you are trying to protect. If you really believe DRM is about protecting artists, you belong in an AOL chatroom with the other tards, not here.
If the only MP3s you download are N'Sync and Britney Spears, I really don't give a shit about your "free ride". MY rights are worth protecting. Yours aren't. DRM is about control of your computer by content industry suits and Micro$hit. If you want your computer 0wn3d by those scumbags, maybe if you sit on Jack Valenti's lap and beg him, one of his tame "black hats" will write you a Trojan. Of course, there's no guarantee your computer will work any better than your brain does afterwards.
Personally, I don't download MP3s much, particularly from the brain-dead crop of what passes for entertainment your buddies at the RIAA spew forth for the public.
I'm not going to argue with you about how DRM directly conflicts with the traditional concepts of "fair usage" and the intentional tradeoff built into copyright law between the rights of end users and creators of material, those arguments have been made over and over here and in other places and often, by artists you think want DRM protection. The only reasons why anyone would argue pro-DRM/pro-RIAA at this point are: 1. You work for RIAA/MPAA/PR firm 2. You're too fucking stupid to understand the fair usage arguments you've seen so far. Perhaps you'll get what Janis Ian has to say about it. Presumably, you can point and click, can't you?
I'm not surprised. I'm still running a LaserJet II... it does need to have the paper feed serviced, but it prints as cleanly as it did back in the pre-Windows era in which it was built. When I say pre-Windows... the docs contained NO reference to ANY Windoze version.
Too bad all that's left of the company that built that is the brand name.
Imagine being able to use remote diagnostics to turn the gas valves ON and the ignitors OFF on a gas stove, and to lock a toaster a few feet away ON.
However, all this means is that a kitchen appliance, like anything else hooked to the Net needs to be behind a firewall and other appropriate security precautions need to be taken, e.g. any software updates need to be crypto-signed, some form of authentication is required for anyone who wants to access device internals, and even the regular user Web page (e.g. to set your thermostat remotely) needs to be password protected.
But the real question is: how would want to 'configure' their toasters using a GUI?"
How about customer service?
Toast isn't browning right? Reflash the portion of EEPROM that governs the relationship between control setting and level of brownness. Now, you don't have to return it to the store for warranty replacement.
There are lots of little adjustments that now have to be done by a service person onsite that could easily be done by remote control if the appliance is Net-enabled in some manner.
Of course, if security isn't part of the Web setup, it isn't just service personnel who'll be inside your kitchen appliance.
Musicians know that they're only going to get a few cents per record after they've paid off their advance.
Once creative accounting has been used to figure out what the musicians "owe" the label, this is never unless they deliver a string of multi-platinum hits.
Unless the RIAA labels can tell musicians that "You make a living in music with us or not at all", there's no reason for anybody to sign up with them. They can only do this by 0wnlng ALL the channels.
Unless they can either get the world to play along and/or figure out how to legally require backbones to filter non-approved content before it gets to our part of the Net... that multi-platinum non-RIAA Internet-only hit will happen... because they can't 0wn all the channels... a.ru or.de or.sk TLD site is just as close as one next door. I don't think they can get this kind of legislation online before it happens.
That's the visible and public beginning of the end for them.
The RIAA is trying to close down ALL broadcast channels the public can use to access music content from independent artists.
How can they sell the mass-market crap they pump out over Clear Channel and Infinity if the public has alternatives available?
The RIAA knows that broadcasting sells CDs. That's why they pay thousands of dollars for every single track that an FM radio station plays to independent promoters.
It isn't that they object to free promotion, they object to the idea that "just anybody" can upload to P2P or to an Internet Radio station.
They are looking at the end of their business model and will do anything to keep it going for a little longer and they simply don't care how much damage what they do occurs to the rest of America. The legislators they 0wn are too busy counting their bribes to realize that this kind of legislation will put their constituents out of work and the economy in a fatal tailspin.
If this bill passes, operations whose Web operations are critical to them probably should start thinking about relocating outside the USA.
If all of these devices were controlled by embedded Windows, it isn't hard to imagine them being virus contaminated, h4xx0red and r00ted.
The solution to that is simply make it illegal to use Microsoft products in any life-critical situation.
While this doesn't make stupid software design for traffic lights, SCADA systems, etc. impossible, such law would prevent stupid design from being unavoidable and inevitable.
Is this the kind of FUD we're going to come to expect from security focus now that they sold out^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H are under the symantec "corporate umbrella"?
The article makes fun out of the ex-Micro$loth's predictions.
Why doesn't the admin simply replace the site content with the original (he does have a backup?) and announce that the site was subject to unauthorized breakin, that the original content is replaced, and unless he gets a request from the owner in person at the ISP to take it down, to insure that the owner is doing this of his uncoerced free will, that it's staying up for the rest of the time in the original service agreement.
You have the usual misunderstanding of the purpose for RIAA labels trying to put MP3 downloading and Internet Radio out of business. Evidence that these act as cheap promotion for albums is abundant. The problem isn't that record labels object to cheap, the problem is that anybody can play, anyone can upload to P2P or submit a record to a Internet Radio station, the payola the RIAA labels provide for a monopoly on FM radio access suddenly becomes a lot less valuable.
