Cash money isn't an incentive for pirates? People do pay for pirated stuff, you know.
Objection. Argumentative.
There's a difference between warez and people who are actually trying to sell "pirated" DVDs. Opening up a storefront makes for a much larger radar blip than some random link or IP-address-only FTP site.
It's also expensive. So people will buy this valueless corporate data from a warez site, but not from a licensed vendor? Why? Why wouldn't they just rip it and put it on their web site? Is it really only a question of price?
In the case of digital content, it's extremely easy to copy the results of hard work. That's the issue here.
A very skillful sidestep of the original statement, but the argument stands. It is not possible to copy hard work. A zero-effort copy is worth exactly zero. It has no value by definition. Products, OTOH, have value because they are not zero-effort. Businesses have an incentive to perform that effort. Warez d00dz do not.
That's not a good analogy -- copying a CD or DVD is nowhere near as difficult as tending an orchard.
I never claimed it was. You have responded to three points by throwing up a red herring the size of Nebraska in the first case, and sidestepping the issue in the other two.
I'll proceed under the assumption this isn't a troll by saying the analogy stands if the premises are accepted: hard work cannot be copied. Businesses are willing to put the effort into making a polished product for sale (a carton of orange juice), when it is only a matter of a little time and effort to produce unlimited oranges (an orchard or even one orange tree) for the customer. Yet people buy millions of dollars worth of orange juice every week.
Growing an orange tree is not all that complicated. It's time consuming (like looking for fr33 stuff), but not complicated.
Ironically enough, this is the answer to their "problem" even though they'll likely never see it.
"Pirated" "bootleg" "warezed" copies (whatever the term of the day is) will always be an inferior product even though they may be a perfect copy.
There's a fundamental difference between product and copy. Businesses have an incentive to produce good products which customers are willing to pay for. w4r3z d00dz have no incentive other than if they happen to feel like it to make copies available.
Like it or not, profit motivates people to work hard. Hard work is what is being paid for, not the bits themselves. Fortunately, it isn't possible to yet copy hard work. If it were, then I doubt so many businesses would fail.
Agriculture is another fine example (from the last time this was discussed). With one bag of oranges, it is possible to grow enough oranges to last an average family for decades, at a cost of near zero (water, 10 square yards of dirt, plant food?). Yet, we pay $4 for a carton of orange juice once a week. Why? Because that carton of orange juice is a better product, even though one can have unlimited w4r3z3d oranges. The convenience of not having to tend an orchard is more valuable than $16/month.
Does this mean that choosing *not* to publish with content protection is also illegal? Would that not be a mind-boggling violation of the first amendment? Does it not also totally eliminate the public domain and fair use for digital works?
This reading doesn't seem to agree with the Senator's introductory statements of yesterday. Seems that Disney has decided we're all along for the ride whether we like it or not. Good way to put the competition out of business too.
Remember when the words "competition" and "free enterprise" actually meant something?
Its not a piece of property that someone else can take.
Really? It supports the employee, and their family, home, car, insurance, medical benefits, taxes, food, clothing, furniture, schooling, investments, retirement, etc.
An employee uses a job, the employee doesn't own it.
Thus, the "fired on a whim" attitude of management. No different than the licensing controversy with software and CDs. Nobody owns anything, therefore nobody is owed when the "anything" is taken.
I see a lot of people who want everthing handed to them: jobs, inventions, music, etc.
Sure. After several thousand resumes and a year of looking, I'd say the average good programmer is about to the point where they should be handed a job.
Who are going to be the productive people of the next generation?
Nobody. Half the people will be sitting in gray cubicles, unable to contribute because they are obstructed by incompetent management. The other half will spend all their productive time looking for work.
OK so I ride a bicycle and drive a PIIX3, but my point is that I think expectations for "reasonable standard of living" are grossly inflated in this country.
This is for basic apartment and basic food, and not in Silicon Valley. Let's say monthly expenses are $2000 (which buys a fairly modest to low standard of living). One would think that $15/hour ($30K/year) would be enough, but it isn't. $30K becomes $20-24K after taxes, and suddenly, there's not a spare cent left.
Add to that the fact there are no guarantees when it comes to these jobs, and it makes for a very flimsy way to make a living.
I will pay for convenience. I will pay for service. I will pay for value-added features.
Good. As long as the entire market doesn't say "everything for free, no alternatives," because that position will do more damage to the economy than a hundred of these bills.
Try and step outside our broken, plutocratic, dollars-and-cents civilization for one second and think of the utopian society advanced technology COULD provide for the human race one day.
Agreed. 100% I think that is a worthy and even likely goal.
