Re:Sacrifice hardware for the good of software?
on
How Cheap Can A PC Be?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
"Well, if they only charged $30, ppl would go, it's only $30, so i'm not "stealing" that much from mega-corp. If it's priced at $100, it could cause ppl to rethink and not make copies."
Well, my company does a lot of 3rd party sound design for different synthesizer companies and all that.
Several years back, we were doing a lot of Kurzweil support...folks were complaining after spending $5k for a synth, the sounds should be free and were pirating everything they could get -- even though it was clear that most of these sounds were designed by separate companies not related to the original company.
At the time, normal sound disc for around a cd's worth of samples were $99 for an Akai format disc. Akai is the bare basic format one could get...nothing more than mapping the sounds across the keys. The same disc on a Kurzweil was generally twice that much because of all the programming that went into it. Kurzweil developers took pride in their sounds so that if you were playing a piano sample, not only did you get different velocity levels sampled, but most of the programs were smart enough to filter the samples so that there wasn't a distinct anomaly when you hit another velocity zone. This made the sounds as much a part of the synthesis realm as it did playing back pure samples.
But people *STILL* couldn't understand why a few dozen bytes of added data to each patch caused the stuff to double the price. The fact was, it took at least twice as long to convert this stuff and the man power cost more than the equipment to record in the first place.
Ok, where am I going with this?
We ended up doing a sound disc that got scrapped as the company we were under contract went under. So, we decided to sell it ourselves and share the data with the rest of the companies we had worked with before (lots of competition in the realm, but we are all friends -- except when we release products that compete directly, which rarely happens).
To make this a true experiment, and at the same time support our community, we decided that instead of selling it at the standard $200 range, or even the $99 range the standard no-frills discs had, we decided to go $30 and included shipping worldwide (which turned out to bite us in the ass for a few overseas shipments as a few cost more that $30 to send out -- but it was important we do this for the community and not go back on our words).
Sadly -- within a week of this, we found users selling dupes of this on eBay for half the price. We found folks submitting the data to Kazaa and eDonkey. We found FTP sites with all of this. One of the pirates we caught and knew by name claimed that at $30, it probably wasn't worth much and thus he wasn't hurting us. He also said that it wasn't as professional as the other stuff as we burned the discs ourselves (as opposed to getting them printed and stamped) and thus not worth it...its not like the data suffered any from this as we gave them the same exact product we would have given them at 4 times the price.
In our field, if a sound disc sells 200 copies, we are doing well. Everyone claimed if someone lowered the price, sound companies would make far more than the 200 copies sold. I can tell you, we got just under 200 copies -- and the fact the price was lowered did nothing. The next release we did for the $99 range sold MORE copies as people expected more...and it was actually a crappier disc because it was intended to work at a base level on several platforms, not just the high end (though our buyers almost all claimed they were buying it for these high end synths).
The fact of the matter is, if you price something lower, you are not going to increase your sales. You might sell less copies because of it. Price something for what its worth in the industry based on what others have already shown they will pay, and you will be in a much better position to sell. So, this isn't just a PHB theory...its the fact in many parts of the industry. No matter what you sell for, it will al
I don't care either way. I was actually surprised it got that high. Fuck, I'll even post this without the karma rating (which actually hurts your numeric rating because its assuming that you don't even think its worth posting).
To get rated up, you pretty much just have to either take the position the sheep take or be brutally honest and willing to defend your position. Trolls are hit and run...they don't stick around to defend themselves.
Personally, I just hope my posts convince someone to think on their own instead of letting the masses tell you what to think. Personally, I think copyright is a great idea, while at the same time thinking patents suck. Both need improvements. Neither need scrapped. I'm one that thinks more fair use needs to be in place with copyright, but at the same time the author should have full control over the rest (meaning the reasonable time frame can be infinite). I also think art, literature and music are all petty and thus I have a day job that pays a LOT less than my music but fulfills me more because I can help kids through my research (I've traveled to 13 high schools across the country in the last 3 weeks to research teaching methods and curricular realignment...and then did a massive concert at ANOTHER f'n concert this weekend that happened to take place as a high school with a killer stage -- it was better than some of the theatre type settings we've played in the last year. So 14 high schools in 3 weeks (the one wasn't for research). Some things are just more important than others...music isn't important, and neither is art or literature or videogames.
Anywho, take an argument and take an opinion. Don't take one just because others are doing it and post it. You will get your instant karma bonus in no time...
You might not be a hippy, but you bow at the cock of the biggest technohippie around and suckle between his legs as he gives you pretty words that tell you that you are just as good as the guys that actually make content and you have every right to take their works as your own.
Again, someone that doesn't want to force ideas down other peoples minds is as bad as a communist and there mind control. Someone that wants to take something others have created and appropriate it for themselves is either a thief of a commie.
Personally? I hate most jambands. The dead were alright when they were doing space, but I generally left after that. I hated the rest of the hippy aspects...
You know what is cool about them? That they choose to allow their stuff to be traded. I've got a friend with dozens of their sets.
But you know what? Going a step further and sucking RMS's cock and telling everyone that it is mandatory to give up copyrights and the fact that you aren't just giving things away out of the good of your heart, but that it should be some fucking dirty hippies idea of electro-communism. Us content creators are blue collar labors again. All the schooling or woodshedding and it means nothing. Only the charismatic that can sell support deserve to be compensated. Only those that play live need to get paid. Those that hone our crafts, not wanting to be bothered past the delivery on the content -- we get screwed under RMS's ideals.
Fuck that. And fuck him. And fuck anyone that sucks his cock and are poisoned by the seed he had impregnated in them.
I like the GPL. I have released a lot of software under this license. I distance myself from it once its released because I don't want to be bothered by it. Generally, we take our 'handcuffware', as noted by Gnu.org, and put it out in GPL land after I have a newer release of our software and leave it at that. I don't like supporting software to begin with. Giving the source away means that I don't have to anymore for the folks that choose not to support me. I'd BSD or Public Domain it, *BUT* I don't want the software used against me at a later date.
The GPL is great. I wish the idealism would stop simply with that and not move on towards the brainwashing.
We all need to be paid for our works if people want to take them. If folks want to give their works away, I applaud them. I don't applaud the quest to make content creators second class humans just because some idiots could never get off their fat fucking ass and finish up a project, *hurd*, only to have their ideals ruined by someone that gave away their software not because of religious iconery, but because of sheer pragmatism, *linux*.
The fact that I am vocal about the fact I don't want to be considered a second class citizen in the Gnu's mind doesn't make me a troll.
BTW I might have a lot of Flamebait/Troll mods in this thread, in fact the first post dropped all the way down to -3 at one point. Its back to +4 Insightful. It means there are some actual thinking people on this site instead of the sheeple that seem to adhere to the same beliefs as you.
Yeah, but you haven't read the hidden guidelines that say Ignore What You Read, If Its Not What You Believe It Is Obviously A Troll Or Flamebait.
This is slashdot...its run by the trolls anymore. I'd rather have a troll that thought about both sides of the issue to fuck with you than the fucking morons that seem to run it now that only want to see their side presented.
Then piracy *IS* considered a theft of services under your definition. The recipient did not exchange the appropriate consideration before taking the software...thus it is theft.
A pure and rational conclusion using the words in your post and the agreeance with my post.
The common usage of language and law seldom intersect.
Stealing cable from the cableguys is listed as Theft Of Services under most state statues in the US.
This is even when you live in a house with the cable wired to a box on your property and a filter was put between the lines to keep you from receiving signal.
On your property, if you were to remove the filter, and wire everything back up the same way, ensuring that the filter was undamaged and put back into this same box, you could be charged with Theft Of Service.
Nothing was taken in such a manner that it deprived anyone else of its usage, and it was on your property, but it is still theft under most US State regs...
Then again, I don't expect folks to be lawyers and use lawyer terms every time something can be described in plain ol' english that everyone knows and understands.
Re:It's like a free ride when you've already paid.
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GTA: San Andreas Leaked
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"That's the fundamental basis of the 'fucking hippy element'. You may have meant something else."
You know, I'd attended a dozen dead shows in my life. My mom had the hippy ideas, and a lot of my friends were hippies growing up.
This is no more the ideal of hippydom than George Bush is bombing Iraq to free people from the tyranny of Saddam.
