I much prefer bootlegs to the polished product of a studio album and it'd be great if more indie bands would releas on their website (or via Further or eTree) good recordings of their concerts.
This is something bands could do for free or charge a nominal fee for access to MP3s for.
While it may feel like you're giving away the product for free, I'd be much more inclined to checking out a gig passing through town if I had already heard sample shows and knew it'd be worth my while attending.
On the weekend I went to a friend's place who synched my iPod up with his MP3 collection (2.5 gigs) and I came home to discover XPlay wouldn't let me copy it on to my harddrive. Of course it took about thirty seconds to realize that while Windows Explorer doesn't let you copy, typing 'cmd'/'command' to get to a command line allows easy access to the hidden folder.
What's turboing you may ask? Turbing is, the actions of a customer who goes around the normal technical support process by contacting a senior person in the chain of command.
I find that for CS assignments where I'm supposed to work in a group I just end up wanting to do the entire assignment myself and not depend on anyone else but for individual assignments I often find myself talking to friends to find ways to reduce the overall assignment time. Kind of weird, but that's how I am.
Though, overall I find that my school is very afraid of 'excessive collaboration' but the only reason that there may be excessive collaboration is because the professors and instructors are out of touch with the students and don't actually understand how difficult the assigments may be.
Just this morning our prof tried to clarify our latest assignment and failed miserably. He then concluded that he thought that it was an easy assignment when I bet you that only 1% of the class would agree with him. So of course there will be excessive collaboration because obviously no one wants to fail.
Can anyone recommend a good home wireless access point? We're using a Linksys router and a Linksys hub to handle our current needs but we'd like to add a wireless access point to the mix for our collection of laptops.
I think it's absurd that the movie industries believes they'll be losing revenue by allowing the sharing orgy to continue.
Because really, would you prefer to watch your movie in 640x480 after spending all evening first finding then downloading or would you prefer to shell out a couple bucks to see it on the big screen?
Even if you do watch it first on your computer, if the movie is good you're still going to either go see it or buy the DVD because you can't yet replace that experience.
It's great to see voluntary payments/donations really taking off and being adopted by both users and organizations.
Thanks especially to all who supported the Offshore Napster Server Fund. There's been an out pouring of not only money but hardware, services, and support. I hope the same happens for Freenet.
We're a completely legitimate company. One of the 'features' of what we do is that the person receiving the money doesn't need to sign themselves up. So if someone wants to send money to someone who hasn't asked for it they can. One example is when Slashdotter's kicked in and sent money to Linus Torvalds via Fairtunes for the new kernel.
Besides, any money that you send me can and will be confiscated by scientology.
If you're interested in helping this guy out with his legal costs you can send him money via his Fairtunes page. We'll ensure the money gets there and helps him out.
Disgruntled over the latest Napster developments? If so help the Offshore OpenNap Fund to setup an OpenNap server offshore beyond the reach of the RIAA
Two (beta) alternatives to Napster are Snarfzilla and Espra. Both are front ends for Freenet which facilitate the sharing of music in an annonymous environment and at the same time allow fans to voluntarily compensate the artist via Fairtunes.
Let's start a OpenNap co-operative: People can buy in for $n to finance the deployment and maintenance of an off-shore group of napster servers. Some people are optimistic about decentralized p2p systems, but I think that at least in the short term after a Napster-shutdown order, OpenNap will be the way to go. And why shouldn't these servers be owned by their users, hosted in a country with more rational laws?
Recommended contribution to the Offshore OpenNap Fund is $10/year. In the event not enough funds are raised to support an offshore OpenNap server for a year all funds will be returned to the contributors.
I'm left asking what about the artist?? This sounds like a good deal for the record labels but nowhere do I see anything about the artist.
In fact I think the artist will be worse off under an all you can eat plan. The pie is just going to end up being more thinly sliced leaving artists with the skinniest one.
Record labels have historically screwed the artists and this isn't going to change that.
Matt.
If you believe in compensating the artist use Fairtunes.
This is something bands could do for free or charge a nominal fee for access to MP3s for.
While it may feel like you're giving away the product for free, I'd be much more inclined to checking out a gig passing through town if I had already heard sample shows and knew it'd be worth my while attending.
Matt
EM
Only 60,000 of us would have to pitch in $5 to make our very own pro-digital consumer senator a reality.
Matt
Which on my iPod is:
E:\XPlay music.{918FC956-493B-45AD-8CC2-BCE23707412C}\Musi
Matt
What's turboing you may ask? Turbing is, the actions of a customer who goes around the normal technical support process by contacting a senior person in the chain of command.
I'd recommend you check out The Art of Turboing.
Matt
Though, overall I find that my school is very afraid of 'excessive collaboration' but the only reason that there may be excessive collaboration is because the professors and instructors are out of touch with the students and don't actually understand how difficult the assigments may be.
Just this morning our prof tried to clarify our latest assignment and failed miserably. He then concluded that he thought that it was an easy assignment when I bet you that only 1% of the class would agree with him. So of course there will be excessive collaboration because obviously no one wants to fail.
Matt
Matt
It's pretty old too.. But still intriguing :).
Matt
Matt
Not formally. There was a Webnoize article entitled ' OpenNap Server Operators Challenge Canadian Copyright Law ' (paid subscription required) where they interview Brian Robertson of CRIA.
My favorite quote of his in the article is:
Of course I challenge anyone to find his reference to Canadian law in their letter to us.
Matt
Because really, would you prefer to watch your movie in 640x480 after spending all evening first finding then downloading or would you prefer to shell out a couple bucks to see it on the big screen?
Even if you do watch it first on your computer, if the movie is good you're still going to either go see it or buy the DVD because you can't yet replace that experience.
Of course it's only a matter of time..
Matt
Recently the Canadian Recording Industry Association sent our ISP this ceases & desist letter. Fortunately our ISP called us up and told us that they wouldn't be shutting us down unless they received a court order. We then fired back this response to CRIA pointing out the absurdities of their letter to our ISP.
A good source of info on copyright in Canada is Michael Geist's website. He actually wrote an article entitled Napster north of the 49th parallel outlining the current copyright situation faced by file shares up here.
Matt.
Just check out their beta image searching technology with the search term 'slashdot'.
Matt
Feel free to add your favorite kernel hacker and we'll be sure to get the money to them.
Matt.
Pirates are the end users who use the programs and infrastructure to do things that are antiquated laws have deemed to be 'illegal'.
Should the RIAA be suing the creators of FTP or IRC because they can be used to share copyright material?
Matt
Thanks especially to all who supported the Offshore Napster Server Fund. There's been an out pouring of not only money but hardware, services, and support. I hope the same happens for Freenet.
Matt
Matt.
Best of luck.
Besides, any money that you send me can and will be confiscated by scientology.
Why is that?
Matt.
Matt
offshoremp3s.com.
Matt
Matt
Matt
Recommended contribution to the Offshore OpenNap Fund is $10/year. In the event not enough funds are raised to support an offshore OpenNap server for a year all funds will be returned to the contributors.
Matt.
In fact I think the artist will be worse off under an all you can eat plan. The pie is just going to end up being more thinly sliced leaving artists with the skinniest one.
Record labels have historically screwed the artists and this isn't going to change that.
Matt.
If you believe in compensating the artist use Fairtunes.
Music Freedom outlined the top earners for the year:
But we do need to remember that these artists only make up 0.1% of all the artists out there.
Matt