You know, I don't like Windows as much as the next fellow, but let's take a look at your comment.
"If you want to drag people away from the abomination that is windows, you have to offer something better instead of just copying the crap blindly"
Ah yes, an abomination. Such an abomination that KDE for Linux and BSD uses a start button, MacOS has used a start button or a launch bar since 7.x, and neXt used it too.
Clearly, Xandros should have consulted you instead of "just copying the crap blindly" like four disparate OSs have done since the 1990s. Really.
"If you want to drag people away from the abomination that is windows, you have to offer something better instead of just copying the crap blindly"
From what I can see, they are. They're not copying the various shitty-ass Linux UIs which prevent you from copying and pasting from 1 program to another, they're not saying "j00 n33d to 8e l33t" to use Linux, and they're not assuming people want to use a completely unfamiliar UI.
But, to be fair, I'm certain you're an experienced UI expert. Please share your design insights with the rest of us so that the world can finally see a non-derivative UI.
1) Buy an expensive Mac, thus putting yourself under the thumb of Apple and in a situation which is NOT an improvement over running XP.
2) Wait for OS X to come to the PC.
3) Wait for hardware and software makers to get off their asses and finally support Linux. It has been a long road, but I'm sticking with number 3. Number 1 is not and never will be an appealing option to me and most others.
Per #1, um, Palladium? If you're not willing to stick yourself under Apple's thumb when you go to 64-bit computing in 1-3 years, you *will* have to use 64-bit Windows or Linux running on Palladium-"enhanced" hardware. I guess you should starting considering which thumb you're going to be screwed by once 32-bit computing dies off.
Per #2, I never say never, but I doubt that's happening anytime this decade.
Per #3, ah, you mean the Linux that doesn't let the manufacturer use proprietary drivers? The Linux that unequivocally says, "If you make hardware or software for the Linux platform, the GPL *demands* that your programs and drivers be open source for Joe User"? The Linux that'll be running on Palladium in 2005 or 2006?
Hey, it could happen, but if I was betting on it, I'd use your money, not mine.
Sorry, but Firefly seemed like such a waste since it replaced Dark Angel in the same Fox time slot. The fact it was cancelled after fewer than 13 episodes kind of confirmed to me that Fox should have used Dark Angel as the lead-in to Firefly, not been/replaced/ with it.
"Switch between tabs in Mozilla using Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown. For most people with only two hands, this means not having to take a hand off the keyboard, and is much more efficient."
You're right, but the horror! The sheer horror! I use Ctrl-Tab on the left hand and it works perfectly.
"I can't count the number of times where I've had to use IE for whatever reason (usually someone else's machine) and found myself hitting / or Ctrl-T and wondering why it wasn't working."
Yep-indeedy, I can't imagine browsing the web without Ctrl-T for new tabs, right-clicking to "Open Link in New Tab" and never ever seeing pop-ups unless I want to see them.
It's good to know that when I move to Xandros or MacOS for the next PC, my browsing bases will be covered.
Funny you mention this. I bought Opera 7 a while back in May, determined to try to make it work for me since I got tired of IE and Outlook Express and wanted something faster than Mozilla.
The browser is excellent and is faster than Mozilla, hands down, but the e-mail experience was a disaster. Mozilla Mail is *far* better than Opera's built-in e-mail client, and frankly so is Outlook Express. I switched back to Mozilla, even though it's slower on start-up, so that I could better work with e-mail. Getting the Orbit 3+1 skin for Mozilla was a side-benefit: http://themes.mozdev.org/themes/orbit.html
I liked Opera 7 as a browser a lot, but until you can customize the e-mail client as much as you can in Mozilla, it's just an unused download.
Listen, if I'm sitting in the catbird's seat at a major label, I wouldn't be punking these kids out about how filesharing hurts artists, I'd be showing them how the pros do it - legally.
Vanishing royalties, recoupable expenses, double-standard accounting, ball-gripper contracts, long-term litigation - by the time these kids are finished with the class, they'll be dying to work in the industry instead of in front of it as performers. Screw the multiplication table, show 'em how to do math using the Royalty Calculator. Those proficiency tests will get hammered, at least mathematically.