You also don't quite get that sales/revenues are declining for both FM radio and major labels. Is it because of downloading? Let's take the word of the RIAA for a change since they tell us that the 90% of download users buy CDs. This tells us that people are buying, if it's good... and what they are paying for is better than 128K MP3 sound so they can hear something they like better. The MP3s that are played with the listener saying "what total shit" going into the bit-bucket and he's just saved $20. Part of the RIAA model depends on the listerer finding out that an album is crap AFTER paying $20 for it.
One can blame this the decline of sales on the recession, but I would attribute to the "mass market" fragmenting into niches which are getting small enough to limit the potential market value while simultaneously increasing the expertise required for the labels to know what they are selling, who they are selling to.
Their attempts to use traditional marketing, focus groups, polling, etc. to find the next million-record seller are an attempt to hit a target that is not only moving, but becoming illusory. Why are people turning off FM radio? Why did you? If it doesn't cater to your tastes, why bother?
However, this doesn't answer the rest of your question. The answer is drastically cheaper promotion and physical distribution making it possible for a record label to break even / profit on far fewer sales. A record label that intends to be around in 2020 needs to find a business model that doesn't depend on a significant number of their artists going consistently platinum.
The goal here is to make sure that an artist selling 10K records is a profitable and prosperous one. Since an artist who is selling 10K records a year that she is producing and selling herself is grossing about $100K a year, the question is... how can a record label add value to this product to justify an artist doing business with it?
The other point is that with the fragmenting of the mass market, a record label that depends on a few record artists going platinum to allow making a profit despite the other artists who "only" sold 5K or 10K or 20K records is going to find increasingly fewer platinum records and ultimately, will find itself in Chapter 11.
Remember, an artist who sells his own music and finds an audience of a few tens of thousands of people is better off without an RIAA label supporting him. Musicians know that the odds of signing with a label and going consistently platinum are not only comparable to winning the lottery, but if the label gives up on that person or band, that person/band is no longer able to sell his/their own music.
One piece of the puzzle is missing for a record company to make this new business model possible. The TVD (terabyte removable media in CD/DVD form factor) won't be out until next year. This would make possible a black box driven by a TVD jukebox that would allow CD-on-demand purchases at any record store which has a copy. Automated production equipment for CDs on demand already exists. It would need to be repackaged for non-geeks...
This allows full quality CDs to be purchased at any record store which has the black box and TVDs from each record label they carry. Each record label could send a TVD out weekly or monthly with every single record on the label, including the back list. Encryption could be used to allow only legitimate stores to use this to make copies. Automated record keeping can be done with the machine to tell the store who to send checks to every week.
This eliminates physical production and distribution of CDs from the label POV. This also eliminates a great deal of the financial risk with respect to signing a band, as the incremental cost of getting them into stores drops to about zero.
Promotion? Stop worrying about "anybody can play" and start supporting Internet Radio (unfortunately, outside the US) and MP3 networks. Start buying ads in music print media to tell people where the new "cool places" to find new music is. Make effective use of the Internet. Don't try to be all things to all people, find a niche and try to expand to neighboring niches. Keep overhead low and develop serious expertise in a category to allow effectively helping the artist to promote themselves. The converse of this is that musicians won't be able to
If a record label develops the expertise to pick artists and give them effective support at a low cost to the label, they don't need to worry about controlling promotional channels.
Once word gets around to musicians that XXXXXX Records knows how to market, to Internet Radio that they can pick music people actually listen to, and to the industry that they are making real money with a collection of artists who wouldn't even show up on their mid-list and haven't spent a penny on FM payola, a monopoly on FM Radio becomes a whole lot less valuable.
You wanted a new business model? While I think the technology and environment probably makes other alternative models possible... I've certainly answered your question in detail adequate for a slashdot post, anyone who wants me to work on this further can discuss my hourly consult rate with me.
We need an organization that is concerned with fundraising and lobbying, one that can deliver every thing from $$$$$ to unpaid labor for campaigns. Most important of all one that can deliver the goods on election day, votes, blocks of votes. That means things like calling nerds on election day reminding them to vote, arranging rides to the polls and any other damn thing it takes.
You're right that the "high-tech" industry is much bigger than the entertainment industry. But I think it's unlikely that passage of the Hollings bill would hurt the US tech industry. First of all, it would soon spread to most countries via WTO, WIPO, TRIPS, etc.
CBDTPA will reduce performance due to requiring a query to the DRM for every file access. How else is it possible for a DRM to decide whether or not the process calling the file has "legitimate" access to it?
What's not to like about this?
I don't see this spreading anywhere outside the area where Hollywood paid off enough politicians. While the EU will accept stupid experiments in government from the US, there has to be something for this for the EU politicians and/or bureaucrats at least. And suddenly turning one's 12 msec HD into a 20 or worse HD msec based on the DRM hits on performance is not that something. Having the DRM under the control of a foriegn entity isn't that something, either.
