Personally I'd rather have something happen rather than watching a robot drive into a wall repeatedly or start attacking a box for no good reason. AI just isn't up to the level where the average joe with a bit of technical knowledge can build a fighting robot which will actualy do anything of value.
Could it be done? Sure, but your going to need a much bigger budget to do it.
FTFA: "A song by a new band called the Gossip is playing, and he is concentrating."
Guess what? Gossip has been around since 1999, that isn't exactly new. Somehow people have gotten an attitude that good music will find them and don't bother trying to find it themselves, so when they turn on their radio and nothing but crap comes out they start blaming the music industry for not making anything good anymore. If you think all music sucks today its your own damn fault for limiting your definition of music to crap played on the radio, go do some leg work and see what else is out there.
I spend more than I probably should on music, but I still pay for one of those subscription services. Why? To audition new music. Lots of times I'll hear of something new, and listen to the album (lots of times a 30 second sample just doesn't cut it) on the subscription service to decide whether its worthwhile to buy the album. Other than that, its fun to go through stuff I already own and randomly follow the recommendation links they provide to see if I stumble on something good.
Now, I certainly wouldn't want to use the subscription service as my only source of music... primarily due to the limited selection, mediocre encoding quality and limitations of where I can listen. However, I'd say its worth its worth the $10 to be able to audition full albums of most stuff without trying to track them down on some p2p system.
Keep and eye on WFMU through all of this. They have apparently been collecting royalty waivers from many smaller labels and recently obtained a grant as part of the New York payola settlement to setup a "free music archive" of public domain and creative commons licensed songs.
Its entirely possible that they are pretty close in price. From the quick Google search I did, the CD pressing folks seemed to require larger minimum orders than the vinyl pressing folks though. Granted that was based on just a couple sites.
I will say that I have very rarely run into bands which release full length albums only on vinyl. It does seem very common with singles though. It could have something to do with the CD-single being pretty much a dead format, who knows.
Its hard to double blind ABX test convenience:) Realistically it comes down to personal preference. You can analyze the audio playback for noise characteristics and all that good crap all you want, but ultimately it comes down to the listeners preference.
Personally I have a old Sansui turntable that I picked up from Goodwill about 6 years back that feeds a mediocre Proton receiver. As to whether CD or vinyl sounds better? I have no clue myself since I don't feel like buying the same album twice to find out. All my vinyl purchases are stuff that is only released on vinyl (e.g. 7" singles) or albums that are cheaper in vinyl form than CD form. It is nice to be able to easily rip the CDs and skip tracks at will, but honestly I don't use the ripped MP3s much anyways and prefer listening to complete albums to individual tracks, so the added convenience of CD isn't that important of a factor to me.
The prevailing thought seems to be a high quality vinyl setup will beat a CD setup due to the inherent differences between the recordings. However I don't think anyone will try to argue that CDs aren't more convenient than vinyl.
Underground bands have pretty much always released stuff on vinyl... mostly 7" singles. It just so happens that some of those bands actually wound up with a large fan base so lots of their fans ended up buying their old vinyl releases to complete the collection.
I'm not sure why vinyl is popular with underground bands, but I'd have to guess its an economic decision more than a "hipness" decision.
If a computer without an OS has functionality then there should be no problem with selling a computer with an OS... unless there is some French law against selling a product with additional functionality.
5.1, 7.1, 196.1, what have are all well and good with movies where you are meant to be immersed in the scene (i.e. something happening behind the scene is delivered to the rear speakers, etc). With music that is rarely if ever the case. You don't sit in the middle of an orchestra or band, so why bother trying to recreate such an experience with an array of speakers placed all over the room? What does it add to the listening experience? Perhaps more importantly, what extra processing is done to the original recording to achieve the effect?
Well my previous point was based on number of users so I think it still remains valid. P2P downloads are interesting in that (at least in my experience), a lot of stuff gets downloaded and never listened to. Its downloaded simply because it is there and done on more of a collectors mentality than done for purposes of obtaining music to listen to. How that factors in to anything I don't know, but its an interesting point.
There is also the point of legalities to bring into this. There are users who won't download from p2p sites strictly on principle, likewise there are users who won't download from pay sites strictly on principal. It is a very complicated situation where you can't always assume that p2p and sites like iTunes are even competing in the same market.
I'm curious as to where you got those figures. This shows p2p usage of around 10% and pay site usage of around 4% as of March 2005. I would guess the usage of pay sites (iTunes, etc) has increased since then. Hardly a 40-1 ratio. Hell, its not even a 4-1 ratio.
You're making the false assumption that the consumers are unable to copy the music themselves. They are and so the record companies (or any digital information provider) are not in control of the supply. The songs are distributed, the supply increases.
This is where it gets complicated. Supply does increase, but the price remains the same meaning the effect is passed onto the demand. Also, not all consumers will go for pirated copies of the songs, so the demand remains for the $0.99 iTunes version even though there is a free alternative.
