Licensing isn't going to fly very high buddy. If retail sales dropped 50% overnight, you'd see a lot of artists going "Hey WTF" because they would be making ZERO. In many cases the label fronts you the money to record/produce your album, and then recoup the loan off the initial sales. If you don't sell enough to break even, you basically worked for free.
If the artists stop making profits, the artists stop making MUSIC. If the artists stop making music then the RIAA no longer has a product to throw around. No self-respecting artist is going to record solely for licensed playback unless he's a Kenny G or something. The big incentive for signing movie soundtracks is that you get broad visibility and easier entry into the charts. I'd say Evanescence got their big break thanks to the Daredevil movie, as did many others. Yeah the movie kind of sucked, but at least the music was catchy;)
This unfortunately counts all the spam domains with ultra-long names like cletus.spears.happysearchspam.wizzleteats.net that all point to the same stupid server. It's not uncommon for true garbage servers to have hundreds if not thousands of domains pointed to the same machine, with funky scripting that adapts the content to the domain name AND the search terms (from the http Referer).
Of those 17.5 million sites, how many actually have valid content on them ? Probably less than half a million, and I'm just pulling that number out of my nether region.
Last time I checked, my BT client watches for bogus peers and bans anyone who sends too much garbage. I think it's something low like 10 packets or so. HBO is just wasting bandwidth like a mothercluck, because the junk packets fail the hash check and are dropped automatically. Yes, it wastes time, but it doesn't corrupt the file unlike Kazaa spoofs.
It's a double-edged sword really. If the programming were better I might actually want to get the extra channels, but on the other hand if their programming turns to even worse puke, people won't bother sharing the videos. Tough decision;)
For those of you just tuning in, Sony loves to come up with its own innovations that never make it far in the highly competitive world of consumer electronics. They invented their own "better" CD format, the SACD. They invented their own flash memory format, the Memory Stick. Every good idea that people want, Sony invents it, but they invent it WRONG. Instead of going with the majority, developing an accepted interoperable standard, they flip everyone the bird and make something different that locks you in to Sony devices. They don't license technology outside the cartel until it's near-obsolete, just so they can look back and say "We did share our goodies" in a press release five years down the road.
Sony is basically telling us that they don't want to sell music to iPod owners because Sony wants to sell us their own portable player. It's the razorblade business flipped backwards.
On paper it makes for a good business strategy, but in today's world of ever-changing gadgetry and confusing incompatibilities it's high time they learned to play nice with the CONSUMERS, otherwise Sony will eventually be the ugly kid in the corner with no friends.
Why would these big monkeys want to release a cheap DVD-like product, when most people are content paying $15-20 for a regular DVD movie and still will watch it only a handful of times during the lifetime of the product ?
Unless your name is Bubba and you like to watch the same movie seven times a week. Otherwise my Matrix / Blade Runner / whatever have been sitting quietly in the rack for several years already.
It just doesn't seem to make business sense.. sell us something cheaper ? Do they think we'll buy more ? of course we'll buy more, just like I go crazy in the 5.99 bins at Walmart once in a while. That doesn't mean the film distributors make any more money, I'm just getting more crap for the same money.
The more this stuff gets trolled in the press, the more imbeciles will believe the lies. Video games don't create sociopaths any more than movies or music do. Everyone glorifies their ideals in the art they create. If the game/movie/music is written by a chemically imbalanced mama's boy with an inner passion for genocide.. welll.. DUH!
What's the real reason the powers-that-be are going after the games ? There has to be some cash incentive in it. Movies have to go through lengthy and stringent rating procedures, presumably at considerable cost. Music is tightly controlled by the big cheeses around the RIAA. Video games are still somewhat deregulated and open-marketed. Maybe that's the problem.
By legislating all games out of existence over violence, only the big corporations with enough money to buy out the law will have the privilege of releasing violent and/or sexually charged games.
(quote) 1) Most musicians don't do very well at all in their dealings with record companies. In general, under the current regime, the money doesn't go to the artists.
