The NYTimes has become more of a shill for the RIAA and conservatives in the government. In the article they actually printed this as credible information:
A study in March by the General Accounting Office found that KaZaA would be effective for someone looking for child pornography. The agency searched for 12 terms associated with child pornography, such as "incest" and "underage." It did not actually download the files it found, but it determined that 42 percent of them had titles or descriptions associated with pornographic images of children.
They go on to present the opposing side of the issue, but it doesn't really refute the meme of massive amounts of child porn on the net:
The GAO study vastly overstates the likelihood that children searching for popular music will in fact find pornography, according to studies by Public Knowledge, an advocacy group on intellectual property issues.
By even lending any credence to a study that did not actually download the files the NYTimes is showing how easily they can be used.
A little clue here folks, these descriptions are what's commonly referred to as false advertising. 99% of that "42 percent" will not contain child porn. At most you'll get some badly dubbed European movie from the 80's where some 30 year old woman is wearing pony tails and trying to act coy. Those sorts of mile-long filenames with every sex search term you could think of are leftovers from files that have been passed around for years on services like Hotline where you either pay or upload other files in trade to download pirated porn or software.
These file names are just like the stupid search engine spamming where porn sites used to put as many porn words in their meta tags and white-on-white body text to get to the top of the results. Someone sharing on Hotline wanted to generate as much traffic as possible to their server. Then in order to download this forbidden fruit, you had to upload more warez or pr0n or pay them, thus increasing the size of the server owners collection and/or wallet.
Later in the article they (correctly) pick up on another reality of P2P porn: a lot of it is now just advertising for pay sites. Now let's see... do you think that the porn site operators name the files that they share in a way that clearly shows that you're going to download an ad? Well, no they also use the same sorts of filenames with every graphic description that you could imagine - which often doesn't have much to do with the actual contents.
If the RIAA members had half a brain, they'd stop pouring money into getting songs on the radio and MTV and just load up all the good singles and videos onto KaZaA. Then they'd all take a few clues from Apple and UMG and make it easier and cheaper to get the albums electronically or on CD. Oh, but wait, they've stopped making good albums.
Maybe this is a bad example, but I really can't comprehend the school of thought in journalism where you just report the statements of opposing sides of an issue with equal weight and little personal analysis. In this particular case it would be very dangerous for a reporter themselves to download potential child porn. If they actually found some they would be committing a serious crime.
The real problem here is that I read far to many articles by journalists who are generalists. They are taught that there is this universal approach to researching and writing stories and they can apply it to any subject - which is complete bullshit. Sure you can start learning from a general standpoint, but journalism should be about trying to present the facts as they are. That requires an understanding of the subject matter, which requires some expertise and experience.
Unless this particular article was completely watered down and edited to death, I get the impression that the reporter has never actually downloaded porn through a P2P service.
I am writing to you as a musician, a San Francisco voter/tax payer, a consumer, and the president/owner of a small company which produces a device which can deliver digital content. Your support of Fritz Hollings CBDTPA is yet another reason why I question who you are representing in Washington. You have consistently supported big business and reduced the rights of the individual, which is not what I thought the Democratic party or this country supposedly stand for.
Public libraries and schools would be severely hampered if this same insanity were applied to books. Copyright and other intellectual property laws were intended to foster creativity not stifle it. Instead, you and others like you in government are consistently reducing concepts such as fair use and extending the rights of global media conglomerates way beyond what the framers of our constitution intended.
Why does copyright law now last for 90 years for work for hire? The lobbying and power of the Disney corporation which wants to protect early Mickey Mouse from becoming public domain. Why will internet radio be reduced to the same level of boring pop pabulum as regular broadcast radio? The lobbying and power of the RIAA (and its 5 constituent companies that control 90% of the music) which will cause individuals running non-commercial stations out of their bedrooms to be "taxed" out of existence.
Does anyone realize the full insanity of the CBDTPA? Any electronic music keyboard, synthesizer, organ, etc. can be used to reproduce copyrighted works. Do you seriously propose that they all somehow check that someone is playing a copyrighted MIDI file? What about cell phones? There is a big business selling "ring tones" which are often based on licensed pop music. Do you propose to add more circuitry to cell phones to make sure that the ring tone is appropriately licensed and paid for? Would you expect pianos or tubas to have devices built into them to prevent non-licensed content from being played?
