I would consider overpricing the CD and alternatives (such as a lower priced DVD) to fall under the category of "Market Forces." The recording industry is trying to act as though they are the main provider of paid recreational entertainment for consumers when they are just one of many, many, MANY options nowadays. Their actions (e.g. pricing CDs too high), the actions of those who compete for the consumers' entertainment dollar (e.g. producers of DVDs), and other situations (e.g. a drop in the amount of money the average consumer has to spend on entertainment) are causing a drop in CD sales. Instead of examining themselves, their market, and adjusting to the new situation, the recording industry seems to want to just shout "PIRACY!" and get the government to legislate profits for them.
The music industry enjoyed record CD sales during the 1990s. Those days are long gone.
And if you listen to the RIAA, then the sole reason for that is online piracy. They always point to that peak in the 1990's as being the point that CD sales should be at (or higher) if piracy was stopped. However, it is more truthful to say that it was a temporary high point in sales and that sales dropped afterwords due to normal market forces. (Normal Market Forces including piracy, but not as the main component... probably not even as a major component.)
I'd agree with your assessment of everything here except for Adobe AIR. I actually looked into developing an in-house AIR application and AIR can be used to run Flash or HTML/JavaScript within an application setting. This means that you don't need to load your web browser and navigate to a URL. You just launch the AIR app and it runs the appropriate files for that application. I would compare it to Mozilla's Prism application on steroids. (Prism being the stripped down browser that makes web-based applications look more like "standalone" applications.)
Without Flash or HTML/JavaScript, AIR is nothing. And even with them, AIR will only be useful for a limited set of problems. I can't go to any computer and expect to run an AIR-based application. (At least, not without first installing the AIR run-time and then installing the AIR application.) However, I can go to any computer and load a web-based application.
Browsers can be excellent application frameworks. They might not be perfect for everything (I'm still not convinced that a web-based Photoshop would be better than locally run Photoshop), but no one technology ever is.
Page 58, Sales of fiction by year of publication - proof that an extremely small number of works makes any money beyond just a few years after publication
Thanks for that link. I had been hoping for quite some time to see a study showing just how long it takes a copyrighted work to make most of its money. If, for example, a copyrighted work makes 95% of the money it is going to make in 10 years, then it doesn't make sense to keep the work in copyright for 100+ years.
Sure enough, it looks like works make 67% of their total income in the first 7 years. The next 30% happens in the next 32 years. So within 40 years, the work makes 97% of the money that it is going to make. During the remaining 60+ years of the work's copyright protection, it will only make 3% of its total income.
Sure, there will be the occasional work that keeps making money decades later, but those are exceptions, not the rule. Or, as the report puts it: "The majority of sales are from new releases, and that the majority of works do not have enduring commercial value. However, extension would impact all works - not just those that continue to be commercially successful."
Mediawatch-UK would like to respond to your logical post with the following reply: "Think of the children! Oh, and also 'terrorism.' Yeah, we might be able to shoehorn a terrorism scare in there somehow... I've got it! MadWorld might be used by terrorists in their training! Is it banned yet?"
For me? No. This wouldn't be a valuable use of my money right now. I applaud him for doing this, but I was just saying that I couldn't see myself doing something like this if the payoff was 7 years down the line. Of course, like someone else said, he probably didn't do this for any cost savings as much as for the opportunity to tinker. High gas prices might have been the initial incentive and any cost savings might have been a nice end result, but what took him through the project was a love of tinkering (and an understanding wife;-) ).
I understand that and would love to be able to walk into a dealership and ask to see their electric-only models. We have two cars. One is a 10 year old Corolla that I use for commuting to and from work. That gets between 22 and 29 mpg (depending on weather, how I drive, etc). The other is a mini-van used to tote our kids around. That gets around 17mpg. Yes, we could have bought a smaller car when we were going to have our first son, but we realized that long road trips (to family/friends) would be impossible with something the size of my Corolla if we had a child to pack for. When it is time to replace each of our cars, one of my requirements will be that the replacement have the same or higher mpg.
