I listened to the audio and found the music to be loosely structured with a unique interpretation of rhythm and an interesting take on the importance of melody and harmony. In other words, IT SOUNDS LIKE CRAP!!!
This may be true, but it's not unique to DRM. Pick pretty much any of today's up and coming technologies (e.g. genetic engineering, nanotech, robotics) and any one of them can be used for political oppression or control in the future. If we only used the ways that a technology can be mis-used to determine what to develop, we'd never have gotten past banging rocks together or learning how to make fire.
I've been watching the digital download space and can say they are definitely headed in this direction. I agree with your list other than #4, which is not something you should expect. After all, you can't get other products in the codec/format of your choice, why is music different? The most important thing re format is to offer something that is widely supported by software and devices.
For example, today you *can* go to bestbuy.com and buy a large number of major artists for $.99/track and it's 128k (click on "music" then "digital downloads" on the left, and then click the Liquid Audio link). Your format choices are WMA or AAC but you can burn CDs (i.e. normal CDs that play back in your stereo), so if you really need something else, you can always burn and re-rip. I was even able to back up my WMA licenses and restore them on another PC (using the license backup/restore feature in the windows media player).
I don't know... the top floor of my building (i.e. management) has been playing Snood every day for months! Granted, they probably only play about 40 hours a week.
FYI, according to other stories, a sizeable chunk of music (60,000+ tracks from the majors, probably 2x this from the indies) is available on LiquidAudio (for Wintel) today for $.99/track or $9.99/album. They've got both WMA and AAC. The $9.99/album is nice when you want an 18 track album and don't want to pay ~$18. Also, I think all of the $.99/$9.99 stuff is CD burnable.
Unfortunately not all the majors are doing the same thing. UMG seems to be leading the pack in terms of consumer friendly pricing and burning. I've purchased a handful of tracks from Liquid and the quality is definitely better than Kazaa.
Typically the labels only have limited rights themselves with respect to the cover art. Specifically, they usually only have the right to use the cover art when selling or promoting the album. Third parties, having no contract or license from the photographer, will not have any right to exploit the artwork. In fact, if someone uses the artwork in a way that generates money (including ad revenue), they should not be surprised if the photographer (or other album art copyright holder) goes after them and their earnings. Granted, I haven't heard of this happening before...
Dude, this is slashdot. No one actually reads the RIAA related stuff, they just whip out the conspiracy theories, flames, "here's how we can keep stealing music without being tracked" and "p2p is not stealing" posts.
The time of cognitive dissonance is long gone. This topic has no room for logic - slashdot has moved onto emotion and rationalization.
Mod the parent up. Everyone should read the opinions before commenting. I found the majority opinion to be more rational than I expected. One eye-opening excerpt:
"Concerning petitioners assertion that Congress might evade the limitation on its authority by stringing together an unlimited number of limited Times, the Court of Appeals stated that such legislative misbehavior clearly is not the situation before us. 239 F. 3d, at 379. Rather, the court noted, the CTEA matches the baseline term for United States copyrights [with] the terms of copyrights granted by the European Union.[I]n an era of multinational publishers and instantaneous electronic transmission, the court said, harmonization in this regard has obvious practical benefits and is a necessary and proper measure to meet contemporary circumstances rather than a step on the way to making copyrights per-petual."
I think it's pretty obvious: they're running a business and want a way to generate additional revenue. They're probably giddy with the idea of selling things that don't actually exist (e.g. the Levi's jacket for your avatar) for real money.
I tried this service too. It worked pretty well for me, though I had to click the download link twice to get the file. Some comments:
1) they're selling the files in 2 formats, the Liquid format and Microsoft's WMA format. I tried both and the Liquid format only works in the Liquid player, while the WMA files will play in Winamp, MusicMatch, WindowsMedia Player, and others. WMA seems to be the default except in a few cases, so check your format before you buy (and you probably want WMA).
2) surprisingly, there are no burn count limits! When you download, the site tells you what the content usage rules are, and you get unlimited burns!!! Sure enough, I made a few burns of the stuff I downloaded and when I checked the properties, there is no burn counter (you can check the license properties on XP in the WMP).
3) portable device support is limited, but they've covered the major players. Again, this varies by format, but for WMA files you can use your Rio X00 or Creative Labs Nomad. I've got a Rio800 and it worked fine. Another surprise - no transfer limits!
