Most people don't have a clue about circuit boards and soldering irons except what they've seen in some stupid action flick. It is highly plausible that some people would just assume that "there is some really wierd shit going on this apartment look at all these tools and wires and uhm... stuff I better call the FBI this looks like the bomb I saw in."
I'm not sure that is applicable or relevant being that it's really the X Window System not X-Windows. X-Windows is what a lot of people refer to it though it is incorrect. That could maybe be used to show dilution of the trademark, but not being a lawyer I'm really not sure.
Duku vs Yoda: Round 2 was extremely obvious at the end of EP2. I didn't put any thought into where or when and I didn't know about that particular part of the lore but it does make sense. The only problem with thinking about what will happen logically is that Lucas hasn't approached the first two films that way and there is little reason to believe that's how this film was approached.
I know it's a bit too much analysis, but why didn't Vader every hunt down Yoda, wouldn't a Jedi of such power been easily located? The above is the explanation they will use.
I'm sure he tried too, but when Luke visits Dagobah they allude to the fact that there is a strong "evil" presense and Luke never detects Yoda to begin with. It's no surprise that Luke couldn't detect Yoda, but it at least provides a reasonable belief there is some reason that Yoda can't be detected by force sensitive people while on Dagobah. The evil presense in the tree could also have something to do with Yoda defeating Duku if that is indeed where the battle takes place.
While I agree "surfing on lava" sounds entirely stupid we already knew that there was going to be a big battle on or near lava. This is how Annakin was damaged so terribly that he had to wear that suit as Vader that kept him alive.
Or you could have just read the linked articles... if you could call them articles.
The movie, which is the sixth in the series, also features Anakin being transformed into the evil Darth Vader when he falls into the lava, and his baby son, Luke, being smuggled to safety to the desert planet Tatooine.
You didn't, however, address my point. If scumbags are abusing their housing system, then some far more direct alternatives should've been the first things they considered. The obvious solution is to limit the number of houses that a single account can buy in a week/month/year. Another solution would be to discourage bots by making the starting price absolutely obscene, and lower it as time goes on if no one buys it. Brokers get much much poorer much much quicker if they still insist on snagging the house at any cost. If you're desperate, you'll pay for it. Much like the real-life real estate market works.
This is being done. The first step they are implementing is limiting how many times you can use the built in search feature to find available housing as the bots were using them every 5 seconds or so. The second piece is limiting the number of times an account can buy a house in a given month. Don't want the house you bought and want to trade with someone? Too bad wait till next month. The price would have to be absolutely obsurd to make them unaffordable the economy of the game is so broken hence this method wouldn't really work as even the brokers would be unable to snatch up the houses.
Alternately, they could take the social-solution-to-a-social-problem approach and make buying houses for the sole purpose of selling them to another player against the code of conduct, and punish the brokers with expulsion from the game. I know that's not Turbine's style (they have always taken a very light-touch, mostly hands-off approach to managing the game) but it's often a better way of dealing with problems than attempting to solve a social problem with a technological solution.
They are punishing brokers with expulsion from the game. Yes this is harsher than what Turbine would have typically done but that's probably because it wasn't up to Turbine but MS because MS ran customer service/billing/etc.
No. You presume people are too stupid to know about alternatives; I do not. I sold one of Sony's game accounts on an alternative.
I don't presume people are to stupid to know about alternatives. I said quite explicitely the determined will still be able to sell their stuff. Those that aren't aware of the alternatives or are afraid to use something other than ebay will no longer buy/sell their items/accounts.
The move is a net-negative. Just watch and see how much easier it is to get a house. (No easier).
It won't be any easier to get a house because there isn't enough desireable housing (cottages/villas) for the player base; however, you will no longer have people making hundreds of dollars every month on the sale of houses. This is a positive end result for the game as those who play only to buy and sell items add nothing to the game experience but grief for those playing by the rules.
Btw - I was in early beta so nya nya na nya nya.
Who wasn't? (no I'm not talking about the open beta)
First, I know what I'm talking about here because I have sold and purchased multiple accounts of AC. I haven't played in over a year.
I played the game from release till some time in 2003 when I quit for about 15 months. I recently started playing again because all of the other MMOGs I tried sucked quite badly. I also know what I'm talking about, and with more recent experience.