Actually, if you're talking about Osama Bin Laden and the Saudi royal family, they are opposed to each other. Osama would love to return to Saudi Arabia, overthrow the royal family, and instill himself as ruler. His family (the "Bin Laden's") don't by and large agree with his ideas/methods and might be closer friends to the Saudi royal family. Of course, this isn't to say that the Saudi royal family is willing to make strong efforts to combat terrorism. Their only concern is to keep things calm enough that they don't get killed in an uprising.
I'm all for using less gas and improving the environment, but the guy spent $12,000 to turn his Chevy into an electric car. He now estimates that he's saved $700 in gas. It doesn't mention exactly when his conversion was done, but mentions January as the time he began the conversion. If the conversion took two months, then he's saved $700 in 5 months, or $140 per month. This works out to $1,680 per year. In other words, he would need to drive the car for over 7 years to make up the price of the conversion. (Yes, there are additional savings since he doesn't need to change the oil or filters, but there might be other maintenance costs that might be higher given that it is a DIY project.) Based on this, I'm not about to tear the gas engine out of my car anytime soon.
It isn't hard to attract people who have a passion for teaching. It is hard to *keep* people in teaching or to keep those who stay from losing their passion.
To give an example, my wife was a 6th and 8th grade science teacher in a private school. She started out with loads of passion for the job. She loved interacting with the students, teaching them new things, and watching their progression over the school year. She isn't currently teaching, though. What happened?
First of all, she got sick of dealing with parents who thought that the fact that they were parents meant that they knew how to teach science to kids and would attempt to micromanage her. It was either that, or parents who didn't care how their kids did at all, treating school as little more than daycare. A good administration would help to manage these parents with her, but half the time the administration would side with the parents just because they paid dues (private school, remember).
Secondly, she tired of all of the planning that she had to do and the little to no time she had to do it in. She wasn't one of those teachers that phoned it in. She liked making plans for each class that would maximize the experience for the kids. Fun activities that the kids would enjoy while learning. But she was given only one a small prep period per day. (Oh, and only a 25 minute lunch time during which she had to make a 10 minute each way walk from her classroom to the teacher's lounge. Eating in her classroom was banned due to a student with severe peanut allergies.)
Lastly, there was the issue of money. After our second son was born, we looked at our finances and figured out the cost for after school care for our oldest and daycare for our youngest. Taking those out of her salary left her earning only $3,600 per year! For that much money, she was going to put up with the stresses of being a teacher? Taking lots of time to plan out new lessons? If you figured out how much she earned per hour worked, she made less than minimum wage. And that was pre-daycare/after school care. Add those in and we just didn't see the financial sense for her to keep working.
She still would like to go back to teaching, or at least do something part time, but the workforce lost a great teacher when she quit her job. No, more money wouldn't have solved all of her problems, but it would have kept her in the job. (On the other hand, given some of the horror stories we've heard since she quit, she's better off having left when she did.)
Am I the only one getting a "508 Unused" error when I visit http://78records.cdbpdx.com/ ? I wonder if his site was taken down by the publicity (not ready for that level of traffic) or by legal threats?
In their mind, they have copyright control over the word "Olympics" as well as any arrangement of 5 rings. This is a completely false claim, of course, as you can't copyright a word and you can't copyright something as vague as "any combination of 5 rings no matter the color, arrangement, or interlocking status." Still, they have used their clout to bully many businesses and organizations into complying with the IOC's Imagined Oppressive Copyright.
The problem is that if they allow this use of the rings then it will encourage others to do the same without first asking permission until the eventual loss of control over the symbols and logos associated with the games occurs.
What you are describing is a Trademark issue. What the IOC used to get the video yanked was a Copyright claim. Basically, they claimed that the video infringed on their copyright because five rings were shown. You can not Copyright something like this and even if you could, there is the issue of Fair Use. If the IOC claimed that the video was a Trademark infringement then they would be on sturdier legal ground (whether or not we liked the video being yanked).