4) I was worried about the audio quality, but the files sound great vs your typical kazaa download.
5) I found the different track prices confusing, but eventually I realized that not all of the content in the liquid store is UMG's.
So I found the whole thing to be remakably easy to use (I didn't have any of the download or burn problems mentioned in the original post) and I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of burn or transfer counts. The files do use DRM, but they've got relatively loose rules. My primary complaint is that the selection is still not fantastic. A bunch of things I searched for were not up. Anyway, it's a good start and I hope that the other music companies follow UMG's lead.
I laugh every time I see this because it reminds me of a post on some past digital music topic, which I will do injustice to by badly summarizing as:
"No matter what gets released by the majors, the slashdot crowd will always complain. To submit your own complaint, just fill out this handy template: 'I would buy this if only it were in [insert a competing format here] and [current bitrate *2]. Also, I need the price to be [current price/2].'
Come on people! Do you think the movie studios are stupid enough to leak their own material on purpose? What do you think would happen to their already amazingly poor credibility in Washington when the Wall St. Journal ran the expose? This only makes sense if you think that they are not working the political angle and anyone who believes that needs to spend a buck at the clue machine.
Another thing you are all forgetting: this leak pretty much guarantees that the number of DVD sales in Asia will be cut by 90% because the movie will be out on VCD... TOMORROW!! Somehow, I think the MPAA cares about that.
If you want to help us fight the copyright battle, let's try to avoid making up weak conspiracy theories.
Anyone who thinks the music companies have outlived their usefulness does not understand one of their primary roles. Granted, their distribution services may become obsolete, but that is not the only thing they do.
One of the critical functions of the majors is to provide "venture capital" for musicians. To make it big, most artists still need a good amount of money to hire big name producers, have videos made, get physical media (CDs) made and widely distributed, get main stream marketing, etc., etc. Of course, there are exceptions, but this is the rule.
The majors invest money in artists and they make money off the back-end from CD sales just like VCs invest in start-ups and make money from stock sales. Both groups use the "portfolio approach" since one big success can pay for a number of less popular investments. Both groups expect big return on investment and, not surprisingly, both groups are disliked.
Regardless of how popular the majors are (or are not), artists will always want up-front investment so they can afford the services of top tier music professionals and get mass market advertising. The current majors may not survive, but I don't see this fundamental need for initial investment going away so there will always be music companies to fill this role.
This paper is just fear-mongering since it requires you to make the leap that DRM will be embedded into everything, which makes no sense at all. You can easily reproduce this arguement for nearly any technology, since almost nothing will be appropriate everywhere.
I think that papers like this do not help our effort. Let's attack the real problems we face today, rather than making up imaginary ones.
My company is involved in a standards project and we're torn between requiring self certification or testing by third parties. I'm curious to hear from someone who has gone through something like the FIPS process - is there financial liability on the part of the third party certifying authorities? That would certainly make the them more careful.
I haven't tried DDR myself, but I did visit a friend who had Samba De Amigo, in which you gain points by shaking a pair of maracas! It's probably just a matter of time before someone combines the two to produce the ultimate video game workout!
Actually, this is not correct. Winamp, MusicMatch, and many other WMA compatible players can, in fact, play encrypted WMA files. I know this because I've downloaded a promo release or two off of various artist web sites. These promos are often DRM protected WMA files. I use Winamp pretty much exclusively and have never had a problem.
It's called a Sip & Puff switch. There are a bunch of different kinds (like this) and they're not that expensive. Do a google search to find some vendors. The companies that sell this kind of product also have other items that may be of interest, such as tongue switches or P switches that detect very small muscle movements.
Do you think there is value in the approach used by Douglas Lenat and the CYC team, and do you think that it might yield more interesting results when combined with the philosophy behind AIML?
I personally agree with this ruling. I have yet to meet someone who can conclusively prove that there is -- or isn't -- a god. While I was happy to just ignore the "under god" part, I did find it irritating and would happy to see it go. It certainly does make a religious statement that atheists and agnostics may disagree with.
Slashdot Mirror
I listened to the audio and found the music to be loosely structured with a unique interpretation of rhythm and an interesting take on the importance of melody and harmony. In other words, IT SOUNDS LIKE CRAP!!!
This may be true, but it's not unique to DRM. Pick pretty much any of today's up and coming technologies (e.g. genetic engineering, nanotech, robotics) and any one of them can be used for political oppression or control in the future. If we only used the ways that a technology can be mis-used to determine what to develop, we'd never have gotten past banging rocks together or learning how to make fire.