More to the point, the EU and Asian government being able to derive a differential advantage for their electronics companies because the US Congress did something absymally stupid by simply refraining from passing a law... where is this a problem for the EU or any Asian government?
I see increased development costs for US hardware developers.
Perhaps massively increased hardware development costs. (gulp)
The ADC price goes way up. These are simple chips, just a few thousand gate-equivalents if that many. Put even a simple microprocessor core on the chip and that 50 cent part may be a $2.50 or $5 part. $2 parts and an extra $5 labor to include a parasitic function due to a stupid national law. Will DRM have to be custom-burned to identify each customer? Another labor cost.
Consumer electronics require LOTS of ADCs and DACs.
Also, do you know what this does to individual hardware hacking? These are parts currently available in uncontrolled form at RADIO SHACK. Imagine having to have a license and to fill out government paperwork in order to possess 1 and account for its usage or destruction.
Second, it's not that big a deal for hardware designers to incorporate a licensed protection technology. In the overall complexity of a powerful video card, for instance, this tech might add 5% to the complexity.
What good does this do the individual consumer? DRM even when working correctly is a limitation on the use of a computer. What incentive is there for an EU bureaucrat or politician who is not subsidized by Hollywood to tolerate this?
Electronics makers already adapt to a variety of regional laws. Many countries have different laws about the physical limits on Ham radios. So some radios have the ability to load the allowed spectrum map externally. That way they are always localized correctly to the country.
it's not the same thing. A US government mandated DRM would probably have to be burned in to the vendor chips before purchse to achieve CBDTPA or Broadcast Working Group compliance. This isn't like having a power supply good from 80-230 volts and simply chaning plugs between countries.
Now if the Hollings bill passes and is NOT ratified by the globalization crowd, a Canadian or Mexican manufacturer could sue the US under NAFTA. NAFTA says that a government regulation blocking imported goods must not be any more restrictive than necessary for the purpose. WTO makes the call, and they can strike down the law.
Now THIS is an interesting idea. Would US politicians pull out of NAFTA over this? Doubtful. There are many companies that find it useful. Not all are high-tech, a fair number have the traditional corporate lobbying setups with funding for "friends"... more money than the entertainment industry has for politics.
So NAFTA may be the weak spot in the Hollings law. Thanks.
I Said representing the intrests of the people, Not representing the intrests of all the people or the majority of the people.
Then say what you mean, d00d. I fully agree, of course.:-)
Holywood donates lots of campaign $$$$$
No shit. However, if a substantial portion of us donate $10 at a time to a political organization that represents our interests and can get comparable corporate donations, our community becomes a major player. As I said, Public Knowledge has already raised $1.1M, $400,000 was from Red Hat's Center for the Public Domain. Yes, you read this correctly. Is Public Knowledge the organization that's willing to go out to kick asses and take names on our behalf? I'm going to keep an eye on them... because if they are, our choices are... make damned well certain that they and we win, leave the US to stay in high-tech, or enjoy flipping burgers.
Silicon Valley donates very little campaign $$$$$
How many Silicon Valley high-tech suits read slashdot?
If you (as in any reader) is one. . . do something. . . read the CBDTPA and figure out what this does to your company's business model. What level of political contribution by your company is more cost-effective than going out of business or relocation outside the US with core personnel?
Hollywood stars help raise campaign $$$$ at
fundraisers.
Let's separate this into music and TV/movies. TV/movie actors know they depend on their industry for survival. We can't make Hollywood movies of the sort that people are used to seeing without their infrastructure, which is a lot more than a MacG4 and a few kilobucks of specialized video stuff. So they'll say what their bosses tell them to say.
Musicians who work for major labels know they're taking it up the ass without Vaseline and that if the stranglehold over distribution and exposure held by RIAA labels is broken, they'd make a hell of a lot more money playing better music. The general record-buying public knows this. So you might be surprised at the number who might be willing to do fundraisers and participate in media events in order to ratfuck their suit bosses and get people elected willing to blow up this monopoly. Do you think people's favorite musicians saying "This Congressman is voting to rip me off" would get a bit of attention?
Silicon Valley Nerds are worthless at fundraisers.
How good can you get at fundraising if the alternative is McDonald's?
It costs a shitload of $$$$ to get elected and as long as Holywood outspends the valley their canidates stand the best chance of getting elected. Talk is cheap, campaigns aren't.
No shit, Sherlock. You ready to open your wallet? I'm willing to open mine. All I need is an organization willing to help us put together the kind of hardball, bareknuckle political fight that's our only alternative to losing the high-tech sector and I'm there. Are you?
Sending Form letter faxes is a waste of time.
They go in the trash unread and uncounted.
They get counted. They also have a certain annoyance value to them in the offices that still run paper fax machines... which gets attention, and also remember that you're tying up about 90 seconds of fax line for every fax. The ACLU still wins occasionally despite their popularity. This is because they can dump tens of thousands of faxes on Congress from actual constituents at will.
Also remember that unless your message is accompanied by a substantial check or you have a track record of campaign contributions, counted is the best you can probably do.