No, they aren't 'enforcing' anything. They are just telling Ebay that they can't make money off of it anymore. People can still buy and sell this stuff, just without the convenience and limited security of Ebay.
This is enforcing the AuP and CoC. It is of course only one part of enforcment. The AuP and CoC state that you are prohibited from selling any in game items, or accounts. By pulling these sales from known auction sites they are using one type of enforcment. Canceling a prohibited sale. Of course other sales are still going to go through by other means, that doesn't make this any less effective. The harder it is to sell items the fewer people there are doing it.
Another part of enforcment is the banning of accounts found to be used by the worst violaters. Personally I think this is all happening much to late to make a differance. Microsofts failure to enforce the CoC caused irreperable harm to the game and allowed people like Grayson to bring in quite a bit of profit by breaking the rules while those that followed the rules were often "left out" or behind.
Here's the problem. When accounts are sold on Ebay they can later be "recalled" by the original owner. This has happened quite a few times. Basically even though the account information is given to the new owner and the new owner updates the subscription/billing information, the new owner can get the account back at any time. They simply call up MS/Turbine and tell them the cd-key and credit card information the account was originally created with. The password is then reset and the original owner has their account back. The new owner has no rights as far as MS/Turbine are concerned as their purchase of the account was prohibited by the AuP and therefor not valid. This type of thing has been reported repeatedly on the varoius AC forums over the years and if nothing else Turbine is reducing their support costs by actually enforcing the policy and making it known they will be actively enforcing it now.
The other issue is that selling items on ebay is strictly against the code of conduct and acceptable use policies for this game. That makes buying/selling items on ebay no differant from cheating by taking advantage of an exploit (item duping whatever). Taking the trade/sale of in game items outside of the game leaves out people that aren't stupid enough to pay real money for virtual items and that are unwilling to violate those rules. The point of the MMOG is to create a virtual world, in most worlds you would expect to find a thriving barter system. Hopefully this will further reduce the out of game sales to those that are very determined and level the playing field in the game so that to have the best items you don't have to have the most disposable income outside the game world.
In the case of Asheron's Call Turbine is now able to enforce the rules that have been in place since the game was released and Microsoft chose to ignore. This isn't/shouldn't be surprising for anyone that actually bothered to read the AuP or CoC when they signed up for the game.
Actually eBay sales have ALWAYS been againce the Code of Conduct and acceptible use policy. Now that Turbine has control of AC they are actually enforcing those rules since Microsoft didn't care to. The reason they mention the housing bots is because while the method wasn't perfect for getting a house it certainly wasn't bad... up until a few people starting having bots check for available housing every few seconds and then snatching it up any time one became available specifically for the purpose of reselling the house on eBay. With the removal of the brokers houses in theory should become more available. In practice they probably won't as there are more players than cottages, villas, or mansions. This means that the remaining players must settle for apartments. This wouldn't be so bad if the apartments were more than one room hovels with one chest and three hooks for placing items that exist in areas known for being extremely laggy.
Hey, here's a thought...maybe we could limit all medical experiments to use only non-human embryos or fetuses. That way, neither side should (in theory) have a problem with it. What do you think?
Or we could use both. I don't have too much of a problem with testing on animals (it really just depends on the test). I was just throwing the animal issue out there for the purpose of debate. You actually might have a point though, initially both sides might be ok with it (excluding the extreme animal rights activists). Eventually though you have to try it out with human embroys/stem cells/whatever or how do you know that the research is applicable to humans?
The way things are going in our culture, when you are old and suffering from Parkinson's you won't be cured, rather you'll be harvested for parts. The thinking at that time will be that you aren't human anymore, or that you are too much of a burden for society. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear not
I doubt this will be a valid concern. Young fresh parts are desireable. Why would you want old parts from someone with a debilitating sickness?
I call B.S. Care to offer some evidence for this sweeping statement? I have no problem with medical advancement, just with "advancement" that is conducted at the expense of someone who has no say in the matter.
Lab rats? Clinical trials on Chimpanzees? These types of tests go on every day and I would certainly say some percentage of them are to the detrimant of those being used for the tests. I'm pretty sure they have no say in the matter as well. Of course that's ok cause they aren't human right? Most human trials are done wiht volunteers, but what about in the past like when MIT did radiation research at a home for the mentally challenged or the Army releasing chemicals into the air on certain populations to test the effects without bothering to tell anyone. There are plenty of sites keeping track of this type of secret studies. Such as above top secret. If you don't find that a credible source you could always look at the CDC pages for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study which was certainly done inappropriatly.
