Maybe, and I completely understand your points, however, I kind of doubt the first thing you'd tell Ronan Harris in a conversation is that you only pirate his music.
How is me arguing that piracy isn't all kittens and a field of flowers related to copyright length? Sure it's ridiculous, but again, let's face it, downloading mp3s for free on the internet is going to hurt artists.
I actually don't believe in intellectual property because it's not a scarce resource. But I also recognize that artists need to eat, and for most artists the job is far less about money and more about individual creativity. They gotta eat so if I find something I'll like, I'll buy the CD, directly from them if able.
I'm not the first slashdotter to say this by any means, but many of those that do this don't want to admit that that behavior is probably what the minority of file sharers do. Again, look at what I'm responding too--someone claiming that piracy is great. Downloading without giving the artist a dime is not really a "great thing" at all, in my opinion. An inevitability in today's world, yes. The problem is mostly that it's cultivating the mentality that artists don't need to get paid, and many people don't think twice about actually buying a physical CD just to support the artist like I personally think they should.
So yeah, pirate, but don't pretend it's a "good thing" unless you really do plan on buying it if you like it.
Oh great, another open source analogy. Come back to me when even a smidgen of music is actually produced in an open-source fashion, and then we can talk.
Also note that your argument isn't even analogous to mine. People make free music too. No problem with that. But people that work on free software often do it as a hobby, while I was addressing, to follow your flawed analogy, those that work on closed-source software to make an honest buck. And there's nothing wrong with closed-source software, no matter how many times Richard Stallman pounds his fist. My point here is simply that piracy will hurt these independent programmers, or to revert back to my argument, more independent musicians.
That's funny, I didn't even have the RIAA that much in mind when I said this. You think piracy only hurts bands under major (i.e., RIAA) labels? Get real.
And being a millionaire? Again, get real. I was specifically talking about bands with more moderate visibility, and they sure as hell aren't living high on the hog. A lot of the really good music falls into this area, the sort-of indie music area where artists tend to avoid selling out to major labels that compromise their vision.
I'm not arguing for stronger copyright laws. I don't really believe in intellectual property, actually. My point here is that people keep on pretending that piracy is either good or only puts a dent in artists' sales. It's not.
Does the business models of artists have to change? Maybe. But again, making music--quality music--is a time-consuming effort. If people don't support the artists--and most people, given the free piracy option, do not--then we'll have a lot more generic techno and a lot less creativity (maybe I exaggerate, but still...).
I know this is an unpopular opinion and... my own behavior makes me a hypocrite here, but let's stop pretending that piracy is awesome and great just because some of the claims about it are exaggerated.
Making music--good music--takes time and resources. Time that you can't really make money on, and instruments and (nowadays) computer equipment that is not free. Unless you sell the music you're essentially losing money, in most situations. And no matter what some slashdotters CLAIM, yes, many people will not buy albums at all just because they can get them off soulseek or bittorrent or, god forbid, limewire.
If I had to wager I'd suggest the more popular the band, the more they're hurt, relatively, by piracy, with the completely unknowns actually benefiting because then they get exposure--if you haven't yet proved yourself, who is gonna buy your CD? Most stuff is crap. But those that have proved themselves... "hey, I know I like this guy's music but I'm a cheapskate so I'm going to download that anyway." So the unknowns probably benefit in getting a reputation and thus being able to sell CDs. The semi-knowns, the guys most people won't ever recognize and aren't played on the radio, probably hurt the most because they tend to be on smaller independent labels and don't get the big gigs and such well-known groups do--and their CDs are generally less visible, too, this day and age sometimes sold only over the internet.
Now, I have bought CD albums I'd downloaded that I wouldn't have if I'd not. Yes, that happens. But most people just want free mp3s on their portable music player, they aren't concerned about supporting the artist or even having a pressed CD as a collector's item or for preservation. But quit pretending that one counterpoint on the piracy issue or the fact that the effects of piracy are exaggerated by the RIAA especially for famous bands means piracy is universally a "good" thing. For many artists, it's not.
That canard gets thrown around a lot on slashdot without much critical analysis. Security through obscurity, many times, CAN BE good security, ESPECIALLY in the case of good encryption. There is no fool-proof plan to protect any information, software, etc, given the right resources and the right amount of time. The "security through obscurity" point is mostly just relevant on the relative securities of closed vs. open source software, where open source is generally more secure by nature.
Yes, encryption is security through obscurity. But so what? It (often) works.
I'm not conservative, or paranoid. But the so-called "gun-grabbers" DO tend to be on the left. The American Right in politics is a lot less, uh, gun-grabby? Though you are right, either side could do, and would if they could get the chance.
