The humble beginnings of the ever-turbulent fight between music publishers and end-users comes to an end. More than simply nostalgic, the piano roll was the first cheap medium for copying music, and as such it created the massive debaucle whose legacy is still carried on today by the RIAA. Prior to the hayday of the player piano, musical entertainment for home use required live performance. Sheet music publishers had a stranglehold on the industry. Enter the player piano roll, and suddenly these new device publishers could manually record, copy, and redistribute music en masse, and they did so with great frequency, never paying the sheet music publishers a dime. Even "worse", the player piano was autonomous, and so you didn't need a musician at all to enjoy the music played. Naturally, the sheet music publishers were outraged. They considered the device to be sterile and even dangerous to the artistry of music. If no one had to play piano, then no one would, and the music would simply cease to exist. They asked Congress to ban the piano roll and require that any new recording system be voted on by the sheet music publishers. Fortunately, that didn't hold, and instead a licensing system was created where player piano roll producers paid the publishers a paltry fee per roll produced.
That system has held in place until today, though you see technology (and history) repeat itself over and over. It's important not just from a DRM and YRO perspective, but also from a historical perspective. Beyond the moving-type press, this allowed for the greatest proliferation of music across America to be enjoyed cheaply by everyone. The roll single handedly changed the way America could experience music, and it completely defined the historical legislation and business practice of modern music. This is the passing of a titan, not just a kitchy thing that your great-grandparents might have owned.
Of course, now that I went to the effort to write all that, I remember Cory Doctorow mentioned the same thing in an old, well-read paper of his.
The punitive nature of video games is actually something that should be considered part of the delicate balancing that's required in the quality of game development. That's why the dynamic scaling of old arcade games is particularly interesting and satisfying, because it allows all players to enjoy the game, while creating a better reward system for better players.
The lack of a death system in PoP is, more than anything, a marketing tool. It allows casual gamers like my girlfriend to experience a compelling story line without being met with frustrations that result in her putting up the game. It also creates an experience for more seasoned gamers like myself that, while utterly playable, becomes vapid and hollow. The storyline remains interesting (though not compelling), but without any prospect of punishment, it's much easier for me not to make the normal considerations that I make with other games, like, "Wow, that's a really big chasm. Maybe I should think before trying to jump over that." Within the realm of gaming, it's understandable for those trying to create a game that reaches a new target market; the Wii has been built on this concept of "approachable gaming". But my question is how this simplification of games affects the whole world. As a Gen Y, I have to admit much of my process of logic and reasoning has inevitably been shaped through video games. Should we lower the standards and reduce penalties invoked, are we creating a cushion that less parallels the real world, where decisions do have very dire results?
Furthermore, 19 year-old Maggie is not only legal, she and her deadbeat parents haven't filed taxes! She didn't sign up for the draft registry, either! I wonder how she votes in the poll-booth.
I'm a linguist myself; I can appreciate the subtleties and nuances implied between different languages. There's nothing quite like cursing in German or having that certain, je ne sais crois... savoire faire of speaking in French. However, I can understand the desire for standardization of language. Do you know how many languages and dialects there are in the world? It would be better if people could understand each other without having to learn every single language, dialect, nuance.... heck, people who speak English can sometimes have a hard enough time understanding each other (Louisiana, anyone?).
The reason people consider English to be a good language for standardization does have to do with it being widespread, and sure, some people are Anglocentric, but more particularly, English has the largest lexicon of any language. Hence, it is the best language and most common language for law, because it can be so much more specific than other languages like Japanese where up to 80% of the meaning of a sentence has to be derived from what isn't expressed. English is also the language of business, for similar reasons. It's tremendously difficult to learn, but it is considered to be the best way to express specific concepts and ideas because of our large lexicon. You might claim "air" in English doesn't have the same meanings that it does in French (which I would disagree - Oxford English Dictionary provides over 40 definitions for the word "air" [no citation - subscription required]), but even assuming all 40+ of those definitions don't quite capture the same meaning, you better believe there are a number of other words that would capture that meaning: "countenance", for example. English is a synonymous language, and considering it has the largest vocabulary, it makes it much more suited for universalization than any other language.