It does, but this is an issue between the artist and the record labels. Those contracts are willingly signed, and it varies between record labels. Nobody's holding a gun to people's heads to sign up with record labels, but they seem to keep doing it. (/quote)
Nobody's holding a gun to the artist's head, but when you're at that stage, you want your music to get out there no matter what. A teenager doesn't learn guitar because he plans on striking it rich, he learns because he loves music. If that kid is suddenly offered a record deal, he's going to beam with pride and be happy that his product is getting out there, gaining fame and recognition. If he refuses the deal, he goes back to his basement studio and backyard gigs. The choice is rather simple, money usually has little to do with it.
The other way is to pay for everything yourself, and somehow manage distribution and advertising whichever way you can. It's not easy, and for most people it's downright impossible. This heavy-handed advantage is the reason why record labels are so ruthless and cunning, they have no competition besides each other, and even then they are associated in this RIAA cartel. They control the whole operation end-to-end, have enough power to sue any opponents out of existence, and leave no room for anyone else to enter the market. If they were to wield firearms and speak with funny accents, they'd be virtually indistinguishable from the mob.
Might I add that just about every small video game shop has been peddling used games and hardware since the dawn of time. Methinks Epic are just hoping to wring some cash out of it, and now that the retail behemoth has jumped onto the used market, they have a big cash cow to milk. Think about it, suing every little Microplay or EB Games would be cumbersome and bring a bad rep to the company. Suing Best Buy, if you score, you make a shitload of money, and you get less flak for picking on the big guy.
Epic does raise a curious point, unfortunately it's too little too late. Let's say I've been living in a bucket for a few years and I want to play me some Warcraft III. I go to the store, War3 is $50, but they have a used copy for only $25. I grab the used one and spend the rest on hookers and booze. I don't mind because I got the same product, unlike cars and appliances, used software is exactly as functional as brand-new software. To the distributor, they didn't make money when I bought the game, and even though I'm enjoying it just as much as if I'd paid full price, they feel cheated.
Car dealers don't give a damn, that car's gonna die someday and another will be sold. Software doesn't die of old age and high mileage. That's what the distributors have a hard time coping with. Theoretically, you could buy one copy of War3, play it through, then sell it a week later. Lather, rinse, repeat, and in a year the same product would be enjoyed by 52 people, but the company would see only one sale.
If you think that Capitalism is as bad as Communism, kindly explain to me why Capitalist countries have that much higher average life expectancy than Communist ones.
Because the longer you live, the longer a capitalist can extort you. It's financially sound to make you suffer longer.
The fun bit about the GPL is that it's a voluntary license. You, as a developer, make the educated choice to license your work under the GPL. You don't HAVE to. You could make up your own license, and many do, when they don't agree 100% with the GPL. If the license is found to be a problem, then the people simple won't use it. If I am a developer, and some company wants to make use of my software but the license isn't quite compatible, I just might fix it if it's worth the sacrifice.
Is it even legally enforceable yet ? Last time I heard, most judges couldn't tell the difference between GPL and the public domain, in part because the GPL's popularity rests on one rather eccentric man's reputation. Ask any geek who RMS is and only the Linux crowd *might* know. Ask anyone else and they will give you a dumb stare. As far as they know, the GPL doesn't even exist. There's also the debate over shrink-wrap licenses, some courts acknowledge them, some don't unless there's a signed contract around them. I think solving those worldly problems is more important than minor details on some guy's legal utopia.
The problem is that you have pipes dangling in the open, exactly where a child/animal would be tempted to pull/chew on them. You simple can't watch them 24/7, it takes merely a second of distraction for a child to get itself into trouble.
Still, it would be a fun way to tell the dumb kids from the gifted ones. DIY eugenics, anyone ?
We're all in the same boat. I curse those stupid certifications, and I adamantly refuse to take them. Whenever the topic comes up in an interview, I give them my sharp critique of the whole MCSE/A+ fiasco. For stupid jobs, they will usually end it right there and politely orient my rebellious ass to the door, but once in a blue moon I'll get through to the interviewer and they will see my knowledge far trumps whatever a certified individual could ever fit inside its conformist little head.
