I'm from the same slice of the demographic pie, and my own music buying days wound down a long time ago. Seems apparent to me that pop entertainment sales will closely track alongside the the size of the adolescent and under 25 (or so) crowd. The population of the U.S. is getting older, so I'm not surprised to see sales drop.
Another reason for reduced sales might just be too much production. If pop entertainment isn't almost entirely derivative, I don't know what is. Keep trying to sell the same thing over and over, and even the pre-puberty crowd will pick up on it.
You know, as a Yank, I'm glad you said that. I've lived in three different locations outside the U.S. and in every location the existence of terrorism had already made its mark: being patted down and scanned on entry to shopping malls and other public facilities; huge lines at airports and manual searches of all baggage; delayed public transportation everytime someone leaves a briefcase in a subway station (e.g., London's Tube); being barred from a large portion of the central city because a bomb has just gone off; etc.
Those are trivial and superficial complaints compared to those who die at the hands of terrorists, but an indication of how long the U.S. has escaped the sad reality that the rest of the world has faced for years.
Might be wrong, but doesn't that work only if XF86Config is already set up correctly? Apple has the advantage of knowing exactly what hardware is on the machine. Linux distributions have to guess right, and then it's over to the user.
>> f I can get a copy of a work through the internet and there are no costs associated with me getting it, then it should be free. That is the fair and efficient way to organize society.
If a create my own CD and give it away free on the Internet as the sole means of distribution, how am I supposed to recoup my costs and make a profit?
I've never said I support the RIAA. I have said I believe in artists right to derive revenue from their works (artists, not the RIAA), and that copyright is a means to ensure that happens. I've also said that the law needs to be changed to account for new technology. I have not argued for penalties for anything; I have, however, forecast what I think may, unfortunately, happen as a response to the current debate. I have not stated that the RIAA represents the best interests of copyright holders.
The thrust of my arguments has been that this is a political and legal battle that will be resolved in Congress and the courts, and that the strategy apparently favored by most/. readers will fail.
In all fairness, you used those words and phrases to describe the piece. The authors do not tell us that they have written a cyncial, condescending, apple pie piece. It stands as your opinion.
Slashdot is a commercial enterprise. A glorified BBS that preaches to the geek choir to increase its revenue. A very few people publish a very few pieces submitted to them. it's in OSDN's financial interest to deliberately fan the flames among this crowd.
We have know nothing -- but can infer a great deal -- about/.'s own editorial stance because the site lacks the courage to created Slashdot editorials.
Nonsense. Blatant bigoted elitist ill-informed nonsense. The best thing for the political process in the U.S. would be to reduce the cost of participation to zero. You seem to think that only self-annointed members of the geek fraternity know what's going on.
I'm sorry about spam. I'm sorry that it clogs up your servers. Deal with it. I'm sorry that the poor ISP's are spending money to relay this stuff. But, you know, that's the business they're in. Let them figure out a different pricing scheme so they can get some revenue from spammers.
In any case, the ISP business is soon going to be a heavily regulated quasi-public business, in the model of the USPS. That'll take your toys away.
>> "all the usual Mom-Flag-&-Apple-Pie cliches...cynical...condescendingly..."
Next time someone claims that Slashdot is a news site and practices journalism, take a look at this biased, unsubstantiated intro. At least the staff is smart enough to actually quote the submitter so they can defend themselves against libel and slander. Since this is a filtered site, though, my assumption is that this piece represents the opinion of Slashdot and OSDN.
You are denying artists the right to earn a living. There's no precedent that all creative people are willing to work for free. While we're at it, who's going to pay for all the infrastrucuture that's distributing all this free, utopian, art? Who's going to pay the actors? The stage crew? Who's going to build the theaters? Who's going to pay for the paper used to print books? Who's going make musical instruments?
The open source analogy doesn't wash, either. The open source movement wouldn't exist without a commercial OS called Unix. Torvalds wrote one kernel for one OS, and he followed the path set by Unix. The BSD's are derived from Unix code that someone was paid to write. The Gnu folks have contributed most of the other core pieces, a gret part of it written before Linux appeared on the scene. That doesn't bode well ss a model for a wide and varied range of artistic efforts. There's been very little innovative software coming out of open source. Yes, the concept is innovative, but most of the software is derivative. And, none of that was possible without an Internet that someone else pays for.
