well, i guess you had to be there to enjoy this advice. He was saying that merely playing by the rules of management meant turning yourself into just another pointy haired boss. By stressing your different status in the company, you might have more chance in persuading a CEO.
It was a little tongue in cheek, but not ridiculous advice. There was a slashdot story a year or two ago about whether wearing a three piece suit for an interview indicated that you were professional or utterly clueless about the geek environment.
Sorry, a sentence was incomplete and left out the URL.
More practical books on Unix programming exist (I happen to recommend
Mark
Sobell's Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux ) , but ESR's book will
stay with you long after you have
finished reading, providing countless hours for reflection and
appreciation of Unix's Unix-nature.
I generally agree with your sentiment (and have ripped my fair share of tracks to ogg,, but it's a bitch finding hardware support for ogg's (mp3 cd players) and last time I checked 6 months ago, I didn't find much software support in Windows for burning ogg's onto audio CD's. (especially for burning oggs and mp3's onto the same audio CD ). At walmart you can buy a cheapo cd/mp3 player for $30. If I could buy an ogg cd player for 75$, believe me, I'd buy it. But I don't see this kind of thing anyway. Please rescue me from my ignorance!
(well I just googled around and found this visual-mp3 .
Well, I can't figure out why people are looking at pay services (except for backlists of singers).
Vivendi's mp3.com and iuma.com have hundreds of thousands of free mp3's. You can use iRATE radio to discovery all sorts of free legal mp3's.
You can find out about the best free mp3's at gods of music among other places.
My essay sharethemusicday.com gives more information about how to find out about legal mp3's and legal ways to share the music.
The big question is when vivendi will start charging money for mp3.com. If they do, then either singers will host their music elsewhere, or else cause vivendi to sell this music or music subscriptions at a reasonable price.
With the recent acquisition by NBC of Universal/Vivendi, my guess is that there will be more pressure for vivendi to squeeze money out of mp3.com
compulsory licenses for content-bad?
on
Why Only Music?
·
· Score: 1
Well, it is probably correct that the problems of making money from content are similiar regardless of the type of content (talking about creative content here, not information or knowledge).
Nonetheless, there are unique aspects to each type of creative content. For example, music gains more value by repeated listening, while books or movies really only need to be read once (talking about fiction, not textbooks, etc).
(That is why, for example, I have suggested that a voluntary compensation model would seem to work well for music, although not necessarily for other mediums--see my essay sharethemusicday.com ).
I have pointed out some pitfalls of a compulsory licensing scheme . The main problems (beside the technical ones) are the political ones. If you thought the negotiations about Internet radio were bad, wait til you see this debate! Also, it seems to argue against individual initiative and hand too much power to a taxing authority.
Here's what I predict: content aggregation sites like mp3.com will build their own private p2p networks where subscribers can distribute mp3.com's exclusive content. Musicians pay $100 to put their content on mp3.com (that's the current deal), and make more money depending on the number of downloads, hits, eyeballs which mp3.com can measure. (Mp3.com could also charge for product placement, etc). That gives musicians a vested interest in encouraging fans to subscribe. It gives fans a vested interest in subscribing to get the latest content, recommendation systems, file management, etc. The assumption behind this idea is that the aggregator offers unlimited downloads for a fairly low price. It resembles live365's scheme for allowing subscribers to reward their Favorite radio station.
If vivendi can't offer a low price for this, then the tipjar model seems preferable. The question remains: why doesn't mp3.com offer this capability or even the ability to link to a tipjar?
The big problem I see with the online sites is not the legal issues but the usability. mp3.com and other free mp3 downloads use a web browser to serve music. Bad! We need a more sophisticated client, like p2p or bit torrent (or like the audiogalaxy satellite). I can't remember if winamp is good at managing mp3 downloads.
I advocate a voluntary compensation method as the only credible way to compensate artists (and I fault commercial music webhosts for not allowing musicians to include tipjars). I would rather donate money to artists after having the opportunity to listen to all them. (When the Courts ruled against Verizon last March, I vowed to stop listening to commercial music altogether). Instead music webhosts feed the musicians' illusions that labels are still searching for talent to sign. Do you know musicians pay $100 a year to put their music on mp3.com?