Up here, for construction laborers we have training programs and apprenticeships, and once the person reaches a certain level of competence he/she is issued a pocket certificate. They don't cram for a standardized exam, they don't buy overpriced books that teach you all about the exam and nothing about the actual work. They learn on the job. If any school-minded kid with a cram book can get an A+ certification without even owning a friggin' screwdriver, then to my eye the A+ is hardly better than any mail-order fake diploma.
The computer parts market is no different from the rest. Ten years ago when we were proudly flaunting our Compaq dual-486 rigs on Usenet, when you looked outside there were no neon-lit coffee-can-exhaust Hondas with 2000 watts of Walmart bass. The computer industry is being Hondafied just the same.
The problem is that the dumb kids have more disposable income (since everyone's a dope fiend); or more precisely, the average maturity and wisdom of young adults has fallen sharply, thus the "Bling Bling" phenomenon.
I'm typing this as I sit 8 feet away from a windowed case with three different colors of neon/UV lighting, and makes more noise than the 6-disk workstation right at my feet. Damn kids!
While everyone's arguing about the man's speculative spending habits, let's get back to the point: he got fired so the company could screw him out of his shares for cheap, rather than selling out to Activision, seeing a big boost in stock value, and then having to pay full price for Carmack's piece of the property.
Under the terms of his contract, he is forced to sell his shares for 11 million, whereas if the Activision deal had gone through, they would be worth something like 42-43 mil. Fire one person, get 32 million to split with your surviving friends.. yeah, easy decision for an american.
Mod this up. The money is always going in the same direction: into some rich folks pockets, because they're rich and they control the system.
Never does this profit trickle down to those who earned it. I'd keep on paying full price if they'd feed the coders and stuff their fridges with Coca-Cola and/or Jolt, and quit making everyone work 90-hour weeks to meet arbitrary deadlines.
Find me one industry that's not hopelessly corrupt, and I will work there for the rest of my life!
Part of the problem is cost: movies are expensive; to make, to market, to purchase.. because they're giving zillions of dollars to trained monkeys so they can hand it over to L. Ron Hubbard's legacy, and whatever's left goes to Pablo Escobar. Screw that!
Another part of the problem is that the various media associations have been so far behind the times, and trying to compensate for their ignorance with lawsuits and deceptive advertising to take down the competition. We, as (former) consumers, often take pride and glee in "sticking it to the man". We can't do much in the face of these billion-dollar cartels, except rebel in whatever ways we have access to. They have shafted us long enough.
There are plenty of geeks around, we're just all bitter and vengeful from having our jobs sold to India for pennies on the dollar. We've reached a point where 1% of the bunch can keep their decent jobs, and the other 99% either work for peanuts, or do something totally unrelated like construction labor or sales in order to earn something half-decent.
These "research" firms can kiss my shiny metal ass.
Plastic will scratch, such is inevitable. The only thing that will resist scratching is glass, and even it has its limits. Why can't you guys all use those sticky screen protectors like people put on PDAs ? When it gets too ugly, rip it off and put a fresh one on.
Or perhaps they should be using thin glass screens.
Actually the stock holders are probably pleased with this behavior. Business is not about people, it's about money. Playing nice with the Chinese government, no matter how ridiculous it is to the rest of the world, means tapping into a rich, delicate market. It means more money. More money = happy stock holders.
The only "real" way to protest against China's disregard for honest society, would be to go to war with them and eliminate those responsible for this disgusting mistreatment of human beings. Now, are we really going to start a war to solve someone else's problems ? No. The revolution has to start from within. If the chinese population wants to see change, they'll have to do it themselves.
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Mob rules!
If the little guy doesn't pay, the big guy whacks the little guy. Welcome to Capitalism 101.