Remember that unless you have an excellent grasp of the issues and can present them effectively in person, we're better off if you don't go further than making a phone call saying "vote NO on CBDTPA" to your local Congresscritter's office. How many geeks are good at doing this in person? Explaining non-tech issues to the not-especially interested clueless?
Congressional staffs use their incoming fax for things besides hearing from constituents. Also remember that on some issues, the only comment from a constituent either way might be on something the elected official has no particular feelings either way because nobody on either side of the issue donated him any money.
E-mail goes into the bit-bucket. There's no doubt about that. Don't bother with paper mail, the anthrax scare means that letters can be delayed for months if they get there at all.
Congress Critters get lots everyday from evry cause on Earth. They show little commitment, the only effort needed is clicking a button. If you want to really catch their attention drop by your Congress critters local office and tell the staff what you think in person. That gets more attention than thousands of faxed form letters.
Also true. However, for every person who drops into a congressman's office, a thousand people might be willing to point and click to get a fax sent. A mass movement is about many different kinds of people with many different levels of committment and time. Those who only have a few minutes they can spend need to have their contributions harvested, too.
A thousand faxes means 1,000 people who have stated positions on a specific bill. Piss off enough thousands of people at a time by ignoring them, and one is likely to have to look for an honest job.
The Web-to-fax setup is a useful tool for mass movements... and if we're going to continue doing high technology, we as a group are going to have to figure out how all these tools work. Or meet in expatriate gatherings in Ireland and Canada and Holland and Germany lamenting the good old days back when there was American high-tech.
It's single-issue politics time, and the issue is survival.
There are only 6 Senators who can claim they are representing the intrests of the people in their state when they back Media Companies, the ones from California, New York, and Tennessee
No, 4. If Hollywood had a large rock on it, SoCal would go through a moderate recession.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CALIFORNIA ECONOMY IF SILICON VALLEY GOES OUT OF BUSINESS?
The difference... the entertainment industry knows that their only hope of preserving their business model is via buttering up Congress.
Now try explaining this to Jerry Sanders of AMD, for instance.
The high-tech industries have only started to figure out that what happens in DC affects all of us, and they're hoping they can spend a little money on conventional lobbying to straighten this all out.
Perhaps, say, Apple will get the idea when they suddenly realize that the only way they can legally manufacture computers the rest of the world will buy will be to move to anywhere but the USA... as they start scouting real estate in Canada and Ireland.
What's needed is a mass movement backed by serious corporate money from the people CBDTPA will hit hardest. Though in fact, if such a mass movement is to be effective, we're going to have to match the corporate donations out of our own pockets AND actually get off our butts and participate... when the mail from the mailing lists gets to us, click the URLs and send the faxes to Congress... when we're asked to volunteer to work in campaigns of people we despise who vote right on Hollywood control of technology, get out from in front of our computers and GO.
Your choices?
If you're a suit at a major high-tech company, figure out the implications of CBDTPA for your company and get the point across to your bosses that we need serious political action NOW... or that they might as well start scouting foriegn real estate and figuring out which employees are going. Perhaps your company should donate real money and/or facilities to the new Public Knowledge organization if they are really going to do the political action they say they plan to do. They already have $1.1M seed money, as you know, that's only a start.
Do politics rather than talk about it.
hope that your company or client thinks you're worth taking when they move out of the US,
start figuring out where our companies are going and get there first
Political contribution information is easy. Just go to Open Secrets and search out the name of your favorite politician or donor.
Note: many of the contributions of the entertainment organizations are done through law firms and other organizations. "Soft money" is covered.
If you're going to do a score card, see if you can find a smart political reporter from a major newspaper or other serious political type to ferret out ALL the money.
(from article) but it is a measure of Hollywood's clout that California senator Dianne Feinstein -- formerly the mayor of San Francisco -- has cosponsored it.
Huh? She's a democrat senator from the state where Hollywood is. Hello? McFly?
Fritz isn't. Hollywood is thousands of miles away but they have no trouble finding him to send their checks to. Isn't FedEx wonderful?
Remember what else is in California? Ever heard of Silicon Valley?
If the entertainment industry were to pack and leave Southern Califonia, they'd see a localized moderate recession. Living in Northern California, I don't have much of a problem with this.
If high-tech R&D / production has to leave the country due to CBDTPA, we'd see a major depression leaving the USA sliding towards Third World status. You'll see companies that still bother with the US market selling us dumbed-down versions of consumer products years after they get to Japan and Germany. California is one of the states that would be hit hardest as Silicon Valley became part of "The New Rust Belt"... a few years from now, high-tech types who didn't manage to emigrate would be looking at NOW as "the good old days".
The difference is between a cold and bubonic plague.
The other difference? The entertainment industry sends campaign contributions to Congress. High-tech companies are just starting to learn that they ought to do this.
Is Feinstein working in the interests of the majority of her constituents?
Certainly. However, in her mind, her votes are counted in campaign dollars. The people who made the mistake of electing her? To the best of my knowledge, she isn't the least bit interested in us.