I should probably clarify that I don't think a fertilized embryo is a human yet and that I'm ok with stem cell research etc. I also think that if we are going to ban it then our own government shouldn't be offshoring the research to get around our laws. Besides.. who's to say that with more research we won't work out a method for cloning specific parts and not whole people from whom parts will be harvested. This makes the most sense to me. Like the recent announcment that stem cells may be used to regrow teeth. We might just figure out how to grow just kidneys, livers, hearts, or whatever we need. Then we won't have issues with people dieing while waiting on transplant need lists and can potentially guarantee successful acceptance of new organs by the body.
I guess that just depends on if you think the moderators are allowed to partake in these types of jokes. If you think moderation is 100% serious and it was an inappropriate use of moderator points then mark it unfair. If you can't decide mark it no opinion, and if you think it was funny then mark it fair. I personally thought it was funny and would probably mark it as a fair moderation, but that's just me.
I think the moderation of informative was a joke by the moderators. If you think about it was quite funny that not only was the post a joke but the moderation of informative played on that.
I find your analogy suspect, though I can't actually explain why, I need to work on it...
It's not a perfect analogy, but I said that. One of the biggest issues is that a home is tangible and can only be sold to one person at a time. Music is not necessarily tangible, you can't pick it up and hold it in your hand and it can be sold countless times. However, under our current laws it's still treated similarly to other types of property so that's why I made the connection.
I think that if everyone obtained their music without paying the RIAA, but gave money to the artists, it would very definately change the system. The RIAA would be starved for money and die. I argue that it certainly will. Kill the RIAA and the system changes; how specifically the system changes is a totally different argument
I don't really think this is changing the system. The RIAA will get subpeonas to find out who was paying the artists directly and sue those people for committing copy right infringment. They are already doing this (well not exactly, but the ISP records and P2P suits are similar the prime differance is that in your scenario the artist gets money and they currently do not). This isn't a change in the system. I also doubt that a sudden and full shift to paying the artists directly would kill the RIAA, at least in the short term. The RIAA consists of large companies with multiple revenue streams. They can afford to funnel money into lawsuits for a long long time.
I think that mainly I find your argument suspect because I don't think that the people doing the work (whether they are builders or musicians) are getting a fair deal. Yes, they willingly enter into what they contract for, but that doesn't mean its all their fault when they get screwed. Its not as if there were "good" building agencies, or record labels, that they simply chose not to deal with, for the most part, they simply went with the only game in town. Still, I realize that my reply isn't really informative or persuasive. Like I said, I can't agree with your argument, but I need more time to formulate exactly why I can't.
The workers may not be getting a fair deal in either case. There are labor laws to protect people from most of the ways they could/would get screwed over. Failing to negotiate a fair wage, or royalty arrangment falls onto the shoulder of the worker though. Either directly or through agents/managment etc. Also, artists don't HAVE to go with RIAA member labels. There are a lot of independant labels, and that number continues to grow. The RIAA certainly has an undue influence on music and through that popular culture. They unfairly manipulate the market, fix prices, and do other things that are not fair (or legal). They are certainly evil... however many artists have chosen to go with RIAA member labels and a chance at "fame and fortune" rather than other routes to sell their music. Sure the other routes are harder and not necessarily as profitable (currently), but other options do exist and I have a hard time feeling sorry for artists currently signing on with RIAA member labels. Rather than support those artists attached to RIAA member labels directly or indirectly I would rather just give my money to an artist on an independant label that isn't trying to restrict my rights in every way possible.
I can't see your argument here. The musician produced the music. I send the musician money. Any side deals involving the rights to the music don't actualy affect the fact that the musician got money from me for his music. How is this not doing any good?
If you want to buy a house you can't just find an empty one, send the builders (construction workers, not contractors, construction firms etc) money if the house is actually owned by a bank. Sure, you paid the creators of the house but they have most likely already been paid for that work.