You are mistaken, sir, I plan to do it exactly like they do it in the movies. I even have the little "jumping out of an exploding train" sequence planned out in my head.
Let's face it, by then the shit will have hit the fan. Mankind will have been put under its own boot, with either one of two situations occuring: Men ruled by man or man ruled by men. Neither world is acceptable to me, not like this one is a model existence either.
I'd put on my headband, boots, camo pants, and grab whatever black market guns I could find (by then guns will be outlawed so we can become more in-line with the more "progressive" nations) and maybe grenade or two. I'd light a cigarette to go with my 5 o'clock shadow, strap on a bullet belt, and teach any of the dogs responsible for this mess, including those that tried to stop me, what the inside of hell looks like, all while Foetus's Anything (Viva!) played in the background. Rule of law? I'll show you Newton's first law: my bullet will hit their heads which will cause their brains to spray out.
There's no coping in my world. Only the blood of those responsible for this mess. Everywhere.
I'd pay for Hulu if it was a very reasonable price with a very good selection of stuff, with no or very few advertisements. If it has a good selection there's STILL no reason to buy cable when you can watch what and when you want to watch. In my opinion, Cable Television as we know it isn't going to be sustainable in the long term, either, because people are increasingly DVRing and downloading and stuff nowadays anyway and the old advertisement scheme just isn't as viable as it once was. Cable emerged and appeared the way it did because the internet was not really fully realized the way it is now and certainly not with today's bandwidth. The old cable network model is slowly on the way out. Hulu at cost, a decent cost, will be a bargain over the old cable networks still because I can watch any (available) episode of, say, Babylon 5 when I want, where I want, without having to wait for network showings.
It doesn't work, as it's not the actual chemical compounds that have efficacy. Medicinal and surgical treatments are usually compared to placebo to determine efficacy, and homeopathy having the efficacy of placebo indicates it, in fact, is not working.
Homeopathy DOES NOT WORK. And this is not homeopathy. Homeopathy is wrong for two reasons--one, it postulates that chemicals/herbs/medicines that cause a symptom will cure that symptom, and second, it postulates that water or whatever solvent they use will retain the "memory" of that chemical/herb/medicine, even if it is diluted to the point of receiving even one molecule of solute is statistically improbable. And they think the greater the dilution, the greater the effect! I wonder what all the homeopathic dinosaur urine we're drinking is doing to us!
Homeopathy is bizarre quackery. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Accounting for extraneous variables and external factors in the behavioral sciences is very difficult and sometimes you can test for things you weren't quite realizing you were testing. What is that shocking or surprising to you?
A universal price-pet-byte structure a la the 56k days has little, if anything, to do with net neutrality.
This is one of the things of portions of the net neutrality crowd I don't get. "Net neutrality" is -sometimes- used as a buzzword to mean "ISPs doing anything I don't like" due to people sloppily mixing up their agendas. Truthfully, a price-per-byte structure may not be a bad thing. The people that are the biggest problems for ISPs are those that max their connections 24/7. While I agree that ISPs shouldn't advertise "unlimited" if they aren't or cannot provide "unlimited," as I understand it there are a often a minority of people use the greatest amount of bandwidth. A price-per-byte structure, if properly implemented, could result in reduced monthly payments for grandma and a higher portion for the guy with the strange habit of downloading "Linux ISOs" all the time. I don't think this is -necessarily- unfair, and I think most of the people that complain about this are likely the (like me) nerdier people that use their connection more. It would also give people an incentive to make sure their PCs weren't clogged with trojans that turn home PCs into spam servers or zombies.
Net neutrality only enters here when it is not universal, i.e., some content is not pay-per-byte depending upon its origin; perhaps content directly delivered by the ISP would fall under this category. But I don't see why that is -inherently- wrong. Desirable for us nerds? Probably not. But the fact that we are used to one pricing scheme doesn't give us the moral right to that pricing scheme.
You say "greedy pricks" here for a business trying to maximize its profits, yet you do not seem to think of yourself as a "greedy prick" for wanting to minimize your expenses. I am not fan of the monopoly status ISPs have been granted by the state governments and various laws in place, but you and I are not much different than they are.
It's pretty interesting how evolution, with its constraints being what is already available, leads organisms to evolve many different functions for similar... "features" or such.
Slashdot Mirror
A problem with pop music is that people only seem to like the most overhyped stuff without bothering to search for something less... overmarketed.
Maybe, and I completely understand your points, however, I kind of doubt the first thing you'd tell Ronan Harris in a conversation is that you only pirate his music.
Precisely.
How is me arguing that piracy isn't all kittens and a field of flowers related to copyright length? Sure it's ridiculous, but again, let's face it, downloading mp3s for free on the internet is going to hurt artists.