But in a world where a $15/hour job is insufficient to pay for adequate shelter, food, etc. and where such a job can be yanked away at the slightest whim of "management," people have to be over-concerned with money, and I think that is at least part of the problem.
These types of dreams will never be realized
This will be for several reasons, not the least of which is that we, as a society, have become so risk-averse as to be useless. It permeates our thinking on every level, but especially in business, which is why so few really new and really useful things actually get done. The idea people and the engineers have to make a business case for EVERYTHING. Meaning that EVERY SINGLE ACTIVITY must have a positive, calculable cost-benefit analysis, and abstract benefits are not allowed.
This problem needs to be solved, and soon, or we will likely miss the promise of all our technology in favor of the status quo.
It's true that it could remove the cost of the middlemen, but you need somebody to start you up unless you already have the money. This would typically be a VC/Publisher since a bank probably won't loan it to you since it's too expensive and too risky.
Take the VC out of the list too. They want 20% annual growth. Will NOT happen with game developer.
So you still end up with somebody taking a cut in the middle and wanting a big return since it's a high risk.
Oh, they get more than that. Publisher wants 85% of the take, PLUS they want the copyrights and trademarks to the whole project, including the characters, merchandising, sequels, etc. Better to just fill out an application and at least get some benefits.
Most game projects do not make any money.
That explains the record profits made by the game industry last year. Game projects don't make money. Game *publishers* make billions, all the time whining "ehhhhhhhhh, we can't make any moneyyyyyyy"
But that's the stated goal, right? Let's just make it impossible for anyone to do business with anything that can be digitized. I'm sure every single person who will be thrown out of work was driven only by greed.
colleagues had reviewed an early draft of the SSSCA. Hollings has refused to release newer drafts.
Well, it's part of the Congressional Record now.
while Republican senators such as John McCain (R-Arizona) and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) said they "would be extremely hesitant regarding any proposal for government to mandate copy-protection technology."
Interesting and potentially ironic that Senator McCain is opposed, given his support of Campaign Finance Reform. *cough*
heh heh.. whoops.. Guess the *AA forgot there are two houses in Congress. Oh, and they better get a map to the other end of Pennsylvania avenue, because there's some guy down there that'll need a copy of the bill at some point.
Accordingly, only early adopters have purchased high definition television sets or broadband Internet access, as these products remain priced too high for the average consumer. The facts are clear in this regard. Only two million Americans have purchased HDTV sets. As for broadband, rural and underserved areas aside, there is not an availability problem. There is a demand problem.
Hold it. A "demand" problem is not the concern of Congress. If the products are priced too high, and there is little demand, then it is up to the businesses to reduce the price.
This is wanton "profit by legislation," just like the auto insurance laws. How long before it will be illegal not to own one of these products? Oh yeah, and for all the "slippery slope" trolls: look what's happened to the copyright laws themselves over the past 100 years.
Roughly 85% of Americans are offered broadband in the marketplace but only 10-12% have signed up. The fact is that most Americans are averse to paying $50 a month for faster access to email, or $2000 for a fancy HDTV set that plays analog movies.
Right. Because they can't afford it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all these huge companies are RAISING PRICES WHILE THEY FIRE THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE BUYING THEIR #%&@$$^_)(*@$% PRODUCTS!! WHAT ABOUT THAT, SENATOR??
Oh, we should let the market decide there, right? So it's ok for some mumbling, inept, incompetent corporate middle-manager to destroy someone's career, (and indirectly take their home, and security, and money, and investments, and health insurance, and references, and quite possibly their family and children) whenever they feel like it, but the employee must hand over their money whenever marketing rings the bell?
Well, in the case of the overpriced broadband and HDTV products, the market has decided, and Content Inc. lost. Deal.
But if more high-quality content were available, consumer interest wou! ld l ikely increase.
Let's see some evidence of that first. Let's see some content, any content offered by any large corporation besides Super Bowl commercials. Wait, there is one example. Cartoon Network offers web-based versions of some of their programs. They now have 80 million subscribers and are stomping the living crap out of every cable channel they compete with and are scaring the living crap out of the networks too. Hmmmm.....
The movie studios, and the rest of the copyright industries
Copyright industries? So, they manufacture copyrights? That is a fascinating and very descriptive term.
are tremendously excited about the possibility of providing their products to consumers over the Internet and the digital airwaves, provided they can be assured that those products' copyrights are not infringed in the process.
Sure, as long as they can re-engineer the entire high-tech industry (which manufactures actual products, by the way) before doing so. It wasn't always this way. First they had to lose a Supreme Court case back in the 70s-80s to "allow" the public access to VCRs.
