You don't understand. It isn't outmoded for the record companies. It's outmoded for me as a musician.
Professional recording equipment and expertise is cheaper now than every before in history. I can record an album in a studio for what I can save up on a minimum wage job. If I have some expertise myself I can do it myself at home for "free," at higher quality than even the pros could do it 20 years ago.
I can produce CD-Rs on my own or have CDs pressed for pennies apiece, including jewel case and inserts.
I have no need of a record company's money to finance my album.
As such I don't have to buy my own CDs back from them at full wholesale in order to distribute them as demos or for sales either. In fact, I don't have to distribute CDs as demos at all. Instead of spending $20k to mail out a few thousand demo CDs I can now upload many times that many for free direct to whomever I wish to hear them without the need of a go between.
I can make sure my website address is attached to those demos. At my website I have worldwide promotional capabilities, including making cuts available for free download as a promotional giveaway, and, of course, album sales.
Of course my website will be heavily promoting my live appearances as well, where I will be selling CDs for ten bucks and pocketing nine of that in profits.
On sales of no more than a few thousand CDs I make more profit than I would with half a million in sales with a Sony contract.
I grew up in a radio household (my dad was sales and marketing development manager for GE Broadcasting Corp.) and been a working musician for for three decades. Half of my friends have recorded, some of them for labels. Most of those that have recorded for a label now do so as private publishers.
This isn't "Pie in the Sky." It's the way many are already doing business, and it's already proven to work.
I can't imagine signing with a label. They have nothing to offer me that I can't provide for myself, at my own profit.
What I have no capability of doing I cannot be forced to do either. Even with a warrant.
It has everything to do with warrants.
I can let you look in my house window, but that doesn't mean you can see in my file cabinet or dresser drawers. You cannot be sure of what is in those dresser drawers without coming into my house and looking into them. Even then you cannot be sure I didn't remove what you were looking for before you came in or falsely placed something there which is not mine.
If I wish to prove to you I have a certain book I can remove it from my house. You are still faced with having to believe it is actually mine.
I can show you any file on my computer. I can give you root. You may examine the complete configuration of my system, if I chose it, already. I can run a webserver and offer up anything I chose to show you.
Trusted Computing offer me nothing but potential intrusion. The ability to "prove" I own my own socks. I neither need nor desire that capability.
The capability creates the charge.
I understand it perfectly. Stay out of my dresser unless I place it on the curb.
And who holds the copyright on Voltaire when it is written to my hard disk?
I'm afraid it's beliefs such as you have just expressed that are part of the problem.
There is much that is not "owned," believe it or not, and I may do as I wish with that material and it's "nobody's nevermind," not even to the extent that they have the right to "peer over my shoulder" to make sure.
But taking your comment seriously for a moment I might point out that offering positive feedback to one's enemy when they behave in a manner you find desirable isn't hypocrisy.
You can't convincingly show me that you're running Mozilla or Internet Explorer or Opera. ..
Thank God. I'll do everything I can to keep it that way.
And if you feel the need to be "convinced" of what's in my house, get a warrant. I have no such need of demonstration.
My house has doors and windows. My computer has ports and file ownership. I can open them. I can close them. I can let people in. I can throw people out.
I don't have to "prove" a bloody thing. To anybody. Even if you have a warrant.
And many people who commited crimes no worse than would get them 6 months community service from a city court will get 20 years in federal prison and then be exfelons forever afterward with many of their rights of citizenship permenantly removed.
The laws will be misapplied, giving harsher and harsher sentences for more and more trivial offenses until everyone has a cousin or sibling who has been cruelly treated under these laws.
Then a sense of outrage will ensue amongst the populace and these laws will be "reformed."
At that point everyone will promptly forget any of the abover ever happened.
Rinse and repeat.
So it has always been. So it shall, it seems, always be. It seems we've not only forgotten history, but relegated Santayana to the historical realm.