Music is often the same way. A lot of music is created as a work for hire. The musician gets an advance to create some music. The advance goes to pay for the production, and then the artist keeps whatever is left. The label then keeps money from the sales of that music to recover the cost of the advance and any other funds they have laid out. The label then profits if the revenue from that music is greater than the initial outlay of cash. Now the issue isn't nearly that simple and there are royalty payments and other things to consider. Yes, many labels don't pay fairly when it comes to royalties, and don't accurately report the earnings so they don't have to make royalty payments. This is an issue that needs to be resolved between the artists and the labels. When an artist transfers ownership of music to a label they have been paid for the work. Just as the builders of the house have already been conpensated for doing their jobs.
Sure, the analogy isn't perfect, but intellectual propery is considered to be exactly that under our laws, property. Sending an artist money might help the artist that is getting screwed by their label, but then they shouldn't have agreed to a contract that screwed them. The only way to get the labels out of the loop so they can't screw artists or consumers is to get the artists to stop giving away ownership of their art. Then we can pay the artists directly and show that we don't need the labels and if they want to survive they need to change their business plans. That's why just sending money to the artists doesn't do any good. It puts a few bucks in the artists pocket, opens you up to liability for basically admitting to copyright infringment (unless you don't specify why you are giving the artist money of course), and fails to actually effect any change on the system.
I absolutely agree that supporting the artists is the ultimate goal and the right thing to do. I'm just pointing out that sending money to the artists for downloading music doesn't do any good because so many artists don't actually own rights to the music. Now if you only want to send money to those artists that were smart enough to retain rights to their music or are on non RIAA member labels that works much better. It supports the artist and sends a message that you only support non RIAA artists...
No, a great many of the artists don't own the songs you are downloading. They signed away the rights to the song for the promise of royalty checks or advances for new albums or any number of reasons. So sending money directly to the artist will in many cases not actually be paying the "owner" of the song.
A list of EV1's IP blocks was available long before the whole SCO debacle. The reason being there was a time when it didn't appear EV1 (aka RackShack) didn't appear to be policing violaters of their AUP. Hence if you want to block EV1 you can add that particular blackhole. Of course it's something you have to add manually.
Slashdot Mirror
That's MS black don't you know.
The same works in most browsers... Firefox for example.
Most people don't have a clue about circuit boards and soldering irons except what they've seen in some stupid action flick. It is highly plausible that some people would just assume that "there is some really wierd shit going on this apartment look at all these tools and wires and uhm... stuff I better call the FBI this looks like the bomb I saw in ."
I'm not sure that is applicable or relevant being that it's really the X Window System not X-Windows. X-Windows is what a lot of people refer to it though it is incorrect. That could maybe be used to show dilution of the trademark, but not being a lawyer I'm really not sure.
Duku vs Yoda: Round 2 was extremely obvious at the end of EP2. I didn't put any thought into where or when and I didn't know about that particular part of the lore but it does make sense. The only problem with thinking about what will happen logically is that Lucas hasn't approached the first two films that way and there is little reason to believe that's how this film was approached.
I know it's a bit too much analysis, but why didn't Vader every hunt down Yoda, wouldn't a Jedi of such power been easily located? The above is the explanation they will use.
I'm sure he tried too, but when Luke visits Dagobah they allude to the fact that there is a strong "evil" presense and Luke never detects Yoda to begin with. It's no surprise that Luke couldn't detect Yoda, but it at least provides a reasonable belief there is some reason that Yoda can't be detected by force sensitive people while on Dagobah. The evil presense in the tree could also have something to do with Yoda defeating Duku if that is indeed where the battle takes place.
I think I'll just preserve my sanity and not watch either.
While I agree "surfing on lava" sounds entirely stupid we already knew that there was going to be a big battle on or near lava. This is how Annakin was damaged so terribly that he had to wear that suit as Vader that kept him alive.
Or you could have just read the linked articles... if you could call them articles.
The movie, which is the sixth in the series, also features Anakin being transformed into the evil Darth Vader when he falls into the lava, and his baby son, Luke, being smuggled to safety to the desert planet Tatooine.
Yup, that's usually the way it works isn't it.
Even previewing this message I missed the mispelling of absurd... oh well I guess.
You didn't, however, address my point. If scumbags are abusing their housing system, then some far more direct alternatives should've been the first things they considered. The obvious solution is to limit the number of houses that a single account can buy in a week/month/year. Another solution would be to discourage bots by making the starting price absolutely obscene, and lower it as time goes on if no one buys it. Brokers get much much poorer much much quicker if they still insist on snagging the house at any cost. If you're desperate, you'll pay for it. Much like the real-life real estate market works.