But I would happily pay $10 a month to a music hosting site that provides an easier interface for managing downloads and files. Looks like none of the music hosts have really tried that yet. (Musicmatch--which is more of a pc application-- is probably the best of the bunch for that, and even they aren't that good).
I'm surprised that mp3.com isn't using bit torrent to distribute the bandwidth load. Mp3.com should create a private p2p2 network using authentication to share all files in the mp3.com universe.
I covered these issues in my essay sharethemusicday.com . In it I advocate a voluntary compensation model
Here's what I wrote:
Compulsory licenses seems to be the "cleanest" solution, and it appears to have implemented in Canada with moderate success, but the approach has fundamental problems. First, it seems rather easy to game the system to make some songs appear more popular in popularity statistics. It seems to offer a lot of advantages to incumbents at the expense of emerging artists. Second, frequency of sharing may not correlate well with user's perception of value (although it may turn out to correlate well with what would have been actual sales figures). Regardless of whether we love the Spice Girls, their files are going to be shared more often than that of Simulacra. Second, a flat fee imposes a cap on potential profits and creates a reason for music businesses to seek "tax increases" on a regular basis. This is more of a "user fee" than a tax, but still establishing a "just rate" would probably result in prolonged battles in public. Just look for example at the ugly negotiations that Internet radio had with the music industry. Third, it's unclear how to measure user statistics when mp3's can be played or downloaded in many different contexts. Should we measure radio plays? What about music scraping applications? What about IRC? What about Internet radio (which plays to multiple listeners)? What about venues in which multiple people are listening? What about foreign listeners? What about car radio? What about PC makers who include freebies like a DVD with free music? I fear that any measuring system will lock us into one specific method of sharing, and it will reveal the folly of trying to micromanage an economy.
I am truly amazed. I have to admit, some of those episodes are worth saving (I remember with fondness one about NASA sending a space pod that mistakenly lands on their island, and when the Professor finally fixes it, Gilligan accidentally spills sticky feathers in front of a fan, causing all 7 of them to be covered with feathers, convincing NASA scientists that Mars was inhabited by feathered creatures.
This is a good idea as long as you can solve the problem of authentication.
I prefer donating through musiclink , a nonprofit service that 100% of the money to an artist after a $20 threshhold is reached.
It is really amazing how few of the artists are soliciting through paypal or amazon or musiclink on their websites. Are musicians just stupid? I think they always want to hold out for the possibility about signing with a major label later on.
For me, the problem is not one of technology but of taste. When a p2p sharer launches a tirade against the music industry, and then uses p2p to find tracks by bands from the major labels, I fault this sharer not for illegality but unoriginality of taste. It is like buying a nice expensive $10,000 plasma wide-screen HDTV and using it to watch "Porky's 2" or episodes of Gilligan's Island. If the future involves people using anonymous freenet to swap mp3's by RIAA artists, doesn't this mean that the RIAA has still won?
Artists don't want listeners to think that this share/tax is the only payment that listeners should have to make. Suppose the tax is $30 added to the cost of a mp3 player. YOu have to understand that right now incumbents want consumers to pay that much just for two or three CD's by a single artist. There's no way that they'll be content with that.
A previous poster asked the question of different devices. It assumes that all media playing devices are equipped with the means to measure anonymously frequency of play. Regardless of which scenario is tried, there will be complainers saying that it is not fair. This is a case where a technology solution makes sense, but only if a deity could impose it over the world in one fell swoop. In reality, there are inherent barriers to solutions like this working. Example: if a mp3 player included a compulsory tax, what about car radios? What about music played at restaurants or stadiums? (Because there's 40,000 at the football game, does that make 40,000 listeners of that song)?
This is an ingenious solution, but it presumes that all the parties involved will want to cooperate on standards and information. And that information can be freely exchanged between consumers and businesses and content owners and musicians.
First, I doubt musicians or labels will be happy will this arrangement. It will assure listeners that they are "paying for music" when in fact all you are doing is distributing the proceeds from an arbitary tax. Maybe they aren't as greedy as the RIAA, but they will be suspicious of anybody who says that playlists should determine royalties.