Just as I wish with my house. I want my house to protect me, my papers, possessions and privacy. I want it to be nobody's business what my house contains, even to the point of being able to protect myself against legitimate legal prossecution.
Oddly enough, that's what the Constitution was written to provide my house with.
It is up to me to secure my house with whatever technological measures are available to provide that security and understand how to use that technology. I'm perfectly willing to take the same responsibility for the security of my computer. Just provide me with the tools. Then go the hell away and leave me alone.
The second my house starts deciding for me what I may or may not keep in it or do inside it I get a new house.
The day my computer decides it doesn't "trust" me with what I'm storing in it or doing with it I pull the plug.
Fortunatly for me there are already hundreds of millions of "untrusted" computers already out there in the wild that do everything I might require my computer to do.
of getting payed to be creative in an enviroment geared to quantify "production." So many worthless widgets produced an hour at so much value per widget and such.
You ain't alone. This is an issue that musicians, artists, conventional authors etc. have been wrestling with for centuries.
Your own quandry gives all the evidence needed that there is no clear answer; and where there is no clear answer people on both sides always feel "funny" about the whole thing. Feeling "funny" leads to discontent and acrimony.
Therefore the ideal solution ( which is to say as reasonable an approximation of the ideal as you're ever going to get) is always highly dependant on the very nature of the parties, which is going to be different in every specific case.
Again, as example, you've actually gotten a lot of good advice already, based on real experience of real coders, and a lot of it conflicts. Different parties, different results.
I'd suggest you go to the people who are relevant to this discussion ( the people offering you payment ) and telling them your desires and fears over how to arrange this, ask them their own desires and fears; and then see if you can come to an agreement up front as to how best meet those desires and alleviating those fears.
In short, talk to them kid.
( And a lawyer never hurts. Trust, but verify. You can be damned sure that's what they'll be doing)
We didn't start writing things down because of a lack of people to read them aloud. At the time we started doing that there where people whose job it was to recite things from memory. Bible's, Vedas, whatever.
No, we started writing things down because it was a superiour way to access most information. It remains so. Ask any blind person trying to do research on the internet (yes, I work with one on occasion).
Better speach recognition and synthesis will be a boon to the blind and learning disabled, but for most of us it will be an ignored pain in the ass.I'm dyslexic and read by force of will and even I will largely ignore this.
The one place where it might be useful is in true Star Trek mode:
"Living room lights please, computer."
Even then most people will often just use the switch to avoid confusion/annoying other people in the room.
For search results, for the average sighted person, the idea of having research results read to you is just plain daft.
In this particular case you are incorrect. The RIAA is only suing people who could be charged for criminal distribution of copyright infringing materials.
If you're a leech and only download you are merely infringing copyright, but once you upload a certain amount the rules change.
They're going after the file sharers, not the file takers.
I'd seen the thermodynamic work of of Metropolis (et al) and was even aware of the generalization, so I'd come to much the same conclusion as yourself from context, but I'd still like to see something a bit more specific on this as applied to computer controlled feedback cycles.
It's probably old hat to the robotics people. I guess I could go talk to some.
Slashdot Mirror
Are this just fragments of a much larger object that is heading towards earth?
No.
KFG
You don't understand. It isn't outmoded for the record companies. It's outmoded for me as a musician.
Professional recording equipment and expertise is cheaper now than every before in history. I can record an album in a studio for what I can save up on a minimum wage job. If I have some expertise myself I can do it myself at home for "free," at higher quality than even the pros could do it 20 years ago.
I can produce CD-Rs on my own or have CDs pressed for pennies apiece, including jewel case and inserts.
I have no need of a record company's money to finance my album.
As such I don't have to buy my own CDs back from them at full wholesale in order to distribute them as demos or for sales either. In fact, I don't have to distribute CDs as demos at all. Instead of spending $20k to mail out a few thousand demo CDs I can now upload many times that many for free direct to whomever I wish to hear them without the need of a go between.
I can make sure my website address is attached to those demos. At my website I have worldwide promotional capabilities, including making cuts available for free download as a promotional giveaway, and, of course, album sales.