Yeah, software patents are bad, but as an American, I love this. If European governors are all hot to trot for software patents, I can't help but believe that Americans will be the big winners in this since we have *years* of patented software available.
I'm gonna laugh my ass off if it turns out patented US software ends up dominating the software scene over there ("Whoops! Sorry Nigel, that's already been invented by someone in Utah!"). There's nothing like having another country eating your lunch to spur reform.
Gotta love lawmakers who sell out their own country to enormously powerful multinationals.
Regardless of the relative arguments about filesharing, having the grandparents or other family members getting served with subpoenas is guaranteed to put an end to any teenager silliness on the home pc. Saying how bad the RIAA is isn't going to cut it with anyone who's been inconvenienced by these things.
Of course, the flip side (?) is that the RIAA is now possibly making the number of people who hate them potentially much larger, if that was possible. Time will tell how this plays out...
For one, Apple *will not* deal with the band themselves. Read anything put out by them and they make that explicitly clear.
What CD Baby is doing is acting like a record label on behalf of the 38,000+ indie artists who sell their music through CD Baby, even though CD Baby has no exclusive right to the CDs sold on that site.
Instead of going through a point-by-point refutation of your garbage, why not actually read a little to see what's happening.
"It needs to be consumer-friendly and protect the interests of the artists as well."
Har har har. While I'm sure it'll be relatively easy to pay and download, doesn't the fact that the music is in Windows Media format mean that you can't play it in any device that doesn't support Windows Media files?
On this page: http://www.buymusic.com/support/help.aspx, it says: "Before tracks are copied to your CD, they are inspected and, in some cases, converted to a file type. This process takes several minutes." Since it doesn't specify what file type is being created, should we assume it'll be all-device compatible WAV-files? Or is that a nebulous way of saying it'll stay in WMF?
Last, since I've seen nothing more than *1* track from various indie artists on the site, I'll have to guess that all money from the purchase of music here goes directly to the label, not the artist. How again does this protect the interests of the artists?
Actually, "The Office" has just started over here on BBC-America (on cable TV). I've caught some of it and it's generally very funny (but not always). All-in-all, it's better than 90% of the shows on TV today.
This reply is to castlec and the AC, thanks. I actually p2p from home on my DSL line, so no chance at hiding behind the resources of a large organization like a library or work.
On the upside, I'm not infringing anyone's copyright. Nonetheless, given the opportunity to shroud my identity on p2p, I'd prefer to. It might be varporware today, but I'd like to see some Linux or Windows packages that can do this.
Interesting. Since I know 0 about PeerGuardian, I suppose this may be effective (or not). Does anyone have a documented analysis of how this works instead of some vague news report?
Also, I don't mind sharing the music on my hard drive (it's all indie and OK'd to be there), but that said, do firewalls protect your IP identity or are they useless for that? Unclear about what tools may be used in conjunction with p2p to cover your identity.
The site launched about 36-48 hours ago, so it's just now getting to be known. In the spirit of open source design, I decided to shove it out there and worry about getting artists signed up later (or adding features later).
So, to answer your question, no one knows about it yet, but that should change a little.:-)
You're right and you're wrong. You're absolutely right that you can sign up for your own merchant account at 2CheckOut for $49 and take it from there.
The rest of the pie is where you're somewhat wrong. Besides hosting their page at artist.fatchucks.com, we also take care of all these items:
Creating the shopping links and variable shipping for each item the artist wants to sell, both on our end and on the 2CO end.
Taking care of scanning and editing the album art so that people can see what they're buying, adding the track lists, making fan and media reviews about the artist centrally available, and otherwise providing a central location for fans to find info on the artist.
Providing order and customer support help for artists who need help handling the shipping and ordering aspects to their account when there's an issue.
Creating one location and one contact point for both artists and customers to talk to when they need the tools we provide, instead of having to deal with X parties, each of whom have their own agendas. We're here for both artists and the public.
And of course, if the idea is so-so, why hasn't anyone thought to harness the off-the-shelf tools that are publicly available to create a service that helps Indies this way? I looked for months and no one's doing it.