Therefore, don't assume everyone is Anglocentric, you insensitive clod!
P.S. - WTF are you talking about, China owning the U.S.? You totally shot all your credibility with that wild accusation, bud. The U.S. would do just fine with its own manufacturing, but isolationism ended back in the '40s. Globalization doesn't imply a country "owns" another one.
I think when watching fourth graders take a geology quiz becomes as interesting as an olympic sporting event (read: "receives the same advertising revenue"), then we might be seeing a bigger resource dump into schools and the like.
To that point, business textbooks define morals and ethics completely opposite; morals are the basic individual preconventions that govern our decisions of right and wrong, and thus effectively change as we grow older. Ethics are the codes of conduct that we create to verbalize, rationalize, and standardize our moral philosophies, so as such "business ethics" relates directly to the business' "code of conduct". Leave it to business to screw up conventional definitions.
The navy is at sea, so they only have to follow rules of "civility" with their toys at port.... after all, they're just animals.
Oh yes, because that's all our military really is is a bunch of misbehaving boys and their high-tech, tax-payed toys. Do yourself a favor and stop trivializing the men and women who protect your freedoms so that you can post drivel like that. What's "reasonable" to me is a sonar system that can infallably detect an enemy submarine within missile-launch range of the United States. War also has the unfortunate side-effect of killing people. Lots of them. How about we focus on minimizing that before we start worrying about the mere potential for deafening sea creatures?
Am I the only person who upon reading the title had the sudden mental image of flora with glowing plasma leaves that devour trash like venus fly-traps devour flies? Whew, I need to lay off the midnight sushi...
Not just that... The Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down) puts the kill to death estimates for Americans at 700-1000:18. Modest estimates would put that at 40 kills per death, which is an extremely respectable figure (try doing that on Call of Duty). Yet we still consider the Battle of Mogadishu to be a failure on the part of the United States military.
The U.S.'s casualty tolerance is a significantly lower threshhold than that of the enemy geurilla fighters. Our idea of war has become so skewed by technological and military dominance that our definition of "failure" has come to mean anything but "flawless victory." It's an admirable perception, but it's somewhat unrealistic and perhaps too proud to think that Americans can become invincible in war against even "cheap" prolific weapons with significant killing capacity.
There is a fundamental difference between music DRM servers and game distribution systems like Steam. Consumers reasonably expect a DRM system imposed on a game to last the lifetime of the game. It's all well and good when you can log on to Battle.net a decade later and still play Starcraft with your authenticated CD-key, but Blizzard doesn't have to compete with other online servers for their Starcraft game. They hold a reasonable monopoly, and as such, they are expected to maintain those servers for as long as the game is popular and therefore profitable. Walmart and other DRM-server providers are providing content that consumers can get identical copies elsewhere. The lifespan of these servers is less predictable.
If Valve were to shut down Steam tomorrow, you better believe gamers would be screaming bloody murder. However we all reasonably expect that won't happen, because the DRM systems games use are directly tied into the experience of the game. It's not like buy and play World of Warcraft for the quality single-player experience. In this manner, DRM for games (distribution/authentication servers, CD-keys, and the like) are nearly invisible because they are integrated into experiencing the game. No one cares that you have to connect to the internet to play a game that is MMO anyway.
Music, on the other hand, is completely different. If people had to be tied to the net any time they wanted to play music, even Joe Six-Pack would think this restriction is outrageous. Heck, way back when I bought Half Life to play on a 19-hour road trip; imagine my irritation when I couldn't play the game for two weeks until I got back to internet. Throw into the mix the unpredictable lifetime of music DRM servers due to increased competition from other service providers, and you've got a system that is designed, intentionally or not, to deceive and rob users.