This has little to nothing to do with Tibet, either. The IOC apparently thinks that they have a copyright claim on any mention of the word "Olympic" or any five rings (regardless of arrangement, color, or interlocking status). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_symbols#Criticism for some examples. Again, while it would still be repugnant, they would have a better claim if they argued Trademark instead of Copyright. Of course, they probably know that claiming that a card game called Legend of the Five Rings infringes on the Olympic Games logo would get them laughed out of court.
A few years ago, I had my websites hosted at this one company, Digi-Wave. They were great for a few years, but suddenly their servers were down. For a week. Yes, I said a week. The servers came up again briefly before going down again, but in that brief span, I managed to backup my database and files. When I called their support line, I was told that their servers were infected with Code Red (IIRC, I know it was one of those IIS worms). I knew this was a bogus answer because the fix to Code Red infection was: 1) disconnect the machine from the 'Net, 2) reboot it, 3) apply the patch (possibly rebooting again), 4) reconnect to the 'Net. It shouldn't have taken them over a week to fix this.
Then they stopped answering support calls and their phone's inbox filled up until it stopped accepting recordings. By this time, I contacted my credit card company to get my money back and had made arrangements with another hosting provider. I was lucky to have retained my data. Many were not so lucky. And to add insult to injury, after Digi-Wave folded, another hosting company arose with a different name but the same contact information.
The moral of this story is to always backup. Because you never know when the cloud, your webhost, or even your personally owned and run server will go south and take your data with it.
I've got to thank you for that information, actually. No, not the fake name, but the link to Fake Name Generator. A while back, I was thinking of making a FireFox extension that would contact a website (which I would write also) that would randomly generate an identity (name, address, SSN, etc). The extension would then auto-fill out any form on the page with the fake ID information. I envisioned it being used on sites erected by Phishers. A hundred or so folks tossing a few dozen fake IDs into the phishing pool might help to spoil their fun/profit. If you could automate the entire process (i.e. design a system that could receive phishing e-mails, follow the link, generate a false ID, fill out the form, and submit it), then all the better. (Though you would have to contend with valid links somehow being submitted to the system.)
As with many of my ideas, I have more time to think them up than to code them. (The curse of being married with 2 kids, I suppose, though I wouldn't trade it for all the free time in the world.) So if anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, more power to you.
Well, the good news is that there's this strong guy holding the disc so it won't drop. The bad news is that the next Cosmic Olympic event is discus hurling...
-Golden Rule? Whose being naive now? Are you insinuating that the free flow of information is harmful or wrong?
You're completely right. Information needs to be free. And that means all types of Information. No exceptions. So I eagerly await your reply posting your real name, real address, Social Security number, date of birth, bank account numbers and PIN codes, etc. Shouldn't that information be allowed to be free too? So come on "Anonymous Coward," let that information be free!
I'm guessing that it would be up to a judge to decide just how much of the contract didn't apply. The judge would probably keep it as narrow as possible (meaning a slight conflict between contract terminology and state/federal law wouldn't void the entire contract), but might toss out the entire thing if the breach was too severe (your 10 year slavery example).
For those of us who do have them, though, and where the viewing arrangement is large enough to see all the detail, Blue-ray is not just "better", but far, far better and definitely the format of choice. I went extreme with my setup, and I don't regret it even a little bit.
Cost is the first reason that I'm not likely to get a HD TV Set and Blue-Ray anytime soon. The bolded part of your comment is the second reason. I have space for a 32" TV in the entertainment center in my living room. Currently, it is a 32" standard definition TV. Even if I were to get a 32" HD TV, I doubt that I would see much of a difference on the 32" screen while sitting 8 feet away. Certainly not enough of a difference to warrant spending so much money on a Blue-ray player and all new Blue-ray discs.
Question for you: Is your home media server in the same room as the TV? I've been looking into ways to stream videos from my computer upstairs to my main viewing TV downstairs. I've seen a few solutions, but nothing that really seemed like it would work. Wired is out as my wife nixed the idea of drilling holes in the walls to run cable and I'm not convinced that my Wireless B network is capable of the speeds needed to transfer a movie. (Not dealing with HD content here, BTW. Our TV is a 32" standard definition set.)
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That's a bit extreme. I'm sure those machines could be parted out and reused for other, less crucial tasks.