Hippies want to rule the world. They want to force us to believe how they believe. They want nothing more than to annihilate thought different than their own. I've *NEVER* met a hippy that was representative of the ideal that wasn't 100% identical to those around him. You find this in the Republican Party these days too. People want to be led and someone is obviously doing the leading...and more than that, they want uniformity. Uniformity frees one from having to think outside the lines, man. Sure, their coloring books might not have lines, but the minute someone suggests putting them in, they are demonized.
Their society is no different than the one we live in today, and more than that, its just as damaging from a progressive standpoint.
As for evolution -- its not evolution if folks *HAVE* to shape its existence. Its one thing for ideas and constructs to show up and be accepted, its another to go out of your way to enforce the usage of it...
Oh I think Orwell is well read these days, but the current crop of kids really aren't taught to think much more than is printed on the page. This is one of the reasons we see emoticons and textual smilies because folks are not trained to even read sarcasm on the internet (my above post was meant to be read at face value as the morons won't get it otherwise). They need a wink and a nudge to get the slightest idea that it might be representing something other than what is on the page.
As such, folks are reading 1984 and others as simply good ideas. Hey! It can't be used for anything other than that. The newspeak isn't bad, its just embraced differently. I betcha we could use this in our own little groups and then we can force the noncool kids into using it. Yeah! And we should ban showers too!!! As everyone looks around at Stallman and shakes their head in disbelief. I guess some ideas aren't catching on so fast.
Again this is a troll. At least for the folks that can't read and want to be spoon fed ideas. Mark it as you feel fit because this is your club these days. I'm no longer one of the cool kids with a mid 4 digit UID (I still wish I would have kept my old nick as this low 5 digit one sucks...)
Re:It's like a free ride when you've already paid.
on
GTA: San Andreas Leaked
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· Score: 5, Insightful
"Yet another news article that continues the bombardment of the uninformed public trying to change the definition of words to fit their needs"
You *DO* know the english language is almost designed to incorporate new word uses over time, or are you not a linguist and just want to continually bombarding folks with the idea that you know more than most?
Hell, most languages do this. The Hebrew language goes back into its history to find unused or underused words to represent modern tech simply to avoid using language from outside of its realm and to keep the language pure. Many others do the same.
Do you really think the general public wants a new word for copyright infringing when most will look at it as Hey Why Don't They Just Say Theft Or Piracy, Because Thats What It Is. Other than the morons that take 1984 to heart and want to shape public perception by forcing the use of word choice to promote their lifestyles:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.htm l
And you wonder why folks think RMS is a stinky hippy that wants to force everyone to his idea of society. He claims that he gives choice, all the while trying to shape the slash sheeple into his way of thinking by altering language and hopefully altering though because of it.
If we get away from thinking its theft, we can concentrate on calling it copyright infringement, which then sounds more like us v. THE MAN and thus the attitude starts to change.
I'm going to get modded to -5 for this but fuck it. You've personally derided my posts in the past for using words like theft and piracy and I'm sick of the fucking hippy element around here that can't learn to live and let live. I don't tell anyone else how they should live their lives, nor how to think, all I ask is that folks respect my personal properties which include any and all intellectual properties. I think this is all most content creators ask as well...
Oh wait, we can't use the word creator anymore either...
Remember the key word is ARTist. They make art. Art is not something that should be liked by all and viewed at as a consumable, but to be relevant it must be liked by a certain percentage of the population.
A true artist would simply give the art away as long as he could afford to sustain himself.
Instead, the artist goes to a label that knows 9 times out of 10 the artist is not going to be a profit center for it, and signs them anyways. These labels bank on the law of averages that says that if they cover enough bases, they will eventually hit gold (and hopefully platinum).
Past that, guys like me like to get paid. I work in the back grounds for artists and someone has to pay me and folks like me. I've done it both ways -- I've been paid from the artist and I've been paid by the label. Wanna know who's screwed me less? The labels. When working on points (or mere fractions of points in my case), the label will lay out all the figures and statistics. The artist will always claim they haven't sold enough to pay any of us, even right after bragging to the girl next to you that they sold billions.
If you actually had a clue as to what it took to put out a commercial grade album these days, you wouldn't be so harsh on the labels. Then again, if I was recording on my own again (i.e., not in a backing capacity), I too would be bitching about not getting paid enough...thats the nature of capitalism...we all think we deserve more.
How many artists want to use an app that is more in line with geeks than actual true artists. I've got good friends that make their entire living with this stuff. I've shown them things like Gimp and they just scoff -- and its understandable why they do so.
F/OSS software is generally software designed by geeks for use by geeks. I've seen a LOT of great sutff come out of it, but almost always, the person on the other end has been a techie first and foremost and an artist second.
I'm on the other end...I'm an artist first and foremost, and a geek secondary. I run a programming / research office for my university, but I still make more money through music activities. And I use a Mac for my personal needs -- why? because it was set up to be invisible to the end user. To a techie? its a bit infuriating at times because you can't do everything you want to do, but to others its a godsend if you can afford one (that and I generally have a terminal window open at all times so the interface doesn't get on my nerves so bad:-)
If the goal is to engage geeks -- this is a good idea. if its to engage others, I'd stay away from most Free and Open Source apps.
BTW -- I cut my teeth in 3D using POVRay on a 486DX (it was soooooooo slow on the SX), so I hope I'm geek enough not to be considered a troll.
"While Microsoft is a trademark, (morally speaking, I'm not talking about actual laws here) this only gives MS the right to prevent other people trying to use their name to make a profit based on their reputation."
So, if someone wanted to have a building, painted Yellow and Red and had a Big M On a pole stating McDonalds, this would be alright, as long it wasn't a place trying to make profit off of McDonalds, and simply trying to draw people in to tell them Meat is Murder and they are hiring underaged mexican girls to service the night manager, this would be allowed?
Same sort of idea, just not the net.
Trademark protects a few things -- and making profit isn't a key to how its used. Part of it is making certain the trademark isn't used in a way to confuse others as to the legitimacy of the mark, i.e., someone will have a reasonable expectation that what they are purchasing, visiting (physically) visiting (a website), obtaining (even if not for profit) or otherwise still leaves the idea that the person will believe the use of the trademark did not deceive them into believing something else.
Past that, why should names not have a natural trademark along with them? Every so often you find someone with a name very similar to a previous trademark...for instance someone named Ronald McDonald probably won't be allowed to have a restaurant anywhere in the world bearing his name, but what about ideas that infringe on the trademark at a later time.
For instance, the VanHollen2004.com was definitely an attempt to trade in upon the guys name and the natural idea that a site like this will be associated. If this VH2k4 site was registered in the past before the guy was a politician, so be it, but the natural order of things should give the owner of the name (the guy born with it) instant trademark protection in the areas he is associated with. I don't know which service group Politics would go in, but I'm sure there is one on the TM form.
So, honestly, I don't know how this is a free speech issue. Except for folks that can't see there are clear boundaries between what is right and what is wrong. There is no slippery slope in taking the assholes domain away from him, it was a stupid move in the first place and clearly based on the intent to deceive visitors to the site. If it were IHateVanHollen2004.com, that would be perfectly legitimate, but this is not.
Let hope the laws catch up with this soon...free speech is not at risk in this case and anyone thinking it might be really never understood freespeech in the first place.
But a dozen years of speech therapy as a kid left me using the upper range quite a bit and its out of its natural range. Most people don't even notice.
The bass end is just not very articulate at all and I have no control.
As such, I've never been able to carry a tune vocally and Autotune and others can't deal with it. It doesn't break, per se, just doesn't work either:-P
BTW looking at my other post to you, it looks a bit rude. This is slashdot, so I hope you take the flames with a grain of salt:-)
I use to buy albums based on the producer or the label it came out of back in the mid80s because the style of music I listened to was greatly influenced by the folks controlling to output.
With the consolidation of the megalabels, its become harder to do this with everyone diversifying.
To the average person, I have no problem finding an artist that fits their ideal of todays music and allowing them to be attributed to it.
For the persons that want more, pick the songs based on the writter and the production team. For instance, it was well known a few years ago if you wanted Millenium Pop, pick up anything by the Matrix production team -- it all sounded the same (and I had a friend that was in this team -- and I still bitched him out about them recruiting Liz Phair -- which he claimed that the 'horrible' album they wrote for her sold more than all her previous combined).