There is a fundamental difference regarding Steam and other video game developers. With Half-Life and all engine iterations thereof, consumers reasonably expect that Steam will continue to maintain their DRM servers for a duration roughly equivalent to the lifetime of their products. It's all well and good when you can log onto Battle.net over a decade after it's been implemented. But assume for a minute that Steam, Battle.net, or any online DRM-based game access system had the lifespan of Walmart's DRM servers. Would people be celebrating Valve when they could no longer install or reinstall their games? If people started buying $60 games only to have them become null and void in one to twelve months, you better believe there would be equivalent static about the game developers' servers. But because for most of these online-authenticate games the DRM method is directly tied into the content of the game (it's not like you're buying World of Warcraft for the solid single-player experience), there is a reasonable expectation that the DRM servers will last the lifespan of the game's popularity. I for one don't want to be forced to play my music only when I have internet access, anyhow.
That must be why the made it illegal to use the phone while driving, because it's so safe.
Good God, someone on Slashdot actually stating, "The government did it so it must be a good decision!" Now I have seen everything.
Last time I checked, talking non-stop on the cell-phone for four hours didn't kill me. Nor did I feel dizzy and crash to the floor, suddenly think it'd be a good idea to pick a fight with that 280 lbs bouncer, and have the sudden urge to tell everyone around me that I love them.
Alcohol chemically inhibits your perception and slows your responses. Cell phones just distract. So does eating in the car, talking with passengers, putting on makeup, radios, and an infinite number of in-car conveniences. It's been proven time and time again that burritos cause more traffic accidents than cell phones, yet I don't see government taping up Taco Bell drive-thrus.
I imagine that the OP intended that strangulation would be easier to perform with stringy underwear than with a sandal-style shoe. But maybe I just have a foot fetish?
People that buy this are average consumers like my aunt or my neighbor, who believe that by buying music through official channels they are protecting the rights of artists. Believe it or not, most people haven't heard of DRM, and that's not due to stupidity on their part but to the lack of mobilization of pro-YRO groups to educate the public. Most people don't use Linux, but you wouldn't know that by browsing the boards here.
You're missing the point by saying buying DRM means you got exactly what you got. Most people don't realize that they have bought music that cannot transfer; in that sense, they believe they haven't received the full value of what they bought - they simply thought that they were doing a good thing to help artists when really they were whoring themselves out to Big Media. People may be smart but inexperienced. I cite a Cory Doctorow paper where he recalls a technically inept friend of his who had the reasonably intelligent idea to "VCR record" her DVDs so she could give a destructible copy to the kids. Obviously, she became confused and frustrated when it didn't work.
DRM isn't expected and it isn't natural. Mainstream has gotten used to it only by enough people trying it and having it not work. And unforunately, for those masses DRM works. If you want to bring down the end of DRM, get your mom, your grandmom, and your grandmom's dog to start ripping. Make it so easy a Geico ad could beat a dead horse with it. When it becomes second-nature to mainstream, people will not feel attached to their DRM, and then when the servers finally shudder and die, people won't care, because they'll be listening to whatever whereever and however they like.
Good point. I believe I will stand in line at airports demanding that women remove their thongs and hand them over to me for the convenience and safety of other passengers. It is, after all, for the children.
So basically, you're saying that because everyone is stealing, any laws to prevent stealing are unjust?
Well Hell, I need to go buy me some slaves again and discriminate against black people. Tens of millions did that! D**n government done took my property!
You mean like the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 (S.3325), which proposes that copyright violation, a civil matter, will no longer have to have a "preponderance of evidence" to initiate a trial, and that the civil infractions can be pursued and prosecuted by a new czar branch of the FBI? Oh, and statutory damages for "willful" trademark violation are doubled, up to $2 million. Plus, the government reserves the right to search and seize any property used to violate copyrights and trademarks.
You can thank Leahy for that one. I am ashamed that my senators are co-sponsors...