This is being done. The first step they are implementing is limiting how many times you can use the built in search feature to find available housing as the bots were using them every 5 seconds or so. The second piece is limiting the number of times an account can buy a house in a given month. Don't want the house you bought and want to trade with someone? Too bad wait till next month. The price would have to be absolutely obsurd to make them unaffordable the economy of the game is so broken hence this method wouldn't really work as even the brokers would be unable to snatch up the houses.
Alternately, they could take the social-solution-to-a-social-problem approach and make buying houses for the sole purpose of selling them to another player against the code of conduct, and punish the brokers with expulsion from the game. I know that's not Turbine's style (they have always taken a very light-touch, mostly hands-off approach to managing the game) but it's often a better way of dealing with problems than attempting to solve a social problem with a technological solution.
They are punishing brokers with expulsion from the game. Yes this is harsher than what Turbine would have typically done but that's probably because it wasn't up to Turbine but MS because MS ran customer service/billing/etc.
No. You presume people are too stupid to know about alternatives; I do not. I sold one of Sony's game accounts on an alternative.
I don't presume people are to stupid to know about alternatives. I said quite explicitely the determined will still be able to sell their stuff. Those that aren't aware of the alternatives or are afraid to use something other than ebay will no longer buy/sell their items/accounts.
The move is a net-negative. Just watch and see how much easier it is to get a house. (No easier).
It won't be any easier to get a house because there isn't enough desireable housing (cottages/villas) for the player base; however, you will no longer have people making hundreds of dollars every month on the sale of houses. This is a positive end result for the game as those who play only to buy and sell items add nothing to the game experience but grief for those playing by the rules.
Btw - I was in early beta so nya nya na nya nya.
Who wasn't? (no I'm not talking about the open beta)
First, I know what I'm talking about here because I have sold and purchased multiple accounts of AC. I haven't played in over a year.
I played the game from release till some time in 2003 when I quit for about 15 months. I recently started playing again because all of the other MMOGs I tried sucked quite badly. I also know what I'm talking about, and with more recent experience.
No, they aren't 'enforcing' anything. They are just telling Ebay that they can't make money off of it anymore. People can still buy and sell this stuff, just without the convenience and limited security of Ebay.
This is enforcing the AuP and CoC. It is of course only one part of enforcment. The AuP and CoC state that you are prohibited from selling any in game items, or accounts. By pulling these sales from known auction sites they are using one type of enforcment. Canceling a prohibited sale. Of course other sales are still going to go through by other means, that doesn't make this any less effective. The harder it is to sell items the fewer people there are doing it.
Another part of enforcment is the banning of accounts found to be used by the worst violaters. Personally I think this is all happening much to late to make a differance. Microsofts failure to enforce the CoC caused irreperable harm to the game and allowed people like Grayson to bring in quite a bit of profit by breaking the rules while those that followed the rules were often "left out" or behind.
Here's the problem. When accounts are sold on Ebay they can later be "recalled" by the original owner. This has happened quite a few times. Basically even though the account information is given to the new owner and the new owner updates the subscription/billing information, the new owner can get the account back at any time. They simply call up MS/Turbine and tell them the cd-key and credit card information the account was originally created with. The password is then reset and the original owner has their account back. The new owner has no rights as far as MS/Turbine are concerned as their purchase of the account was prohibited by the AuP and therefor not valid. This type of thing has been reported repeatedly on the varoius AC forums over the years and if nothing else Turbine is reducing their support costs by actually enforcing the policy and making it known they will be actively enforcing it now.
The other issue is that selling items on ebay is strictly against the code of conduct and acceptable use policies for this game. That makes buying/selling items on ebay no differant from cheating by taking advantage of an exploit (item duping whatever). Taking the trade/sale of in game items outside of the game leaves out people that aren't stupid enough to pay real money for virtual items and that are unwilling to violate those rules. The point of the MMOG is to create a virtual world, in most worlds you would expect to find a thriving barter system. Hopefully this will further reduce the out of game sales to those that are very determined and level the playing field in the game so that to have the best items you don't have to have the most disposable income outside the game world.