While I think you have a naive and unsophisticated notion of what it means to be a professional creative person (it means earning a living selling your art), eventually the law will change to accommodate itself to new technology. In the meantime, the law is the law, and possessing technology that enables you to do something doesn't always make it legal.
Yes, it is easy for bands to cut their own CD's. "Bands', though, aren't the only artists in the world. How George Lucas or Speilberg? Are they going to make Star Wars or ET in their basement? Not quite yet. the basic sticking point, though, is human nature. The technology that enables any garage band to produce their own CD's and post them on the web isn't going to change their desire to be paid. In the end, they'd impose their own kind of restrictions. (Like files that count how many times they've been played and then go poof.)
So you think it is fair and equitable to take creative work by someone else, pay them for one copy, and then give away as many copies as people want? (You do seem to be assuming they'd willingly give up their work.) Who decides what's 'art" and what isn't? Who decides what gets posted on the Big Server? You don't really suppose such legislation has a ghost of a chance?
How about you coming to work for me, and I'll pay you for the first day, and then farm you out to my friends for free for the next 30 years. I'm sure you won't mind.
People do have a right to put their efforts on the market and ask people to pay for them. People do not have a right to take something owned by someone else and sell it or give it away, no matter how easy that is.
Money, as a means of exchange, has stayed around for a very long time. Do you really expect the entertainment industry would continue if they couldn't make any money? If you think successful artists don't like all that money coming in, dream on....
All this self-serving noise about the so-called "right" to steal copywritten material is only going to prompt more legal restrictions on the Internet.
Servers in ISP's will be regularly inspected to ensure they don't have any files containing data identifying it as copywritten.
Source code -- and every subsequent revision -- will have to be reviewed, tested and approved prior to deployment in any net environment. (Ponder what that will mean for open source.)
A few media companies will acquire most existing ISP's, perceiving the net as primarily a distribution medium for their product.
So, thanks a lot, guys, for messing it up for everyone just because your selfish.
Grow up. No one is forcing you to buy anything, much less the government. People who write books, create music, make movies, have as much right to derive revenue from their efforts as anyone else.
Given all the over-the-top histrionics about the RIAA, I'm a little surprised about not hearing much from people who actually make a living selling entertainment? Is the RIAA right? Is file sharing costing you money? Perhaps you make most of your money from concerts and clubs, and see file sharing as just one more way to get new fans? Or, maybe you make your money from CD sales, and see it as a real threat?
>> ...doing what you want *is* in the consitution.
Show us. While you're at it, please explain how your "right" to always do what you want can live in harmony with my "right" to always do what I want? Suppose I want to drive the car I own into your living room? You're going to call the police and probably get a lawyer. But, says I, America is here so I can do what I want.
This stuff I read now and then about prolonged adolescence must be true.
You're probably right about fixing copyright, but it seems to me that professional creators of 'art' will always want to derive revenue from their efforts. How would you alter the copyright laws to accommodate file sharing and still preserve a creator's right to market their creations? (Pls note I'm alking about people who create things, not the RIAA.)
Pretty simple, really. Their corporations make billions of dollars selling what you all buy. They see every file copied and downloaded on the net as one less product that they can sell. They have a weapon -- the law -- that they can use to go after file sharing. Book publishers would be doing the same thing, if people started posting scanned copies of bestsellers all over the web.
The RIAA and the MPAA are naive, because while they're laboring away in court, someone else is going to figure out how to make money selling entertainment on the net in a way that's in synch with copyright law and that can't be threatened by file sharing.
1. If the beta was released with active debug code, odds are it is a lot slower. A beta isn't intended for operational use.
2. I switched to OS X about a month ago (a G4 iMac) from Linux. I'm a heavy Mozilla user and, subjectively, it's the same speed on the 800 mHz iMac as it was on the P4 1.3 mHz Linux box.
3. Believe the current version of OS X does not fully exploit the capabilities of the video card, dumping a lot off to the CPU, resulting in slower screen operations. The new version, out next week, is supposed to change this.
