The music industry didn't build popular music. It existed long before the recording industry. The recording industry came into being when people thought enough to capitalize on a process created by Thomas Edison. There were many MANY popular bands at and before that time that a great many people couldn't wait to have visit their town. The only thing the recording industry allowed was for those people to hear those bands before they got to town. Rock would exist, Jazz and the blues existing LONG before the recording industry, and Rap would have evolved, much as it did in its early days, on the street, and without the recording industry's help.
The recording industry only capitalizes on popular music, it doesn't create it. It takes the prettiest boys, grungiest rockers, and hottest teenage girls and turns them into eye candy for the masses to throw their money at. Real music, like it existed before the recording industry, still exists and thrives on many local scenes. The only difference is that now those groups have a promotion and distribution system that they won't have to sign their lives away to.
Real bands like Dr. Dre and Metallica? No, sorry, but they're hardly real bands. Real bands haven't really been sold by the recording industry since the 60s and early 70s. The handful of multi millionaires that the recording industry has created is nothing compared to the number of groups who have had pretty successful careers, but who have been essentially shunned by the recording industry because they weren't marketable to the MTV generation.
And yes, places like MP3.com have made some pretty successful bands. Not successful on the scale that you would associate with the recording industry in general, but there are a hell of a lot of local bands that I like, who I would have never known about had I not checked up on my local scene and downloaded their MPs from mp3.com. Success isn't necessarily measured by how many gold and platinum albums you've sold, and how many millions of dollars you made last year, for most bands, success if having a steady gig, and MP3 HAS absolutely assisted in that.
I think what's at the heart of this issue is not that music is being widely distributed by Napster, but is that the MP3 format and the widespread acceptance of MP3 has the potential of destroying the record industry.
Record executives hate to admit that they essentially rape their artists. And I'm not talking about the Backstreet Boys and N Sync, who are no-talents and deserve to be raped, but real artists who produce great music and see most of the revenue from that music fall directly into the pockets of those execs that treat them like slaves.
The future, in executive minds is very clouded because they know that it's quite possible that some of their best, and most abused artists will up and leave them, starting up very profitable distribution channels via MP3.
They have some choices. Either they pay the artists more money, which they'll never do, lose their artists, and everything they would have otherwise earned from them, or attack Napster in a feeble attempt to discredit and destroy MP3 in general. Guess which one they've chosen?
I'm not defending Napster here. Any form of copyrightable material should be legally protected from theft. If the author says "you must pay for this, or you are in violation of our copyright" then that statement should be respected and adhered to. But I don't believe that napster is in any way hurting the record industry. It costs about ten cents to manufacture a CD and only a little more than that to distribute it. Most of the cost of a CD goes directly into the bank accounts of record executives and is never seen by the artists. Casette tapes never did and MP3s never will even come close to offsetting the amount of profit that is being made in the industry.
A lot of artists are already making pretty good livings off of MP3 distribution and the record industry has no control over them. I bet that scares the shit out of them.
This is inaccurate. Adding XML to a Word Document, for example, would be of no value to an XML parser/validator. XML collectively IS the document, and isn't simply part of the document.
And while we're on the subject of documents, most people who deal with XML in the realm of data feeds, which is probably where you'll find the bulk of XML applications outside of the web, would probably argue with calling XML a document, because they're using it to represent records, which on their own do not constitute a document. Data does not equal document, and the W3c was very careful to word their definition of XML in that way.
From the very first paragraph at www.w3c.org/xml: "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web."
So... It's a 'format for structured data'. How is my saying "Data Representation Format" any different than that? I'll argue that it's not different at all, and that my only fault is not using "Format for Structured Data" instead of "Data Representation Format." from the very beginning.
So I guess your real argument is with the W3C. Also, issue 4 of "XML In 10 Points" states "XML is a family of technologies", and that is how I was presenting it.
Well, my apologies for being summarily vague about XML technology in general. I suppose I just underestimated the necessity to explain clearly what XML is. Next time, I'll be sure to post a disclaimer of some sort, describing what XML is and drawing clear lines between the various facets of the technology. In this way, I will be less easily a target for trolls who are quick to point out even unrecognizable inaccuracies in order to compensate for their lack of experience or status in life.
XML is not the end-all be-all of data representation formats, but it is certainly one of the most flexible formats for representing textual (or textually representatble) data. It will never replace binary standards unless a very good generalized binary compression and representation system for XML documents is developed and adopted by the XML community. My company is working on such a beast.
Regarding the Applications. It's true. They're not quite there yet, but they're coming. My company is putting together quite a decent one, and many other vendors are trying to do it right as well. The Windows support, unfortunately, will generally be there before the UNIX support, but UNIX support is not far off.
Regarding Microsoft and XML. Microsoft, though I hate to admit it, is one of the more influential catalysts for the development and standardization of XML specifications at the W3C. Their stance on XML, for the most part, is a driving stance, as opposed to what it has been in the past with other Internet technologies, being embrace and extend. Let's give them some credit in that sense then.