Second, it awards amounts on the basis of plays and not likes. Everyone may have downloaded and listened to Britney Spears, but maybe very few like it. I would much prefer a system that allows users to award shares to their favorite artists (although if they like the music, they may play the song more often). Also, there would probably be ways to game the system. Ex: a person could pawn his/her mp3 as by Eminem on a p2p network, when in fact, it belongs to someone else.
Third, it assumes that artists will register with a centralized service. If you look at musiclink, you will see that a large number of musicians just never get around to doing those things.
Fourth, hardware manufacturers may resist imposing a big tax on their hardware, especially if content companies are trying to make this tax as big as possible.
Still, it's an ingenious solution, and it is a method by which compulsory licensing can be implemented without rewarding the incumbents.
As for me, I still think microtipping is the most viable solution. See my essay sharethemusicday.com.
p2p is a nifty solution, but there are intrinsic problems (with technological solutions).
1. There's no way to verify whether the copyright owner approves of it being distributed through these networks.
2. p2p lets you search for well-known things, but not obscure things (or names you don't know). P2p doesn't give you ideas about what to search for. (BTW, Audiogalaxy was particularly good at doing that when it was around).
3. p2p doesn't have a good way to store people's recommendations or correlative tastes (if you like X, you'll like Y) or related items.
4. p2p doesn't do a good job in letting the user know what versions is the definitive version (This may be a user issue).
An interesting solution by the way is iRATE radio (read my interview with the lead developer ). He chose a centralized model for legal reasons and versioning reasons.
5. At the moment, p2p clients don't have a way of tipping artists or linking to their website within the client (this will undoubtedly change over time). WWW is still the best way to learn more information about an artist.
Ok, here's why I hate slashdot. When you have a great argument on a discussion, you post so late that none of the moderators even get around to awarding it karma.
Ok, here's my thought. RIAA argues that p2p is depriving the content creators of their fair buck. They are saying, if p2p survives, it will drive content creators out of business.
Well, guess what, porn is a content business also. By their reasoning, p2p would drive content creators out of business, rather than the other way around. Maybe we could say that p2p is the best way to fight commercial porn!
I don't blame RIAA for trying to throw this argument out. But it reveals the shaky foundations on which they argue that p2p kills content creation.
On the porn/harm issue, I have two thoughts. First, the typical 13 year old (boy and girl) today probably has already viewed hardcore pictures and maybe videos. It's unavoidable,and perhaps will inure them to these images/video experiences. Second, it would be easy enough for kazaa to filter out certain keywords, although ultimately kids understand the technology better than adults will. Although not very sophisticated now, it's only a matter of time before traded files to be rated by other traders (if only to prevent viruses and other malicious software).
With regard to videos pretending to be something else, it's more likely that a vid will promote itself as a hardcore and turn out to be a music promo or some ad.
I see a lot of band websites out there (both big label and small label), but I almost never see a site that tells surfers/listeners how to tip the band.
Why don't more band websites include links to musiclink or paypal?
Case in point: I bought a used Patti Rothberg CD (EMI) on half.com for $1 (plus $3 shipping), and I would have preferred to download the mp3's off her site and donated $5 directly . Why do artists not perceive the value of online tipping? Is it ignorance or some clause in the contract?
rj
So if I get convicted for 3 counts of file uploading, that's 3 felonies. The 3 Strikes You're Out requires an automatic mandatory life imprisonment for the third felony conviction in California.
Looks like the prison population is going to skyrocket very quickly!
Why bother with suspect technological workarounds. Just boycott music in the vault! .
why are negative reviews necessary?
on
Linux Clustering
·
· Score: 1
Having the occasional less-than-glowing review on slashdot can be refreshing change of pace. But I feel that they are unnecessary. Letting these books lie in fallow obscurity is perhaps a better strategy especially when there are so many other books that need publicity. One problem with reviews of technical books is that they depend on the technical proficiency of the reviewer. What may seem bland and uninteresting to this reviewer may seem interesting to someone totally unfamiliar with the topic or someone who just wants it as a dead-tree reference guide.
BTW, I don't see anything wrong with regurgitating man pages and how to's in book form, especially if explicitly states. Mark Sobell's practical guide to rh linux 8.0 is a perfect example. This book includes man pages/how to's while including better examples.
Finally, if the reviewer didn't like this book, why didn't he recommend a title or two that did cover this topic well?
(PS, I do occasional book reviews for slashdot myself.)
not ageism: students have more time to learn!