Now, if you said that every Diebold executive ought to be incinerated at 4000F, I could agree with you.
I would consider overpricing the CD and alternatives (such as a lower priced DVD) to fall under the category of "Market Forces." The recording industry is trying to act as though they are the main provider of paid recreational entertainment for consumers when they are just one of many, many, MANY options nowadays. Their actions (e.g. pricing CDs too high), the actions of those who compete for the consumers' entertainment dollar (e.g. producers of DVDs), and other situations (e.g. a drop in the amount of money the average consumer has to spend on entertainment) are causing a drop in CD sales. Instead of examining themselves, their market, and adjusting to the new situation, the recording industry seems to want to just shout "PIRACY!" and get the government to legislate profits for them.
I love that game. I found it a couple of days ago and have already gotten my hedgehog into space in 7 days.
And if you listen to the RIAA, then the sole reason for that is online piracy. They always point to that peak in the 1990's as being the point that CD sales should be at (or higher) if piracy was stopped. However, it is more truthful to say that it was a temporary high point in sales and that sales dropped afterwords due to normal market forces. (Normal Market Forces including piracy, but not as the main component... probably not even as a major component.)
You do if you've been married to your wife for 26 years. Or you won't be celebrating a 27th anniversary.
I'd agree with your assessment of everything here except for Adobe AIR. I actually looked into developing an in-house AIR application and AIR can be used to run Flash or HTML/JavaScript within an application setting. This means that you don't need to load your web browser and navigate to a URL. You just launch the AIR app and it runs the appropriate files for that application. I would compare it to Mozilla's Prism application on steroids. (Prism being the stripped down browser that makes web-based applications look more like "standalone" applications.)
Without Flash or HTML/JavaScript, AIR is nothing. And even with them, AIR will only be useful for a limited set of problems. I can't go to any computer and expect to run an AIR-based application. (At least, not without first installing the AIR run-time and then installing the AIR application.) However, I can go to any computer and load a web-based application.
Browsers can be excellent application frameworks. They might not be perfect for everything (I'm still not convinced that a web-based Photoshop would be better than locally run Photoshop), but no one technology ever is.
Thanks for that link. I had been hoping for quite some time to see a study showing just how long it takes a copyrighted work to make most of its money. If, for example, a copyrighted work makes 95% of the money it is going to make in 10 years, then it doesn't make sense to keep the work in copyright for 100+ years.
Sure enough, it looks like works make 67% of their total income in the first 7 years. The next 30% happens in the next 32 years. So within 40 years, the work makes 97% of the money that it is going to make. During the remaining 60+ years of the work's copyright protection, it will only make 3% of its total income.
Sure, there will be the occasional work that keeps making money decades later, but those are exceptions, not the rule. Or, as the report puts it: "The majority of sales are from new releases, and that the majority of works do not have enduring commercial value. However, extension would impact all works - not just those that continue to be commercially successful."
Mediawatch-UK would like to respond to your logical post with the following reply: "Think of the children! Oh, and also 'terrorism.' Yeah, we might be able to shoehorn a terrorism scare in there somehow... I've got it! MadWorld might be used by terrorists in their training! Is it banned yet?"
For me? No. This wouldn't be a valuable use of my money right now. I applaud him for doing this, but I was just saying that I couldn't see myself doing something like this if the payoff was 7 years down the line. Of course, like someone else said, he probably didn't do this for any cost savings as much as for the opportunity to tinker. High gas prices might have been the initial incentive and any cost savings might have been a nice end result, but what took him through the project was a love of tinkering (and an understanding wife ;-) ).
I understand that and would love to be able to walk into a dealership and ask to see their electric-only models. We have two cars. One is a 10 year old Corolla that I use for commuting to and from work. That gets between 22 and 29 mpg (depending on weather, how I drive, etc). The other is a mini-van used to tote our kids around. That gets around 17mpg. Yes, we could have bought a smaller car when we were going to have our first son, but we realized that long road trips (to family/friends) would be impossible with something the size of my Corolla if we had a child to pack for. When it is time to replace each of our cars, one of my requirements will be that the replacement have the same or higher mpg.