Licensing isn't going to fly very high buddy. If retail sales dropped 50% overnight, you'd see a lot of artists going "Hey WTF" because they would be making ZERO. In many cases the label fronts you the money to record/produce your album, and then recoup the loan off the initial sales. If you don't sell enough to break even, you basically worked for free.
;)
If the artists stop making profits, the artists stop making MUSIC. If the artists stop making music then the RIAA no longer has a product to throw around. No self-respecting artist is going to record solely for licensed playback unless he's a Kenny G or something. The big incentive for signing movie soundtracks is that you get broad visibility and easier entry into the charts. I'd say Evanescence got their big break thanks to the Daredevil movie, as did many others. Yeah the movie kind of sucked, but at least the music was catchy
This unfortunately counts all the spam domains with ultra-long names like cletus.spears.happysearchspam.wizzleteats.net that all point to the same stupid server. It's not uncommon for true garbage servers to have hundreds if not thousands of domains pointed to the same machine, with funky scripting that adapts the content to the domain name AND the search terms (from the http Referer).
Of those 17.5 million sites, how many actually have valid content on them ? Probably less than half a million, and I'm just pulling that number out of my nether region.
Last time I checked, my BT client watches for bogus peers and bans anyone who sends too much garbage. I think it's something low like 10 packets or so. HBO is just wasting bandwidth like a mothercluck, because the junk packets fail the hash check and are dropped automatically. Yes, it wastes time, but it doesn't corrupt the file unlike Kazaa spoofs.
;)
It's a double-edged sword really. If the programming were better I might actually want to get the extra channels, but on the other hand if their programming turns to even worse puke, people won't bother sharing the videos. Tough decision
For those of you just tuning in, Sony loves to come up with its own innovations that never make it far in the highly competitive world of consumer electronics. They invented their own "better" CD format, the SACD. They invented their own flash memory format, the Memory Stick. Every good idea that people want, Sony invents it, but they invent it WRONG. Instead of going with the majority, developing an accepted interoperable standard, they flip everyone the bird and make something different that locks you in to Sony devices. They don't license technology outside the cartel until it's near-obsolete, just so they can look back and say "We did share our goodies" in a press release five years down the road.
Sony is basically telling us that they don't want to sell music to iPod owners because Sony wants to sell us their own portable player. It's the razorblade business flipped backwards.
On paper it makes for a good business strategy, but in today's world of ever-changing gadgetry and confusing incompatibilities it's high time they learned to play nice with the CONSUMERS, otherwise Sony will eventually be the ugly kid in the corner with no friends.
Why would these big monkeys want to release a cheap DVD-like product, when most people are content paying $15-20 for a regular DVD movie and still will watch it only a handful of times during the lifetime of the product ?
Unless your name is Bubba and you like to watch the same movie seven times a week. Otherwise my Matrix / Blade Runner / whatever have been sitting quietly in the rack for several years already.
It just doesn't seem to make business sense.. sell us something cheaper ? Do they think we'll buy more ? of course we'll buy more, just like I go crazy in the 5.99 bins at Walmart once in a while. That doesn't mean the film distributors make any more money, I'm just getting more crap for the same money.
The more this stuff gets trolled in the press, the more imbeciles will believe the lies. Video games don't create sociopaths any more than movies or music do. Everyone glorifies their ideals in the art they create. If the game/movie/music is written by a chemically imbalanced mama's boy with an inner passion for genocide.. welll.. DUH!
What's the real reason the powers-that-be are going after the games ? There has to be some cash incentive in it. Movies have to go through lengthy and stringent rating procedures, presumably at considerable cost. Music is tightly controlled by the big cheeses around the RIAA. Video games are still somewhat deregulated and open-marketed. Maybe that's the problem.
By legislating all games out of existence over violence, only the big corporations with enough money to buy out the law will have the privilege of releasing violent and/or sexually charged games.
(quote)
1) Most musicians don't do very well at all in their dealings with record companies. In general, under the current regime, the money doesn't go to the artists.