You're correct about paypal, especially since its service doesn't extend to many countries worldwide. The flip side is that when people sign up with us they get their own permanent Internet merchant account to accept orders from anyone in the world with a credit card or checking account, both off of our site and their own.
As far as the site appearance professionalism, sorry to hear that. The site was designed to be very simple, very quick-loading even at 56K, and easy for non-techies to use. It also displays perfectly on Opera 5-7, IE 4-6, Mozilla 0.9-1.3 and Lynx since we tested for each of those browsers.
Fat Chuck's may not be a great name, but it's totally memorable, just like CDNow or CD Baby (btw, artists can sell CDs, tapes, vinyl or other merchandise through us, not just CDs). Maybe I should have called it CD Chuck's? Don't know, but at least Fat Chuck's is semi humorous.:-)
I hope you'll stop by again and check out the artists who've decided to join. Sorry if we've made a bad first impression with you!
The idea behind FCM (Fat Chuck's Music) is to get rid of all the middlemen and allow artists to ship directly to fans and to be paid directly from fans. As you can see, we're not in the payment loop or the ordering loop besides letting artists list their goods with us (shopping has to begin somewhere that's convenient for fans).
I've been surprised by all the negative reactions here since I've seen so many comments about how great it would be to allow artists to sell directly to the world without middlemen (which is what we're doing). Hopefully this will keep growing and the way things are done today will seem like an anachronism in a few years, or else my idea will.;-)
I pay $9.95/month for 30gb of traffic at hostforweb.com, a pretty good hosting company. If I need to go to 300gb/month, they charge 95.00. The next step up in case things get crazy is sanethosting.com: http://www.sanethosting.com/
They charge $200/month for colocated hosting (including 330gb of transfer) and $99/month for every 330gb block after #1.
Actually, the owner and the site are both U.S.-based. The translation flags are there for the benefit of an non-native English speakers who visit the site and want to read it in their language, not mine.:-)
One point. Whether you sell through Fat Chuck's or any other site (CD Street, CD Baby, Amazon), you still have to assume the risk of having it created no matter who your store front is. Sorry, but I think most artists already understand that and it would be pretty insulting for me to tell them.:-)
As far as touring bands, this is a great idea. If the band's out touring, they can choose to suspend their account (since they can't ship their goods while on the road) or if they have a reliable friend back at the ranch, they can receive Internet orders for their music from both the cities they've just gigged at and other places where their self-promotions have created interest. To be blunt, if $40/year is too much, that's cool! But I think someone might be missing the boat a little.:-)
First, check out the overview. It's $60 for year 1 and $40 year after year 1. You get your *own* Internet merchant account and you keep all the money that the CC processor doesn't take.
Per shipping, the only way to do shipping is A) yourself and keep everything, or B) pay to send your CDs to a company somewhere and watch them keep $4/CD and the shipping charge for each CD.
If you want to pursue your own online transaction capability, I encourage you to. CCNow charges $9.95/month, PayPal does a ~good job for the 30-some countries it accepts payments from, and you're free to buy your own merchant account, but it's a bit expensive.
Speaking briefly, we've tried hard to make this really simple and really easy for artists who shouldn't have to be web design or financial instrument experts. And, at the end of the day, we're the only site around that allows artists to keep 100% of the money that fans pay for their music or merchandise.
When artists sign up with us, 100% of the money that fans pay for their music goes to the artist (after the CC company takes their cut). CD Baby keeps $4/album and they keep the shipping. When you're selling your album for $15, which scenario do you believe you'll make more money in for each sale?
Sorry, the devil is in the details. This has never been done before outside of live shows and car trunk sales.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I don't like Windows as much as the next fellow, but let's take a look at your comment.
"If you want to drag people away from the abomination that is windows, you have to offer something better instead of just copying the crap blindly"
Ah yes, an abomination. Such an abomination that KDE for Linux and BSD uses a start button, MacOS has used a start button or a launch bar since 7.x, and neXt used it too.
Clearly, Xandros should have consulted you instead of "just copying the crap blindly" like four disparate OSs have done since the 1990s. Really.