Although marketplace negotiations have not provided such an assurance, a solution is at hand. Leaders in the consumer electronics, information technology, and content industries are some of America's best and brightest. They can solve this problem.
So what do we need this legislation for?
the private sector needs a nudge
A nudge? A letter is a nudge. This bill is a #%&@$^)(*@$ avalanche.
consumers desire high-quality digital content on the Internet, and it is not being provided in any widespread, legal fashion.
Because the Copyright Industries (heh) won't allow it. How about solving that problem? Why is this the "consumer's" fault. (I hate that word).
mandate to ensure its swift and universal adoption.
You meant nudge, right, Senator?
Congress mandated that all television receivers include the capability to tune all channels (UHF and VHF) allocated to the television broadcast service.
..while this bill requires all computers to tune to the *one* channel allowed by the Copyright Industries.
would not be permitted to thwart legitimate consumer copying of programming in the home
Like Macrovision does?
- for time shifting purposes, for example.
How are they going to know the difference? This law mandates it's own uselessness.
We have listened to their arguments delivered in dozens of meetings with my staff,
..and ignored them.
and the bill we introduce today does nothing of the sort.
Called it.
Sigh... it sounds like Macrovision for computers. This will slow down the "Napsterization" of the Copyright Industries (heh) for about six hours. I'm saddened that Diane Feinstein was a co-sponsor of this. She seemed to be quite critical of the bill only a few months ago. Which leaves Californians with only one potential representative on this matter: Barbara Boxer. (ugh)
The House will probably not pass this legislation, but letters to Senators, Congressmen, *and* the President would probably be a good thing(tm). If this becomes law, computers and software as an industry are going to be damaged and the Internet will become the exclusive domain of the Copyright Industries.
This goes to show the Cluetrain was right:
"Big Business sees the consumer as a gullet who's primary function is to swallow products and crap cash."
Invention is often used to gather copyright, trademark and patent together in IP agreements. Nevertheless, the intent of this statute is clearly meant to draw an insurmountable distinction between what does and does not belong to an employer.
With 9 out of 10 people "employed" in some capacity, no individual could ever own an invention if the law were not written this way.
Note that in California, such a contract is void and unenforceable. The Labor Laws state that any work performed outside the scope of employment belongs to the employee, and *even if* an agreement stating otherwise is signed, it is against the public policy of the State of California and cannot be enforced.
That said, I'd never sign such an agreement anyway. Employers have no claim to time outside of work.
That was an unjustifiably arrogant statement. I didn't feel the need to mention that my education included more than a year of music theory and history; along with Attic and Homeric Greek; Plato, Euclid, Ptolemy, Lucretius, Shakespeare, Aquinas, Plutarch, Machiavelli, Descartes; Boyle, Pascal, Priestley, Lavoisier, Dalton, Avogadro, Mendeleev... well, I've just started. I could go on.
It is justified in the face of the assertion that "most Americans" are only moderately well-educated, which implies that most Americans are unqualified to make factual statements in a discussion.
Some would even contend that it further implies that most Americans are fat, dumb, happy illiterates who are easily entertained by whatever happens to be on television at the moment: an implication that is as flagrant in its inaccuracy as it is in its cynicism. I don't necessarily believe this is what was meant, but I have grown overwhelmingly fatigued with this belief that the "mainstream" is generally stupid.
I can't really tell if you have more of a quarrel with me, or with the author of the NYT article.
I haven't any quarrel. I was pointing out that the author of the article was drawing an incorrect conclusion based on a superficial understanding of music history.
and the musicians who performed it were either informal, local amateurs; or traveling vagabonds.
Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Vivaldi and Mozart did not write works to be performed by "informal, local amateurs and traveling vagabonds." Amateurs and vagabonds cannot perform the kinds of works written by these composers. In fact, professionals often have some difficulty with them. But aside from that, it still doesn't address the example of operatic and theatric leads, or the Italian Opera as a whole, to say nothing of the influence of the Church dating all the way back to the Medieval period.
And my more broad point also stands: the overwhelming majority of people throughout history have been illiterate and were not participants in the documented, intellectual history of humanity.
Sounds pessimistic. The composers being discussed here wrote their music with the goal of making the majority of people participants. Mozart is a fine example. Although his works were often written at the request or commission of the aristocracy, Mozart was very concerned with how the public received his work. It is no different with other composers, many of whom were also teachers of music.
Were the majority excluded, it is doubtful that many composers would have been as inspired or as prolific.
The composers you have in mind were a small group of people creating music mostly for the small aristocracy.