Of course my website will be heavily promoting my live appearances as well, where I will be selling CDs for ten bucks and pocketing nine of that in profits.
On sales of no more than a few thousand CDs I make more profit than I would with half a million in sales with a Sony contract.
I grew up in a radio household (my dad was sales and marketing development manager for GE Broadcasting Corp.) and been a working musician for for three decades. Half of my friends have recorded, some of them for labels. Most of those that have recorded for a label now do so as private publishers.
This isn't "Pie in the Sky." It's the way many are already doing business, and it's already proven to work.
I can't imagine signing with a label. They have nothing to offer me that I can't provide for myself, at my own profit.
KFG
What I have no capability of doing I cannot be forced to do either. Even with a warrant.
It has everything to do with warrants.
I can let you look in my house window, but that doesn't mean you can see in my file cabinet or dresser drawers. You cannot be sure of what is in those dresser drawers without coming into my house and looking into them. Even then you cannot be sure I didn't remove what you were looking for before you came in or falsely placed something there which is not mine.
If I wish to prove to you I have a certain book I can remove it from my house. You are still faced with having to believe it is actually mine.
I can show you any file on my computer. I can give you root. You may examine the complete configuration of my system, if I chose it, already. I can run a webserver and offer up anything I chose to show you.
Trusted Computing offer me nothing but potential intrusion. The ability to "prove" I own my own socks. I neither need nor desire that capability.
The capability creates the charge.
I understand it perfectly. Stay out of my dresser unless I place it on the curb.
KFG
And who holds the copyright on Voltaire when it is written to my hard disk?
I'm afraid it's beliefs such as you have just expressed that are part of the problem.
There is much that is not "owned," believe it or not, and I may do as I wish with that material and it's "nobody's nevermind," not even to the extent that they have the right to "peer over my shoulder" to make sure.
KFG
Obviously the porn is the stuff with the dirty bits.
KFG
Yeah, yeah. I know.
But taking your comment seriously for a moment I might point out that offering positive feedback to one's enemy when they behave in a manner you find desirable isn't hypocrisy.
KFG
You can't convincingly show me that you're running Mozilla or Internet Explorer or Opera. . .
Thank God. I'll do everything I can to keep it that way.
And if you feel the need to be "convinced" of what's in my house, get a warrant. I have no such need of demonstration.
My house has doors and windows. My computer has ports and file ownership. I can open them. I can close them. I can let people in. I can throw people out.
I don't have to "prove" a bloody thing. To anybody. Even if you have a warrant.
KFG
Do you have anything to hide?
:)
None of your business.
KFG
"Does negotiated disarmament deter war?" (Edward Teller).
No, but it may well reduce the incidence of war, as well as reduce the negative effects of those wars that manage to occur.
KFG
And many people who commited crimes no worse than would get them 6 months community service from a city court will get 20 years in federal prison and then be exfelons forever afterward with many of their rights of citizenship permenantly removed.
The laws will be misapplied, giving harsher and harsher sentences for more and more trivial offenses until everyone has a cousin or sibling who has been cruelly treated under these laws.
Then a sense of outrage will ensue amongst the populace and these laws will be "reformed."
At that point everyone will promptly forget any of the abover ever happened.
Rinse and repeat.
So it has always been. So it shall, it seems, always be. It seems we've not only forgotten history, but relegated Santayana to the historical realm.
KFG
Not a "trusted" one.
Just as I wish with my house. I want my house to protect me, my papers, possessions and privacy. I want it to be nobody's business what my house contains, even to the point of being able to protect myself against legitimate legal prossecution.
Oddly enough, that's what the Constitution was written to provide my house with.
It is up to me to secure my house with whatever technological measures are available to provide that security and understand how to use that technology. I'm perfectly willing to take the same responsibility for the security of my computer. Just provide me with the tools. Then go the hell away and leave me alone.
The second my house starts deciding for me what I may or may not keep in it or do inside it I get a new house.