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
I've thought long and hard about this issue. The problem is not one of age. It's that of experience and familiarity with the latest technology/buzzwords. IN a college environment, students have the chance to play around with projects and to learn about their discipline full time. And if their degree plan is any good, they are probably learning concepts and languages which are not tied to any one proprietor. Midcareer professionals, on the other hand, basically are too busy to learn. Sure, they learn interesting things for the tasks specific to the job at hand, but that knowledge can be very domain-specific and not easily transferable to other companies. As for me, I am madly learning about new technologies, but my schedule and commitments limit me to only part time learning. When a part time learner competes against a full time learner, there is really no contest.
If you had a 40 year programmer, gave him 2 years to go to school full time, (paid for by parents) and use of the university's great network, there would be no difference between the older and younger candidate. Having full time to learn at college provides an undeniable boost to any learner's marketability, old or young.
Another thought. HR and recruiters use the "Must have 5 years experience" rule where they won't consider candidates with less than 5 years experience. I actually wrote an essay about the "Must-have-5-years-experience fallacy," but actually this fallacy works in favor of older workers.
Here are two questions I submitted to the experts. Two bad they didn't pick it.
For Mr. Oppenheim: 1.The value that the entertainment industry has traditionally brought to the artist has been production and marketing. But costs of producing artistic works has plummetted, and many would say that âoeviral marketingâ (through the sanctioning of alternative/free distribution channels) is cheaper and more effective anyway. Given the ever-shrinking royalty percentages and restrictive nature of entertainment contracts, why does it still make economic sense for artists to sign up with major media companies?
For Mr. Lessig: 2. Nobody ever put a gun to an artist's head to sign an unfair contract with the entertainment company. These contracts are freely entered into because both parties believe it in their respective self-interests. Why then is legislative tampering necessary? Isn't the problem self-correcting? If enough artists get screwed or perceive themselves as getting screwed by signing up, they won't sign up, or they will insist on more favorable terms. Why then should Congress hamstring the ability of artists and companies to enter into contracts? To justify legislative intervention, it seems to me that you would need to demonstrate that entertainment contracts are instrinsically predatory and exploitative.
Have we not overlooked the obvious? Why do we need $1000 bills when everyone has debit and credit cards? In fact, I can't remember the last time I've used a hundred dollar bill (hint: my salary is more than a hundred dollars a month).
As counterfeiting becomes more sophisticated, the need for high value currency has diminished. Sure, we should keep 10 dollar bills and maybe even 20 dollar bills. But in this modern age of technology, there is absolutely no need for anything more.
Open source artists need publicity!
on
Open Source Music
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The site is getting slashdotted at the moment, but I think I already looked at the site before. It's a good idea, and I'm glad someone is trying it.
I just noticed yesterday that to use music as background for a video or presentation, you need to "rent it" and that those fees are pretty steep. It is only the logical conclusion of royalty-based music distribution, but the end result is that artists are unable to use the cultural building blocks to make new things.
People get in a panic about written copyright, but did you you ever stop and realize that no recorded music has yet fallen into the public domain? It would be one thing to say: you may listen/download/use only music that is in the public domain, but quite frankly, but up until very recently, there really hasn't existed any such kind of music. Some protections have been established for fair use and sampling, but individuals find it rather scary to risk the threat of litigation.
The problem with mp3 "stealing" is not that you are stealing money from the record companies, but that you are ignoring those artists who have established liberal distribution rights. If individuals were required to pay "full price" for a download/mp3 (however ridiculous that might be), it would give groups like opsound a chance to be heard. If licensed music is as free as creative commons music, then the consumer sees nothing wrong with the current state of lawlessness. If however, licensed music were controlled by some sort of drm, the natural instinct of many people would be to ignore them and look for more alternative sounds. And I would argue that artists, viewing the tradeoffs, might be more inclined to choose putting music in the public domain (if it resulted in more publicity). The status quo gives no real advantages for charitable artists.
I should mention that a wonderful book Digital Aboriginals talks about this issue, asking whether anyone can "own the wind."
Slashdot Mirror
well, i guess you had to be there to enjoy this advice. He was saying that merely playing by the rules of management meant turning yourself into just another pointy haired boss. By stressing your different status in the company, you might have more chance in persuading a CEO.