Commissioned by the aristocracy. Then very often (almost always, in the case of anything but concertos, solo arias and chamber music) performed for the general public.
The musicians which performed the music were less well regarded. But the main point is that this is only a tiny segment of the human population.
That doesn't address the example of operatic performers, and if it was meant to exclude composers, many of whom from time to time performed their own works (Mozart was mentioned by name), then perhaps the article should have clarified this. It didn't. On the contrary, it made a general statement about "musicians in Western society." That includes them all, even if the writer meant something different.
And, in the west, the vagabonds that performed it were not well regarded. The twentieth-century changed that.
This would have been a better introduction to that section of the article.
The way contemporary Americans view history is skewed in that most of us are belong to a moderately educated middle-class that is historically exceptional.
Others of us belong to an exceptionally educated middle-class. I studied upper division music history and theory for two years.
The problem with these discussions is that everyone starts out thinking that every other "contemporary American" spent college asleep in class and falling-down drunk on the weekends, and is now bereft of any knowledge or historical perspective. Some of us actually got something out of college besides how to treat a hangover.
It's also one of the major reasons that employers shove college degrees aside (and into the trash) during interviews, unless the degree is a Masters or PhD, then they can say "overqualified."
Most of what is thought of as historically important in this context was popular only to a small, priveleged portion of the population.
On the surface, that is a common conclusion to draw. However, there are dozens if not hundreds of examples of composers and musicians all the way back to the days of the first Gregorian harmonies who were quite popular with the common man in their immediate community. By the Renaissance and Classical periods, news of great performers and composers preceded opera companies, which is what gave them the ability (and means) to travel. It is also one of the things that made the symphony possible.
There is one fairly popular area of study in music history that theorizes a strong and well-supported connection between Classical opera and Vaudeville, interrupted only by the Romantic decline in the popularity of Classical opera and the attendant increased interest in the Aria as a self-contained musical form. Historically speaking, the distance between Vaudeville and the beginnings of "mass appeal" in the big band and 50s eras is insignificant, which supports the idea that music history is a continuous progression rather than a series of time periods.
It is true that none of this compares to events like those in contemporary music history; however, to dismiss all Western musicians prior to the 20th century as "mistrusted vagabonds" is just plain inaccurate.
Searching and indexing music is far cheaper than making music!
Really? What is the URL for the comprehensive index of all music? Indexing music is very hard work and very time-consuming, especially if adding something above what the CD Player lists as artist, title, album and time.
Why would one be able to find one version of the track but not another?
For the same reason that I can't find some specific version of some obscure 27K library that the latest version of $REALLY_COOL_LINUX_PROGRAM absolutely must have in order to function. Happens all the time.
is likely a very limited market
All markets are limited. The mass market, mainstream, whatever, is a fiction. No company sells to the "mass market," unless it's laundry detergent.
each one of those expensive people had better produce a lot of $10 custom mixes every single day to keep the business afloat
These statements seem overly skeptical, almost as if there is a parallel statement of "HA! HA! We can copy everything and there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING YOU CAN DO to make money ever again!! Ha! Ha!"
hasn't really been thought out
The point was not to produce a business plan.
Most of the "business models" that the poster referred to amount to something like "maybe people will buy stuff if it's easier to buy it than to find it for free."
..and they will. That's very simple. I was just commenting to a couple of other "technical people" the other day that if there were a website where I could be 99% sure I could search for and get a quality download of $GREAT_SONG immediately, that would be worth paying for, and I think such a business would make profits in amounts ($millions a week, easily) that would turn the record companies green.
Until the 20th century, musicians in Western societies were generally held in contempt, their status approximating that of a vagabond. Even the most successful musicians were mistrusted.
Apparently there is a slight shortage of study in music history here. Composers were widely sought by noble courts and commissioned to produce new music regularly. In Italy, star operatic leads were treated almost as well as royalty for decades, if not centuries.
A far cry from "general contempt," despite the anecdotal support.
Bill Gates will run for President of the United States... However, he will join neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties, because those were not invented by Microsoft. Instead, he'll be the candidate from the Business Software Alliance Party. Their flag will consist of Clippy drawn over the Windows logo on a blue background.
Slashdot Mirror
Cash money isn't an incentive for pirates? People do pay for pirated stuff, you know.
Objection. Argumentative.
There's a difference between warez and people who are actually trying to sell "pirated" DVDs. Opening up a storefront makes for a much larger radar blip than some random link or IP-address-only FTP site.
It's also expensive. So people will buy this valueless corporate data from a warez site, but not from a licensed vendor? Why? Why wouldn't they just rip it and put it on their web site? Is it really only a question of price?