I actually don't believe in intellectual property because it's not a scarce resource. But I also recognize that artists need to eat, and for most artists the job is far less about money and more about individual creativity. They gotta eat so if I find something I'll like, I'll buy the CD, directly from them if able.
I'm not the first slashdotter to say this by any means, but many of those that do this don't want to admit that that behavior is probably what the minority of file sharers do. Again, look at what I'm responding too--someone claiming that piracy is great. Downloading without giving the artist a dime is not really a "great thing" at all, in my opinion. An inevitability in today's world, yes. The problem is mostly that it's cultivating the mentality that artists don't need to get paid, and many people don't think twice about actually buying a physical CD just to support the artist like I personally think they should.
So yeah, pirate, but don't pretend it's a "good thing" unless you really do plan on buying it if you like it.
Oh great, another open source analogy. Come back to me when even a smidgen of music is actually produced in an open-source fashion, and then we can talk.
Also note that your argument isn't even analogous to mine. People make free music too. No problem with that. But people that work on free software often do it as a hobby, while I was addressing, to follow your flawed analogy, those that work on closed-source software to make an honest buck. And there's nothing wrong with closed-source software, no matter how many times Richard Stallman pounds his fist. My point here is simply that piracy will hurt these independent programmers, or to revert back to my argument, more independent musicians.
That's funny, I didn't even have the RIAA that much in mind when I said this. You think piracy only hurts bands under major (i.e., RIAA) labels? Get real.
And being a millionaire? Again, get real. I was specifically talking about bands with more moderate visibility, and they sure as hell aren't living high on the hog. A lot of the really good music falls into this area, the sort-of indie music area where artists tend to avoid selling out to major labels that compromise their vision.
I'm not arguing for stronger copyright laws. I don't really believe in intellectual property, actually. My point here is that people keep on pretending that piracy is either good or only puts a dent in artists' sales. It's not.
Does the business models of artists have to change? Maybe. But again, making music--quality music--is a time-consuming effort. If people don't support the artists--and most people, given the free piracy option, do not--then we'll have a lot more generic techno and a lot less creativity (maybe I exaggerate, but still...).
Okay, maybe you can't use them, but that doesn't preclude you from actually telling us what they are.
I know this is an unpopular opinion and... my own behavior makes me a hypocrite here, but let's stop pretending that piracy is awesome and great just because some of the claims about it are exaggerated.
Making music--good music--takes time and resources. Time that you can't really make money on, and instruments and (nowadays) computer equipment that is not free. Unless you sell the music you're essentially losing money, in most situations. And no matter what some slashdotters CLAIM, yes, many people will not buy albums at all just because they can get them off soulseek or bittorrent or, god forbid, limewire.
If I had to wager I'd suggest the more popular the band, the more they're hurt, relatively, by piracy, with the completely unknowns actually benefiting because then they get exposure--if you haven't yet proved yourself, who is gonna buy your CD? Most stuff is crap. But those that have proved themselves... "hey, I know I like this guy's music but I'm a cheapskate so I'm going to download that anyway." So the unknowns probably benefit in getting a reputation and thus being able to sell CDs. The semi-knowns, the guys most people won't ever recognize and aren't played on the radio, probably hurt the most because they tend to be on smaller independent labels and don't get the big gigs and such well-known groups do--and their CDs are generally less visible, too, this day and age sometimes sold only over the internet.
Now, I have bought CD albums I'd downloaded that I wouldn't have if I'd not. Yes, that happens. But most people just want free mp3s on their portable music player, they aren't concerned about supporting the artist or even having a pressed CD as a collector's item or for preservation. But quit pretending that one counterpoint on the piracy issue or the fact that the effects of piracy are exaggerated by the RIAA especially for famous bands means piracy is universally a "good" thing. For many artists, it's not.
The precedent is that news organisations can intentionally lie. Get it? They don't even have to pretend that they didn't know they were lying!
Like politicians?
That canard gets thrown around a lot on slashdot without much critical analysis. Security through obscurity, many times, CAN BE good security, ESPECIALLY in the case of good encryption. There is no fool-proof plan to protect any information, software, etc, given the right resources and the right amount of time. The "security through obscurity" point is mostly just relevant on the relative securities of closed vs. open source software, where open source is generally more secure by nature.
Yes, encryption is security through obscurity. But so what? It (often) works.
Great, I can just imagine all the corny jokes Slashdotters are goin[NO CARRIER]
Who's that Pokémon???
I'm not conservative, or paranoid. But the so-called "gun-grabbers" DO tend to be on the left. The American Right in politics is a lot less, uh, gun-grabby? Though you are right, either side could do, and would if they could get the chance.