It does, but this is an issue between the artist and the record labels. Those contracts are willingly signed, and it varies between record labels. Nobody's holding a gun to people's heads to sign up with record labels, but they seem to keep doing it.
(/quote)
Nobody's holding a gun to the artist's head, but when you're at that stage, you want your music to get out there no matter what. A teenager doesn't learn guitar because he plans on striking it rich, he learns because he loves music. If that kid is suddenly offered a record deal, he's going to beam with pride and be happy that his product is getting out there, gaining fame and recognition. If he refuses the deal, he goes back to his basement studio and backyard gigs. The choice is rather simple, money usually has little to do with it.
The other way is to pay for everything yourself, and somehow manage distribution and advertising whichever way you can. It's not easy, and for most people it's downright impossible. This heavy-handed advantage is the reason why record labels are so ruthless and cunning, they have no competition besides each other, and even then they are associated in this RIAA cartel. They control the whole operation end-to-end, have enough power to sue any opponents out of existence, and leave no room for anyone else to enter the market. If they were to wield firearms and speak with funny accents, they'd be virtually indistinguishable from the mob.
Start by finding an honest lawyer. ...
...
...
Then find an honest banker.
Well ?
See, the futility of human nature is the reason we invented guns.
But what do I do during the hangover/refractory period ? I need my RPG!
Might I add that just about every small video game shop has been peddling used games and hardware since the dawn of time. Methinks Epic are just hoping to wring some cash out of it, and now that the retail behemoth has jumped onto the used market, they have a big cash cow to milk. Think about it, suing every little Microplay or EB Games would be cumbersome and bring a bad rep to the company. Suing Best Buy, if you score, you make a shitload of money, and you get less flak for picking on the big guy.
Epic does raise a curious point, unfortunately it's too little too late. Let's say I've been living in a bucket for a few years and I want to play me some Warcraft III. I go to the store, War3 is $50, but they have a used copy for only $25. I grab the used one and spend the rest on hookers and booze. I don't mind because I got the same product, unlike cars and appliances, used software is exactly as functional as brand-new software. To the distributor, they didn't make money when I bought the game, and even though I'm enjoying it just as much as if I'd paid full price, they feel cheated.
Car dealers don't give a damn, that car's gonna die someday and another will be sold. Software doesn't die of old age and high mileage. That's what the distributors have a hard time coping with. Theoretically, you could buy one copy of War3, play it through, then sell it a week later. Lather, rinse, repeat, and in a year the same product would be enjoyed by 52 people, but the company would see only one sale.
Tough.
Thank you for saving my day! :D
I hadn't heard that one in ages! cracked me right up
The fun bit about the GPL is that it's a voluntary license. You, as a developer, make the educated choice to license your work under the GPL. You don't HAVE to. You could make up your own license, and many do, when they don't agree 100% with the GPL. If the license is found to be a problem, then the people simple won't use it. If I am a developer, and some company wants to make use of my software but the license isn't quite compatible, I just might fix it if it's worth the sacrifice.
Is it even legally enforceable yet ? Last time I heard, most judges couldn't tell the difference between GPL and the public domain, in part because the GPL's popularity rests on one rather eccentric man's reputation. Ask any geek who RMS is and only the Linux crowd *might* know. Ask anyone else and they will give you a dumb stare. As far as they know, the GPL doesn't even exist. There's also the debate over shrink-wrap licenses, some courts acknowledge them, some don't unless there's a signed contract around them. I think solving those worldly problems is more important than minor details on some guy's legal utopia.
The problem is that you have pipes dangling in the open, exactly where a child/animal would be tempted to pull/chew on them. You simple can't watch them 24/7, it takes merely a second of distraction for a child to get itself into trouble.
Still, it would be a fun way to tell the dumb kids from the gifted ones. DIY eugenics, anyone ?