"If you want to drag people away from the abomination that is windows, you have to offer something better instead of just copying the crap blindly"
From what I can see, they are. They're not copying the various shitty-ass Linux UIs which prevent you from copying and pasting from 1 program to another, they're not saying "j00 n33d to 8e l33t" to use Linux, and they're not assuming people want to use a completely unfamiliar UI.
But, to be fair, I'm certain you're an experienced UI expert. Please share your design insights with the rest of us so that the world can finally see a non-derivative UI.
Peace,
Chuck
The way I see it you have 3 options.
1) Buy an expensive Mac, thus putting yourself under the thumb of Apple and in a situation which is NOT an improvement over running XP.
2) Wait for OS X to come to the PC.
3) Wait for hardware and software makers to get off their asses and finally support Linux. It has been a long road, but I'm sticking with number 3. Number 1 is not and never will be an appealing option to me and most others.
Per #1, um, Palladium? If you're not willing to stick yourself under Apple's thumb when you go to 64-bit computing in 1-3 years, you *will* have to use 64-bit Windows or Linux running on Palladium-"enhanced" hardware. I guess you should starting considering which thumb you're going to be screwed by once 32-bit computing dies off.
Per #2, I never say never, but I doubt that's happening anytime this decade.
Per #3, ah, you mean the Linux that doesn't let the manufacturer use proprietary drivers? The Linux that unequivocally says, "If you make hardware or software for the Linux platform, the GPL *demands* that your programs and drivers be open source for Joe User"? The Linux that'll be running on Palladium in 2005 or 2006?
Hey, it could happen, but if I was betting on it, I'd use your money, not mine.
Peace,
Chuck
Sorry, but Firefly seemed like such a waste since it replaced Dark Angel in the same Fox time slot. The fact it was cancelled after fewer than 13 episodes kind of confirmed to me that Fox should have used Dark Angel as the lead-in to Firefly, not been /replaced/ with it.
Oh well.
"Switch between tabs in Mozilla using Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown. For most people with only two hands, this means not having to take a hand off the keyboard, and is much more efficient."
You're right, but the horror! The sheer horror! I use Ctrl-Tab on the left hand and it works perfectly.
"I can't count the number of times where I've had to use IE for whatever reason (usually someone else's machine) and found myself hitting / or Ctrl-T and wondering why it wasn't working."
Yep-indeedy, I can't imagine browsing the web without Ctrl-T for new tabs, right-clicking to "Open Link in New Tab" and never ever seeing pop-ups unless I want to see them.
It's good to know that when I move to Xandros or MacOS for the next PC, my browsing bases will be covered.
Funny you mention this. I bought Opera 7 a while back in May, determined to try to make it work for me since I got tired of IE and Outlook Express and wanted something faster than Mozilla.
The browser is excellent and is faster than Mozilla, hands down, but the e-mail experience was a disaster. Mozilla Mail is *far* better than Opera's built-in e-mail client, and frankly so is Outlook Express. I switched back to Mozilla, even though it's slower on start-up, so that I could better work with e-mail. Getting the Orbit 3+1 skin for Mozilla was a side-benefit:
http://themes.mozdev.org/themes/orbit.html
I liked Opera 7 as a browser a lot, but until you can customize the e-mail client as much as you can in Mozilla, it's just an unused download.
Peace,
Chuck
Listen, if I'm sitting in the catbird's seat at a major label, I wouldn't be punking these kids out about how filesharing hurts artists, I'd be showing them how the pros do it - legally.
Vanishing royalties, recoupable expenses, double-standard accounting, ball-gripper contracts, long-term litigation - by the time these kids are finished with the class, they'll be dying to work in the industry instead of in front of it as performers. Screw the multiplication table, show 'em how to do math using the Royalty Calculator. Those proficiency tests will get hammered, at least mathematically.
Anyways, your mileage may vary.
Peace.
Yeah, software patents are bad, but as an American, I love this. If European governors are all hot to trot for software patents, I can't help but believe that Americans will be the big winners in this since we have *years* of patented software available.
I'm gonna laugh my ass off if it turns out patented US software ends up dominating the software scene over there ("Whoops! Sorry Nigel, that's already been invented by someone in Utah!"). There's nothing like having another country eating your lunch to spur reform.
Gotta love lawmakers who sell out their own country to enormously powerful multinationals.