Actually, if you're talking about Osama Bin Laden and the Saudi royal family, they are opposed to each other. Osama would love to return to Saudi Arabia, overthrow the royal family, and instill himself as ruler. His family (the "Bin Laden's") don't by and large agree with his ideas/methods and might be closer friends to the Saudi royal family. Of course, this isn't to say that the Saudi royal family is willing to make strong efforts to combat terrorism. Their only concern is to keep things calm enough that they don't get killed in an uprising.
I'm all for using less gas and improving the environment, but the guy spent $12,000 to turn his Chevy into an electric car. He now estimates that he's saved $700 in gas. It doesn't mention exactly when his conversion was done, but mentions January as the time he began the conversion. If the conversion took two months, then he's saved $700 in 5 months, or $140 per month. This works out to $1,680 per year. In other words, he would need to drive the car for over 7 years to make up the price of the conversion. (Yes, there are additional savings since he doesn't need to change the oil or filters, but there might be other maintenance costs that might be higher given that it is a DIY project.) Based on this, I'm not about to tear the gas engine out of my car anytime soon.
The page says: "Error establishing a database connection"
I'm not too impressed if that's what Photosynth can do. ;-)
Some information about his site being down: http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/08/yahoo-pulls-his.html
It isn't hard to attract people who have a passion for teaching. It is hard to *keep* people in teaching or to keep those who stay from losing their passion.
To give an example, my wife was a 6th and 8th grade science teacher in a private school. She started out with loads of passion for the job. She loved interacting with the students, teaching them new things, and watching their progression over the school year. She isn't currently teaching, though. What happened?
First of all, she got sick of dealing with parents who thought that the fact that they were parents meant that they knew how to teach science to kids and would attempt to micromanage her. It was either that, or parents who didn't care how their kids did at all, treating school as little more than daycare. A good administration would help to manage these parents with her, but half the time the administration would side with the parents just because they paid dues (private school, remember).
Secondly, she tired of all of the planning that she had to do and the little to no time she had to do it in. She wasn't one of those teachers that phoned it in. She liked making plans for each class that would maximize the experience for the kids. Fun activities that the kids would enjoy while learning. But she was given only one a small prep period per day. (Oh, and only a 25 minute lunch time during which she had to make a 10 minute each way walk from her classroom to the teacher's lounge. Eating in her classroom was banned due to a student with severe peanut allergies.)
Lastly, there was the issue of money. After our second son was born, we looked at our finances and figured out the cost for after school care for our oldest and daycare for our youngest. Taking those out of her salary left her earning only $3,600 per year! For that much money, she was going to put up with the stresses of being a teacher? Taking lots of time to plan out new lessons? If you figured out how much she earned per hour worked, she made less than minimum wage. And that was pre-daycare/after school care. Add those in and we just didn't see the financial sense for her to keep working.
She still would like to go back to teaching, or at least do something part time, but the workforce lost a great teacher when she quit her job. No, more money wouldn't have solved all of her problems, but it would have kept her in the job. (On the other hand, given some of the horror stories we've heard since she quit, she's better off having left when she did.)
Am I the only one getting a "508 Unused" error when I visit http://78records.cdbpdx.com/ ? I wonder if his site was taken down by the publicity (not ready for that level of traffic) or by legal threats?
In their mind, they have copyright control over the word "Olympics" as well as any arrangement of 5 rings. This is a completely false claim, of course, as you can't copyright a word and you can't copyright something as vague as "any combination of 5 rings no matter the color, arrangement, or interlocking status." Still, they have used their clout to bully many businesses and organizations into complying with the IOC's Imagined Oppressive Copyright.
What you are describing is a Trademark issue. What the IOC used to get the video yanked was a Copyright claim. Basically, they claimed that the video infringed on their copyright because five rings were shown. You can not Copyright something like this and even if you could, there is the issue of Fair Use. If the IOC claimed that the video was a Trademark infringement then they would be on sturdier legal ground (whether or not we liked the video being yanked).
