i assert that the licensing model is NOT appropriate, i suppose i should have been more clear on that in my original post. it makes no sense in general that if something, say an album that takes a few days for a recording group to create (and really, they can bust em out that fast), has work put into it one time, it seems logical that the producers/artists should receive appropriate payment one time. if you're paying for cds, which cost something to produce each one, then every single one that is purchased should be paid for. the problem is, things that are produced once and distributed without an individual cost to the creator are being sold as thought they do. that's wrong. so where will this lump sum that the artists/record labels should receive come from, you ask? that's obviously up for debate. but we cannot ignore that this technology is present, the laws and workings of this system must adapt to fit the developments in technology that so deeply affect it.
this is all true, but what about emusic.com? they sell mp3s as you propose record companies should do, and for a lower price than that of a cd. yet i know no one who is an emusic patron. perhaps the price is still too high even there (more like $7 for a CD rather than $15 or more i believe and you can get individual singles just like on napster for cheaper) but the fact remains: why would anyone choose to pay for something that is attainable with the same ammount of effort for free?
obviously information doesn't want anything, it's inanimate. and obviously people want information and other products and such. and people would almost always rather pay nothing than waste their money. we live in a capitalist state, and people prefer themselves over everyone else. they should. i do. the problem lies in the fact that our notion of intellectual property is invalid because of the evolution of technology. i'm not the first to say this, but paying for something that isn't a specific service or tangible product is difficult to wrestle with. why -should- you pay for something (or why should lots of people pay for something) when the producer only produces it once? the reason you pay for a tangible product is because -you- get that product (and you want to have it/use it). if a specific item required nothing to create, isn't its inherent value zero? based on the idea that something is worth how much labor was put into it, marx would agree with me on this one...
although your calculations and reasoning make sense, experience does not support those conclusions. for a standard internet connection such as cable or dsl you still need to go through some sattelites to reach servers located in a different continent. why then is my ping to servers in italy or holland or wherever else (i live in california) only around 200?
as for weather problems, as far as i know DSS and other TV sattelite users have no issues when storms come in because the signals penetrate the clouds, etc. the latency must be an issue however because the signal will have to bounce off multiple sattelites in each direction in many cases in order to receive data. perhaps these services will be competitive with cable/dsl (i've heard predictions of sattelite connections capable of vastly greater speeds than cable/dsl on the order of 40-100mbps available to home users within a year or so) but i'm dubious. i'm also considerably biased against this technology because my high school has had a sattelite internet connection for nearly 4 years now and it is terrible. they just installed a brand new enormous sattelite and it sucks even worse than before! the problem is mostly the fact that it's a 56k uplink but i still can't trust this stuff yet. the computers hooked up to the sattelite are PCs running NT (which we've replaced with linux in many cases) but i've found myself being forced to use the dammed iMacs in the other lab because they're on a 6 megabit DSL line! ugh MSN is going to have to do a whole lot to convince me that this is good technology. and i'd never trust anything from AOL.
with all this business surrounding this issue and the DMCA and seemingly inventing new laws and crimes where in fact the existing laws have become inappropriate, it should be a crime to be an ignoramous. i mean seriously, since when can people make accusations and worse yet laws on a subject that they obviously don't understand? where are the checks and balances? don't they have experts to give them advice or do they not care?
A friend of mine was one of the 335,000 napster users that were kicked off recently. The funny thing was, he didn't have any metallica mp3s that were copyrighted. He was sharing a live recording of enter sandman and some live performance of the charlie brown theme. Obviously if he was booted for this, metallica should look at how careful they are being in their zealous persecution of napster users. And when your static IP gets banned for doing nothing wrong, you often get a bit angry. PS: He did get back on napster after about 2 days despite having a static IP because its REALLY EASY. So a few words to metallica: The internet community is ALWAYS smarter than and at least three steps ahead of you and your lawyers. I advise changing your approach on the matter, not trying to control the actions of millions who care a whole lot more about their freedom than your music. Remember the california grape boycott? Perhaps a metallica boycott...