In the case of digital content, it's extremely easy to copy the results of hard work. That's the issue here.
A very skillful sidestep of the original statement, but the argument stands. It is not possible to copy hard work. A zero-effort copy is worth exactly zero. It has no value by definition. Products, OTOH, have value because they are not zero-effort. Businesses have an incentive to perform that effort. Warez d00dz do not.
That's not a good analogy -- copying a CD or DVD is nowhere near as difficult as tending an orchard.
I never claimed it was. You have responded to three points by throwing up a red herring the size of Nebraska in the first case, and sidestepping the issue in the other two.
I'll proceed under the assumption this isn't a troll by saying the analogy stands if the premises are accepted: hard work cannot be copied. Businesses are willing to put the effort into making a polished product for sale (a carton of orange juice), when it is only a matter of a little time and effort to produce unlimited oranges (an orchard or even one orange tree) for the customer. Yet people buy millions of dollars worth of orange juice every week.
Growing an orange tree is not all that complicated. It's time consuming (like looking for fr33 stuff), but not complicated.
Ironically enough, this is the answer to their "problem" even though they'll likely never see it.
"Pirated" "bootleg" "warezed" copies (whatever the term of the day is) will always be an inferior product even though they may be a perfect copy.
There's a fundamental difference between product and copy. Businesses have an incentive to produce good products which customers are willing to pay for. w4r3z d00dz have no incentive other than if they happen to feel like it to make copies available.
Like it or not, profit motivates people to work hard. Hard work is what is being paid for, not the bits themselves. Fortunately, it isn't possible to yet copy hard work. If it were, then I doubt so many businesses would fail.
Agriculture is another fine example (from the last time this was discussed). With one bag of oranges, it is possible to grow enough oranges to last an average family for decades, at a cost of near zero (water, 10 square yards of dirt, plant food?). Yet, we pay $4 for a carton of orange juice once a week. Why? Because that carton of orange juice is a better product, even though one can have unlimited w4r3z3d oranges. The convenience of not having to tend an orchard is more valuable than $16/month.
There's a slogan in there somewhere:
:) Gotta get the S in there somehow. It should be self-referential too, right?
Anti-copy bit...
Power of two...
I'll think of it in a minute..
Does this mean that choosing *not* to publish with content protection is also illegal? Would that not be a mind-boggling violation of the first amendment? Does it not also totally eliminate the public domain and fair use for digital works?
This reading doesn't seem to agree with the Senator's introductory statements of yesterday. Seems that Disney has decided we're all along for the ride whether we like it or not. Good way to put the competition out of business too.
Remember when the words "competition" and "free enterprise" actually meant something?
Its not a piece of property that someone else can take.
Really? It supports the employee, and their family, home, car, insurance, medical benefits, taxes, food, clothing, furniture, schooling, investments, retirement, etc.
An employee uses a job, the employee doesn't own it.
Thus, the "fired on a whim" attitude of management. No different than the licensing controversy with software and CDs. Nobody owns anything, therefore nobody is owed when the "anything" is taken.
I see a lot of people who want everthing handed to them: jobs, inventions, music, etc.
Sure. After several thousand resumes and a year of looking, I'd say the average good programmer is about to the point where they should be handed a job.
Who are going to be the productive people of the next generation?
Nobody. Half the people will be sitting in gray cubicles, unable to contribute because they are obstructed by incompetent management. The other half will spend all their productive time looking for work.
OK so I ride a bicycle and drive a PIIX3, but my point is that I think expectations for "reasonable standard of living" are grossly inflated in this country.
This is for basic apartment and basic food, and not in Silicon Valley. Let's say monthly expenses are $2000 (which buys a fairly modest to low standard of living). One would think that $15/hour ($30K/year) would be enough, but it isn't. $30K becomes $20-24K after taxes, and suddenly, there's not a spare cent left.
Add to that the fact there are no guarantees when it comes to these jobs, and it makes for a very flimsy way to make a living.
I will pay for convenience. I will pay for service. I will pay for value-added features.
Good. As long as the entire market doesn't say "everything for free, no alternatives," because that position will do more damage to the economy than a hundred of these bills.
Try and step outside our broken, plutocratic, dollars-and-cents civilization for one second and think of the utopian society advanced technology COULD provide for the human race one day.
Agreed. 100% I think that is a worthy and even likely goal.
But in a world where a $15/hour job is insufficient to pay for adequate shelter, food, etc. and where such a job can be yanked away at the slightest whim of "management," people have to be over-concerned with money, and I think that is at least part of the problem.