It was a little tongue in cheek, but not ridiculous advice. There was a slashdot story a year or two ago about whether wearing a three piece suit for an interview indicated that you were professional or utterly clueless about the geek environment.
What a delightful and clever retort. Bravo.
Sorry, a sentence was incomplete and left out the URL. More practical books on Unix programming exist (I happen to recommend Mark Sobell's Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux ) , but ESR's book will stay with you long after you have finished reading, providing countless hours for reflection and appreciation of Unix's Unix-nature.
I generally agree with your sentiment (and have ripped my fair share of tracks to ogg,, but it's a bitch finding hardware support for ogg's (mp3 cd players) and last time I checked 6 months ago, I didn't find much software support in Windows for burning ogg's onto audio CD's. (especially for burning oggs and mp3's onto the same audio CD ). At walmart you can buy a cheapo cd/mp3 player for $30. If I could buy an ogg cd player for 75$, believe me, I'd buy it. But I don't see this kind of thing anyway. Please rescue me from my ignorance!
(well I just googled around and found this visual-mp3 .
Well, I can't figure out why people are looking at pay services (except for backlists of singers).
Vivendi's mp3.com and iuma.com have hundreds of thousands of free mp3's. You can use iRATE radio to discovery all sorts of free legal mp3's.
You can find out about the best free mp3's at gods of music among other places.
My essay sharethemusicday.com gives more information about how to find out about legal mp3's and legal ways to share the music.
The big question is when vivendi will start charging money for mp3.com. If they do, then either singers will host their music elsewhere, or else cause vivendi to sell this music or music subscriptions at a reasonable price.
With the recent acquisition by NBC of Universal/Vivendi, my guess is that there will be more pressure for vivendi to squeeze money out of mp3.com
Well, it is probably correct that the problems of making money from content are similiar regardless of the type of content (talking about creative content here, not information or knowledge).
Nonetheless, there are unique aspects to each type of creative content. For example, music gains more value by repeated listening, while books or movies really only need to be read once (talking about fiction, not textbooks, etc).
(That is why, for example, I have suggested that a voluntary compensation model would seem to work well for music, although not necessarily for other mediums--see my essay sharethemusicday.com ).
I have pointed out some pitfalls of a compulsory licensing scheme . The main problems (beside the technical ones) are the political ones. If you thought the negotiations about Internet radio were bad, wait til you see this debate! Also, it seems to argue against individual initiative and hand too much power to a taxing authority.
Here's what I predict: content aggregation sites like mp3.com will build their own private p2p networks where subscribers can distribute mp3.com's exclusive content. Musicians pay $100 to put their content on mp3.com (that's the current deal), and make more money depending on the number of downloads, hits, eyeballs which mp3.com can measure. (Mp3.com could also charge for product placement, etc). That gives musicians a vested interest in encouraging fans to subscribe. It gives fans a vested interest in subscribing to get the latest content, recommendation systems, file management, etc. The assumption behind this idea is that the aggregator offers unlimited downloads for a fairly low price. It resembles live365's scheme for allowing subscribers to reward their Favorite radio station.
If vivendi can't offer a low price for this, then the tipjar model seems preferable. The question remains: why doesn't mp3.com offer this capability or even the ability to link to a tipjar?
To love the music, you must share the music.
I wrote an essay about the subject at sharethemusicday .
The big problem I see with the online sites is not the legal issues but the usability. mp3.com and other free mp3 downloads use a web browser to serve music. Bad! We need a more sophisticated client, like p2p or bit torrent (or like the audiogalaxy satellite). I can't remember if winamp is good at managing mp3 downloads.
I advocate a voluntary compensation method as the only credible way to compensate artists (and I fault commercial music webhosts for not allowing musicians to include tipjars). I would rather donate money to artists after having the opportunity to listen to all them. (When the Courts ruled against Verizon last March, I vowed to stop listening to commercial music altogether). Instead music webhosts feed the musicians' illusions that labels are still searching for talent to sign. Do you know musicians pay $100 a year to put their music on mp3.com?
But I would happily pay $10 a month to a music hosting site that provides an easier interface for managing downloads and files. Looks like none of the music hosts have really tried that yet. (Musicmatch--which is more of a pc application-- is probably the best of the bunch for that, and even they aren't that good).