Do you realize why Musak (i.e. "elevator music") exists? It's because their lawyers in collusion with the RIAA strong arm small business owners such as restaurants into playing their brand of watered down garbage. Why? Because the RIAA wants to make sure that you don't play copyrighted material for the patrons without paying a tithe to the RIAA. You cannot legally play a radio or a CD in a coffee shop without paying royalties of thousands of dollars per yer. Even the "on hold" music when you call a company is subject to this same ridiculous reduction of the rights of the consumer. Doesn't this strike you as counterintuitive?
The worst part about all of this is that the way that the RIAA collects and distributes royalties, the vast majority of the money goes to the labels of the big pop stars. Even the pop artists are lucky if they see much of the money, and anything independent gets completely ignored. This is supposed to foster creativity???
While you may have been voted into office in my district and you may be a member of the Democratic party in name, you do not represent me - you have been bought by big business.
I really don't understand the moderation on this topic. A few people have pointed out the most important pieces of information about Magic, but none of it has been moderated up. I will attempt to reiterate...
1. Magic is not new (Magic == GMICS). I'm not sure if the technology has been improved at all, but this is the same basic idea that Gibson introduced as "GMICS" 2 YEARS ago.
2. Gibson did not develop this. Gibson bought and destroyed Opcode in order to get a venture of Opcode's called Zero Crossing. They are the ones that developed GMICS/Magic - under great duress. This whole mess has been the subject of court cases, and by all accounts, except Gibson's, they royally screwed the engineers at Opcode/Zero Crossing.
3. The rest of the industry is not going to accept this Gibson has very few friends in the MI (music instrument) business. They have even fewer after they destroyed Oberhiem and Opcode. Gibson has lots of money and market share, but they are not respected in the industry. Think Microsoft - only Henry Juszkiewicz (CEO) isn't anywhere near as smart as Bill Gates.
The MI industry is notoriously slow to upgrade technology. Yamaha has competing technology that they have been pushing for years, and it still hasn't gotten any traction. MIDI has barely been updated in the last 18 years.
Gibson may be a big (biggest?) player in the guitar market, but in the synth/recording market they are an unknown. If Yamaha could somehow convince Roland (hah) to accept mLAN, it could become a de facto standard. Or, even better, and open standard under the AES (Audio Engineering Society) and the MMA (MIDI Manufacturer's Association) might have a chance.
Slashdot Mirror
The NYTimes has become more of a shill for the RIAA and conservatives in the government. In the article they actually printed this as credible information:
They go on to present the opposing side of the issue, but it doesn't really refute the meme of massive amounts of child porn on the net:By even lending any credence to a study that did not actually download the files the NYTimes is showing how easily they can be used.
A little clue here folks, these descriptions are what's commonly referred to as false advertising. 99% of that "42 percent" will not contain child porn. At most you'll get some badly dubbed European movie from the 80's where some 30 year old woman is wearing pony tails and trying to act coy. Those sorts of mile-long filenames with every sex search term you could think of are leftovers from files that have been passed around for years on services like Hotline where you either pay or upload other files in trade to download pirated porn or software.
These file names are just like the stupid search engine spamming where porn sites used to put as many porn words in their meta tags and white-on-white body text to get to the top of the results. Someone sharing on Hotline wanted to generate as much traffic as possible to their server. Then in order to download this forbidden fruit, you had to upload more warez or pr0n or pay them, thus increasing the size of the server owners collection and/or wallet.
Later in the article they (correctly) pick up on another reality of P2P porn: a lot of it is now just advertising for pay sites. Now let's see... do you think that the porn site operators name the files that they share in a way that clearly shows that you're going to download an ad? Well, no they also use the same sorts of filenames with every graphic description that you could imagine - which often doesn't have much to do with the actual contents.
If the RIAA members had half a brain, they'd stop pouring money into getting songs on the radio and MTV and just load up all the good singles and videos onto KaZaA. Then they'd all take a few clues from Apple and UMG and make it easier and cheaper to get the albums electronically or on CD. Oh, but wait, they've stopped making good albums.
Maybe this is a bad example, but I really can't comprehend the school of thought in journalism where you just report the statements of opposing sides of an issue with equal weight and little personal analysis. In this particular case it would be very dangerous for a reporter themselves to download potential child porn. If they actually found some they would be committing a serious crime.