This has little to nothing to do with Tibet, either. The IOC apparently thinks that they have a copyright claim on any mention of the word "Olympic" or any five rings (regardless of arrangement, color, or interlocking status). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_symbols#Criticism for some examples. Again, while it would still be repugnant, they would have a better claim if they argued Trademark instead of Copyright. Of course, they probably know that claiming that a card game called Legend of the Five Rings infringes on the Olympic Games logo would get them laughed out of court.
A few years ago, I had my websites hosted at this one company, Digi-Wave. They were great for a few years, but suddenly their servers were down. For a week. Yes, I said a week. The servers came up again briefly before going down again, but in that brief span, I managed to backup my database and files. When I called their support line, I was told that their servers were infected with Code Red (IIRC, I know it was one of those IIS worms). I knew this was a bogus answer because the fix to Code Red infection was: 1) disconnect the machine from the 'Net, 2) reboot it, 3) apply the patch (possibly rebooting again), 4) reconnect to the 'Net. It shouldn't have taken them over a week to fix this.
Then they stopped answering support calls and their phone's inbox filled up until it stopped accepting recordings. By this time, I contacted my credit card company to get my money back and had made arrangements with another hosting provider. I was lucky to have retained my data. Many were not so lucky. And to add insult to injury, after Digi-Wave folded, another hosting company arose with a different name but the same contact information.
The moral of this story is to always backup. Because you never know when the cloud, your webhost, or even your personally owned and run server will go south and take your data with it.
I've got to thank you for that information, actually. No, not the fake name, but the link to Fake Name Generator. A while back, I was thinking of making a FireFox extension that would contact a website (which I would write also) that would randomly generate an identity (name, address, SSN, etc). The extension would then auto-fill out any form on the page with the fake ID information. I envisioned it being used on sites erected by Phishers. A hundred or so folks tossing a few dozen fake IDs into the phishing pool might help to spoil their fun/profit. If you could automate the entire process (i.e. design a system that could receive phishing e-mails, follow the link, generate a false ID, fill out the form, and submit it), then all the better. (Though you would have to contend with valid links somehow being submitted to the system.)
As with many of my ideas, I have more time to think them up than to code them. (The curse of being married with 2 kids, I suppose, though I wouldn't trade it for all the free time in the world.) So if anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, more power to you.
Well, the good news is that there's this strong guy holding the disc so it won't drop. The bad news is that the next Cosmic Olympic event is discus hurling...
You're completely right. Information needs to be free. And that means all types of Information. No exceptions. So I eagerly await your reply posting your real name, real address, Social Security number, date of birth, bank account numbers and PIN codes, etc. Shouldn't that information be allowed to be free too? So come on "Anonymous Coward," let that information be free!
I'm guessing that it would be up to a judge to decide just how much of the contract didn't apply. The judge would probably keep it as narrow as possible (meaning a slight conflict between contract terminology and state/federal law wouldn't void the entire contract), but might toss out the entire thing if the breach was too severe (your 10 year slavery example).
For those of us who do have them, though, and where the viewing arrangement is large enough to see all the detail, Blue-ray is not just "better", but far, far better and definitely the format of choice. I went extreme with my setup, and I don't regret it even a little bit.
Cost is the first reason that I'm not likely to get a HD TV Set and Blue-Ray anytime soon. The bolded part of your comment is the second reason. I have space for a 32" TV in the entertainment center in my living room. Currently, it is a 32" standard definition TV. Even if I were to get a 32" HD TV, I doubt that I would see much of a difference on the 32" screen while sitting 8 feet away. Certainly not enough of a difference to warrant spending so much money on a Blue-ray player and all new Blue-ray discs.
Question for you: Is your home media server in the same room as the TV? I've been looking into ways to stream videos from my computer upstairs to my main viewing TV downstairs. I've seen a few solutions, but nothing that really seemed like it would work. Wired is out as my wife nixed the idea of drilling holes in the walls to run cable and I'm not convinced that my Wireless B network is capable of the speeds needed to transfer a movie. (Not dealing with HD content here, BTW. Our TV is a 32" standard definition set.)