I'm surprised that mp3.com isn't using bit torrent to distribute the bandwidth load. Mp3.com should create a private p2p2 network using authentication to share all files in the mp3.com universe.
I covered these issues in my essay sharethemusicday.com . In it I advocate a voluntary compensation model
Here's what I wrote:
Compulsory licenses seems to be the "cleanest" solution, and it appears to have implemented in Canada with moderate success, but the approach has fundamental problems. First, it seems rather easy to game the system to make some songs appear more popular in popularity statistics. It seems to offer a lot of advantages to incumbents at the expense of emerging artists. Second, frequency of sharing may not correlate well with user's perception of value (although it may turn out to correlate well with what would have been actual sales figures). Regardless of whether we love the Spice Girls, their files are going to be shared more often than that of Simulacra. Second, a flat fee imposes a cap on potential profits and creates a reason for music businesses to seek "tax increases" on a regular basis. This is more of a "user fee" than a tax, but still establishing a "just rate" would probably result in prolonged battles in public. Just look for example at the ugly negotiations that Internet radio had with the music industry. Third, it's unclear how to measure user statistics when mp3's can be played or downloaded in many different contexts. Should we measure radio plays? What about music scraping applications? What about IRC? What about Internet radio (which plays to multiple listeners)? What about venues in which multiple people are listening? What about foreign listeners? What about car radio? What about PC makers who include freebies like a DVD with free music? I fear that any measuring system will lock us into one specific method of sharing, and it will reveal the folly of trying to micromanage an economy.
I am truly amazed. I have to admit, some of those episodes are worth saving (I remember with fondness one about NASA sending a space pod that mistakenly lands on their island, and when the Professor finally fixes it, Gilligan accidentally spills sticky feathers in front of a fan, causing all 7 of them to be covered with feathers, convincing NASA scientists that Mars was inhabited by feathered creatures.
This is a good idea as long as you can solve the problem of authentication.
I prefer donating through musiclink , a nonprofit service that 100% of the money to an artist after a $20 threshhold is reached.
It is really amazing how few of the artists are soliciting through paypal or amazon or musiclink on their websites. Are musicians just stupid? I think they always want to hold out for the possibility about signing with a major label later on.
I wrote an essay about a voluntary payment system at
sharethemusicday.com
For me, the problem is not one of technology but of taste. When a p2p sharer launches a tirade against the music industry, and then uses p2p to find tracks by bands from the major labels, I fault this sharer not for illegality but unoriginality of taste. It is like buying a nice expensive $10,000 plasma wide-screen HDTV and using it to watch "Porky's 2" or episodes of Gilligan's Island. If the future involves people using anonymous freenet to swap mp3's by RIAA artists, doesn't this mean that the RIAA has still won?
I wrote an essay about this at www.sharethemusicday.com
Artists don't want listeners to think that this share/tax is the only payment that listeners should have to make. Suppose the tax is $30 added to the cost of a mp3 player. YOu have to understand that right now incumbents want consumers to pay that much just for two or three CD's by a single artist. There's no way that they'll be content with that.
A previous poster asked the question of different devices. It assumes that all media playing devices are equipped with the means to measure anonymously frequency of play. Regardless of which scenario is tried, there will be complainers saying that it is not fair. This is a case where a technology solution makes sense, but only if a deity could impose it over the world in one fell swoop. In reality, there are inherent barriers to solutions like this working. Example: if a mp3 player included a compulsory tax, what about car radios? What about music played at restaurants or stadiums? (Because there's 40,000 at the football game, does that make 40,000 listeners of that song)?
This is an ingenious solution, but it presumes that all the parties involved will want to cooperate on standards and information. And that information can be freely exchanged between consumers and businesses and content owners and musicians.
.
First, I doubt musicians or labels will be happy will this arrangement. It will assure listeners that they are "paying for music" when in fact all you are doing is distributing the proceeds from an arbitary tax. Maybe they aren't as greedy as the RIAA, but they will be suspicious of anybody who says that playlists should determine royalties.