If you hadn't combined politics and Internet business models in random chunks of the same post, you might have made sense.
Slashdot Mirror
And how is the average gnutella user any different?
Anyone who can't figure that out belongs in an aol chatroom with the rest of the lusers.
Yeah, and the box with the 10GHz AMD you'll be buying around then will cost $7K, right?
Here's your clue, and I won't even shove it in with a cluebat.
Guess what. Moore's Law applies to the electronics in TV sets as well, other than the circuitry (HV power supply, etc.) feeding the CRT, which will hopefully be obsolete by then. TV chip sets or more likely, single chips will be cheaper for OEMs than they are now. Set-top boxes... the box itself, a chip, about 4 square inches of PCB, maybe, and a handful of jacks... the first generation might cost as much as $100, after which the price will probably drop to the $25 level within a couple of years. (using 2002 dollars and assuming the price is comparable to that of consumer devices of comparable complexity now)
As for what gets done with the freed spectrum, lots of possibilities. How would you like the chance to buy wireless broadband at a reasonable price? You like the current situation? How many wireless broadband channels can you get where you live right now?
You should have waited a few minutes before posting, there were cites in Politech in the very next post pointing to other Federal courts where the anti-junkfax law was upheld. Unless the 8th Circuit upholds the District Court's pro-junk fax ruling, the FCC enforcement continues.
Free ride? Make that a free promotional tool for independent artists. I'm working on promoting one right now, and my biggest headache is that most of the places I had planned on uploading our promo MP3s to no longer exist thanks to the suits at the major record labels whose rights you are trying to protect. If you really believe DRM is about protecting artists, you belong in an AOL chatroom with the other tards, not here.
If the only MP3s you download are N'Sync and Britney Spears, I really don't give a shit about your "free ride". MY rights are worth protecting. Yours aren't. DRM is about control of your computer by content industry suits and Micro$hit. If you want your computer 0wn3d by those scumbags, maybe if you sit on Jack Valenti's lap and beg him, one of his tame "black hats" will write you a Trojan. Of course, there's no guarantee your computer will work any better than your brain does afterwards.
Personally, I don't download MP3s much, particularly from the brain-dead crop of what passes for entertainment your buddies at the RIAA spew forth for the public.
I'm not going to argue with you about how DRM directly conflicts with the traditional concepts of "fair usage" and the intentional tradeoff built into copyright law between the rights of end users and creators of material, those arguments have been made over and over here and in other places and often, by artists you think want DRM protection. The only reasons why anyone would argue pro-DRM/pro-RIAA at this point are:
1. You work for RIAA/MPAA/PR firm
2. You're too fucking stupid to understand the fair usage arguments you've seen so far. Perhaps you'll get what Janis Ian has to say about it. Presumably, you can point and click, can't you?
I believe you to be in the second category.
Prices in the usual quantities?
How many of those could you stick in a 1U rackmount box?
You can find the contributions at OpenSecrets.
You will discover that your favorite politicians are not only 4 sale, but that you can buy them for fire-sale prices.
Too bad all that's left of the company that built that is the brand name.
Try Viagra.
However, all this means is that a kitchen appliance, like anything else hooked to the Net needs to be behind a firewall and other appropriate security precautions need to be taken, e.g. any software updates need to be crypto-signed, some form of authentication is required for anyone who wants to access device internals, and even the regular user Web page (e.g. to set your thermostat remotely) needs to be password protected.
How about customer service?
Toast isn't browning right? Reflash the portion of EEPROM that governs the relationship between control setting and level of brownness. Now, you don't have to return it to the store for warranty replacement.
There are lots of little adjustments that now have to be done by a service person onsite that could easily be done by remote control if the appliance is Net-enabled in some manner.
Of course, if security isn't part of the Web setup, it isn't just service personnel who'll be inside your kitchen appliance.
Oddly enough, the list doesn't contain Website links.
I mentioned this because several people have mentioned that the RIAA exists to take the heat for the rest of the old-model record industry.
The list on the site is the traditional record industry.
Musicians know that they're only going to get a few cents per record after they've paid off their advance.
Once creative accounting has been used to figure out what the musicians "owe" the label, this is never unless they deliver a string of multi-platinum hits.
Unless the RIAA labels can tell musicians that "You make a living in music with us or not at all", there's no reason for anybody to sign up with them. They can only do this by 0wnlng ALL the channels.
Unless they can either get the world to play along and/or figure out how to legally require backbones to filter non-approved content before it gets to our part of the Net... that multi-platinum non-RIAA Internet-only hit will happen... because they can't 0wn all the channels... a .ru or .de or .sk TLD site is just as close as one next door. I don't think they can get this kind of legislation online before it happens.
That's the visible and public beginning of the end for them.
How can they sell the mass-market crap they pump out over Clear Channel and Infinity if the public has alternatives available?
The RIAA knows that broadcasting sells CDs. That's why they pay thousands of dollars for every single track that an FM radio station plays to independent promoters.
It isn't that they object to free promotion, they object to the idea that "just anybody" can upload to P2P or to an Internet Radio station.