These types of dreams will never be realized
This will be for several reasons, not the least of which is that we, as a society, have become so risk-averse as to be useless. It permeates our thinking on every level, but especially in business, which is why so few really new and really useful things actually get done. The idea people and the engineers have to make a business case for EVERYTHING. Meaning that EVERY SINGLE ACTIVITY must have a positive, calculable cost-benefit analysis, and abstract benefits are not allowed.
This problem needs to be solved, and soon, or we will likely miss the promise of all our technology in favor of the status quo.
It's true that it could remove the cost of the middlemen, but you need somebody to start you up unless you already have the money. This would typically be a VC/Publisher since a bank probably won't loan it to you since it's too expensive and too risky.
Take the VC out of the list too. They want 20% annual growth. Will NOT happen with game developer.
So you still end up with somebody taking a cut in the middle and wanting a big return since it's a high risk.
Oh, they get more than that. Publisher wants 85% of the take, PLUS they want the copyrights and trademarks to the whole project, including the characters, merchandising, sequels, etc. Better to just fill out an application and at least get some benefits.
Most game projects do not make any money.
That explains the record profits made by the game industry last year. Game projects don't make money. Game *publishers* make billions, all the time whining "ehhhhhhhhh, we can't make any moneyyyyyyy"
But that's the stated goal, right? Let's just make it impossible for anyone to do business with anything that can be digitized. I'm sure every single person who will be thrown out of work was driven only by greed.
have a sensible haircut.
:)
Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Grandpa Simpson (in a flashback) says:
Now look at that Johnny Unitas. There's a haircut you can set your watch to!
If you hide it, we will find it. If you guard it, we will free it. If you hoard it, we will spread it.
Ok. If they put it on-line, will you buy it?
If not, what? Just going to put everyone out of work, right?
fmreh.. should have read the article first...
colleagues had reviewed an early draft of the SSSCA. Hollings has refused to release newer drafts.
Well, it's part of the Congressional Record now.
while Republican senators such as John McCain (R-Arizona) and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) said they "would be extremely hesitant regarding any proposal for government to mandate copy-protection technology."
Interesting and potentially ironic that Senator McCain is opposed, given his support of Campaign Finance Reform. *cough*
heh heh.. whoops.. Guess the *AA forgot there are two houses in Congress. Oh, and they better get a map to the other end of Pennsylvania avenue, because there's some guy down there that'll need a copy of the bill at some point.
Accordingly, only early adopters have purchased high definition television sets or broadband Internet access, as these products remain priced too high for the average consumer. The facts are clear in this regard. Only two million Americans have purchased HDTV sets. As for broadband, rural and underserved areas aside, there is not an availability problem. There is a demand problem.
Hold it. A "demand" problem is not the concern of Congress. If the products are priced too high, and there is little demand, then it is up to the businesses to reduce the price.
This is wanton "profit by legislation," just like the auto insurance laws. How long before it will be illegal not to own one of these products? Oh yeah, and for all the "slippery slope" trolls: look what's happened to the copyright laws themselves over the past 100 years.
Roughly 85% of Americans are offered broadband in the marketplace but only 10-12% have signed up. The fact is that most Americans are averse to paying $50 a month for faster access to email, or $2000 for a fancy HDTV set that plays analog movies.
Right. Because they can't afford it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all these huge companies are RAISING PRICES WHILE THEY FIRE THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE BUYING THEIR #%&@$$^_)(*@$% PRODUCTS!! WHAT ABOUT THAT, SENATOR??
Oh, we should let the market decide there, right? So it's ok for some mumbling, inept, incompetent corporate middle-manager to destroy someone's career, (and indirectly take their home, and security, and money, and investments, and health insurance, and references, and quite possibly their family and children) whenever they feel like it, but the employee must hand over their money whenever marketing rings the bell?
Well, in the case of the overpriced broadband and HDTV products, the market has decided, and Content Inc. lost. Deal.
But if more high-quality content were available, consumer interest wou! ld l ikely increase.
Let's see some evidence of that first. Let's see some content, any content offered by any large corporation besides Super Bowl commercials. Wait, there is one example. Cartoon Network offers web-based versions of some of their programs. They now have 80 million subscribers and are stomping the living crap out of every cable channel they compete with and are scaring the living crap out of the networks too. Hmmmm.....
The movie studios, and the rest of the copyright industries
Copyright industries? So, they manufacture copyrights? That is a fascinating and very descriptive term.
are tremendously excited about the possibility of providing their products to consumers over the Internet and the digital airwaves, provided they can be assured that those products' copyrights are not infringed in the process.