There are not authenticity issues. Even if the artist does little more than show up, read a few lines from the sheet and go home while the rest spend the next 5 months manipulating the works, it means that their aura is attached to it and at this point we aren't talking about a person, but a brand. For the common person, this ain't a bad thing, nor is it something I'm going to look down upon them for. For me, I want a little more personalization in the works and I want something that isn't necessarily going to appeal to the rest of the world, but will be tailored to me. Either way works out...
If you pull out a 4 piece string quartet (and I know thats redundant, but I've obviously got to talk s l o w to some people), you aren't going to be making R&R. You might do something similar, and Kamen did a good job of merging orchestral arrangements with good amurikan rock (even when it was done by ferenerz) -- but it wasn't rock and roll.
Quick hint -- In art, everything is made up.
Yours has to be the most ignorant comment on this subject to date. As these 'made up' genres (are you like 14, BTW, because my lawyer asks that I not engage in comments with those under 18) age, structure and style and relevance happens. If you are making good ol' American Rock And Roll, you know the conventions involved. If you are aiming for mid 90s, Drop-D AlternoRawk, other conventions apply. If you are going for todays stripped down pseudobrit punk, other conventions appear.
Its as easy as that. If you are faking a style, you need to know this stuff. Its the old adage of knowing how your subject works before breaking the rules. Unfortunately, with the access to technology and easy of access to instruments, folks are ever increasingly having access to this stuff without knowing how it works and breaking rules that they don't even know they are breaking. This works out for a lot of naive rock projects where you are aiming at a less sophisticated audience that wouldn't know the difference either way -- honestly, most of the stripped down punk I hear today is stuff I could play when I first picked up a guitar and a friend showed me a trick to the Drop D tuning.
But again, I'm not annoyed at all by folks that can't play or that break rules or otherwise.
I am annoyed at pseudorebelious youth that have no clue about what I'm talking about and want to, like man, tell me, dude, there isn't, like, any faking it, I swear, because its music or ain't.
If you say you are playing guitar and you are playing a sample -- its fake. The music isn't fake -- and I thought that was the entire point of my last few posts -- but the playing is.
As for telling someone they don't have the right -- you are an idiot aren't you. Do you think I was requiring licenses or permits to make music? No. I'm making a point that one needs to understand the medium they wish to emulate before they try to emulate it, if in fact emulating it is what the desired outcome is to be. That is all.
Again, why does it matter to you who is making the music?
Personally, I *HATE* the autotune sound...its unnatural. I use something called Melodyne which keeps the vocal qualities, the quirks, but allows you to recenter the pitch without screwing with everything else, allows one to pull out the vibrato -- well except in cases of extremely bad singers who think that shaking your head back and forth is equivalent to diaphragm control (enter almost all R&B women -- I think Whitney introduced this group to the wild head shake vibrato which is near impossible to pull out without massive compression). It can change pitch mid word and keep the ties natural.
It sounds quite a bit more natural, but its harder for the idiots that want to run things real time and draw in a changes with a pencil, ignoring that you will be making everything sound like oscillator / vocode voice.
Its one thing to complain about the sound of it, its another to complain about being cheated when you find out for the last 2 years, a song you've loved was actually 'fake'.
Its like the whole Millivanilli thing. Everyone in the industry knew these guys were fakes and the rumors were spreading fast into the general public far before it was announced that they were fakes. People felt cheated and they lost their awards. Why??? Did the music change drastically because there were pretty boy dancers taking the credit for the singer (who is still talented and puts out great stuff, but doesn't really want the fame or attention -- and was a willing participant to the point of coming up with the idea).
If I could get my music out without altering a note (not saying I would with bland pop), and I had the opportunity to use some pretty boy as a front to get it in the face of others, I'd do it in a heart beat. Unfortunately, even Autotune apps break on my voice --so I just have my instrumentation with someone elses voice:-)
Talent means nothing. Its the creative aspect that triumphs over everything. I listen back years ago and the guys that had the most talent in the instrument sense, vocals included, were the ones that had very little talent creatively. Elvis and Sinatra both had great voices. Both sang drek for the most part. Maria Calas had a great voice -- but she spent her days recording works by guys dead over 100 years.
On my music forums, one of the synths I support is highly used in the ProgRock community -- there is a *LOT* Proggies out there that can kick my ass on even my choice of instrument...without breaking a sweat. They practice their instrument night and day as if hoping the 3000 Meter Solo and Synchronized Facial Distortion were going to be Olympic activities next time around. Folks like in the 80s like Yngwie Malmstein (I can't ever spell his fucking name) were the best guitarists out there and always had to prove he was better than Eddie Van Halen -- but never got the clue that better means nothing if your music sucks. Better instrumentalist generally implies the inversion is true when it comes to creativity and songwriting -- because they want to focus on showing off their abilities and not actually tailor their playing to the music.
What happened to having actual talented people doing the singing (playing)? We got sick of them doing our music and doing it in their style and acting like divas, refusing to take any direction. At least when Britanies start to get uppity, we know we can dispose of them and bring on someone new. Fuck the talent -- I just want my works to come out the way I envisioned them...
Lots of synthetic stuff can be VERY raw, yet sound like the guy knew what we was doing at the same time.
For instance, I was at a PJ Harvey concert the other night (last night? I forget...life is passing me by quite fast lately)...that was VERY raw, but at the same time controlled.
Sometimes, just taking my one 3 string guitar that is great for playing simple chords, and then filling in the harder chords or throwing in a solo through the magic of sampling, and you'd never realize that it wasn't real. Take the audio, chop the chords, and do maybe a 40% quantization -- its tighter, but still human and a bit raw.
If you don't know how Rock and Roll is recorded, you have no right to try to fake it. Same with any genre.
As for the Let It Be, you are right, it was a disaster. As such, Spector salvaged it. I can't stand the Naked album as anything other than a research disc. The remastering was incredible -- they did a great job at this, but the music was lacking.
Besides, the whole idea that they were headed away from the overproduced ideal kinda goes against the rest of everyone's careers in the band. They all put out overproduced stuff on their own and collaborated on other peoples overproduced works. I think they knew exactly what was going on when they gave the tapes to Spector. Its exactly what they wanted...its not like the record company had the Beatles by the balls -- they could have done ANYTHING they wanted.
The title song was listenable, but the rest -- I don't know. And this is coming from someone that loved their very early garage sound (well, garage from a 60s brit perspective). The stuff they did in their Hamburg days is amongst my favorites.
As for playing live -- it depends on what you are at a concert to see. One of the bands I support is a touring R&B act that has a dozen guys on stage -- each one is a world class musician (at least by grammy nomination standards). I've also hung out with friends that were doing overly slicked pop productions where anyone with half a mind in their head knew the stuff was not being played live -- you came for a spectacle and nothing else, and it was still entertaining. of the bands I've seen in the last month -- my favorite were a 9 piece Islamic band playing for the Whirling Dervishes. All good musics have a place in this world...
Re:THANK YOU.
on
The Long Tail
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· Score: 3, Interesting
"WARNING: Shameless plug! Our band uses no vocal sculpting - all but one of our songs was recorded in one take. All natural baby!"
I've never understood why this is such a good thing.
Quite a few of us out there have talents outside of playing a specific instrument or otherwise, and don't want someone else to ruin it.
For instance, I'm a *HORRIBLE* guitarist, but due to my knowledge of sampling and editing techniques, I actually have a few of my friends that are guitarists convinced that I am a pretty decent player -- even after I tell them its all digital.
In the past, I've tried to bring folks in to play guitar for me, but its always been their personality and they couldn't take direction -- they felt that as an 'artist' they should be able to play what they wanted. Thats fine and dandy, but give me my money back if you want to be an artist -- I hired you to be a technician.
So all in all, who the fuck cares if a song was recorded in one take or not. I don't. I want to hear music, not technique. As a songwritter first, I concentrate on that aspect of it. If it means hiring a girl to come in and sing her ass off, and then editting the fuck out of it to where it sounds nothing like her -- and is actually in tune to boot -- why the fuck should that matter to the listener either.
Are you gettin something more authentic because the band played everything in one take? No. On stage, it might matter (and I can hold my own on the keys -- so I'm not useless:-), but on the recorded album, who the fuck cares. A good song that sticks in my head is all that matters...