>> *NOTE: A Consumer is basically any idiot that you can convince to buy your product... You, of course, never actually buy anything, so stand haughtily above the fray?
You were on to something with that bit about standards not being important to consumers, then you ruined it with that display of traditional/. arrogance.
Cute, but what's stopping anyone from putting in a bid with the local Board of Education to use open source? People don't learn about new things by osmosis, you know, someone needs to tell them.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm from the same slice of the demographic pie, and my own music buying days wound down a long time ago. Seems apparent to me that pop entertainment sales will closely track alongside the the size of the adolescent and under 25 (or so) crowd. The population of the U.S. is getting older, so I'm not surprised to see sales drop.
Another reason for reduced sales might just be too much production. If pop entertainment isn't almost entirely derivative, I don't know what is. Keep trying to sell the same thing over and over, and even the pre-puberty crowd will pick up on it.
>> if the who doesn't include the folks making, marketing, and distributing the music..."
Add in the people who are really in charge here -- Congress -- and you're on your way.
You know, as a Yank, I'm glad you said that. I've lived in three different locations outside the U.S. and in every location the existence of terrorism had already made its mark: being patted down and scanned on entry to shopping malls and other public facilities; huge lines at airports and manual searches of all baggage; delayed public transportation everytime someone leaves a briefcase in a subway station (e.g., London's Tube); being barred from a large portion of the central city because a bomb has just gone off; etc.
Those are trivial and superficial complaints compared to those who die at the hands of terrorists, but an indication of how long the U.S. has escaped the sad reality that the rest of the world has faced for years.
Might be wrong, but doesn't that work only if XF86Config is already set up correctly? Apple has the advantage of knowing exactly what hardware is on the machine. Linux distributions have to guess right, and then it's over to the user.
>> f I can get a copy of a work through the internet and there are no costs associated with me getting it, then it should be free. That is the fair and efficient way to organize society.
If a create my own CD and give it away free on the Internet as the sole means of distribution, how am I supposed to recoup my costs and make a profit?
I've never said I support the RIAA. I have said I believe in artists right to derive revenue from their works (artists, not the RIAA), and that copyright is a means to ensure that happens. I've also said that the law needs to be changed to account for new technology. I have not argued for penalties for anything; I have, however, forecast what I think may, unfortunately, happen as a response to the current debate. I have not stated that the RIAA represents the best interests of copyright holders.
/. readers will fail.
The thrust of my arguments has been that this is a political and legal battle that will be resolved in Congress and the courts, and that the strategy apparently favored by most
In all fairness, you used those words and phrases to describe the piece. The authors do not tell us that they have written a cyncial, condescending, apple pie piece. It stands as your opinion.
Slashdot is a commercial enterprise. A glorified BBS that preaches to the geek choir to increase its revenue. A very few people publish a very few pieces submitted to them. it's in OSDN's financial interest to deliberately fan the flames among this crowd.
/.'s own editorial stance because the site lacks the courage to created Slashdot editorials.
We have know nothing -- but can infer a great deal -- about
The piece is clearly labeled as "Opinion", unlike /.'s intro to this thread.
Nonsense. Blatant bigoted elitist ill-informed nonsense. The best thing for the political process in the U.S. would be to reduce the cost of participation to zero. You seem to think that only self-annointed members of the geek fraternity know what's going on.
I'm sorry about spam. I'm sorry that it clogs up your servers. Deal with it. I'm sorry that the poor ISP's are spending money to relay this stuff. But, you know, that's the business they're in. Let them figure out a different pricing scheme so they can get some revenue from spammers.
In any case, the ISP business is soon going to be a heavily regulated quasi-public business, in the model of the USPS. That'll take your toys away.
>> "all the usual Mom-Flag-&-Apple-Pie cliches...cynical...condescendingly..."
Next time someone claims that Slashdot is a news site and practices journalism, take a look at this biased, unsubstantiated intro. At least the staff is smart enough to actually quote the submitter so they can defend themselves against libel and slander. Since this is a filtered site, though, my assumption is that this piece represents the opinion of Slashdot and OSDN.