Sure, as long as they can re-engineer the entire high-tech industry (which manufactures actual products, by the way) before doing so. It wasn't always this way. First they had to lose a Supreme Court case back in the 70s-80s to "allow" the public access to VCRs.
Although marketplace negotiations have not provided such an assurance, a solution is at hand. Leaders in the consumer electronics, information technology, and content industries are some of America's best and brightest. They can solve this problem.
So what do we need this legislation for?
the private sector needs a nudge
A nudge? A letter is a nudge. This bill is a #%&@$^)(*@$ avalanche.
consumers desire high-quality digital content on the Internet, and it is not being provided in any widespread, legal fashion.
Because the Copyright Industries (heh) won't allow it. How about solving that problem? Why is this the "consumer's" fault. (I hate that word).
mandate to ensure its swift and universal adoption.
You meant nudge, right, Senator?
Congress mandated that all television receivers include the capability to tune all channels (UHF and VHF) allocated to the television broadcast service.
..while this bill requires all computers to tune to the *one* channel allowed by the Copyright Industries.
would not be permitted to thwart legitimate consumer copying of programming in the home
Like Macrovision does?
- for time shifting purposes, for example.
How are they going to know the difference? This law mandates it's own uselessness.
We have listened to their arguments delivered in dozens of meetings with my staff,
..and ignored them.
and the bill we introduce today does nothing of the sort.
Called it.
Sigh... it sounds like Macrovision for computers. This will slow down the "Napsterization" of the Copyright Industries (heh) for about six hours. I'm saddened that Diane Feinstein was a co-sponsor of this. She seemed to be quite critical of the bill only a few months ago. Which leaves Californians with only one potential representative on this matter: Barbara Boxer. (ugh)
The House will probably not pass this legislation, but letters to Senators, Congressmen, *and* the President would probably be a good thing(tm). If this becomes law, computers and software as an industry are going to be damaged and the Internet will become the exclusive domain of the Copyright Industries.
This goes to show the Cluetrain was right:
"Big Business sees the consumer as a gullet who's primary function is to swallow products and crap cash."
The slogan for this bill?
"Get back on the couch."
The real barrier is who's got the deeper pockets.
$50 for a Motion to Dismiss
Game Over.
Invention is often used to gather copyright, trademark and patent together in IP agreements. Nevertheless, the intent of this statute is clearly meant to draw an insurmountable distinction between what does and does not belong to an employer.
With 9 out of 10 people "employed" in some capacity, no individual could ever own an invention if the law were not written this way.
Note that in California, such a contract is void and unenforceable. The Labor Laws state that any work performed outside the scope of employment belongs to the employee, and *even if* an agreement stating otherwise is signed, it is against the public policy of the State of California and cannot be enforced.
That said, I'd never sign such an agreement anyway. Employers have no claim to time outside of work.
That was an unjustifiably arrogant statement. I didn't feel the need to mention that my education included more than a year of music theory and history; along with Attic and Homeric Greek; Plato, Euclid, Ptolemy, Lucretius, Shakespeare, Aquinas, Plutarch, Machiavelli, Descartes; Boyle, Pascal, Priestley, Lavoisier, Dalton, Avogadro, Mendeleev... well, I've just started. I could go on.
It is justified in the face of the assertion that "most Americans" are only moderately well-educated, which implies that most Americans are unqualified to make factual statements in a discussion.
Some would even contend that it further implies that most Americans are fat, dumb, happy illiterates who are easily entertained by whatever happens to be on television at the moment: an implication that is as flagrant in its inaccuracy as it is in its cynicism. I don't necessarily believe this is what was meant, but I have grown overwhelmingly fatigued with this belief that the "mainstream" is generally stupid.
I can't really tell if you have more of a quarrel with me, or with the author of the NYT article.
I haven't any quarrel. I was pointing out that the author of the article was drawing an incorrect conclusion based on a superficial understanding of music history.
and the musicians who performed it were either informal, local amateurs; or traveling vagabonds.
Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Vivaldi and Mozart did not write works to be performed by "informal, local amateurs and traveling vagabonds." Amateurs and vagabonds cannot perform the kinds of works written by these composers. In fact, professionals often have some difficulty with them. But aside from that, it still doesn't address the example of operatic and theatric leads, or the Italian Opera as a whole, to say nothing of the influence of the Church dating all the way back to the Medieval period.
And my more broad point also stands: the overwhelming majority of people throughout history have been illiterate and were not participants in the documented, intellectual history of humanity.
Sounds pessimistic. The composers being discussed here wrote their music with the goal of making the majority of people participants. Mozart is a fine example. Although his works were often written at the request or commission of the aristocracy, Mozart was very concerned with how the public received his work. It is no different with other composers, many of whom were also teachers of music.