Slashdot Mirror
The music industry didn't build popular music. It existed long before the recording industry. The recording industry came into being when people thought enough to capitalize on a process created by Thomas Edison. There were many MANY popular bands at and before that time that a great many people couldn't wait to have visit their town. The only thing the recording industry allowed was for those people to hear those bands before they got to town. Rock would exist, Jazz and the blues existing LONG before the recording industry, and Rap would have evolved, much as it did in its early days, on the street, and without the recording industry's help.
The recording industry only capitalizes on popular music, it doesn't create it. It takes the prettiest boys, grungiest rockers, and hottest teenage girls and turns them into eye candy for the masses to throw their money at. Real music, like it existed before the recording industry, still exists and thrives on many local scenes. The only difference is that now those groups have a promotion and distribution system that they won't have to sign their lives away to.
Real bands like Dr. Dre and Metallica? No, sorry, but they're hardly real bands. Real bands haven't really been sold by the recording industry since the 60s and early 70s. The handful of multi millionaires that the recording industry has created is nothing compared to the number of groups who have had pretty successful careers, but who have been essentially shunned by the recording industry because they weren't marketable to the MTV generation.
And yes, places like MP3.com have made some pretty successful bands. Not successful on the scale that you would associate with the recording industry in general, but there are a hell of a lot of local bands that I like, who I would have never known about had I not checked up on my local scene and downloaded their MPs from mp3.com. Success isn't necessarily measured by how many gold and platinum albums you've sold, and how many millions of dollars you made last year, for most bands, success if having a steady gig, and MP3 HAS absolutely assisted in that.
I think what's at the heart of this issue is not that music is being widely distributed by Napster, but is that the MP3 format and the widespread acceptance of MP3 has the potential of destroying the record industry.
Record executives hate to admit that they essentially rape their artists. And I'm not talking about the Backstreet Boys and N Sync, who are no-talents and deserve to be raped, but real artists who produce great music and see most of the revenue from that music fall directly into the pockets of those execs that treat them like slaves.
The future, in executive minds is very clouded because they know that it's quite possible that some of their best, and most abused artists will up and leave them, starting up very profitable distribution channels via MP3.
They have some choices. Either they pay the artists more money, which they'll never do, lose their artists, and everything they would have otherwise earned from them, or attack Napster in a feeble attempt to discredit and destroy MP3 in general. Guess which one they've chosen?
I'm not defending Napster here. Any form of copyrightable material should be legally protected from theft. If the author says "you must pay for this, or you are in violation of our copyright" then that statement should be respected and adhered to. But I don't believe that napster is in any way hurting the record industry. It costs about ten cents to manufacture a CD and only a little more than that to distribute it. Most of the cost of a CD goes directly into the bank accounts of record executives and is never seen by the artists. Casette tapes never did and MP3s never will even come close to offsetting the amount of profit that is being made in the industry.
A lot of artists are already making pretty good livings off of MP3 distribution and the record industry has no control over them. I bet that scares the shit out of them.
enables you to add markup to any document
This is inaccurate. Adding XML to a Word Document, for example, would be of no value to an XML parser/validator. XML collectively IS the document, and isn't simply part of the document.
And while we're on the subject of documents, most people who deal with XML in the realm of data feeds, which is probably where you'll find the bulk of XML applications outside of the web, would probably argue with calling XML a document, because they're using it to represent records, which on their own do not constitute a document. Data does not equal document, and the W3c was very careful to word their definition of XML in that way.
From the very first paragraph at www.w3c.org/xml:
"The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web."
So... It's a 'format for structured data'. How is my saying "Data Representation Format" any different than that? I'll argue that it's not different at all, and that my only fault is not using "Format for Structured Data" instead of "Data Representation Format." from the very beginning.
So I guess your real argument is with the W3C. Also, issue 4 of "XML In 10 Points" states "XML is a family of technologies", and that is how I was presenting it.
So Thank you.
Well, my apologies for being summarily vague about XML technology in general. I suppose I just underestimated the necessity to explain clearly what XML is. Next time, I'll be sure to post a disclaimer of some sort, describing what XML is and drawing clear lines between the various facets of the technology. In this way, I will be less easily a target for trolls who are quick to point out even unrecognizable inaccuracies in order to compensate for their lack of experience or status in life.
Tom Bradford (CTO) The dbXML Group
XML is not the end-all be-all of data representation formats, but it is certainly one of the most flexible formats for representing textual (or textually representatble) data. It will never replace binary standards unless a very good generalized binary compression and representation system for XML documents is developed and adopted by the XML community. My company is working on such a beast.
Regarding the Applications. It's true. They're not quite there yet, but they're coming. My company is putting together quite a decent one, and many other vendors are trying to do it right as well. The Windows support, unfortunately, will generally be there before the UNIX support, but UNIX support is not far off.
Regarding Microsoft and XML. Microsoft, though I hate to admit it, is one of the more influential catalysts for the development and standardization of XML specifications at the W3C. Their stance on XML, for the most part, is a driving stance, as opposed to what it has been in the past with other Internet technologies, being embrace and extend. Let's give them some credit in that sense then.
Tom Bradford (CTO) The dbXML Group