As a side note, COPS would certainly become more interesting if the FBI showed up for every domestic violence case...
Often the signal is snowy, but it works for many people. Which brings about the point a later poster talked about - the binary nature of digital signal. Even if someone did start manufacturing digital weather TVs, it's an all-or-nothing signal proposition. At least with snow you can make out the county lines and the big batch of purple or mauve about to take out your house.
More seriously, getting rid of analog signals will mean that when they're huddled in their basements with a tornado approaching, they'll be crowded around their battery-powered weather TVs watching static (save the husband upstairs with the camcorder).
Seriously, has anyone ever seen a battery-powered digital weather TV? In tornado alley I have to use mine roughly four times a year, and many to the west of me have to cower more often than that.
Trash the elevator music. More than likely you will have to shoulder your Super Scope 6 and take on a giant 32-bit mecha that slides back and forth horizontally as you ride up.
Slashdot Mirror
That system has held in place until today, though you see technology (and history) repeat itself over and over. It's important not just from a DRM and YRO perspective, but also from a historical perspective. Beyond the moving-type press, this allowed for the greatest proliferation of music across America to be enjoyed cheaply by everyone. The roll single handedly changed the way America could experience music, and it completely defined the historical legislation and business practice of modern music. This is the passing of a titan, not just a kitchy thing that your great-grandparents might have owned.
Of course, now that I went to the effort to write all that, I remember Cory Doctorow mentioned the same thing in an old, well-read paper of his.
The lack of a death system in PoP is, more than anything, a marketing tool. It allows casual gamers like my girlfriend to experience a compelling story line without being met with frustrations that result in her putting up the game. It also creates an experience for more seasoned gamers like myself that, while utterly playable, becomes vapid and hollow. The storyline remains interesting (though not compelling), but without any prospect of punishment, it's much easier for me not to make the normal considerations that I make with other games, like, "Wow, that's a really big chasm. Maybe I should think before trying to jump over that." Within the realm of gaming, it's understandable for those trying to create a game that reaches a new target market; the Wii has been built on this concept of "approachable gaming". But my question is how this simplification of games affects the whole world. As a Gen Y, I have to admit much of my process of logic and reasoning has inevitably been shaped through video games. Should we lower the standards and reduce penalties invoked, are we creating a cushion that less parallels the real world, where decisions do have very dire results?
Furthermore, 19 year-old Maggie is not only legal, she and her deadbeat parents haven't filed taxes! She didn't sign up for the draft registry, either! I wonder how she votes in the poll-booth.
I'm a linguist myself; I can appreciate the subtleties and nuances implied between different languages. There's nothing quite like cursing in German or having that certain, je ne sais crois... savoire faire of speaking in French. However, I can understand the desire for standardization of language. Do you know how many languages and dialects there are in the world? It would be better if people could understand each other without having to learn every single language, dialect, nuance.... heck, people who speak English can sometimes have a hard enough time understanding each other (Louisiana, anyone?).
The reason people consider English to be a good language for standardization does have to do with it being widespread, and sure, some people are Anglocentric, but more particularly, English has the largest lexicon of any language. Hence, it is the best language and most common language for law, because it can be so much more specific than other languages like Japanese where up to 80% of the meaning of a sentence has to be derived from what isn't expressed. English is also the language of business, for similar reasons. It's tremendously difficult to learn, but it is considered to be the best way to express specific concepts and ideas because of our large lexicon. You might claim "air" in English doesn't have the same meanings that it does in French (which I would disagree - Oxford English Dictionary provides over 40 definitions for the word "air" [no citation - subscription required]), but even assuming all 40+ of those definitions don't quite capture the same meaning, you better believe there are a number of other words that would capture that meaning: "countenance", for example. English is a synonymous language, and considering it has the largest vocabulary, it makes it much more suited for universalization than any other language.
Therefore, don't assume everyone is Anglocentric, you insensitive clod!