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i assert that the licensing model is NOT appropriate, i suppose i should have been more clear on that in my original post. it makes no sense in general that if something, say an album that takes a few days for a recording group to create (and really, they can bust em out that fast), has work put into it one time, it seems logical that the producers/artists should receive appropriate payment one time. if you're paying for cds, which cost something to produce each one, then every single one that is purchased should be paid for. the problem is, things that are produced once and distributed without an individual cost to the creator are being sold as thought they do. that's wrong. so where will this lump sum that the artists/record labels should receive come from, you ask? that's obviously up for debate. but we cannot ignore that this technology is present, the laws and workings of this system must adapt to fit the developments in technology that so deeply affect it.
this is all true, but what about emusic.com? they sell mp3s as you propose record companies should do, and for a lower price than that of a cd. yet i know no one who is an emusic patron. perhaps the price is still too high even there (more like $7 for a CD rather than $15 or more i believe and you can get individual singles just like on napster for cheaper) but the fact remains: why would anyone choose to pay for something that is attainable with the same ammount of effort for free?
obviously information doesn't want anything, it's inanimate. and obviously people want information and other products and such. and people would almost always rather pay nothing than waste their money. we live in a capitalist state, and people prefer themselves over everyone else. they should. i do. the problem lies in the fact that our notion of intellectual property is invalid because of the evolution of technology. i'm not the first to say this, but paying for something that isn't a specific service or tangible product is difficult to wrestle with. why -should- you pay for something (or why should lots of people pay for something) when the producer only produces it once? the reason you pay for a tangible product is because -you- get that product (and you want to have it/use it). if a specific item required nothing to create, isn't its inherent value zero? based on the idea that something is worth how much labor was put into it, marx would agree with me on this one...
although your calculations and reasoning make sense, experience does not support those conclusions. for a standard internet connection such as cable or dsl you still need to go through some sattelites to reach servers located in a different continent. why then is my ping to servers in italy or holland or wherever else (i live in california) only around 200?
as for weather problems, as far as i know DSS and other TV sattelite users have no issues when storms come in because the signals penetrate the clouds, etc. the latency must be an issue however because the signal will have to bounce off multiple sattelites in each direction in many cases in order to receive data. perhaps these services will be competitive with cable/dsl (i've heard predictions of sattelite connections capable of vastly greater speeds than cable/dsl on the order of 40-100mbps available to home users within a year or so) but i'm dubious. i'm also considerably biased against this technology because my high school has had a sattelite internet connection for nearly 4 years now and it is terrible. they just installed a brand new enormous sattelite and it sucks even worse than before! the problem is mostly the fact that it's a 56k uplink but i still can't trust this stuff yet. the computers hooked up to the sattelite are PCs running NT (which we've replaced with linux in many cases) but i've found myself being forced to use the dammed iMacs in the other lab because they're on a 6 megabit DSL line! ugh MSN is going to have to do a whole lot to convince me that this is good technology. and i'd never trust anything from AOL.
with all this business surrounding this issue and the DMCA and seemingly inventing new laws and crimes where in fact the existing laws have become inappropriate, it should be a crime to be an ignoramous. i mean seriously, since when can people make accusations and worse yet laws on a subject that they obviously don't understand? where are the checks and balances? don't they have experts to give them advice or do they not care?
A friend of mine was one of the 335,000 napster users that were kicked off recently. The funny thing was, he didn't have any metallica mp3s that were copyrighted. He was sharing a live recording of enter sandman and some live performance of the charlie brown theme. Obviously if he was booted for this, metallica should look at how careful they are being in their zealous persecution of napster users. And when your static IP gets banned for doing nothing wrong, you often get a bit angry. PS: He did get back on napster after about 2 days despite having a static IP because its REALLY EASY. So a few words to metallica: The internet community is ALWAYS smarter than and at least three steps ahead of you and your lawyers. I advise changing your approach on the matter, not trying to control the actions of millions who care a whole lot more about their freedom than your music. Remember the california grape boycott? Perhaps a metallica boycott...