In the case of Asheron's Call Turbine is now able to enforce the rules that have been in place since the game was released and Microsoft chose to ignore. This isn't/shouldn't be surprising for anyone that actually bothered to read the AuP or CoC when they signed up for the game.
Actually eBay sales have ALWAYS been againce the Code of Conduct and acceptible use policy. Now that Turbine has control of AC they are actually enforcing those rules since Microsoft didn't care to. The reason they mention the housing bots is because while the method wasn't perfect for getting a house it certainly wasn't bad ... up until a few people starting having bots check for available housing every few seconds and then snatching it up any time one became available specifically for the purpose of reselling the house on eBay. With the removal of the brokers houses in theory should become more available. In practice they probably won't as there are more players than cottages, villas, or mansions. This means that the remaining players must settle for apartments. This wouldn't be so bad if the apartments were more than one room hovels with one chest and three hooks for placing items that exist in areas known for being extremely laggy.
Hey, here's a thought...maybe we could limit all medical experiments to use only non-human embryos or fetuses. That way, neither side should (in theory) have a problem with it. What do you think?
Or we could use both. I don't have too much of a problem with testing on animals (it really just depends on the test). I was just throwing the animal issue out there for the purpose of debate. You actually might have a point though, initially both sides might be ok with it (excluding the extreme animal rights activists). Eventually though you have to try it out with human embroys/stem cells/whatever or how do you know that the research is applicable to humans?
The way things are going in our culture, when you are old and suffering from Parkinson's you won't be cured, rather you'll be harvested for parts. The thinking at that time will be that you aren't human anymore, or that you are too much of a burden for society. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear not
I doubt this will be a valid concern. Young fresh parts are desireable. Why would you want old parts from someone with a debilitating sickness?
I call B.S. Care to offer some evidence for this sweeping statement? I have no problem with medical advancement, just with "advancement" that is conducted at the expense of someone who has no say in the matter.
Lab rats? Clinical trials on Chimpanzees? These types of tests go on every day and I would certainly say some percentage of them are to the detrimant of those being used for the tests. I'm pretty sure they have no say in the matter as well. Of course that's ok cause they aren't human right? Most human trials are done wiht volunteers, but what about in the past like when MIT did radiation research at a home for the mentally challenged or the Army releasing chemicals into the air on certain populations to test the effects without bothering to tell anyone. There are plenty of sites keeping track of this type of secret studies. Such as above top secret. If you don't find that a credible source you could always look at the CDC pages for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study which was certainly done inappropriatly.
I should probably clarify that I don't think a fertilized embryo is a human yet and that I'm ok with stem cell research etc. I also think that if we are going to ban it then our own government shouldn't be offshoring the research to get around our laws. Besides.. who's to say that with more research we won't work out a method for cloning specific parts and not whole people from whom parts will be harvested. This makes the most sense to me. Like the recent announcment that stem cells may be used to regrow teeth. We might just figure out how to grow just kidneys, livers, hearts, or whatever we need. Then we won't have issues with people dieing while waiting on transplant need lists and can potentially guarantee successful acceptance of new organs by the body.
I guess that just depends on if you think the moderators are allowed to partake in these types of jokes. If you think moderation is 100% serious and it was an inappropriate use of moderator points then mark it unfair. If you can't decide mark it no opinion, and if you think it was funny then mark it fair. I personally thought it was funny and would probably mark it as a fair moderation, but that's just me.
I think the moderation of informative was a joke by the moderators. If you think about it was quite funny that not only was the post a joke but the moderation of informative played on that.
Don't log out or shut down, I will lose Internet access.
At least that's what it looks like to me.
I find your analogy suspect, though I can't actually explain why, I need to work on it...
It's not a perfect analogy, but I said that. One of the biggest issues is that a home is tangible and can only be sold to one person at a time. Music is not necessarily tangible, you can't pick it up and hold it in your hand and it can be sold countless times. However, under our current laws it's still treated similarly to other types of property so that's why I made the connection.
I think that if everyone obtained their music without paying the RIAA, but gave money to the artists, it would very definately change the system. The RIAA would be starved for money and die. I argue that it certainly will. Kill the RIAA and the system changes; how specifically the system changes is a totally different argument
I don't really think this is changing the system. The RIAA will get subpeonas to find out who was paying the artists directly and sue those people for committing copy right infringment. They are already doing this (well not exactly, but the ISP records and P2P suits are similar the prime differance is that in your scenario the artist gets money and they currently do not). This isn't a change in the system. I also doubt that a sudden and full shift to paying the artists directly would kill the RIAA, at least in the short term. The RIAA consists of large companies with multiple revenue streams. They can afford to funnel money into lawsuits for a long long time.