The day my computer decides it doesn't "trust" me with what I'm storing in it or doing with it I pull the plug.
Fortunatly for me there are already hundreds of millions of "untrusted" computers already out there in the wild that do everything I might require my computer to do.
KFG
Do it three times and you move from programer to "shrewd CEO."
Seriously. That's business.
You can, of course, always put your money where your philosophical values are. Take the job, "outsource" it to other college kids and take 20%.
KFG
of getting payed to be creative in an enviroment geared to quantify "production." So many worthless widgets produced an hour at so much value per widget and such.
You ain't alone. This is an issue that musicians, artists, conventional authors etc. have been wrestling with for centuries.
Your own quandry gives all the evidence needed that there is no clear answer; and where there is no clear answer people on both sides always feel "funny" about the whole thing. Feeling "funny" leads to discontent and acrimony.
Therefore the ideal solution ( which is to say as reasonable an approximation of the ideal as you're ever going to get) is always highly dependant on the very nature of the parties, which is going to be different in every specific case.
Again, as example, you've actually gotten a lot of good advice already, based on real experience of real coders, and a lot of it conflicts. Different parties, different results.
I'd suggest you go to the people who are relevant to this discussion ( the people offering you payment ) and telling them your desires and fears over how to arrange this, ask them their own desires and fears; and then see if you can come to an agreement up front as to how best meet those desires and alleviating those fears.
In short, talk to them kid.
( And a lawyer never hurts. Trust, but verify. You can be damned sure that's what they'll be doing)
KFG
On the other hand, ACs are notorious for flamebaiting.
Q.E.D.
KFG
Initials. Duh.
KFG
And carpeting that lets her know when you try to sneak back in at 4 A.M.
Yeah, that's gonna be a big seller.
KFG
I was staring at your video, honest.
Great, just what the world needs, a Tommy Hilfiger jacket that can implement the [marquee] tag.
KFG
You're daft man. You can fully expect this to be standard equipment on your next flying car and/or personal jet pack.
KFG
that I now have to pay to read me papers.
Not.
I can see it now:
"Now reading 1 of 3625 context relevant sites."
We didn't start writing things down because of a lack of people to read them aloud. At the time we started doing that there where people whose job it was to recite things from memory. Bible's, Vedas, whatever.
No, we started writing things down because it was a superiour way to access most information. It remains so. Ask any blind person trying to do research on the internet (yes, I work with one on occasion).
Better speach recognition and synthesis will be a boon to the blind and learning disabled, but for most of us it will be an ignored pain in the ass.I'm dyslexic and read by force of will and even I will largely ignore this.
The one place where it might be useful is in true Star Trek mode:
"Living room lights please, computer."
Even then most people will often just use the switch to avoid confusion/annoying other people in the room.
For search results, for the average sighted person, the idea of having research results read to you is just plain daft.
KFG
Something an Anonymous Coward can't be, by definition, since you receive no karma. I wouldn't worry about.
KFG
In this particular case you are incorrect. The RIAA is only suing people who could be charged for criminal distribution of copyright infringing materials.
If you're a leech and only download you are merely infringing copyright, but once you upload a certain amount the rules change.
They're going after the file sharers, not the file takers.
KFG
Great. Everyone start having babies - They might be geniuses! C'mon.
Don't worry. I knew we could count on you to show up and provide a counter example.
KFG
I'd seen the thermodynamic work of of Metropolis (et al) and was even aware of the generalization, so I'd come to much the same conclusion as yourself from context, but I'd still like to see something a bit more specific on this as applied to computer controlled feedback cycles.
It's probably old hat to the robotics people. I guess I could go talk to some.
KFG
You think a "Venn Diagram" is something German dermatologists draw, don'cha? :)
KFG
Good question. I know what each word means. I even know what they mean in combo. I haven't a clue as to what they mean with regards to menus.
.that ask "What does genetically annealed mean."
:)
A quick Google search reveals only a couple of links. .
Well, no help there.
KFG