I spent good hard money on my Mac and I probably make less than most PC users. Why? Because some things are worth paying for. Its done right.
Then again, this is also why I've spent around $2k on open source apps this year -- I've bought (or my personal business) has paid for many OSS apps that I've gotten off the original programmer -- or bought 'service agreements' that I didn't really need -- all in the name of paying for that which I think is useful to me.
Great thing about my mac? I can run those OSS apps while still running a world class Unix. Or I can transition them to one of my several linux boxes.
As for strangling the public domain? There is *NOTHING* stopping anyone from putting their work into the public domain if that what they want. Hell, more often than not, if I have a utility app that I created to get to the final outcome of my main application (wierd math libraries, validation engines for my work that sort of stuff for my current day job), I'll put that in the public domain for anyone to use (as long as they don't ask me about it -- its well documented in source, I don't have time to tech support it), I'll PD it before I GPL it most days of the week.
But thats my choice. I think most content creators SHOULD put their works into the public domain, and I think works should have to be reregistered by the original owner after X amount of years to remain copyrighted, but past that, I think the laws are fair.
This isn't a damn thing in Copyright that is to the public's good that couldn't be reproduced in another format without stealing the original authors work that would save a single life out there or contribute to the pubic good. How is keep Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck out of the public domain hurting anyone. I don't see it. Then again, I also believe people need to be less consuming and more creating.
You know if this society were more about encouraging folks to create than consume, we wouldn't have a marginalized subgrouping of people screaming out about protecting copyright. We'd have artists and writers and musicians that would all be creating the current culture and giving it away for the fame and glory, but not because a bunch of folks without a creative bone in their body thinks their works need to be freed.
My note to you -- make something the world will enjoy and give it away. Maybe you will either change you mind about a content creators rights or you will convince other content creators to change their minds. At this point, you've done neither...
"Because just about every Windows user I know has a computer at least 50% full of stolen shit (usually including the OS itself)."
And sadly, on the Mac its just the opposite.
Mac users are more often than PCs users to be in the 'creative' designation. That doesn't mean all, most, or a lot, but it means far more than PC users. But more importantly, its given the ideal that this *IS* the creative machine. I use my Mac for all my music and visual arts. I have most of hte same software on my PC, but that doesn't put me in the same mood -- why? Because of the expectation that was set. I use my PC for programming.
Getting to the point, creative folks generally feel ownership in their works. Most of us do believe copyright laws are just -- as a creative, you feel the shit you create is your life blood and soul. This doesn't happen in programming very often...most programmers are NOT creating, but doing the digital equivalent of manual labour. This is one of the reasons I refuse to code any more...I'll develop software and manage a working team, but my task is shaping the software, not pushing out dozens of lines of a code an hour (and even that is nothing compared to real code junkies). Coders I know think I'm a snob too -- but my software is generally used by folks that don't know computers (or know them and refuse to have to use that knowledge -- I know how to fix a car, but I know my mechanic can get it done much quicker and a lot of the times, cheaper -- err after I buy the wrong parts and break something else) and simplify complex tasks so you don't have to be a computer genius -- just someone that understands the field of work you are already in (generally, academic medical / psychological based apps).
But again, code junkies that think programming is the action of your fingers hitting the keyboard and throwing our lines of code will *NEVER* understand ownership.
Mac users have it instilled in them that they own the works -- its theres. iPhoto -- you took those photos. iMovie -- its your movie and as shitty as it may be, you created it.
Move that over to software purchases. As folks that understand our ideal of ownership, we generally want other owners to get paid. Not all Mac users, the majority, or whatever else -- but a bigger crowd than are on the PC. We pay for our shit because we understand. PC users -- on the other hand -- are consumers through and through. Nothing really creative. Just video games or some other bullshit. Consumers want shit at the lowest cost price -- and free is as low as you can go.
Again, I'm not saying all Mac users pay for their shit -- the whole P2P filesharing thing started on the Mac. Sure, there was FTP before that, but Hotline really made the market for finding warez easily. Still, it was always amazing to talk with friends that had a new boxed photoshop sitting on their desk and they tell me that they picked it up because they found it on Hotline (years ago) and wanted a legit copy...where as the same folks on the PC tell me Yeah, It doesn't work very well, but its free, so I'll just keep an eye out for a better crack. Fuck that.
Mac users pirate less. Linux users that have PCs (almost all) probably pirate more than PC users. We all need to learn to respect folks properties, even if it is just artificial bullshit making it true ownership. In a true communist society, they would say that our western idea of car ownership was bullshit as well -- its only due to artificial means that someone can 'own' something that the others don't. If you want folks to respect items like the GPL, then you also need to respect copyright laws as they stand today.
"Doesn't the US copyright holder give his permission when he allows his product to be distributed in Russia?"
There are quite a few albums on AllOfMp3 that were never distributed in Russia or sold there (legitimately). As such, even if AllOfMp3 was legit, how does it give them the rights to distribute it.
I know several bigger artists that are there and are probably distributed by their labels in the company, but I also know several lesser known artists that ship out of their own homes -- but still have a pretty big clip in sales -- when you take ALL the profits you can sell far less -- fortunately, for the one that is actually making real money this way had a 10 year deal, several million major label sales, and a decent soundtrack licensing biz. Her claim is that she has never sent anything recent past Scandinavia as the former eastern bloc is too rife with credit card theft and as such, will not even send anything into there and encourage her fans to buy from independent music stores that might pick up 4 or 5 copies to sit on the shelf for a few years.
So why are her albums there? I've got a few others that are in the same boat. The fact is, AllOfMp3 is illegal and waiting for the law to catch up with them -- though in Russian they have far more pressing needs at this time than to deal with minor copyright violations...
"There media app downloads the songs for you in the background, the tunes are dirt cheap and they have a good (but not excellent, at least in punk) selection."
Its easy to be dirt cheap when the price of adding a new song to the server is around $16.95 + worldwide shipping from Amazon.
Its dirt cheap because they don't pay the artists. More than that, folks like me that get paid on points (regardless of the fact its a quarter of someone elses half or a percentage of a point) don't get paid -- especially when some of us take chances on more unknown artists knowing that if we do great work, we might get paid later -- while if we do shitty work, we probably won't get anything.
The fact is, folks like Downfuckinghill Battle scream about artists get only $0.10 a song (which is actually a higher percentage than most get from anything sold at BestBuy or WalMart), while the same folks bragging about this are willing to fuck over everyone in the music industry because they are trying to fucking save us from ourselves.
Personally, I have a job doing research that keeps me afloat. Music buys me gear, gets me into parties that geeks like me should never be allowed close to, and puts some pocket change in my wallet. And yet, I've worked on shit that was high profile enough that I know friends of mine have ripped the shit off a P2P site -- and honestly, thats what I consider allofmp3 -- just an illegal operation running under laws that are not quite clear in Russia and not up to the technical reality of today nor intended to be used in the way they are, and actually even illegal for them to sell outside of their borders -- let alone illegal for you to download outside of their borders as well.
I've taken a look at the site and it pisses me off. Music as a commodity and not an art. Buy it in bulk. You aren't paying per song, you are paying per the bandwidth. Want higher quality -- its more money to download. The artist gets exactly the same percentage of the sale -- NOTHING.
Honestly, as a musician and technician , I can hear the difference between MP3s, AAC or WAV but I don't care. I buy the music not for the quality, but for the content. Audiophiles have always gotten on my fucking nerves. If you weren't around when it was originally recorded, you are getting no where near the original quality, so it doesn't matter. This is why we go to see concerts and why I don't get tired of seeing the same band a few dozen times a year (well the fact that they pay me to be there is beside the point -- I'd have been there with simply the invite and the travel reimbursement).
What would be more important that quality to me would be all the lyrics and artist notes to the song. Cover art? its nice, but not integral to the music. Lyrics, notes -- definitely important and can make the difference between a good song and a great one because it sets the mood and context.
Past that, iTMS is perfect for me. And I just checked -- it looks like its got my friends band's bio pages up -- maybe one of these days they will have their own customized mini portals as well one of these days.
Slashdot Mirror
"Well, if they only charged $30, ppl would go, it's only $30, so i'm not "stealing" that much from mega-corp. If it's priced at $100, it could cause ppl to rethink and not make copies."
Well, my company does a lot of 3rd party sound design for different synthesizer companies and all that.