Peace,
Chuck
Yep. Now if the parents could learn the secrets of locking down their Windows or Linux box. ;-)
Regardless of the relative arguments about filesharing, having the grandparents or other family members getting served with subpoenas is guaranteed to put an end to any teenager silliness on the home pc. Saying how bad the RIAA is isn't going to cut it with anyone who's been inconvenienced by these things.
Of course, the flip side (?) is that the RIAA is now possibly making the number of people who hate them potentially much larger, if that was possible. Time will tell how this plays out...
Nice troll, and very wrong.
For one, Apple *will not* deal with the band themselves. Read anything put out by them and they make that explicitly clear.
What CD Baby is doing is acting like a record label on behalf of the 38,000+ indie artists who sell their music through CD Baby, even though CD Baby has no exclusive right to the CDs sold on that site.
Instead of going through a point-by-point refutation of your garbage, why not actually read a little to see what's happening.
Cheers!
Please mod parent up. In-f*cking-credibly funny.
"It needs to be consumer-friendly and protect the interests of the artists as well."
Har har har. While I'm sure it'll be relatively easy to pay and download, doesn't the fact that the music is in Windows Media format mean that you can't play it in any device that doesn't support Windows Media files?
On this page: http://www.buymusic.com/support/help.aspx, it says:
"Before tracks are copied to your CD, they are inspected and, in some cases, converted to a file type. This process takes several minutes." Since it doesn't specify what file type is being created, should we assume it'll be all-device compatible WAV-files? Or is that a nebulous way of saying it'll stay in WMF?
Last, since I've seen nothing more than *1* track from various indie artists on the site, I'll have to guess that all money from the purchase of music here goes directly to the label, not the artist. How again does this protect the interests of the artists?
I'll pass.
Actually, "The Office" has just started over here on BBC-America (on cable TV). I've caught some of it and it's generally very funny (but not always). All-in-all, it's better than 90% of the shows on TV today.
This reply is to castlec and the AC, thanks. I actually p2p from home on my DSL line, so no chance at hiding behind the resources of a large organization like a library or work.
On the upside, I'm not infringing anyone's copyright. Nonetheless, given the opportunity to shroud my identity on p2p, I'd prefer to. It might be varporware today, but I'd like to see some Linux or Windows packages that can do this.
Interesting. Since I know 0 about PeerGuardian, I suppose this may be effective (or not). Does anyone have a documented analysis of how this works instead of some vague news report?
Also, I don't mind sharing the music on my hard drive (it's all indie and OK'd to be there), but that said, do firewalls protect your IP identity or are they useless for that? Unclear about what tools may be used in conjunction with p2p to cover your identity.
Peace.
Hi Cat,
:-)
The site launched about 36-48 hours ago, so it's just now getting to be known. In the spirit of open source design, I decided to shove it out there and worry about getting artists signed up later (or adding features later).
So, to answer your question, no one knows about it yet, but that should change a little.
Peace,
Chuck
Hi Nasarius.
You're right and you're wrong. You're absolutely right that you can sign up for your own merchant account at 2CheckOut for $49 and take it from there.
The rest of the pie is where you're somewhat wrong. Besides hosting their page at artist.fatchucks.com, we also take care of all these items:
Creating the shopping links and variable shipping for each item the artist wants to sell, both on our end and on the 2CO end.
Taking care of scanning and editing the album art so that people can see what they're buying, adding the track lists, making fan and media reviews about the artist centrally available, and otherwise providing a central location for fans to find info on the artist.
Providing order and customer support help for artists who need help handling the shipping and ordering aspects to their account when there's an issue.
Creating one location and one contact point for both artists and customers to talk to when they need the tools we provide, instead of having to deal with X parties, each of whom have their own agendas. We're here for both artists and the public.
And of course, if the idea is so-so, why hasn't anyone thought to harness the off-the-shelf tools that are publicly available to create a service that helps Indies this way? I looked for months and no one's doing it.
Peace,
Chuck
Hi.
:-)
You're correct about paypal, especially since its service doesn't extend to many countries worldwide. The flip side is that when people sign up with us they get their own permanent Internet merchant account to accept orders from anyone in the world with a credit card or checking account, both off of our site and their own.