We're all in the same boat. I curse those stupid certifications, and I adamantly refuse to take them. Whenever the topic comes up in an interview, I give them my sharp critique of the whole MCSE/A+ fiasco. For stupid jobs, they will usually end it right there and politely orient my rebellious ass to the door, but once in a blue moon I'll get through to the interviewer and they will see my knowledge far trumps whatever a certified individual could ever fit inside its conformist little head.
Up here, for construction laborers we have training programs and apprenticeships, and once the person reaches a certain level of competence he/she is issued a pocket certificate. They don't cram for a standardized exam, they don't buy overpriced books that teach you all about the exam and nothing about the actual work. They learn on the job. If any school-minded kid with a cram book can get an A+ certification without even owning a friggin' screwdriver, then to my eye the A+ is hardly better than any mail-order fake diploma.
The computer parts market is no different from the rest. Ten years ago when we were proudly flaunting our Compaq dual-486 rigs on Usenet, when you looked outside there were no neon-lit coffee-can-exhaust Hondas with 2000 watts of Walmart bass. The computer industry is being Hondafied just the same.
The problem is that the dumb kids have more disposable income (since everyone's a dope fiend); or more precisely, the average maturity and wisdom of young adults has fallen sharply, thus the "Bling Bling" phenomenon.
I'm typing this as I sit 8 feet away from a windowed case with three different colors of neon/UV lighting, and makes more noise than the 6-disk workstation right at my feet. Damn kids!
If they're paying $150 to clean out spyware then I want a piece of that racket!
Hell, 'round here we do it for about 1/5th of that.
While everyone's arguing about the man's speculative spending habits, let's get back to the point: he got fired so the company could screw him out of his shares for cheap, rather than selling out to Activision, seeing a big boost in stock value, and then having to pay full price for Carmack's piece of the property.
Under the terms of his contract, he is forced to sell his shares for 11 million, whereas if the Activision deal had gone through, they would be worth something like 42-43 mil. Fire one person, get 32 million to split with your surviving friends.. yeah, easy decision for an american.
Mod this up. The money is always going in the same direction: into some rich folks pockets, because they're rich and they control the system.
Never does this profit trickle down to those who earned it. I'd keep on paying full price if they'd feed the coders and stuff their fridges with Coca-Cola and/or Jolt, and quit making everyone work 90-hour weeks to meet arbitrary deadlines.
Find me one industry that's not hopelessly corrupt, and I will work there for the rest of my life!
Part of the problem is cost: movies are expensive; to make, to market, to purchase.. because they're giving zillions of dollars to trained monkeys so they can hand it over to L. Ron Hubbard's legacy, and whatever's left goes to Pablo Escobar. Screw that!
Another part of the problem is that the various media associations have been so far behind the times, and trying to compensate for their ignorance with lawsuits and deceptive advertising to take down the competition. We, as (former) consumers, often take pride and glee in "sticking it to the man". We can't do much in the face of these billion-dollar cartels, except rebel in whatever ways we have access to. They have shafted us long enough.
There are plenty of geeks around, we're just all bitter and vengeful from having our jobs sold to India for pennies on the dollar. We've reached a point where 1% of the bunch can keep their decent jobs, and the other 99% either work for peanuts, or do something totally unrelated like construction labor or sales in order to earn something half-decent.
These "research" firms can kiss my shiny metal ass.
Plastic will scratch, such is inevitable. The only thing that will resist scratching is glass, and even it has its limits. Why can't you guys all use those sticky screen protectors like people put on PDAs ? When it gets too ugly, rip it off and put a fresh one on.
Or perhaps they should be using thin glass screens.
Actually the stock holders are probably pleased with this behavior. Business is not about people, it's about money. Playing nice with the Chinese government, no matter how ridiculous it is to the rest of the world, means tapping into a rich, delicate market. It means more money. More money = happy stock holders.
The only "real" way to protest against China's disregard for honest society, would be to go to war with them and eliminate those responsible for this disgusting mistreatment of human beings. Now, are we really going to start a war to solve someone else's problems ? No. The revolution has to start from within. If the chinese population wants to see change, they'll have to do it themselves.