Several years back, we were doing a lot of Kurzweil support...folks were complaining after spending $5k for a synth, the sounds should be free and were pirating everything they could get -- even though it was clear that most of these sounds were designed by separate companies not related to the original company.
At the time, normal sound disc for around a cd's worth of samples were $99 for an Akai format disc. Akai is the bare basic format one could get...nothing more than mapping the sounds across the keys. The same disc on a Kurzweil was generally twice that much because of all the programming that went into it. Kurzweil developers took pride in their sounds so that if you were playing a piano sample, not only did you get different velocity levels sampled, but most of the programs were smart enough to filter the samples so that there wasn't a distinct anomaly when you hit another velocity zone. This made the sounds as much a part of the synthesis realm as it did playing back pure samples.
But people *STILL* couldn't understand why a few dozen bytes of added data to each patch caused the stuff to double the price. The fact was, it took at least twice as long to convert this stuff and the man power cost more than the equipment to record in the first place.
Ok, where am I going with this?
We ended up doing a sound disc that got scrapped as the company we were under contract went under. So, we decided to sell it ourselves and share the data with the rest of the companies we had worked with before (lots of competition in the realm, but we are all friends -- except when we release products that compete directly, which rarely happens).
To make this a true experiment, and at the same time support our community, we decided that instead of selling it at the standard $200 range, or even the $99 range the standard no-frills discs had, we decided to go $30 and included shipping worldwide (which turned out to bite us in the ass for a few overseas shipments as a few cost more that $30 to send out -- but it was important we do this for the community and not go back on our words).
Sadly -- within a week of this, we found users selling dupes of this on eBay for half the price. We found folks submitting the data to Kazaa and eDonkey. We found FTP sites with all of this. One of the pirates we caught and knew by name claimed that at $30, it probably wasn't worth much and thus he wasn't hurting us. He also said that it wasn't as professional as the other stuff as we burned the discs ourselves (as opposed to getting them printed and stamped) and thus not worth it...its not like the data suffered any from this as we gave them the same exact product we would have given them at 4 times the price.
In our field, if a sound disc sells 200 copies, we are doing well. Everyone claimed if someone lowered the price, sound companies would make far more than the 200 copies sold. I can tell you, we got just under 200 copies -- and the fact the price was lowered did nothing. The next release we did for the $99 range sold MORE copies as people expected more...and it was actually a crappier disc because it was intended to work at a base level on several platforms, not just the high end (though our buyers almost all claimed they were buying it for these high end synths).
The fact of the matter is, if you price something lower, you are not going to increase your sales. You might sell less copies because of it. Price something for what its worth in the industry based on what others have already shown they will pay, and you will be in a much better position to sell. So, this isn't just a PHB theory...its the fact in many parts of the industry. No matter what you sell for, it will al
Stereotypes are there because there is a basis of truth in them.
They do not extend to every stereotype, nor do they extend to every member of that stereotype.
But for the most part, yes, I as you say, enjoy stereotypes.
Well,
It *WAS* modded down to -2 for a while.
And then it got modded back up to +5.
I don't care either way. I was actually surprised it got that high. Fuck, I'll even post this without the karma rating (which actually hurts your numeric rating because its assuming that you don't even think its worth posting).
To get rated up, you pretty much just have to either take the position the sheep take or be brutally honest and willing to defend your position. Trolls are hit and run...they don't stick around to defend themselves.
Personally, I just hope my posts convince someone to think on their own instead of letting the masses tell you what to think. Personally, I think copyright is a great idea, while at the same time thinking patents suck. Both need improvements. Neither need scrapped. I'm one that thinks more fair use needs to be in place with copyright, but at the same time the author should have full control over the rest (meaning the reasonable time frame can be infinite). I also think art, literature and music are all petty and thus I have a day job that pays a LOT less than my music but fulfills me more because I can help kids through my research (I've traveled to 13 high schools across the country in the last 3 weeks to research teaching methods and curricular realignment...and then did a massive concert at ANOTHER f'n concert this weekend that happened to take place as a high school with a killer stage -- it was better than some of the theatre type settings we've played in the last year. So 14 high schools in 3 weeks (the one wasn't for research). Some things are just more important than others...music isn't important, and neither is art or literature or videogames.
Anywho, take an argument and take an opinion. Don't take one just because others are doing it and post it. You will get your instant karma bonus in no time...
You might not be a hippy, but you bow at the cock of the biggest technohippie around and suckle between his legs as he gives you pretty words that tell you that you are just as good as the guys that actually make content and you have every right to take their works as your own.
Again, someone that doesn't want to force ideas down other peoples minds is as bad as a communist and there mind control. Someone that wants to take something others have created and appropriate it for themselves is either a thief of a commie.
Personally? I hate most jambands. The dead were alright when they were doing space, but I generally left after that. I hated the rest of the hippy aspects...
You know what is cool about them? That they choose to allow their stuff to be traded. I've got a friend with dozens of their sets.
But you know what? Going a step further and sucking RMS's cock and telling everyone that it is mandatory to give up copyrights and the fact that you aren't just giving things away out of the good of your heart, but that it should be some fucking dirty hippies idea of electro-communism. Us content creators are blue collar labors again. All the schooling or woodshedding and it means nothing. Only the charismatic that can sell support deserve to be compensated. Only those that play live need to get paid. Those that hone our crafts, not wanting to be bothered past the delivery on the content -- we get screwed under RMS's ideals.
Fuck that. And fuck him. And fuck anyone that sucks his cock and are poisoned by the seed he had impregnated in them.
I like the GPL. I have released a lot of software under this license. I distance myself from it once its released because I don't want to be bothered by it. Generally, we take our 'handcuffware', as noted by Gnu.org, and put it out in GPL land after I have a newer release of our software and leave it at that. I don't like supporting software to begin with. Giving the source away means that I don't have to anymore for the folks that choose not to support me. I'd BSD or Public Domain it, *BUT* I don't want the software used against me at a later date.
The GPL is great. I wish the idealism would stop simply with that and not move on towards the brainwashing.
We all need to be paid for our works if people want to take them. If folks want to give their works away, I applaud them. I don't applaud the quest to make content creators second class humans just because some idiots could never get off their fat fucking ass and finish up a project, *hurd*, only to have their ideals ruined by someone that gave away their software not because of religious iconery, but because of sheer pragmatism, *linux*.
The fact that I am vocal about the fact I don't want to be considered a second class citizen in the Gnu's mind doesn't make me a troll.
BTW I might have a lot of Flamebait/Troll mods in this thread, in fact the first post dropped all the way down to -3 at one point. Its back to +4 Insightful. It means there are some actual thinking people on this site instead of the sheeple that seem to adhere to the same beliefs as you.
Yeah, but you haven't read the hidden guidelines that say Ignore What You Read, If Its Not What You Believe It Is Obviously A Troll Or Flamebait.
This is slashdot...its run by the trolls anymore. I'd rather have a troll that thought about both sides of the issue to fuck with you than the fucking morons that seem to run it now that only want to see their side presented.
Up with the trolls.
Ok, you seem to agree with this statement.
Then piracy *IS* considered a theft of services under your definition. The recipient did not exchange the appropriate consideration before taking the software...thus it is theft.
A pure and rational conclusion using the words in your post and the agreeance with my post.
Piracy is theft. Pure and simple...
The common usage of language and law seldom intersect.
Stealing cable from the cableguys is listed as Theft Of Services under most state statues in the US.
This is even when you live in a house with the cable wired to a box on your property and a filter was put between the lines to keep you from receiving signal.
On your property, if you were to remove the filter, and wire everything back up the same way, ensuring that the filter was undamaged and put back into this same box, you could be charged with Theft Of Service.
Nothing was taken in such a manner that it deprived anyone else of its usage, and it was on your property, but it is still theft under most US State regs...
Then again, I don't expect folks to be lawyers and use lawyer terms every time something can be described in plain ol' english that everyone knows and understands.
"That's the fundamental basis of the 'fucking hippy element'. You may have meant something else."
You know, I'd attended a dozen dead shows in my life. My mom had the hippy ideas, and a lot of my friends were hippies growing up.
This is no more the ideal of hippydom than George Bush is bombing Iraq to free people from the tyranny of Saddam.