They are looking at the end of their business model and will do anything to keep it going for a little longer and they simply don't care how much damage what they do occurs to the rest of America. The legislators they 0wn are too busy counting their bribes to realize that this kind of legislation will put their constituents out of work and the economy in a fatal tailspin.
If this bill passes, operations whose Web operations are critical to them probably should start thinking about relocating outside the USA.
The solution to that is simply make it illegal to use Microsoft products in any life-critical situation.
While this doesn't make stupid software design for traffic lights, SCADA systems, etc. impossible, such law would prevent stupid design from being unavoidable and inevitable.
The article makes fun out of the ex-Micro$loth's predictions.
"Security by obscurity is for" ________________.
Why doesn't the admin simply replace the site content with the original (he does have a backup?) and announce that the site was subject to unauthorized breakin, that the original content is replaced, and unless he gets a request from the owner in person at the ISP to take it down, to insure that the owner is doing this of his uncoerced free will, that it's staying up for the rest of the time in the original service agreement.
You have the usual misunderstanding of the purpose for RIAA labels trying to put MP3 downloading and Internet Radio out of business. Evidence that these act as cheap promotion for albums is abundant. The problem isn't that record labels object to cheap, the problem is that anybody can play, anyone can upload to P2P or submit a record to a Internet Radio station, the payola the RIAA labels provide for a monopoly on FM radio access suddenly becomes a lot less valuable.
You also don't quite get that sales/revenues are declining for both FM radio and major labels. Is it because of downloading? Let's take the word of the RIAA for a change since they tell us that the 90% of download users buy CDs. This tells us that people are buying, if it's good... and what they are paying for is better than 128K MP3 sound so they can hear something they like better. The MP3s that are played with the listener saying "what total shit" going into the bit-bucket and he's just saved $20. Part of the RIAA model depends on the listerer finding out that an album is crap AFTER paying $20 for it.
One can blame this the decline of sales on the recession, but I would attribute to the "mass market" fragmenting into niches which are getting small enough to limit the potential market value while simultaneously increasing the expertise required for the labels to know what they are selling, who they are selling to.
Their attempts to use traditional marketing, focus groups, polling, etc. to find the next million-record seller are an attempt to hit a target that is not only moving, but becoming illusory. Why are people turning off FM radio? Why did you? If it doesn't cater to your tastes, why bother?
However, this doesn't answer the rest of your question. The answer is drastically cheaper promotion and physical distribution making it possible for a record label to break even / profit on far fewer sales. A record label that intends to be around in 2020 needs to find a business model that doesn't depend on a significant number of their artists going consistently platinum.
The goal here is to make sure that an artist selling 10K records is a profitable and prosperous one. Since an artist who is selling 10K records a year that she is producing and selling herself is grossing about $100K a year, the question is... how can a record label add value to this product to justify an artist doing business with it?
The other point is that with the fragmenting of the mass market, a record label that depends on a few record artists going platinum to allow making a profit despite the other artists who "only" sold 5K or 10K or 20K records is going to find increasingly fewer platinum records and ultimately, will find itself in Chapter 11.
Remember, an artist who sells his own music and finds an audience of a few tens of thousands of people is better off without an RIAA label supporting him. Musicians know that the odds of signing with a label and going consistently platinum are not only comparable to winning the lottery, but if the label gives up on that person or band, that person/band is no longer able to sell his/their own music.
One piece of the puzzle is missing for a record company to make this new business model possible. The TVD (terabyte removable media in CD/DVD form factor) won't be out until next year. This would make possible a black box driven by a TVD jukebox that would allow CD-on-demand purchases at any record store which has a copy. Automated production equipment for CDs on demand already exists. It would need to be repackaged for non-geeks...
This allows full quality CDs to be purchased at any record store which has the black box and TVDs from each record label they carry. Each record label could send a TVD out weekly or monthly with every single record on the label, including the back list. Encryption could be used to allow only legitimate stores to use this to make copies. Automated record keeping can be done with the machine to tell the store who to send checks to every week.
This eliminates physical production and distribution of CDs from the label POV. This also eliminates a great deal of the financial risk with respect to signing a band, as the incremental cost of getting them into stores drops to about zero.
Promotion? Stop worrying about "anybody can play" and start supporting Internet Radio (unfortunately, outside the US) and MP3 networks. Start buying ads in music print media to tell people where the new "cool places" to find new music is. Make effective use of the Internet. Don't try to be all things to all people, find a niche and try to expand to neighboring niches. Keep overhead low and develop serious expertise in a category to allow effectively helping the artist to promote themselves. The converse of this is that musicians won't be able to
If a record label develops the expertise to pick artists and give them effective support at a low cost to the label, they don't need to worry about controlling promotional channels.
Once word gets around to musicians that XXXXXX Records knows how to market, to Internet Radio that they can pick music people actually listen to, and to the industry that they are making real money with a collection of artists who wouldn't even show up on their mid-list and haven't spent a penny on FM payola, a monopoly on FM Radio becomes a whole lot less valuable.