Second, it awards amounts on the basis of plays and not likes. Everyone may have downloaded and listened to Britney Spears, but maybe very few like it. I would much prefer a system that allows users to award shares to their favorite artists (although if they like the music, they may play the song more often). Also, there would probably be ways to game the system. Ex: a person could pawn his/her mp3 as by Eminem on a p2p network, when in fact, it belongs to someone else.
Third, it assumes that artists will register with a centralized service. If you look at musiclink, you will see that a large number of musicians just never get around to doing those things.
Fourth, hardware manufacturers may resist imposing a big tax on their hardware, especially if content companies are trying to make this tax as big as possible.
Still, it's an ingenious solution, and it is a method by which compulsory licensing can be implemented without rewarding the incumbents.
As for me, I still think microtipping is the most viable solution. See my essay sharethemusicday.com
p2p is a nifty solution, but there are intrinsic problems (with technological solutions).
1. There's no way to verify whether the copyright owner approves of it being distributed through these networks.
2. p2p lets you search for well-known things, but not obscure things (or names you don't know). P2p doesn't give you ideas about what to search for. (BTW, Audiogalaxy was particularly good at doing that when it was around).
3. p2p doesn't have a good way to store people's recommendations or correlative tastes (if you like X, you'll like Y) or related items.
4. p2p doesn't do a good job in letting the user know what versions is the definitive version (This may be a user issue).
An interesting solution by the way is iRATE radio (read my interview with the lead developer ). He chose a centralized model for legal reasons and versioning reasons.
5. At the moment, p2p clients don't have a way of tipping artists or linking to their website within the client (this will undoubtedly change over time). WWW is still the best way to learn more information about an artist.
Robert Nagle
www.sharethemusicday.com
I wrote an essay for a music advocacy site. Sharethemusicday.com
Ok, here's why I hate slashdot. When you have a great argument on a discussion, you post so late that none of the moderators even get around to awarding it karma.
Ok, here's my thought. RIAA argues that p2p is depriving the content creators of their fair buck. They are saying, if p2p survives, it will drive content creators out of business.
Well, guess what, porn is a content business also. By their reasoning, p2p would drive content creators out of business, rather than the other way around. Maybe we could say that p2p is the best way to fight commercial porn!
I don't blame RIAA for trying to throw this argument out. But it reveals the shaky foundations on which they argue that p2p kills content creation.
On the porn/harm issue, I have two thoughts. First, the typical 13 year old (boy and girl) today probably has already viewed hardcore pictures and maybe videos. It's unavoidable,and perhaps will inure them to these images/video experiences. Second, it would be easy enough for kazaa to filter out certain keywords, although ultimately kids understand the technology better than adults will. Although not very sophisticated now, it's only a matter of time before traded files to be rated by other traders (if only to prevent viruses and other malicious software).
With regard to videos pretending to be something else, it's more likely that a vid will promote itself as a hardcore and turn out to be a music promo or some ad.
I see a lot of band websites out there (both big label and small label), but I almost never see a site that tells surfers/listeners how to tip the band. Why don't more band websites include links to musiclink or paypal? Case in point: I bought a used Patti Rothberg CD (EMI) on half.com for $1 (plus $3 shipping), and I would have preferred to download the mp3's off her site and donated $5 directly . Why do artists not perceive the value of online tipping? Is it ignorance or some clause in the contract? rj
So if I get convicted for 3 counts of file uploading, that's 3 felonies. The 3 Strikes You're Out requires an automatic mandatory life imprisonment for the third felony conviction in California.
Looks like the prison population is going to skyrocket very quickly!
rj
Why bother with suspect technological workarounds. Just boycott music in the vault! .
Having the occasional less-than-glowing review on slashdot can be refreshing change of pace. But I feel that they are unnecessary. Letting these books lie in fallow obscurity is perhaps a better strategy especially when there are so many other books that need publicity. One problem with reviews of technical books is that they depend on the technical proficiency of the reviewer. What may seem bland and uninteresting to this reviewer may seem interesting to someone totally unfamiliar with the topic or someone who just wants it as a dead-tree reference guide.
BTW, I don't see anything wrong with regurgitating man pages and how to's in book form, especially if explicitly states. Mark Sobell's practical guide to rh linux 8.0 is a perfect example. This book includes man pages/how to's while including better examples.
Finally, if the reviewer didn't like this book, why didn't he recommend a title or two that did cover this topic well?