Hippies want to rule the world. They want to force us to believe how they believe. They want nothing more than to annihilate thought different than their own. I've *NEVER* met a hippy that was representative of the ideal that wasn't 100% identical to those around him. You find this in the Republican Party these days too. People want to be led and someone is obviously doing the leading...and more than that, they want uniformity. Uniformity frees one from having to think outside the lines, man. Sure, their coloring books might not have lines, but the minute someone suggests putting them in, they are demonized.
Their society is no different than the one we live in today, and more than that, its just as damaging from a progressive standpoint.
As for evolution -- its not evolution if folks *HAVE* to shape its existence. Its one thing for ideas and constructs to show up and be accepted, its another to go out of your way to enforce the usage of it...
Oh I think Orwell is well read these days, but the current crop of kids really aren't taught to think much more than is printed on the page. This is one of the reasons we see emoticons and textual smilies because folks are not trained to even read sarcasm on the internet (my above post was meant to be read at face value as the morons won't get it otherwise). They need a wink and a nudge to get the slightest idea that it might be representing something other than what is on the page.
As such, folks are reading 1984 and others as simply good ideas. Hey! It can't be used for anything other than that. The newspeak isn't bad, its just embraced differently. I betcha we could use this in our own little groups and then we can force the noncool kids into using it. Yeah! And we should ban showers too!!! As everyone looks around at Stallman and shakes their head in disbelief. I guess some ideas aren't catching on so fast.
Again this is a troll. At least for the folks that can't read and want to be spoon fed ideas. Mark it as you feel fit because this is your club these days. I'm no longer one of the cool kids with a mid 4 digit UID (I still wish I would have kept my old nick as this low 5 digit one sucks...)
"Yet another news article that continues the bombardment of the uninformed public trying to change the definition of words to fit their needs"
m l
You *DO* know the english language is almost designed to incorporate new word uses over time, or are you not a linguist and just want to continually bombarding folks with the idea that you know more than most?
Hell, most languages do this. The Hebrew language goes back into its history to find unused or underused words to represent modern tech simply to avoid using language from outside of its realm and to keep the language pure. Many others do the same.
Do you really think the general public wants a new word for copyright infringing when most will look at it as Hey Why Don't They Just Say Theft Or Piracy, Because Thats What It Is. Other than the morons that take 1984 to heart and want to shape public perception by forcing the use of word choice to promote their lifestyles:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.ht
And you wonder why folks think RMS is a stinky hippy that wants to force everyone to his idea of society. He claims that he gives choice, all the while trying to shape the slash sheeple into his way of thinking by altering language and hopefully altering though because of it.
If we get away from thinking its theft, we can concentrate on calling it copyright infringement, which then sounds more like us v. THE MAN and thus the attitude starts to change.
I'm going to get modded to -5 for this but fuck it. You've personally derided my posts in the past for using words like theft and piracy and I'm sick of the fucking hippy element around here that can't learn to live and let live. I don't tell anyone else how they should live their lives, nor how to think, all I ask is that folks respect my personal properties which include any and all intellectual properties. I think this is all most content creators ask as well...
Oh wait, we can't use the word creator anymore either...
Why is that?
Its the label taking the risk, not the artist.
Remember the key word is ARTist. They make art. Art is not something that should be liked by all and viewed at as a consumable, but to be relevant it must be liked by a certain percentage of the population.
A true artist would simply give the art away as long as he could afford to sustain himself.
Instead, the artist goes to a label that knows 9 times out of 10 the artist is not going to be a profit center for it, and signs them anyways. These labels bank on the law of averages that says that if they cover enough bases, they will eventually hit gold (and hopefully platinum).
Past that, guys like me like to get paid. I work in the back grounds for artists and someone has to pay me and folks like me. I've done it both ways -- I've been paid from the artist and I've been paid by the label. Wanna know who's screwed me less? The labels. When working on points (or mere fractions of points in my case), the label will lay out all the figures and statistics. The artist will always claim they haven't sold enough to pay any of us, even right after bragging to the girl next to you that they sold billions.
If you actually had a clue as to what it took to put out a commercial grade album these days, you wouldn't be so harsh on the labels. Then again, if I was recording on my own again (i.e., not in a backing capacity), I too would be bitching about not getting paid enough...thats the nature of capitalism...we all think we deserve more.
Then again, it might backfire.
:-)
How many artists want to use an app that is more in line with geeks than actual true artists. I've got good friends that make their entire living with this stuff. I've shown them things like Gimp and they just scoff -- and its understandable why they do so.
F/OSS software is generally software designed by geeks for use by geeks. I've seen a LOT of great sutff come out of it, but almost always, the person on the other end has been a techie first and foremost and an artist second.
I'm on the other end...I'm an artist first and foremost, and a geek secondary. I run a programming / research office for my university, but I still make more money through music activities. And I use a Mac for my personal needs -- why? because it was set up to be invisible to the end user. To a techie? its a bit infuriating at times because you can't do everything you want to do, but to others its a godsend if you can afford one (that and I generally have a terminal window open at all times so the interface doesn't get on my nerves so bad
If the goal is to engage geeks -- this is a good idea. if its to engage others, I'd stay away from most Free and Open Source apps.
BTW -- I cut my teeth in 3D using POVRay on a 486DX (it was soooooooo slow on the SX), so I hope I'm geek enough not to be considered a troll.
"While Microsoft is a trademark, (morally speaking, I'm not talking about actual laws here) this only gives MS the right to prevent other people trying to use their name to make a profit based on their reputation."
So, if someone wanted to have a building, painted Yellow and Red and had a Big M On a pole stating McDonalds, this would be alright, as long it wasn't a place trying to make profit off of McDonalds, and simply trying to draw people in to tell them Meat is Murder and they are hiring underaged mexican girls to service the night manager, this would be allowed?
Same sort of idea, just not the net.
Trademark protects a few things -- and making profit isn't a key to how its used. Part of it is making certain the trademark isn't used in a way to confuse others as to the legitimacy of the mark, i.e., someone will have a reasonable expectation that what they are purchasing, visiting (physically) visiting (a website), obtaining (even if not for profit) or otherwise still leaves the idea that the person will believe the use of the trademark did not deceive them into believing something else.
Past that, why should names not have a natural trademark along with them? Every so often you find someone with a name very similar to a previous trademark...for instance someone named Ronald McDonald probably won't be allowed to have a restaurant anywhere in the world bearing his name, but what about ideas that infringe on the trademark at a later time.
For instance, the VanHollen2004.com was definitely an attempt to trade in upon the guys name and the natural idea that a site like this will be associated. If this VH2k4 site was registered in the past before the guy was a politician, so be it, but the natural order of things should give the owner of the name (the guy born with it) instant trademark protection in the areas he is associated with. I don't know which service group Politics would go in, but I'm sure there is one on the TM form.
So, honestly, I don't know how this is a free speech issue. Except for folks that can't see there are clear boundaries between what is right and what is wrong. There is no slippery slope in taking the assholes domain away from him, it was a stupid move in the first place and clearly based on the intent to deceive visitors to the site. If it were IHateVanHollen2004.com, that would be perfectly legitimate, but this is not.
Let hope the laws catch up with this soon...free speech is not at risk in this case and anyone thinking it might be really never understood freespeech in the first place.
Actually, naturally I'm a bass.
:-P
:-)
But a dozen years of speech therapy as a kid left me using the upper range quite a bit and its out of its natural range. Most people don't even notice.
The bass end is just not very articulate at all and I have no control.
As such, I've never been able to carry a tune vocally and Autotune and others can't deal with it. It doesn't break, per se, just doesn't work either
BTW looking at my other post to you, it looks a bit rude. This is slashdot, so I hope you take the flames with a grain of salt
I use to buy albums based on the producer or the label it came out of back in the mid80s because the style of music I listened to was greatly influenced by the folks controlling to output.
With the consolidation of the megalabels, its become harder to do this with everyone diversifying.
To the average person, I have no problem finding an artist that fits their ideal of todays music and allowing them to be attributed to it.
For the persons that want more, pick the songs based on the writter and the production team. For instance, it was well known a few years ago if you wanted Millenium Pop, pick up anything by the Matrix production team -- it all sounded the same (and I had a friend that was in this team -- and I still bitched him out about them recruiting Liz Phair -- which he claimed that the 'horrible' album they wrote for her sold more than all her previous combined).