I've been watching the digital download space and can say they are definitely headed in this direction. I agree with your list other than #4, which is not something you should expect. After all, you can't get other products in the codec/format of your choice, why is music different? The most important thing re format is to offer something that is widely supported by software and devices.
For example, today you *can* go to bestbuy.com and buy a large number of major artists for $.99/track and it's 128k (click on "music" then "digital downloads" on the left, and then click the Liquid Audio link). Your format choices are WMA or AAC but you can burn CDs (i.e. normal CDs that play back in your stereo), so if you really need something else, you can always burn and re-rip. I was even able to back up my WMA licenses and restore them on another PC (using the license backup/restore feature in the windows media player).
I don't know... the top floor of my building (i.e. management) has been playing Snood every day for months! Granted, they probably only play about 40 hours a week.
FYI, according to other stories, a sizeable chunk of music (60,000+ tracks from the majors, probably 2x this from the indies) is available on LiquidAudio (for Wintel) today for $.99/track or $9.99/album. They've got both WMA and AAC. The $9.99/album is nice when you want an 18 track album and don't want to pay ~$18. Also, I think all of the $.99/$9.99 stuff is CD burnable.
Unfortunately not all the majors are doing the same thing. UMG seems to be leading the pack in terms of consumer friendly pricing and burning. I've purchased a handful of tracks from Liquid and the quality is definitely better than Kazaa.
Photographs are protected by copyright.
Typically the labels only have limited rights themselves with respect to the cover art. Specifically, they usually only have the right to use the cover art when selling or promoting the album. Third parties, having no contract or license from the photographer, will not have any right to exploit the artwork. In fact, if someone uses the artwork in a way that generates money (including ad revenue), they should not be surprised if the photographer (or other album art copyright holder) goes after them and their earnings. Granted, I haven't heard of this happening before...
Dude, this is slashdot. No one actually reads the RIAA related stuff, they just whip out the conspiracy theories, flames, "here's how we can keep stealing music without being tracked" and "p2p is not stealing" posts.
The time of cognitive dissonance is long gone. This topic has no room for logic - slashdot has moved onto emotion and rationalization.
Mod the parent up. Everyone should read the opinions before commenting. I found the majority opinion to be more rational than I expected. One eye-opening excerpt:
"Concerning petitioners assertion that Congress might evade the limitation on its authority by stringing together an unlimited number of limited Times, the Court of Appeals stated that such legislative misbehavior clearly is not the situation before us. 239 F. 3d, at 379. Rather, the court noted, the CTEA matches the baseline term for United States copyrights [with] the terms of copyrights granted by the European Union.[I]n an era of multinational publishers and instantaneous electronic transmission, the court said, harmonization in this regard has obvious practical benefits and is a necessary and proper measure to meet contemporary circumstances rather than a step on the way to making copyrights per-petual."
I think it's pretty obvious: they're running a business and want a way to generate additional revenue. They're probably giddy with the idea of selling things that don't actually exist (e.g. the Levi's jacket for your avatar) for real money.
The UMG albums are $9.99, including the Eminem Show. You can go to the store to see for yourself (scroll down the page). I know because I bought one.
And like most people care about compressed formats. Kazaa and gnutella usage stomp all over that argument.
I tried this service too. It worked pretty well for me, though I had to click the download link twice to get the file. Some comments:
1) they're selling the files in 2 formats, the Liquid format and Microsoft's WMA format. I tried both and the Liquid format only works in the Liquid player, while the WMA files will play in Winamp, MusicMatch, WindowsMedia Player, and others. WMA seems to be the default except in a few cases, so check your format before you buy (and you probably want WMA).
2) surprisingly, there are no burn count limits! When you download, the site tells you what the content usage rules are, and you get unlimited burns!!! Sure enough, I made a few burns of the stuff I downloaded and when I checked the properties, there is no burn counter (you can check the license properties on XP in the WMP).
3) portable device support is limited, but they've covered the major players. Again, this varies by format, but for WMA files you can use your Rio X00 or Creative Labs Nomad. I've got a Rio800 and it worked fine. Another surprise - no transfer limits!
4) I was worried about the audio quality, but the files sound great vs your typical kazaa download.