You are denying artists the right to earn a living. There's no precedent that all creative people are willing to work for free. While we're at it, who's going to pay for all the infrastrucuture that's distributing all this free, utopian, art? Who's going to pay the actors? The stage crew? Who's going to build the theaters? Who's going to pay for the paper used to print books? Who's going make musical instruments?
The open source analogy doesn't wash, either. The open source movement wouldn't exist without a commercial OS called Unix. Torvalds wrote one kernel for one OS, and he followed the path set by Unix. The BSD's are derived from Unix code that someone was paid to write. The Gnu folks have contributed most of the other core pieces, a gret part of it written before Linux appeared on the scene. That doesn't bode well ss a model for a wide and varied range of artistic efforts. There's been very little innovative software coming out of open source. Yes, the concept is innovative, but most of the software is derivative. And, none of that was possible without an Internet that someone else pays for.
While I think you have a naive and unsophisticated notion of what it means to be a professional creative person (it means earning a living selling your art), eventually the law will change to accommodate itself to new technology. In the meantime, the law is the law, and possessing technology that enables you to do something doesn't always make it legal.
One of the few sensible posts about this issue in a long time (and that includes mine).
Yes, it is easy for bands to cut their own CD's. "Bands', though, aren't the only artists in the world. How George Lucas or Speilberg? Are they going to make Star Wars or ET in their basement? Not quite yet. the basic sticking point, though, is human nature. The technology that enables any garage band to produce their own CD's and post them on the web isn't going to change their desire to be paid. In the end, they'd impose their own kind of restrictions. (Like files that count how many times they've been played and then go poof.)
How about you coming to work for me, and I'll pay you for the first day, and then farm you out to my friends for free for the next 30 years. I'm sure you won't mind.
Money, as a means of exchange, has stayed around for a very long time. Do you really expect the entertainment industry would continue if they couldn't make any money? If you think successful artists don't like all that money coming in, dream on....
All this self-serving noise about the so-called "right" to steal copywritten material is only going to prompt more legal restrictions on the Internet.
So, thanks a lot, guys, for messing it up for everyone just because your selfish.
Grow up.
No one is forcing you to buy anything, much less the government. People who write books, create music, make movies, have as much right to derive revenue from their efforts as anyone else.
I stand corrected, although posting an entire copywritten book on the web is not fair use. (Also, doesn't the law deal with libraries explicitly?)
Given all the over-the-top histrionics about the RIAA, I'm a little surprised about not hearing much from people who actually make a living selling entertainment? Is the RIAA right? Is file sharing costing you money? Perhaps you make most of your money from concerts and clubs, and see file sharing as just one more way to get new fans? Or, maybe you make your money from CD sales, and see it as a real threat?
>> ...doing what you want *is* in the consitution.
Show us. While you're at it, please explain how your "right" to always do what you want can live in harmony with my "right" to always do what I want? Suppose I want to drive the car I own into your living room? You're going to call the police and probably get a lawyer. But, says I, America is here so I can do what I want.
This stuff I read now and then about prolonged adolescence must be true.
You're probably right about fixing copyright, but it seems to me that professional creators of 'art' will always want to derive revenue from their efforts. How would you alter the copyright laws to accommodate file sharing and still preserve a creator's right to market their creations? (Pls note I'm alking about people who create things, not the RIAA.)
The RIAA and the MPAA are naive, because while they're laboring away in court, someone else is going to figure out how to make money selling entertainment on the net in a way that's in synch with copyright law and that can't be threatened by file sharing.
1. If the beta was released with active debug code, odds are it is a lot slower. A beta isn't intended for operational use.
2. I switched to OS X about a month ago (a G4 iMac) from Linux. I'm a heavy Mozilla user and, subjectively, it's the same speed on the 800 mHz iMac as it was on the P4 1.3 mHz Linux box.
3. Believe the current version of OS X does not fully exploit the capabilities of the video card, dumping a lot off to the CPU, resulting in slower screen operations. The new version, out next week, is supposed to change this.
You, of course, never actually buy anything, so stand haughtily above the fray?
You were on to something with that bit about standards not being important to consumers, then you ruined it with that display of traditional /. arrogance.
Cute, but what's stopping anyone from putting in a bid with the local Board of Education to use open source? People don't learn about new things by osmosis, you know, someone needs to tell them.