There are not authenticity issues. Even if the artist does little more than show up, read a few lines from the sheet and go home while the rest spend the next 5 months manipulating the works, it means that their aura is attached to it and at this point we aren't talking about a person, but a brand. For the common person, this ain't a bad thing, nor is it something I'm going to look down upon them for. For me, I want a little more personalization in the works and I want something that isn't necessarily going to appeal to the rest of the world, but will be tailored to me. Either way works out...
If you pull out a 4 piece string quartet (and I know thats redundant, but I've obviously got to talk s l o w to some people), you aren't going to be making R&R. You might do something similar, and Kamen did a good job of merging orchestral arrangements with good amurikan rock (even when it was done by ferenerz) -- but it wasn't rock and roll.
Quick hint -- In art, everything is made up.
Yours has to be the most ignorant comment on this subject to date. As these 'made up' genres (are you like 14, BTW, because my lawyer asks that I not engage in comments with those under 18) age, structure and style and relevance happens. If you are making good ol' American Rock And Roll, you know the conventions involved. If you are aiming for mid 90s, Drop-D AlternoRawk, other conventions apply. If you are going for todays stripped down pseudobrit punk, other conventions appear.
Its as easy as that. If you are faking a style, you need to know this stuff. Its the old adage of knowing how your subject works before breaking the rules. Unfortunately, with the access to technology and easy of access to instruments, folks are ever increasingly having access to this stuff without knowing how it works and breaking rules that they don't even know they are breaking. This works out for a lot of naive rock projects where you are aiming at a less sophisticated audience that wouldn't know the difference either way -- honestly, most of the stripped down punk I hear today is stuff I could play when I first picked up a guitar and a friend showed me a trick to the Drop D tuning.
But again, I'm not annoyed at all by folks that can't play or that break rules or otherwise.
I am annoyed at pseudorebelious youth that have no clue about what I'm talking about and want to, like man, tell me, dude, there isn't, like, any faking it, I swear, because its music or ain't.
If you say you are playing guitar and you are playing a sample -- its fake. The music isn't fake -- and I thought that was the entire point of my last few posts -- but the playing is.
As for telling someone they don't have the right -- you are an idiot aren't you. Do you think I was requiring licenses or permits to make music? No. I'm making a point that one needs to understand the medium they wish to emulate before they try to emulate it, if in fact emulating it is what the desired outcome is to be. That is all.
Utter bullshit indeed.
Again, why does it matter to you who is making the music?
:-)
Personally, I *HATE* the autotune sound...its unnatural. I use something called Melodyne which keeps the vocal qualities, the quirks, but allows you to recenter the pitch without screwing with everything else, allows one to pull out the vibrato -- well except in cases of extremely bad singers who think that shaking your head back and forth is equivalent to diaphragm control (enter almost all R&B women -- I think Whitney introduced this group to the wild head shake vibrato which is near impossible to pull out without massive compression). It can change pitch mid word and keep the ties natural.
It sounds quite a bit more natural, but its harder for the idiots that want to run things real time and draw in a changes with a pencil, ignoring that you will be making everything sound like oscillator / vocode voice.
Its one thing to complain about the sound of it, its another to complain about being cheated when you find out for the last 2 years, a song you've loved was actually 'fake'.
Its like the whole Millivanilli thing. Everyone in the industry knew these guys were fakes and the rumors were spreading fast into the general public far before it was announced that they were fakes. People felt cheated and they lost their awards. Why??? Did the music change drastically because there were pretty boy dancers taking the credit for the singer (who is still talented and puts out great stuff, but doesn't really want the fame or attention -- and was a willing participant to the point of coming up with the idea).
If I could get my music out without altering a note (not saying I would with bland pop), and I had the opportunity to use some pretty boy as a front to get it in the face of others, I'd do it in a heart beat. Unfortunately, even Autotune apps break on my voice --so I just have my instrumentation with someone elses voice
Talent means nothing. Its the creative aspect that triumphs over everything. I listen back years ago and the guys that had the most talent in the instrument sense, vocals included, were the ones that had very little talent creatively. Elvis and Sinatra both had great voices. Both sang drek for the most part. Maria Calas had a great voice -- but she spent her days recording works by guys dead over 100 years.
On my music forums, one of the synths I support is highly used in the ProgRock community -- there is a *LOT* Proggies out there that can kick my ass on even my choice of instrument...without breaking a sweat. They practice their instrument night and day as if hoping the 3000 Meter Solo and Synchronized Facial Distortion were going to be Olympic activities next time around. Folks like in the 80s like Yngwie Malmstein (I can't ever spell his fucking name) were the best guitarists out there and always had to prove he was better than Eddie Van Halen -- but never got the clue that better means nothing if your music sucks. Better instrumentalist generally implies the inversion is true when it comes to creativity and songwriting -- because they want to focus on showing off their abilities and not actually tailor their playing to the music.
What happened to having actual talented people doing the singing (playing)? We got sick of them doing our music and doing it in their style and acting like divas, refusing to take any direction. At least when Britanies start to get uppity, we know we can dispose of them and bring on someone new. Fuck the talent -- I just want my works to come out the way I envisioned them...
Raw?
Lots of synthetic stuff can be VERY raw, yet sound like the guy knew what we was doing at the same time.
For instance, I was at a PJ Harvey concert the other night (last night? I forget...life is passing me by quite fast lately)...that was VERY raw, but at the same time controlled.
Sometimes, just taking my one 3 string guitar that is great for playing simple chords, and then filling in the harder chords or throwing in a solo through the magic of sampling, and you'd never realize that it wasn't real. Take the audio, chop the chords, and do maybe a 40% quantization -- its tighter, but still human and a bit raw.
If you don't know how Rock and Roll is recorded, you have no right to try to fake it. Same with any genre.
As for the Let It Be, you are right, it was a disaster. As such, Spector salvaged it. I can't stand the Naked album as anything other than a research disc. The remastering was incredible -- they did a great job at this, but the music was lacking.
Besides, the whole idea that they were headed away from the overproduced ideal kinda goes against the rest of everyone's careers in the band. They all put out overproduced stuff on their own and collaborated on other peoples overproduced works. I think they knew exactly what was going on when they gave the tapes to Spector. Its exactly what they wanted...its not like the record company had the Beatles by the balls -- they could have done ANYTHING they wanted.
The title song was listenable, but the rest -- I don't know. And this is coming from someone that loved their very early garage sound (well, garage from a 60s brit perspective). The stuff they did in their Hamburg days is amongst my favorites.
As for playing live -- it depends on what you are at a concert to see. One of the bands I support is a touring R&B act that has a dozen guys on stage -- each one is a world class musician (at least by grammy nomination standards). I've also hung out with friends that were doing overly slicked pop productions where anyone with half a mind in their head knew the stuff was not being played live -- you came for a spectacle and nothing else, and it was still entertaining. of the bands I've seen in the last month -- my favorite were a 9 piece Islamic band playing for the Whirling Dervishes. All good musics have a place in this world...
"WARNING: Shameless plug!
:-), but on the recorded album, who the fuck cares. A good song that sticks in my head is all that matters...
Our band uses no vocal sculpting - all but one of our songs was recorded in one take. All natural baby!"
I've never understood why this is such a good thing.
Quite a few of us out there have talents outside of playing a specific instrument or otherwise, and don't want someone else to ruin it.
For instance, I'm a *HORRIBLE* guitarist, but due to my knowledge of sampling and editing techniques, I actually have a few of my friends that are guitarists convinced that I am a pretty decent player -- even after I tell them its all digital.
In the past, I've tried to bring folks in to play guitar for me, but its always been their personality and they couldn't take direction -- they felt that as an 'artist' they should be able to play what they wanted. Thats fine and dandy, but give me my money back if you want to be an artist -- I hired you to be a technician.
So all in all, who the fuck cares if a song was recorded in one take or not. I don't. I want to hear music, not technique. As a songwritter first, I concentrate on that aspect of it. If it means hiring a girl to come in and sing her ass off, and then editting the fuck out of it to where it sounds nothing like her -- and is actually in tune to boot -- why the fuck should that matter to the listener either.
Are you gettin something more authentic because the band played everything in one take? No. On stage, it might matter (and I can hold my own on the keys -- so I'm not useless
You are right, I am an elitist mac user.
I spent good hard money on my Mac and I probably make less than most PC users. Why? Because some things are worth paying for. Its done right.