You wanted a new business model? While I think the technology and environment probably makes other alternative models possible... I've certainly answered your question in detail adequate for a slashdot post, anyone who wants me to work on this further can discuss my hourly consult rate with me.
Exactly correct.
CBDTPA will reduce performance due to requiring a query to the DRM for every file access. How else is it possible for a DRM to decide whether or not the process calling the file has "legitimate" access to it?
What's not to like about this?
I don't see this spreading anywhere outside the area where Hollywood paid off enough politicians. While the EU will accept stupid experiments in government from the US, there has to be something for this for the EU politicians and/or bureaucrats at least. And suddenly turning one's 12 msec HD into a 20 or worse HD msec based on the DRM hits on performance is not that something. Having the DRM under the control of a foriegn entity isn't that something, either.
More to the point, the EU and Asian government being able to derive a differential advantage for their electronics companies because the US Congress did something absymally stupid by simply refraining from passing a law... where is this a problem for the EU or any Asian government?
I see increased development costs for US hardware developers.
Perhaps massively increased hardware development costs. (gulp)
The ADC price goes way up. These are simple chips, just a few thousand gate-equivalents if that many. Put even a simple microprocessor core on the chip and that 50 cent part may be a $2.50 or $5 part. $2 parts and an extra $5 labor to include a parasitic function due to a stupid national law. Will DRM have to be custom-burned to identify each customer? Another labor cost.
Consumer electronics require LOTS of ADCs and DACs.
Also, do you know what this does to individual hardware hacking? These are parts currently available in uncontrolled form at RADIO SHACK. Imagine having to have a license and to fill out government paperwork in order to possess 1 and account for its usage or destruction.
Second, it's not that big a deal for hardware designers to incorporate a licensed protection technology. In the overall complexity of a powerful video card, for instance, this tech might add 5% to the complexity.
What good does this do the individual consumer? DRM even when working correctly is a limitation on the use of a computer. What incentive is there for an EU bureaucrat or politician who is not subsidized by Hollywood to tolerate this?
Electronics makers already adapt to a variety of regional laws. Many countries have different laws about the physical limits on Ham radios. So some radios have the ability to load the allowed spectrum map externally. That way they are always localized correctly to the country.
it's not the same thing. A US government mandated DRM would probably have to be burned in to the vendor chips before purchse to achieve CBDTPA or Broadcast Working Group compliance. This isn't like having a power supply good from 80-230 volts and simply chaning plugs between countries.
Now if the Hollings bill passes and is NOT ratified by the globalization crowd, a Canadian or Mexican manufacturer could sue the US under NAFTA. NAFTA says that a government regulation blocking imported goods must not be any more restrictive than necessary for the purpose. WTO makes the call, and they can strike down the law.
Now THIS is an interesting idea. Would US politicians pull out of NAFTA over this? Doubtful. There are many companies that find it useful. Not all are high-tech, a fair number have the traditional corporate lobbying setups with funding for "friends"... more money than the entertainment industry has for politics.
So NAFTA may be the weak spot in the Hollings law. Thanks.
I Said representing the intrests of the people, Not representing the intrests of all the people or the majority of the people.
Then say what you mean, d00d. I fully agree, of course. :-)
Holywood donates lots of campaign $$$$$
No shit. However, if a substantial portion of us donate $10 at a time to a political organization that represents our interests and can get comparable corporate donations, our community becomes a major player. As I said, Public Knowledge has already raised $1.1M, $400,000 was from Red Hat's Center for the Public Domain. Yes, you read this correctly. Is Public Knowledge the organization that's willing to go out to kick asses and take names on our behalf? I'm going to keep an eye on them... because if they are, our choices are... make damned well certain that they and we win, leave the US to stay in high-tech, or enjoy flipping burgers. Silicon Valley donates very little campaign $$$$$
How many Silicon Valley high-tech suits read slashdot?
If you (as in any reader) is one. . . do something. . . read the CBDTPA and figure out what this does to your company's business model. What level of political contribution by your company is more cost-effective than going out of business or relocation outside the US with core personnel?
Hollywood stars help raise campaign $$$$ at fundraisers.
Let's separate this into music and TV/movies. TV/movie actors know they depend on their industry for survival. We can't make Hollywood movies of the sort that people are used to seeing without their infrastructure, which is a lot more than a MacG4 and a few kilobucks of specialized video stuff. So they'll say what their bosses tell them to say.
Musicians who work for major labels know they're taking it up the ass without Vaseline and that if the stranglehold over distribution and exposure held by RIAA labels is broken, they'd make a hell of a lot more money playing better music. The general record-buying public knows this. So you might be surprised at the number who might be willing to do fundraisers and participate in media events in order to ratfuck their suit bosses and get people elected willing to blow up this monopoly. Do you think people's favorite musicians saying "This Congressman is voting to rip me off" would get a bit of attention?
Silicon Valley Nerds are worthless at fundraisers.
How good can you get at fundraising if the alternative is McDonald's?