You are mistaken, sir, I plan to do it exactly like they do it in the movies. I even have the little "jumping out of an exploding train" sequence planned out in my head.
Hmm... no internet, no stupid people using stupid memes. Sounds like a deal to me. I for one welcome our internet-stopping overlords.
Let's face it, by then the shit will have hit the fan. Mankind will have been put under its own boot, with either one of two situations occuring: Men ruled by man or man ruled by men. Neither world is acceptable to me, not like this one is a model existence either.
I'd put on my headband, boots, camo pants, and grab whatever black market guns I could find (by then guns will be outlawed so we can become more in-line with the more "progressive" nations) and maybe grenade or two. I'd light a cigarette to go with my 5 o'clock shadow, strap on a bullet belt, and teach any of the dogs responsible for this mess, including those that tried to stop me, what the inside of hell looks like, all while Foetus's Anything (Viva!) played in the background. Rule of law? I'll show you Newton's first law: my bullet will hit their heads which will cause their brains to spray out.
There's no coping in my world. Only the blood of those responsible for this mess. Everywhere.
Since Myspace can't seem to even manage bug fixing I have big doubts over their ability to do anything.
I'd pay for Hulu if it was a very reasonable price with a very good selection of stuff, with no or very few advertisements. If it has a good selection there's STILL no reason to buy cable when you can watch what and when you want to watch. In my opinion, Cable Television as we know it isn't going to be sustainable in the long term, either, because people are increasingly DVRing and downloading and stuff nowadays anyway and the old advertisement scheme just isn't as viable as it once was. Cable emerged and appeared the way it did because the internet was not really fully realized the way it is now and certainly not with today's bandwidth. The old cable network model is slowly on the way out. Hulu at cost, a decent cost, will be a bargain over the old cable networks still because I can watch any (available) episode of, say, Babylon 5 when I want, where I want, without having to wait for network showings.
It doesn't work, as it's not the actual chemical compounds that have efficacy. Medicinal and surgical treatments are usually compared to placebo to determine efficacy, and homeopathy having the efficacy of placebo indicates it, in fact, is not working.
Mod parent down to the depths of Hell.
Homeopathy DOES NOT WORK. And this is not homeopathy. Homeopathy is wrong for two reasons--one, it postulates that chemicals/herbs/medicines that cause a symptom will cure that symptom, and second, it postulates that water or whatever solvent they use will retain the "memory" of that chemical/herb/medicine, even if it is diluted to the point of receiving even one molecule of solute is statistically improbable. And they think the greater the dilution, the greater the effect! I wonder what all the homeopathic dinosaur urine we're drinking is doing to us!
Homeopathy is bizarre quackery. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Accounting for extraneous variables and external factors in the behavioral sciences is very difficult and sometimes you can test for things you weren't quite realizing you were testing. What is that shocking or surprising to you?
Bwaahahahahahahaha! Good one man!
A universal price-pet-byte structure a la the 56k days has little, if anything, to do with net neutrality.
This is one of the things of portions of the net neutrality crowd I don't get. "Net neutrality" is -sometimes- used as a buzzword to mean "ISPs doing anything I don't like" due to people sloppily mixing up their agendas. Truthfully, a price-per-byte structure may not be a bad thing. The people that are the biggest problems for ISPs are those that max their connections 24/7. While I agree that ISPs shouldn't advertise "unlimited" if they aren't or cannot provide "unlimited," as I understand it there are a often a minority of people use the greatest amount of bandwidth. A price-per-byte structure, if properly implemented, could result in reduced monthly payments for grandma and a higher portion for the guy with the strange habit of downloading "Linux ISOs" all the time. I don't think this is -necessarily- unfair, and I think most of the people that complain about this are likely the (like me) nerdier people that use their connection more. It would also give people an incentive to make sure their PCs weren't clogged with trojans that turn home PCs into spam servers or zombies.
Net neutrality only enters here when it is not universal, i.e., some content is not pay-per-byte depending upon its origin; perhaps content directly delivered by the ISP would fall under this category. But I don't see why that is -inherently- wrong. Desirable for us nerds? Probably not. But the fact that we are used to one pricing scheme doesn't give us the moral right to that pricing scheme.
You say "greedy pricks" here for a business trying to maximize its profits, yet you do not seem to think of yourself as a "greedy prick" for wanting to minimize your expenses. I am not fan of the monopoly status ISPs have been granted by the state governments and various laws in place, but you and I are not much different than they are.
It's pretty interesting how evolution, with its constraints being what is already available, leads organisms to evolve many different functions for similar... "features" or such.
Since when did Playboy feature crappy hentai...?