Were the majority excluded, it is doubtful that many composers would have been as inspired or as prolific.
having been around for a long, long, time only makes money if you have something really slick to offer.
..and how is this different from any other business?
The composers you have in mind were a small group of people creating music mostly for the small aristocracy.
Commissioned by the aristocracy. Then very often (almost always, in the case of anything but concertos, solo arias and chamber music) performed for the general public.
The musicians which performed the music were less well regarded. But the main point is that this is only a tiny segment of the human population.
That doesn't address the example of operatic performers, and if it was meant to exclude composers, many of whom from time to time performed their own works (Mozart was mentioned by name), then perhaps the article should have clarified this. It didn't. On the contrary, it made a general statement about "musicians in Western society." That includes them all, even if the writer meant something different.
And, in the west, the vagabonds that performed it were not well regarded. The twentieth-century changed that.
This would have been a better introduction to that section of the article.
The way contemporary Americans view history is skewed in that most of us are belong to a moderately educated middle-class that is historically exceptional.
Others of us belong to an exceptionally educated middle-class. I studied upper division music history and theory for two years.
The problem with these discussions is that everyone starts out thinking that every other "contemporary American" spent college asleep in class and falling-down drunk on the weekends, and is now bereft of any knowledge or historical perspective. Some of us actually got something out of college besides how to treat a hangover.
It's also one of the major reasons that employers shove college degrees aside (and into the trash) during interviews, unless the degree is a Masters or PhD, then they can say "overqualified."
Most of what is thought of as historically important in this context was popular only to a small, priveleged portion of the population.
On the surface, that is a common conclusion to draw. However, there are dozens if not hundreds of examples of composers and musicians all the way back to the days of the first Gregorian harmonies who were quite popular with the common man in their immediate community. By the Renaissance and Classical periods, news of great performers and composers preceded opera companies, which is what gave them the ability (and means) to travel. It is also one of the things that made the symphony possible.
There is one fairly popular area of study in music history that theorizes a strong and well-supported connection between Classical opera and Vaudeville, interrupted only by the Romantic decline in the popularity of Classical opera and the attendant increased interest in the Aria as a self-contained musical form. Historically speaking, the distance between Vaudeville and the beginnings of "mass appeal" in the big band and 50s eras is insignificant, which supports the idea that music history is a continuous progression rather than a series of time periods.
It is true that none of this compares to events like those in contemporary music history; however, to dismiss all Western musicians prior to the 20th century as "mistrusted vagabonds" is just plain inaccurate.
So lets say we could duplicate apples from one original apple.
We can. It's called a seed.
Searching and indexing music is far cheaper than making music!
Really? What is the URL for the comprehensive index of all music? Indexing music is very hard work and very time-consuming, especially if adding something above what the CD Player lists as artist, title, album and time.
Why would one be able to find one version of the track but not another?
For the same reason that I can't find some specific version of some obscure 27K library that the latest version of $REALLY_COOL_LINUX_PROGRAM absolutely must have in order to function. Happens all the time.
is likely a very limited market
All markets are limited. The mass market, mainstream, whatever, is a fiction. No company sells to the "mass market," unless it's laundry detergent.
each one of those expensive people had better produce a lot of $10 custom mixes every single day to keep the business afloat
These statements seem overly skeptical, almost as if there is a parallel statement of "HA! HA! We can copy everything and there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING YOU CAN DO to make money ever again!! Ha! Ha!"
hasn't really been thought out
The point was not to produce a business plan.
Most of the "business models" that the poster referred to amount to something like "maybe people will buy stuff if it's easier to buy it than to find it for free."
..and they will. That's very simple. I was just commenting to a couple of other "technical people" the other day that if there were a website where I could be 99% sure I could search for and get a quality download of $GREAT_SONG immediately, that would be worth paying for, and I think such a business would make profits in amounts ($millions a week, easily) that would turn the record companies green.
Until the 20th century, musicians in Western societies were generally held in contempt, their status approximating that of a vagabond. Even the most successful musicians were mistrusted.
Apparently there is a slight shortage of study in music history here. Composers were widely sought by noble courts and commissioned to produce new music regularly. In Italy, star operatic leads were treated almost as well as royalty for decades, if not centuries.
A far cry from "general contempt," despite the anecdotal support.
Bill Gates will run for President of the United States ...
However, he will join neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties, because those were not invented by Microsoft. Instead, he'll be the candidate from the Business Software Alliance Party. Their flag will consist of Clippy drawn over the Windows logo on a blue background.
ROFL!