It costs a shitload of $$$$ to get elected and as long as Holywood outspends the valley their canidates stand the best chance of getting elected. Talk is cheap, campaigns aren't.
No shit, Sherlock. You ready to open your wallet? I'm willing to open mine. All I need is an organization willing to help us put together the kind of hardball, bareknuckle political fight that's our only alternative to losing the high-tech sector and I'm there. Are you?
Sending Form letter faxes is a waste of time. They go in the trash unread and uncounted.
They get counted. They also have a certain annoyance value to them in the offices that still run paper fax machines... which gets attention, and also remember that you're tying up about 90 seconds of fax line for every fax. The ACLU still wins occasionally despite their popularity. This is because they can dump tens of thousands of faxes on Congress from actual constituents at will.
Also remember that unless your message is accompanied by a substantial check or you have a track record of campaign contributions, counted is the best you can probably do.
Remember that unless you have an excellent grasp of the issues and can present them effectively in person, we're better off if you don't go further than making a phone call saying "vote NO on CBDTPA" to your local Congresscritter's office. How many geeks are good at doing this in person? Explaining non-tech issues to the not-especially interested clueless?
Congressional staffs use their incoming fax for things besides hearing from constituents. Also remember that on some issues, the only comment from a constituent either way might be on something the elected official has no particular feelings either way because nobody on either side of the issue donated him any money.
E-mail goes into the bit-bucket. There's no doubt about that. Don't bother with paper mail, the anthrax scare means that letters can be delayed for months if they get there at all.
Congress Critters get lots everyday from evry cause on Earth. They show little commitment, the only effort needed is clicking a button. If you want to really catch their attention drop by your Congress critters local office and tell the staff what you think in person. That gets more attention than thousands of faxed form letters.
Also true. However, for every person who drops into a congressman's office, a thousand people might be willing to point and click to get a fax sent. A mass movement is about many different kinds of people with many different levels of committment and time. Those who only have a few minutes they can spend need to have their contributions harvested, too.
A thousand faxes means 1,000 people who have stated positions on a specific bill. Piss off enough thousands of people at a time by ignoring them, and one is likely to have to look for an honest job.
The Web-to-fax setup is a useful tool for mass movements... and if we're going to continue doing high technology, we as a group are going to have to figure out how all these tools work. Or meet in expatriate gatherings in Ireland and Canada and Holland and Germany lamenting the good old days back when there was American high-tech.
It's single-issue politics time, and the issue is survival.
No, 4. If Hollywood had a large rock on it, SoCal would go through a moderate recession.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CALIFORNIA ECONOMY IF SILICON VALLEY GOES OUT OF BUSINESS?
The difference... the entertainment industry knows that their only hope of preserving their business model is via buttering up Congress.
Now try explaining this to Jerry Sanders of AMD, for instance.
The high-tech industries have only started to figure out that what happens in DC affects all of us, and they're hoping they can spend a little money on conventional lobbying to straighten this all out.
Perhaps, say, Apple will get the idea when they suddenly realize that the only way they can legally manufacture computers the rest of the world will buy will be to move to anywhere but the USA... as they start scouting real estate in Canada and Ireland.
What's needed is a mass movement backed by serious corporate money from the people CBDTPA will hit hardest. Though in fact, if such a mass movement is to be effective, we're going to have to match the corporate donations out of our own pockets AND actually get off our butts and participate... when the mail from the mailing lists gets to us, click the URLs and send the faxes to Congress... when we're asked to volunteer to work in campaigns of people we despise who vote right on Hollywood control of technology, get out from in front of our computers and GO.
Your choices?
Note: many of the contributions of the entertainment organizations are done through law firms and other organizations. "Soft money" is covered.
If you're going to do a score card, see if you can find a smart political reporter from a major newspaper or other serious political type to ferret out ALL the money.
Huh? She's a democrat senator from the state where Hollywood is. Hello? McFly?
Fritz isn't. Hollywood is thousands of miles away but they have no trouble finding him to send their checks to. Isn't FedEx wonderful?
Remember what else is in California? Ever heard of Silicon Valley?
If the entertainment industry were to pack and leave Southern Califonia, they'd see a localized moderate recession. Living in Northern California, I don't have much of a problem with this.
If high-tech R&D / production has to leave the country due to CBDTPA, we'd see a major depression leaving the USA sliding towards Third World status. You'll see companies that still bother with the US market selling us dumbed-down versions of consumer products years after they get to Japan and Germany. California is one of the states that would be hit hardest as Silicon Valley became part of "The New Rust Belt"... a few years from now, high-tech types who didn't manage to emigrate would be looking at NOW as "the good old days".
The difference is between a cold and bubonic plague.
The other difference? The entertainment industry sends campaign contributions to Congress. High-tech companies are just starting to learn that they ought to do this.
Is Feinstein working in the interests of the majority of her constituents?
Certainly. However, in her mind, her votes are counted in campaign dollars. The people who made the mistake of electing her? To the best of my knowledge, she isn't the least bit interested in us.
If you hadn't combined politics and Internet business models in random chunks of the same post, you might have made sense.