It sounds nice that this is legal. But just as importantly: do the artists and musicians get a proportion of the ad revenue and whatever else imeem are paying the record labels?
That's right, but you also tend to make it sound like the artists were forced into signing contracts with record labels. If they did so because they believed it was the best thing to do, that was THEIR CHOICE. There is ALWAYS a choice. And any organized framework for managing media content, distribution, and sales, will inevitably involve organizations or groups, no matter how informal or loosely organized, that act on the behalf of their artists. They'll take something for this. Whether it's "too much" is completely subjective, not to mention irrelevant to the discussion. I don't care of the label takes 99% and the artists gets 1% for the purposes of this argument: it doesn't matter, because that is the arrangement THEY entered into of their own free will, and THEY granted the right for their label and the industry trade organizations to vigorously protect the content that they essentially now legally co-own.
Disclaimer: I'm just a 'lowly' university student! I don't know about the current situation completely... I'm just trying to follow a logical thought process.
Okay, true, the band/artist wasn't forced to do anything... but when struggling to make money in the world, what other choice do they have? So they go with a big-name record label who will give them only a small proportion of records sales revenue, since they feel lucky to be 'given' a chance to become famous/make money/other reason for entering music.
Next, I agree with morgan_greywolf that big record labels (in the USA, affiliated with the RIAA (I'm in the UK, but the principle is still the same) are distorting the "market" for music. Another disclaimer: I'm a heavy metal fan, and so I understand that I make up a minority of my population. I appreciate that there are genres of music that a majority of the population like. However, I feel that in the UK people are being force-fed hip-hop and RnB. There is no radio station that caters for heavy metal, or even 'good old' hard rock (e.g. AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, The Who, etc.)
Now, this looks like a sign for the market being distorted. (Else, there would be such radio programmes or stations in existence, due to demand for it.) From what I've read, this is a sign of a monopoly in existence: the major record labels.
Admittedly, I usually have an axe to grind when talking about most non-metal genres of music, but I am trying to be as level-headed as possible here. In summary: I think that the RIAA and big record labels should be held accountable for producing poor-quality music, and that artists and musicians should get paid fairly for the music they create and play. The system is broken at present.
...as for Cedega not being truly open-sourced, and the games themselves certainly not, well, as a Linux desktop user and FOSS supporter this bothers me. But the fact is, at this point in time hardcore games are mostly a closed-source environment, whether on a console or a PC. Games are different than most typical desktop apps for various reasons. Hopefully in the future this will change...
Now, this thing about games being FOSS has always been a dilemma for me. I know that good games can be made free/open-source; one just has to look at Nexuiz for that. But how can game-makers produce games and earn money for a salary and further development other than by selling their software under a proprietary licence? I don't think people are going to be buying technical support for the game... if it doesn't work on my comp, I just ask on forums, or ask a friend to help.
Furthermore, I have a number of friends studying games programming and related computer courses at University. It would be quite harsh if I took the view that "everything should be FOSS! Even if that means no jobs/money for you!"
I agree,
I live in the United Kingdom. $400 translates to about £200 (time of writing: 2007-09-24), and although a little pricey for the spec, you are doing a good deed, and getting a durable, wireless-enabled, battery-conserving laptop. And it runs GNU/Linux.
Yeah, this graphical 'safe-mode' will help a lot; I don't quite know how many people experience this error:
"Failed to start X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly."
However, I did when booting up Ubuntu 7.04 after doing an alternate-CD install, and it was very frustrating. I was hoping to use an nv driver, and had to fall back to vesa.
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Stop saying "Linux/x86-32" when you mean "GNU Linux/x86-32" !
It sounds nice that this is legal. But just as importantly: do the artists and musicians get a proportion of the ad revenue and whatever else imeem are paying the record labels?
Disclaimer: I'm just a 'lowly' university student! I don't know about the current situation completely... I'm just trying to follow a logical thought process.
Okay, true, the band/artist wasn't forced to do anything... but when struggling to make money in the world, what other choice do they have? So they go with a big-name record label who will give them only a small proportion of records sales revenue, since they feel lucky to be 'given' a chance to become famous/make money/other reason for entering music.
Next, I agree with morgan_greywolf that big record labels (in the USA, affiliated with the RIAA (I'm in the UK, but the principle is still the same) are distorting the "market" for music. Another disclaimer: I'm a heavy metal fan, and so I understand that I make up a minority of my population. I appreciate that there are genres of music that a majority of the population like. However, I feel that in the UK people are being force-fed hip-hop and RnB. There is no radio station that caters for heavy metal, or even 'good old' hard rock (e.g. AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, The Who, etc.)
Now, this looks like a sign for the market being distorted. (Else, there would be such radio programmes or stations in existence, due to demand for it.) From what I've read, this is a sign of a monopoly in existence: the major record labels.
Admittedly, I usually have an axe to grind when talking about most non-metal genres of music, but I am trying to be as level-headed as possible here. In summary: I think that the RIAA and big record labels should be held accountable for producing poor-quality music, and that artists and musicians should get paid fairly for the music they create and play. The system is broken at present.
Now, this thing about games being FOSS has always been a dilemma for me. I know that good games can be made free/open-source; one just has to look at Nexuiz for that. But how can game-makers produce games and earn money for a salary and further development other than by selling their software under a proprietary licence? I don't think people are going to be buying technical support for the game... if it doesn't work on my comp, I just ask on forums, or ask a friend to help.
Furthermore, I have a number of friends studying games programming and related computer courses at University. It would be quite harsh if I took the view that "everything should be FOSS! Even if that means no jobs/money for you!"
I agree, I live in the United Kingdom. $400 translates to about £200 (time of writing: 2007-09-24), and although a little pricey for the spec, you are doing a good deed, and getting a durable, wireless-enabled, battery-conserving laptop. And it runs GNU/Linux.
I guess you are correct, but anyway...
This is the moment I, and many other Star Wars fans, have been waiting for! Being able to swing a "hilt" as if it were a real lightsaber!
Hopefully Nintendo might release another controller with gyroscopes in the future, which will solve the problem that you have just described.
Yeah, this graphical 'safe-mode' will help a lot; I don't quite know how many people experience this error: "Failed to start X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly."
However, I did when booting up Ubuntu 7.04 after doing an alternate-CD install, and it was very frustrating. I was hoping to use an nv driver, and had to fall back to vesa.
(My first post on /. !)