There are alot of factors involved that affect the demand of the songs, but regardless the price is fixed at $0.99 and the supply from the record companies set to match. DRM is designed to help increase the demand for the $0.99 version by killing the supply of the free version and as to how effective it will be only time will tell. For the moment the vast majority of consumers don't seem to mind it and a large number use iTunes rather than the free alternatives so "doomed to failure" might be an optimistic view on your part.
Technically the "I only pirate to decide whether to buy univeral music" crowd has no excuse any more. Even then, that excuse was mostly killed with Napster changing to a free service.
Whether you believe it's right or wrong is irrelevant, the economic reality is that as the supply of something increases, the value of it drops and digital information being trivially copyable has an infinite supply.
We've all studyed the basic supply/demand graphs in high school economics and as far as those go you are correct: as supply increases, price drops assuming a fixed demand. However I'm not so sure that you can assume an infinite supply for digital music. As much as I hate using analogies, here goes:
Say someone invents a machine that spits out a new gem stone which is better than a diamond in every way. The inventor realizes that he can make billions by producing these new gem stones and selling them to jewelry stores. However, his machine is capable of creating so many gem stones that he realizes that he can't possibly sell the stones faster than the machine makes them. So he decides to set the price of the gem stones at $5000/stone and manufactures them as the orders come in.
The inventor is basically using a set price and using the demand at that price to set the supply rather than letting the supply and demand set the price. This is the same thing that iTunes, etc. do. They set a price of $0.99 per song and use the demand at that price to determine how much supply to create. This way the problem of a potentially infinite supply does not drop the price to zero as you suggest.
While there are other factors involved that I'm sure someone with an ecomonics degree could factor in, you have to remember that supply/demand deals with three things: supply, demand and price. While you can set the price based on your supply and demand, you can just as easily set your supply based on price and demand.
Ahh Terre T, great stuff. Cherry Blossom Clinic is actually the third show I ever heard on WFMU, started out with Music to Spazz by and Teenage Wasteland and now I end up listening to WFMU almost constantly at work. Sadly stations like WFMU are few and far between, but are an excellent source for new music. I don't know how many times I've heard a song on there and had the CD ordered before the next song finished. And even sadder is the fact that commercial radio doesn't come even remotely close to comparing.
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Personally I'd rather have something happen rather than watching a robot drive into a wall repeatedly or start attacking a box for no good reason. AI just isn't up to the level where the average joe with a bit of technical knowledge can build a fighting robot which will actualy do anything of value.
Could it be done? Sure, but your going to need a much bigger budget to do it.
Have you listened to the rest of the CD or is that one track the only one you've heard played on the radio?
FTFA: "A song by a new band called the Gossip is playing, and he is concentrating."
Guess what? Gossip has been around since 1999, that isn't exactly new. Somehow people have gotten an attitude that good music will find them and don't bother trying to find it themselves, so when they turn on their radio and nothing but crap comes out they start blaming the music industry for not making anything good anymore. If you think all music sucks today its your own damn fault for limiting your definition of music to crap played on the radio, go do some leg work and see what else is out there.
I'd take something with a good chat function so I can get my ass off the island... failing that probably a nice pinball machine.
I spend more than I probably should on music, but I still pay for one of those subscription services. Why? To audition new music. Lots of times I'll hear of something new, and listen to the album (lots of times a 30 second sample just doesn't cut it) on the subscription service to decide whether its worthwhile to buy the album. Other than that, its fun to go through stuff I already own and randomly follow the recommendation links they provide to see if I stumble on something good.
Now, I certainly wouldn't want to use the subscription service as my only source of music... primarily due to the limited selection, mediocre encoding quality and limitations of where I can listen. However, I'd say its worth its worth the $10 to be able to audition full albums of most stuff without trying to track them down on some p2p system.
Keep and eye on WFMU through all of this. They have apparently been collecting royalty waivers from many smaller labels and recently obtained a grant as part of the New York payola settlement to setup a "free music archive" of public domain and creative commons licensed songs.
Its entirely possible that they are pretty close in price. From the quick Google search I did, the CD pressing folks seemed to require larger minimum orders than the vinyl pressing folks though. Granted that was based on just a couple sites.
I will say that I have very rarely run into bands which release full length albums only on vinyl. It does seem very common with singles though. It could have something to do with the CD-single being pretty much a dead format, who knows.
Its hard to double blind ABX test convenience :) Realistically it comes down to personal preference. You can analyze the audio playback for noise characteristics and all that good crap all you want, but ultimately it comes down to the listeners preference.
Personally I have a old Sansui turntable that I picked up from Goodwill about 6 years back that feeds a mediocre Proton receiver. As to whether CD or vinyl sounds better? I have no clue myself since I don't feel like buying the same album twice to find out. All my vinyl purchases are stuff that is only released on vinyl (e.g. 7" singles) or albums that are cheaper in vinyl form than CD form. It is nice to be able to easily rip the CDs and skip tracks at will, but honestly I don't use the ripped MP3s much anyways and prefer listening to complete albums to individual tracks, so the added convenience of CD isn't that important of a factor to me.