P.S. - WTF are you talking about, China owning the U.S.? You totally shot all your credibility with that wild accusation, bud. The U.S. would do just fine with its own manufacturing, but isolationism ended back in the '40s. Globalization doesn't imply a country "owns" another one.
I think when watching fourth graders take a geology quiz becomes as interesting as an olympic sporting event (read: "receives the same advertising revenue"), then we might be seeing a bigger resource dump into schools and the like.
Je pense que vous voulez dire "arretêr", pas stopper.
To that point, business textbooks define morals and ethics completely opposite; morals are the basic individual preconventions that govern our decisions of right and wrong, and thus effectively change as we grow older. Ethics are the codes of conduct that we create to verbalize, rationalize, and standardize our moral philosophies, so as such "business ethics" relates directly to the business' "code of conduct". Leave it to business to screw up conventional definitions.
The navy is at sea, so they only have to follow rules of "civility" with their toys at port.... after all, they're just animals.
Oh yes, because that's all our military really is is a bunch of misbehaving boys and their high-tech, tax-payed toys. Do yourself a favor and stop trivializing the men and women who protect your freedoms so that you can post drivel like that. What's "reasonable" to me is a sonar system that can infallably detect an enemy submarine within missile-launch range of the United States. War also has the unfortunate side-effect of killing people. Lots of them. How about we focus on minimizing that before we start worrying about the mere potential for deafening sea creatures?
Am I the only person who upon reading the title had the sudden mental image of flora with glowing plasma leaves that devour trash like venus fly-traps devour flies? Whew, I need to lay off the midnight sushi...
Sure, provided you're driving at night, or with all the windows painted over.
Well, it's not like opaque windows could make minivan soccer moms any worse at driving...
The U.S.'s casualty tolerance is a significantly lower threshhold than that of the enemy geurilla fighters. Our idea of war has become so skewed by technological and military dominance that our definition of "failure" has come to mean anything but "flawless victory." It's an admirable perception, but it's somewhat unrealistic and perhaps too proud to think that Americans can become invincible in war against even "cheap" prolific weapons with significant killing capacity.
There is a fundamental difference between music DRM servers and game distribution systems like Steam. Consumers reasonably expect a DRM system imposed on a game to last the lifetime of the game. It's all well and good when you can log on to Battle.net a decade later and still play Starcraft with your authenticated CD-key, but Blizzard doesn't have to compete with other online servers for their Starcraft game. They hold a reasonable monopoly, and as such, they are expected to maintain those servers for as long as the game is popular and therefore profitable. Walmart and other DRM-server providers are providing content that consumers can get identical copies elsewhere. The lifespan of these servers is less predictable.
If Valve were to shut down Steam tomorrow, you better believe gamers would be screaming bloody murder. However we all reasonably expect that won't happen, because the DRM systems games use are directly tied into the experience of the game. It's not like buy and play World of Warcraft for the quality single-player experience. In this manner, DRM for games (distribution/authentication servers, CD-keys, and the like) are nearly invisible because they are integrated into experiencing the game. No one cares that you have to connect to the internet to play a game that is MMO anyway.
Music, on the other hand, is completely different. If people had to be tied to the net any time they wanted to play music, even Joe Six-Pack would think this restriction is outrageous. Heck, way back when I bought Half Life to play on a 19-hour road trip; imagine my irritation when I couldn't play the game for two weeks until I got back to internet. Throw into the mix the unpredictable lifetime of music DRM servers due to increased competition from other service providers, and you've got a system that is designed, intentionally or not, to deceive and rob users.