As far as the site appearance professionalism, sorry to hear that. The site was designed to be very simple, very quick-loading even at 56K, and easy for non-techies to use. It also displays perfectly on Opera 5-7, IE 4-6, Mozilla 0.9-1.3 and Lynx since we tested for each of those browsers.
Fat Chuck's may not be a great name, but it's totally memorable, just like CDNow or CD Baby (btw, artists can sell CDs, tapes, vinyl or other merchandise through us, not just CDs). Maybe I should have called it CD Chuck's? Don't know, but at least Fat Chuck's is semi humorous.
I hope you'll stop by again and check out the artists who've decided to join. Sorry if we've made a bad first impression with you!
Peace,
Chuck
Hi Irfco.
;-)
The idea behind FCM (Fat Chuck's Music) is to get rid of all the middlemen and allow artists to ship directly to fans and to be paid directly from fans. As you can see, we're not in the payment loop or the ordering loop besides letting artists list their goods with us (shopping has to begin somewhere that's convenient for fans).
I've been surprised by all the negative reactions here since I've seen so many comments about how great it would be to allow artists to sell directly to the world without middlemen (which is what we're doing). Hopefully this will keep growing and the way things are done today will seem like an anachronism in a few years, or else my idea will.
Thanks for the encouragement, it is appreciated.
Peace,
Chuck
Hi Eagl.
;-) next to that link since it's clear that it matters to me (or else I wouldn't put the link there in the first place).
I guess I should add a
In all seriousness, it's a joke and a takeoff on what some people think Slashdot is. My bad for perpetuating that image when I'm actually joking.
Peace,
Chuck
Hi Anon!
I pay $9.95/month for 30gb of traffic at hostforweb.com, a pretty good hosting company. If I need to go to 300gb/month, they charge 95.00. The next step up in case things get crazy is sanethosting.com:
http://www.sanethosting.com/
They charge $200/month for colocated hosting (including 330gb of transfer) and $99/month for every 330gb block after #1.
Hope this helps!
Chuck
Hi Anarxia.
:-)
Actually, the owner and the site are both U.S.-based. The translation flags are there for the benefit of an non-native English speakers who visit the site and want to read it in their language, not mine.
Hope this helps!
Chuck
Hi Dave!
:-)
:-)
One point. Whether you sell through Fat Chuck's or any other site (CD Street, CD Baby, Amazon), you still have to assume the risk of having it created no matter who your store front is. Sorry, but I think most artists already understand that and it would be pretty insulting for me to tell them.
As far as touring bands, this is a great idea. If the band's out touring, they can choose to suspend their account (since they can't ship their goods while on the road) or if they have a reliable friend back at the ranch, they can receive Internet orders for their music from both the cities they've just gigged at and other places where their self-promotions have created interest. To be blunt, if $40/year is too much, that's cool! But I think someone might be missing the boat a little.
Peace.
Hi Grapes!
First, check out the overview. It's $60 for year 1 and $40 year after year 1. You get your *own* Internet merchant account and you keep all the money that the CC processor doesn't take.
Per shipping, the only way to do shipping is A) yourself and keep everything, or B) pay to send your CDs to a company somewhere and watch them keep $4/CD and the shipping charge for each CD.
If you want to pursue your own online transaction capability, I encourage you to. CCNow charges $9.95/month, PayPal does a ~good job for the 30-some countries it accepts payments from, and you're free to buy your own merchant account, but it's a bit expensive.
Speaking briefly, we've tried hard to make this really simple and really easy for artists who shouldn't have to be web design or financial instrument experts. And, at the end of the day, we're the only site around that allows artists to keep 100% of the money that fans pay for their music or merchandise.
Peace.
Consider checking out this post from above you:4 602
:-)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=62025&cid=581
When artists sign up with us, 100% of the money that fans pay for their music goes to the artist (after the CC company takes their cut). CD Baby keeps $4/album and they keep the shipping. When you're selling your album for $15, which scenario do you believe you'll make more money in for each sale?
Sorry, the devil is in the details. This has never been done before outside of live shows and car trunk sales.
Peace.