Amusingly enough they did it for Vinyl as well: http://www.elpj.com/main.html. Sure as hell aint cheap though.
If you have an analog tape master, it will have a finite life no matter how much you pamper it.
The same can be said about CDs.
The prevailing thought seems to be a high quality vinyl setup will beat a CD setup due to the inherent differences between the recordings. However I don't think anyone will try to argue that CDs aren't more convenient than vinyl.
Underground bands have pretty much always released stuff on vinyl... mostly 7" singles. It just so happens that some of those bands actually wound up with a large fan base so lots of their fans ended up buying their old vinyl releases to complete the collection.
I'm not sure why vinyl is popular with underground bands, but I'd have to guess its an economic decision more than a "hipness" decision.
Don't forget government grants and commercials or as NPR prefers to call them, "underwriting announcements".
Makes you wonder why some morons decided to do it in the first place when they tried to redefine kilo, mega, giga, etc... to be 2^x instead of 10^y.
Two frickin' lasers walked into a bar... the third one ducked.
If a computer without an OS has functionality then there should be no problem with selling a computer with an OS... unless there is some French law against selling a product with additional functionality.
NPR's "underwritting announcements" are basically commercials anyways.
5.1, 7.1, 196.1, what have are all well and good with movies where you are meant to be immersed in the scene (i.e. something happening behind the scene is delivered to the rear speakers, etc). With music that is rarely if ever the case. You don't sit in the middle of an orchestra or band, so why bother trying to recreate such an experience with an array of speakers placed all over the room? What does it add to the listening experience? Perhaps more importantly, what extra processing is done to the original recording to achieve the effect?
Is it necessary?
Well my previous point was based on number of users so I think it still remains valid. P2P downloads are interesting in that (at least in my experience), a lot of stuff gets downloaded and never listened to. Its downloaded simply because it is there and done on more of a collectors mentality than done for purposes of obtaining music to listen to. How that factors in to anything I don't know, but its an interesting point.
There is also the point of legalities to bring into this. There are users who won't download from p2p sites strictly on principle, likewise there are users who won't download from pay sites strictly on principal. It is a very complicated situation where you can't always assume that p2p and sites like iTunes are even competing in the same market.
I'm curious as to where you got those figures. This shows p2p usage of around 10% and pay site usage of around 4% as of March 2005. I would guess the usage of pay sites (iTunes, etc) has increased since then. Hardly a 40-1 ratio. Hell, its not even a 4-1 ratio.
You're making the false assumption that the consumers are unable to copy the music themselves. They are and so the record companies (or any digital information provider) are not in control of the supply. The songs are distributed, the supply increases.
This is where it gets complicated. Supply does increase, but the price remains the same meaning the effect is passed onto the demand. Also, not all consumers will go for pirated copies of the songs, so the demand remains for the $0.99 iTunes version even though there is a free alternative.
There are alot of factors involved that affect the demand of the songs, but regardless the price is fixed at $0.99 and the supply from the record companies set to match. DRM is designed to help increase the demand for the $0.99 version by killing the supply of the free version and as to how effective it will be only time will tell. For the moment the vast majority of consumers don't seem to mind it and a large number use iTunes rather than the free alternatives so "doomed to failure" might be an optimistic view on your part.
Technically the "I only pirate to decide whether to buy univeral music" crowd has no excuse any more. Even then, that excuse was mostly killed with Napster changing to a free service.
Whether you believe it's right or wrong is irrelevant, the economic reality is that as the supply of something increases, the value of it drops and digital information being trivially copyable has an infinite supply.
We've all studyed the basic supply/demand graphs in high school economics and as far as those go you are correct: as supply increases, price drops assuming a fixed demand. However I'm not so sure that you can assume an infinite supply for digital music. As much as I hate using analogies, here goes:
Say someone invents a machine that spits out a new gem stone which is better than a diamond in every way. The inventor realizes that he can make billions by producing these new gem stones and selling them to jewelry stores. However, his machine is capable of creating so many gem stones that he realizes that he can't possibly sell the stones faster than the machine makes them. So he decides to set the price of the gem stones at $5000/stone and manufactures them as the orders come in.
The inventor is basically using a set price and using the demand at that price to set the supply rather than letting the supply and demand set the price. This is the same thing that iTunes, etc. do. They set a price of $0.99 per song and use the demand at that price to determine how much supply to create. This way the problem of a potentially infinite supply does not drop the price to zero as you suggest.
While there are other factors involved that I'm sure someone with an ecomonics degree could factor in, you have to remember that supply/demand deals with three things: supply, demand and price. While you can set the price based on your supply and demand, you can just as easily set your supply based on price and demand.
Ahh Terre T, great stuff. Cherry Blossom Clinic is actually the third show I ever heard on WFMU, started out with Music to Spazz by and Teenage Wasteland and now I end up listening to WFMU almost constantly at work. Sadly stations like WFMU are few and far between, but are an excellent source for new music. I don't know how many times I've heard a song on there and had the CD ordered before the next song finished. And even sadder is the fact that commercial radio doesn't come even remotely close to comparing.