There is a fundamental difference regarding Steam and other video game developers. With Half-Life and all engine iterations thereof, consumers reasonably expect that Steam will continue to maintain their DRM servers for a duration roughly equivalent to the lifetime of their products. It's all well and good when you can log onto Battle.net over a decade after it's been implemented. But assume for a minute that Steam, Battle.net, or any online DRM-based game access system had the lifespan of Walmart's DRM servers. Would people be celebrating Valve when they could no longer install or reinstall their games? If people started buying $60 games only to have them become null and void in one to twelve months, you better believe there would be equivalent static about the game developers' servers. But because for most of these online-authenticate games the DRM method is directly tied into the content of the game (it's not like you're buying World of Warcraft for the solid single-player experience), there is a reasonable expectation that the DRM servers will last the lifespan of the game's popularity. I for one don't want to be forced to play my music only when I have internet access, anyhow.
"I thought what I'd do is pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."
Two colossal voids at the edge of the universe, you say? It seems that they've found the former locations of the RIAA's and MPAA's heart.
That must be why the made it illegal to use the phone while driving, because it's so safe.
Good God, someone on Slashdot actually stating, "The government did it so it must be a good decision!" Now I have seen everything.
Last time I checked, talking non-stop on the cell-phone for four hours didn't kill me. Nor did I feel dizzy and crash to the floor, suddenly think it'd be a good idea to pick a fight with that 280 lbs bouncer, and have the sudden urge to tell everyone around me that I love them.
Alcohol chemically inhibits your perception and slows your responses. Cell phones just distract. So does eating in the car, talking with passengers, putting on makeup, radios, and an infinite number of in-car conveniences. It's been proven time and time again that burritos cause more traffic accidents than cell phones, yet I don't see government taping up Taco Bell drive-thrus.
I imagine that the OP intended that strangulation would be easier to perform with stringy underwear than with a sandal-style shoe. But maybe I just have a foot fetish?
You're missing the point by saying buying DRM means you got exactly what you got. Most people don't realize that they have bought music that cannot transfer; in that sense, they believe they haven't received the full value of what they bought - they simply thought that they were doing a good thing to help artists when really they were whoring themselves out to Big Media. People may be smart but inexperienced. I cite a Cory Doctorow paper where he recalls a technically inept friend of his who had the reasonably intelligent idea to "VCR record" her DVDs so she could give a destructible copy to the kids. Obviously, she became confused and frustrated when it didn't work.
DRM isn't expected and it isn't natural. Mainstream has gotten used to it only by enough people trying it and having it not work. And unforunately, for those masses DRM works. If you want to bring down the end of DRM, get your mom, your grandmom, and your grandmom's dog to start ripping. Make it so easy a Geico ad could beat a dead horse with it. When it becomes second-nature to mainstream, people will not feel attached to their DRM, and then when the servers finally shudder and die, people won't care, because they'll be listening to whatever whereever and however they like.
Good point. I believe I will stand in line at airports demanding that women remove their thongs and hand them over to me for the convenience and safety of other passengers. It is, after all, for the children.
Due to a shipping error, they sent me mine early. I opened the box, only to find that it just contained all the evils of mankind.
So basically, you're saying that because everyone is stealing, any laws to prevent stealing are unjust? Well Hell, I need to go buy me some slaves again and discriminate against black people. Tens of millions did that! D**n government done took my property!
You can thank Leahy for that one. I am ashamed that my senators are co-sponsors...
As a side note, COPS would certainly become more interesting if the FBI showed up for every domestic violence case...
Often the signal is snowy, but it works for many people. Which brings about the point a later poster talked about - the binary nature of digital signal. Even if someone did start manufacturing digital weather TVs, it's an all-or-nothing signal proposition. At least with snow you can make out the county lines and the big batch of purple or mauve about to take out your house.
More seriously, getting rid of analog signals will mean that when they're huddled in their basements with a tornado approaching, they'll be crowded around their battery-powered weather TVs watching static (save the husband upstairs with the camcorder). Seriously, has anyone ever seen a battery-powered digital weather TV? In tornado alley I have to use mine roughly four times a year, and many to the west of me have to cower more often than that.
Trash the elevator music. More than likely you will have to shoulder your Super Scope 6 and take on a giant 32-bit mecha that slides back and forth horizontally as you ride up.