The real problem here is that I read far to many articles by journalists who are generalists. They are taught that there is this universal approach to researching and writing stories and they can apply it to any subject - which is complete bullshit. Sure you can start learning from a general standpoint, but journalism should be about trying to present the facts as they are. That requires an understanding of the subject matter, which requires some expertise and experience.
Unless this particular article was completely watered down and edited to death, I get the impression that the reporter has never actually downloaded porn through a P2P service.
I am writing to you as a musician, a San Francisco voter/tax payer, a consumer, and the president/owner of a small company which produces a device which can deliver digital content. Your support of Fritz Hollings CBDTPA is yet another reason why I question who you are representing in Washington. You have consistently supported big business and reduced the rights of the individual, which is not what I thought the Democratic party or this country supposedly stand for.
Public libraries and schools would be severely hampered if this same insanity were applied to books. Copyright and other intellectual property laws were intended to foster creativity not stifle it. Instead, you and others like you in government are consistently reducing concepts such as fair use and extending the rights of global media conglomerates way beyond what the framers of our constitution intended.
Why does copyright law now last for 90 years for work for hire? The lobbying and power of the Disney corporation which wants to protect early Mickey Mouse from becoming public domain. Why will internet radio be reduced to the same level of boring pop pabulum as regular broadcast radio? The lobbying and power of the RIAA (and its 5 constituent companies that control 90% of the music) which will cause individuals running non-commercial stations out of their bedrooms to be "taxed" out of existence.
Does anyone realize the full insanity of the CBDTPA? Any electronic music keyboard, synthesizer, organ, etc. can be used to reproduce copyrighted works. Do you seriously propose that they all somehow check that someone is playing a copyrighted MIDI file? What about cell phones? There is a big business selling "ring tones" which are often based on licensed pop music. Do you propose to add more circuitry to cell phones to make sure that the ring tone is appropriately licensed and paid for? Would you expect pianos or tubas to have devices built into them to prevent non-licensed content from being played?
Do you realize why Musak (i.e. "elevator music") exists? It's because their lawyers in collusion with the RIAA strong arm small business owners such as restaurants into playing their brand of watered down garbage. Why? Because the RIAA wants to make sure that you don't play copyrighted material for the patrons without paying a tithe to the RIAA. You cannot legally play a radio or a CD in a coffee shop without paying royalties of thousands of dollars per yer. Even the "on hold" music when you call a company is subject to this same ridiculous reduction of the rights of the consumer. Doesn't this strike you as counterintuitive?
The worst part about all of this is that the way that the RIAA collects and distributes royalties, the vast majority of the money goes to the labels of the big pop stars. Even the pop artists are lucky if they see much of the money, and anything independent gets completely ignored. This is supposed to foster creativity???
While you may have been voted into office in my district and you may be a member of the Democratic party in name, you do not represent me - you have been bought by big business.
Please prove me wrong
I really don't understand the moderation on this topic. A few people have pointed out the most important pieces of information about Magic, but none of it has been moderated up. I will attempt to reiterate...
1. Magic is not new (Magic == GMICS).
I'm not sure if the technology has been improved at all, but this is the same basic idea that Gibson introduced as "GMICS" 2 YEARS ago.
2. Gibson did not develop this.
Gibson bought and destroyed Opcode in order to get a venture of Opcode's called Zero Crossing. They are the ones that developed GMICS/Magic - under great duress. This whole mess has been the subject of court cases, and by all accounts, except Gibson's, they royally screwed the engineers at Opcode/Zero Crossing.
3. The rest of the industry is not going to accept this
Gibson has very few friends in the MI (music instrument) business. They have even fewer after they destroyed Oberhiem and Opcode. Gibson has lots of money and market share, but they are not respected in the industry. Think Microsoft - only Henry Juszkiewicz (CEO) isn't anywhere near as smart as Bill Gates.
The MI industry is notoriously slow to upgrade technology. Yamaha has competing technology that they have been pushing for years, and it still hasn't gotten any traction. MIDI has barely been updated in the last 18 years.
Gibson may be a big (biggest?) player in the guitar market, but in the synth/recording market they are an unknown. If Yamaha could somehow convince Roland (hah) to accept mLAN, it could become a de facto standard. Or, even better, and open standard under the AES (Audio Engineering Society) and the MMA (MIDI Manufacturer's Association) might have a chance.