I think that mainly I find your argument suspect because I don't think that the people doing the work (whether they are builders or musicians) are getting a fair deal. Yes, they willingly enter into what they contract for, but that doesn't mean its all their fault when they get screwed. Its not as if there were "good" building agencies, or record labels, that they simply chose not to deal with, for the most part, they simply went with the only game in town. Still, I realize that my reply isn't really informative or persuasive. Like I said, I can't agree with your argument, but I need more time to formulate exactly why I can't.
The workers may not be getting a fair deal in either case. There are labor laws to protect people from most of the ways they could/would get screwed over. Failing to negotiate a fair wage, or royalty arrangment falls onto the shoulder of the worker though. Either directly or through agents/managment etc. Also, artists don't HAVE to go with RIAA member labels. There are a lot of independant labels, and that number continues to grow. The RIAA certainly has an undue influence on music and through that popular culture. They unfairly manipulate the market, fix prices, and do other things that are not fair (or legal). They are certainly evil... however many artists have chosen to go with RIAA member labels and a chance at "fame and fortune" rather than other routes to sell their music. Sure the other routes are harder and not necessarily as profitable (currently), but other options do exist and I have a hard time feeling sorry for artists currently signing on with RIAA member labels. Rather than support those artists attached to RIAA member labels directly or indirectly I would rather just give my money to an artist on an independant label that isn't trying to restrict my rights in every way possible.
I can't see your argument here. The musician produced the music. I send the musician money. Any side deals involving the rights to the music don't actualy affect the fact that the musician got money from me for his music. How is this not doing any good?
If you want to buy a house you can't just find an empty one, send the builders (construction workers, not contractors, construction firms etc) money if the house is actually owned by a bank. Sure, you paid the creators of the house but they have most likely already been paid for that work.
Music is often the same way. A lot of music is created as a work for hire. The musician gets an advance to create some music. The advance goes to pay for the production, and then the artist keeps whatever is left. The label then keeps money from the sales of that music to recover the cost of the advance and any other funds they have laid out. The label then profits if the revenue from that music is greater than the initial outlay of cash. Now the issue isn't nearly that simple and there are royalty payments and other things to consider. Yes, many labels don't pay fairly when it comes to royalties, and don't accurately report the earnings so they don't have to make royalty payments. This is an issue that needs to be resolved between the artists and the labels. When an artist transfers ownership of music to a label they have been paid for the work. Just as the builders of the house have already been conpensated for doing their jobs.
Sure, the analogy isn't perfect, but intellectual propery is considered to be exactly that under our laws, property. Sending an artist money might help the artist that is getting screwed by their label, but then they shouldn't have agreed to a contract that screwed them. The only way to get the labels out of the loop so they can't screw artists or consumers is to get the artists to stop giving away ownership of their art. Then we can pay the artists directly and show that we don't need the labels and if they want to survive they need to change their business plans. That's why just sending money to the artists doesn't do any good. It puts a few bucks in the artists pocket, opens you up to liability for basically admitting to copyright infringment (unless you don't specify why you are giving the artist money of course), and fails to actually effect any change on the system.
I absolutely agree that supporting the artists is the ultimate goal and the right thing to do. I'm just pointing out that sending money to the artists for downloading music doesn't do any good because so many artists don't actually own rights to the music. Now if you only want to send money to those artists that were smart enough to retain rights to their music or are on non RIAA member labels that works much better. It supports the artist and sends a message that you only support non RIAA artists...
No, a great many of the artists don't own the songs you are downloading. They signed away the rights to the song for the promise of royalty checks or advances for new albums or any number of reasons. So sending money directly to the artist will in many cases not actually be paying the "owner" of the song.
A list of EV1's IP blocks was available long before the whole SCO debacle. The reason being there was a time when it didn't appear EV1 (aka RackShack) didn't appear to be policing violaters of their AUP. Hence if you want to block EV1 you can add that particular blackhole. Of course it's something you have to add manually.