(PS, I do occasional book reviews for slashdot myself.)
I've thought long and hard about this issue. The problem is not one of age. It's that of experience and familiarity with the latest technology/buzzwords. IN a college environment, students have the chance to play around with projects and to learn about their discipline full time. And if their degree plan is any good, they are probably learning concepts and languages which are not tied to any one proprietor. Midcareer professionals, on the other hand, basically are too busy to learn. Sure, they learn interesting things for the tasks specific to the job at hand, but that knowledge can be very domain-specific and not easily transferable to other companies. As for me, I am madly learning about new technologies, but my schedule and commitments limit me to only part time learning. When a part time learner competes against a full time learner, there is really no contest.
If you had a 40 year programmer, gave him 2 years to go to school full time, (paid for by parents) and use of the university's great network, there would be no difference between the older and younger candidate. Having full time to learn at college provides an undeniable boost to any learner's marketability, old or young.
Another thought. HR and recruiters use the "Must have 5 years experience" rule where they won't consider candidates with less than 5 years experience. I actually wrote an essay about the "Must-have-5-years-experience fallacy," but actually this fallacy works in favor of older workers.
So what is grandpa complaining about?
Here are two questions I submitted to the experts. Two bad they didn't pick it.
For Mr. Oppenheim:
1.The value that the entertainment industry has traditionally brought to
the artist has been production and marketing. But costs of producing
artistic works has plummetted, and many would say that âoeviral marketingâ
(through the sanctioning of alternative/free distribution channels) is
cheaper and more effective anyway. Given the ever-shrinking royalty
percentages and restrictive nature of entertainment contracts, why does
it still make economic sense for artists to sign up with major media
companies?
For Mr. Lessig:
2. Nobody ever put a gun to an artist's head to sign an unfair contract
with the entertainment company. These contracts are freely entered into
because both parties believe it in their respective self-interests. Why
then is legislative tampering necessary? Isn't the problem
self-correcting? If enough artists get screwed or perceive themselves as
getting screwed by signing up, they won't sign up, or they will insist on
more favorable terms. Why then should Congress hamstring the ability of
artists and companies to enter into contracts? To justify legislative
intervention, it seems to me that you would need to demonstrate that
entertainment contracts are instrinsically predatory and exploitative.
Using Open Office as a WYSIWIG Docbook Editor would be a very cool thing. Unfortunately when I wrote this review, I didn't have time to try it out. Has anyone else tried?
Have we not overlooked the obvious? Why do we need $1000 bills when everyone has debit and credit cards? In fact, I can't remember the last time I've used a hundred dollar bill (hint: my salary is more than a hundred dollars a month).
As counterfeiting becomes more sophisticated, the need for high value currency has diminished. Sure, we should keep 10 dollar bills and maybe even 20 dollar bills. But in this modern age of technology, there is absolutely no need for anything more.
The site is getting slashdotted at the moment, but I think I already looked at the site before. It's a good idea, and I'm glad someone is trying it.
I just noticed yesterday that to use music as background for a video or presentation, you need to "rent it" and that those fees are pretty steep. It is only the logical conclusion of royalty-based music distribution, but the end result is that artists are unable to use the cultural building blocks to make new things.
People get in a panic about written copyright, but did you you ever stop and realize that no recorded music has yet fallen into the public domain? It would be one thing to say: you may listen/download/use only music that is in the public domain, but quite frankly, but up until very recently, there really hasn't existed any such kind of music. Some protections have been established for fair use and sampling, but individuals find it rather scary to risk the threat of litigation.
The problem with mp3 "stealing" is not that you are stealing money from the record companies, but that you are ignoring those artists who have established liberal distribution rights. If individuals were required to pay "full price" for a download/mp3 (however ridiculous that might be), it would give groups like opsound a chance to be heard. If licensed music is as free as creative commons music, then the consumer sees nothing wrong with the current state of lawlessness. If however, licensed music were controlled by some sort of drm, the natural instinct of many people would be to ignore them and look for more alternative sounds. And I would argue that artists, viewing the tradeoffs, might be more inclined to choose putting music in the public domain (if it resulted in more publicity). The status quo gives no real advantages for charitable artists.
I should mention that a wonderful book Digital Aboriginals talks about this issue, asking whether anyone can "own the wind."