Then again, this is also why I've spent around $2k on open source apps this year -- I've bought (or my personal business) has paid for many OSS apps that I've gotten off the original programmer -- or bought 'service agreements' that I didn't really need -- all in the name of paying for that which I think is useful to me.
Great thing about my mac? I can run those OSS apps while still running a world class Unix. Or I can transition them to one of my several linux boxes.
As for strangling the public domain? There is *NOTHING* stopping anyone from putting their work into the public domain if that what they want. Hell, more often than not, if I have a utility app that I created to get to the final outcome of my main application (wierd math libraries, validation engines for my work that sort of stuff for my current day job), I'll put that in the public domain for anyone to use (as long as they don't ask me about it -- its well documented in source, I don't have time to tech support it), I'll PD it before I GPL it most days of the week.
But thats my choice. I think most content creators SHOULD put their works into the public domain, and I think works should have to be reregistered by the original owner after X amount of years to remain copyrighted, but past that, I think the laws are fair.
This isn't a damn thing in Copyright that is to the public's good that couldn't be reproduced in another format without stealing the original authors work that would save a single life out there or contribute to the pubic good. How is keep Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck out of the public domain hurting anyone. I don't see it. Then again, I also believe people need to be less consuming and more creating.
You know if this society were more about encouraging folks to create than consume, we wouldn't have a marginalized subgrouping of people screaming out about protecting copyright. We'd have artists and writers and musicians that would all be creating the current culture and giving it away for the fame and glory, but not because a bunch of folks without a creative bone in their body thinks their works need to be freed.
My note to you -- make something the world will enjoy and give it away. Maybe you will either change you mind about a content creators rights or you will convince other content creators to change their minds. At this point, you've done neither...
"Because just about every Windows user I know has a computer at least 50% full of stolen shit (usually including the OS itself)."
And sadly, on the Mac its just the opposite.
Mac users are more often than PCs users to be in the 'creative' designation. That doesn't mean all, most, or a lot, but it means far more than PC users. But more importantly, its given the ideal that this *IS* the creative machine. I use my Mac for all my music and visual arts. I have most of hte same software on my PC, but that doesn't put me in the same mood -- why? Because of the expectation that was set. I use my PC for programming.
Getting to the point, creative folks generally feel ownership in their works. Most of us do believe copyright laws are just -- as a creative, you feel the shit you create is your life blood and soul. This doesn't happen in programming very often...most programmers are NOT creating, but doing the digital equivalent of manual labour. This is one of the reasons I refuse to code any more...I'll develop software and manage a working team, but my task is shaping the software, not pushing out dozens of lines of a code an hour (and even that is nothing compared to real code junkies). Coders I know think I'm a snob too -- but my software is generally used by folks that don't know computers (or know them and refuse to have to use that knowledge -- I know how to fix a car, but I know my mechanic can get it done much quicker and a lot of the times, cheaper -- err after I buy the wrong parts and break something else) and simplify complex tasks so you don't have to be a computer genius -- just someone that understands the field of work you are already in (generally, academic medical / psychological based apps).
But again, code junkies that think programming is the action of your fingers hitting the keyboard and throwing our lines of code will *NEVER* understand ownership.
Mac users have it instilled in them that they own the works -- its theres. iPhoto -- you took those photos. iMovie -- its your movie and as shitty as it may be, you created it.
Move that over to software purchases. As folks that understand our ideal of ownership, we generally want other owners to get paid. Not all Mac users, the majority, or whatever else -- but a bigger crowd than are on the PC. We pay for our shit because we understand. PC users -- on the other hand -- are consumers through and through. Nothing really creative. Just video games or some other bullshit. Consumers want shit at the lowest cost price -- and free is as low as you can go.
Again, I'm not saying all Mac users pay for their shit -- the whole P2P filesharing thing started on the Mac. Sure, there was FTP before that, but Hotline really made the market for finding warez easily. Still, it was always amazing to talk with friends that had a new boxed photoshop sitting on their desk and they tell me that they picked it up because they found it on Hotline (years ago) and wanted a legit copy...where as the same folks on the PC tell me Yeah, It doesn't work very well, but its free, so I'll just keep an eye out for a better crack. Fuck that.
Mac users pirate less. Linux users that have PCs (almost all) probably pirate more than PC users. We all need to learn to respect folks properties, even if it is just artificial bullshit making it true ownership. In a true communist society, they would say that our western idea of car ownership was bullshit as well -- its only due to artificial means that someone can 'own' something that the others don't. If you want folks to respect items like the GPL, then you also need to respect copyright laws as they stand today.
"Doesn't the US copyright holder give his permission when he allows his product to be distributed in Russia?"
There are quite a few albums on AllOfMp3 that were never distributed in Russia or sold there (legitimately). As such, even if AllOfMp3 was legit, how does it give them the rights to distribute it.
I know several bigger artists that are there and are probably distributed by their labels in the company, but I also know several lesser known artists that ship out of their own homes -- but still have a pretty big clip in sales -- when you take ALL the profits you can sell far less -- fortunately, for the one that is actually making real money this way had a 10 year deal, several million major label sales, and a decent soundtrack licensing biz. Her claim is that she has never sent anything recent past Scandinavia as the former eastern bloc is too rife with credit card theft and as such, will not even send anything into there and encourage her fans to buy from independent music stores that might pick up 4 or 5 copies to sit on the shelf for a few years.
So why are her albums there? I've got a few others that are in the same boat. The fact is, AllOfMp3 is illegal and waiting for the law to catch up with them -- though in Russian they have far more pressing needs at this time than to deal with minor copyright violations...
"There media app downloads the songs for you in the background, the tunes are dirt cheap and they have a good (but not excellent, at least in punk) selection."
Its easy to be dirt cheap when the price of adding a new song to the server is around $16.95 + worldwide shipping from Amazon.
Its dirt cheap because they don't pay the artists. More than that, folks like me that get paid on points (regardless of the fact its a quarter of someone elses half or a percentage of a point) don't get paid -- especially when some of us take chances on more unknown artists knowing that if we do great work, we might get paid later -- while if we do shitty work, we probably won't get anything.
The fact is, folks like Downfuckinghill Battle scream about artists get only $0.10 a song (which is actually a higher percentage than most get from anything sold at BestBuy or WalMart), while the same folks bragging about this are willing to fuck over everyone in the music industry because they are trying to fucking save us from ourselves.
Personally, I have a job doing research that keeps me afloat. Music buys me gear, gets me into parties that geeks like me should never be allowed close to, and puts some pocket change in my wallet. And yet, I've worked on shit that was high profile enough that I know friends of mine have ripped the shit off a P2P site -- and honestly, thats what I consider allofmp3 -- just an illegal operation running under laws that are not quite clear in Russia and not up to the technical reality of today nor intended to be used in the way they are, and actually even illegal for them to sell outside of their borders -- let alone illegal for you to download outside of their borders as well.
I've taken a look at the site and it pisses me off. Music as a commodity and not an art. Buy it in bulk. You aren't paying per song, you are paying per the bandwidth. Want higher quality -- its more money to download. The artist gets exactly the same percentage of the sale -- NOTHING.
Honestly, as a musician and technician , I can hear the difference between MP3s, AAC or WAV but I don't care. I buy the music not for the quality, but for the content. Audiophiles have always gotten on my fucking nerves. If you weren't around when it was originally recorded, you are getting no where near the original quality, so it doesn't matter. This is why we go to see concerts and why I don't get tired of seeing the same band a few dozen times a year (well the fact that they pay me to be there is beside the point -- I'd have been there with simply the invite and the travel reimbursement).
What would be more important that quality to me would be all the lyrics and artist notes to the song. Cover art? its nice, but not integral to the music. Lyrics, notes -- definitely important and can make the difference between a good song and a great one because it sets the mood and context.
Past that, iTMS is perfect for me. And I just checked -- it looks like its got my friends band's bio pages up -- maybe one of these days they will have their own customized mini portals as well one of these days.
If only -- that would have meant I had a 16 year old girlfriend for even a few minutes. I haven't had one of those since, hmmm...I was 16. Dammit.
:-)
Luckily for me, 30 year old women don't get picked up by these guys, so I'm relatively safe
You taught me something new.
I never cared enough about the cars to actually know how to spell it.
Obviously, you are an Oakley wearer.