5) I found the different track prices confusing, but eventually I realized that not all of the content in the liquid store is UMG's.
So I found the whole thing to be remakably easy to use (I didn't have any of the download or burn problems mentioned in the original post) and I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of burn or transfer counts. The files do use DRM, but they've got relatively loose rules. My primary complaint is that the selection is still not fantastic. A bunch of things I searched for were not up. Anyway, it's a good start and I hope that the other music companies follow UMG's lead.
I laugh every time I see this because it reminds me of a post on some past digital music topic, which I will do injustice to by badly summarizing as:
/2].'
"No matter what gets released by the majors, the slashdot crowd will always complain. To submit your own complaint, just fill out this handy template:
'I would buy this if only it were in [insert a competing format here] and [current bitrate *2]. Also, I need the price to be [current price
So far, it's true, too!
Come on people! Do you think the movie studios are stupid enough to leak their own material on purpose? What do you think would happen to their already amazingly poor credibility in Washington when the Wall St. Journal ran the expose? This only makes sense if you think that they are not working the political angle and anyone who believes that needs to spend a buck at the clue machine.
Another thing you are all forgetting: this leak pretty much guarantees that the number of DVD sales in Asia will be cut by 90% because the movie will be out on VCD... TOMORROW!! Somehow, I think the MPAA cares about that.
If you want to help us fight the copyright battle, let's try to avoid making up weak conspiracy theories.
Anyone who thinks the music companies have outlived their usefulness does not understand one of their primary roles. Granted, their distribution services may become obsolete, but that is not the only thing they do.
One of the critical functions of the majors is to provide "venture capital" for musicians. To make it big, most artists still need a good amount of money to hire big name producers, have videos made, get physical media (CDs) made and widely distributed, get main stream marketing, etc., etc. Of course, there are exceptions, but this is the rule.
The majors invest money in artists and they make money off the back-end from CD sales just like VCs invest in start-ups and make money from stock sales. Both groups use the "portfolio approach" since one big success can pay for a number of less popular investments. Both groups expect big return on investment and, not surprisingly, both groups are disliked.
Regardless of how popular the majors are (or are not), artists will always want up-front investment so they can afford the services of top tier music professionals and get mass market advertising. The current majors may not survive, but I don't see this fundamental need for initial investment going away so there will always be music companies to fill this role.
This paper is just fear-mongering since it requires you to make the leap that DRM will be embedded into everything, which makes no sense at all. You can easily reproduce this arguement for nearly any technology, since almost nothing will be appropriate everywhere.
I think that papers like this do not help our effort. Let's attack the real problems we face today, rather than making up imaginary ones.
Rings have custom tones, and the sound is that multichannel stuff that sounds really silly thats all the rage with the kids these days.
;-)
Umm... does it come with all 5 speakers and the subwoofer?
My company is involved in a standards project and we're torn between requiring self certification or testing by third parties. I'm curious to hear from someone who has gone through something like the FIPS process - is there financial liability on the part of the third party certifying authorities? That would certainly make the them more careful.
I took a look at the on-line screen shot, but it only looks like 72 DPI on my monitor...
I haven't tried DDR myself, but I did visit a friend who had Samba De Amigo, in which you gain points by shaking a pair of maracas! It's probably just a matter of time before someone combines the two to produce the ultimate video game workout!
CDs, movies, and software all have retail values over $1000 when you consider their total retail value, which I think is the intent of the Net act.
Actually, this is not correct. Winamp, MusicMatch, and many other WMA compatible players can, in fact, play encrypted WMA files. I know this because I've downloaded a promo release or two off of various artist web sites. These promos are often DRM protected WMA files. I use Winamp pretty much exclusively and have never had a problem.
It's called a Sip & Puff switch. There are a bunch of different kinds (like this) and they're not that expensive. Do a google search to find some vendors. The companies that sell this kind of product also have other items that may be of interest, such as tongue switches or P switches that detect very small muscle movements.
Do you think there is value in the approach used by Douglas Lenat and the CYC team, and do you think that it might yield more interesting results when combined with the philosophy behind AIML?
I personally agree with this ruling. I have yet to meet someone who can conclusively prove that there is -- or isn't -- a god. While I was happy to just ignore the "under god" part, I did find it irritating and would happy to see it go. It certainly does make a religious statement that atheists and agnostics may disagree with.
I guess this means tinfoil hats will stop being an effective means of preventing your brain from getting cooked...