If they stop, the music labels will notice their profits dropping and will rebalance their royalty rates to something more reasonable.
You make the presumption that the labels want internet radio to succeede and their profits from internet radio to be maximized. What if what they really want is for internet radio to go away?
Why would they want to do this? Because right now the labels act as the gatekeepers to the radio. That is why musicians sign horrible contracts with them. You want a hit record, you need to get on the radio. You want to get on the radio, you need to sign with a big label. If internet radio takes off, suddenly you'll have new outlets which the labels don't control. In the long run, maintaining this control is more important then any profits they might make of internet radio.
It's not that the internet radio sights didn't expect to have to pay. It's that what they have to pay is orders of magnitude more than what they have to pay to play the same music on traditional radio (to the same number of people). The royalty rate is way out of line. It will likely kill all internet radio, except pirate and large commercial companies who can heavily subsidize it. This is probably exactly what the record companies want, since it'll maintain the status quo over the most powerful marketing tool they have: radio.
Right now, record companies make a lot of money, because they are the gatekeepers to having a hit record. What do you need to have a hit record? At this point, it doesn't take much money to record a good record; you can do a lot in a home studio, (although good producers and engineers do cost a lot). It doesn't take much money to sell a record on the internet. However, what someone can't do without the record companies, is get a song on the radio. Without radio, relatively few people will hear your song, and you won't sell much. However, if the internet radio takes off, suddenly a lot of stuggling artists will have a lot more outlets for their music. Many might find they don't need the record companies anymore.
While the war is far from over, Sony has effectively flanked HD-DVD by equiping it as standard on the PS3
Perhaps, but I think it's probably more significant that Sony owns Sony Pictures Entertainment. That means that there is a large library of content that'll never be available on HD-DVD! The same can't be said in reverse, since most of the other studios are more interested in selling movies than the format.
The one exception is Universal, who is anti-Bluray right now. So, in some sense you have Sony on one side and Universal on the other. Sony's got the better catalog, so Sony wins. (In addition, Universal has less incentive to fight for their format than Sony).
I think you are on the right track. I also agree with others who don't think the solution is taking the competitiveness out of organized sports. I think the real issue is that, at least in the US, most kids lives are over scheduled and organized. This is particularly true about sports. Kids are taken from one organized activity to another, and they never learn to play sports just for fun.
I know from my own experience (and I'm not all that old) that I did not like organized sports much. Not only did I have my athletic ability to contend with (which wasn't all that bad, but wasn't good enough to keep up with the best), but I really didn't get along with a lot of kids. (I'm sure many of the geeks on Slashdot can relate). The reality is, a large number of kids aren't going to be interested in organized sports no matter what you do. They'd rather play with their own friends then be forced to play with a group they don't necessarily get along with, (and may also have very different abilities).
For me this wasn't a problem. I liked sports, just not organized ones, and I had enough friends that I usually had someone to play with. So, we'd play tennis, frisbee, two on two football/basketball, or even the occaasional large self organized baseball game. Today though, I don't know if kids have the time, or the freedom to do this.
I think in our race to be good parents, and insure our kids get exercise, we've made things worse. We've forced them into athletics that they may be unsuited for, and removed the alternative. We are also so paranoid about their safety, that we don't let them play outside on their own enough.
I'm sure TV and videogames have also had some negative effects. Half the reason I played sports with my friends was there wasn't much else to do. On the ther hand, I certainly had videogames and TV as a kid (just not as many games or channels), and I know most parents would kick us outside if we spent to much time with them.
Oh, and also, my scale was off intentionally. I group some generations together because there was no inovation in gameplay between the third and fourth, and between the fifth and sixth generations. Things merely got prettier between these generations, so I didn't count them as full generations. This was really my point, not counting the pong type games that came before Atari, there has really been only three types of consoles: early 8-bit, side scrollers, and 3-D. We've already had two of what most people call generations of 3-D consoles. We are due for something really new.
I think you are absolutely right. To develop a good game for the Wii you need to have the Wii and its controller in mind right from the beginning. So, the question is, are third parties going to develop games with the Wii in mind?
So far, I think most developers haven't and weren't going to. However, we all know the Wii's selling as fast as Nintendo can make them, and they are making a respectable amount. Developers are now caught with their pants down, with little in the pipe for what will likely be the best selling console this year. They'll go were the numbers are, so we'll probably see the tide turn soon. However, I am worried because developing a good game takes time, and it'll likely be a year or so before the Wii can really hit its stride. There could be a lull in good games for the Wii come next holiday season. If Sony or Microsoft manage to get a few killer apps out for their systems during that lull, it could knock the wind out of the Wii's sales (pun intended).
I agree with your comments. In addition, your statement "Graphics: Since the PS1, graphics seems to be the focus of most games." made me think about something. One could, perhaps, break gaming consoles up into generations. (I'm sure I'm the first to do this, and in fact this repeats some of what you said).
Generation one: Atari to mid 80's (Collecovision?). There was no one type of game that dominated here, but in general games were simple do to the limitations of the devices. Graphics, of course, improved between the first of this generation (Atari and Oddesey II) and the end (Colecovision), but there was no change in the type of games played. Of course, we all know this generation ended with a crash.
Generation two: NES to SNES Here sidescrollers dominated. Graphics (along with adding complexity) are probably the only signficant differences between the first of this genration (NES) and the last (SNES).
Generation three: PS1 to PS2 Now, 3D games dominate. Again, no real change in the type of games from the first to the last of this generation. Just better graphics and more complexity.
Generation four??? We are due for something new. As you and others have said, people are starting to get tired of the same old games with better graphics. In the past, better technology has not just simply allowed better graphics; improvements in technology allowed new types game types which weren't even possible before. However, there's not much you can do with a PS3 that you couldn't have done with a PS1, (with simpler graphics and scaled backed AI). The only difference in gameplay between PS1 games and PS3 games is networking. This, together with improved graphics, may be enough for people. Or, people might start to get bored.
Nintendo realized that brute force wasn't going to allow them to do anything that hadn't been done before. So, they decided that the way to create a new (4th generation) experience was to work on the controller. It seems they were right, although we won't really know for probably another year or so.
Although I don't agree with all of what Chris Hecker said, it is perhaps a shame that Nintendo didn't push the graphics and CPU in their new console a little bit harder than they did. Perhaps it won't matter, but people do like their shiny things.
That was a great summary of what's really happening here. The only thing I can't figure out is if Jobs' statement about ditching DRM is really what he wants, or if it's a Red Herring.
What they just can't seem to grasp is the iTunes is the least of their worries. Once more and more bands become popular via MySpace and the like and home recording gets better and better, the label's usefulness to a band will get smaller and smaller. They should be more worried about acts like Bare Naked Ladies taking their music to the web: That will hurt them more than Apple ever did.
Oh, I wish this were true. But, radio is still king when it comes to marketting music. Myspace, Youtube, your college buddy, etc. just can't compete with the power of radio (or TV back when MTV they showed videos) when it comes to rapidly exposing millions of people to the music you want to sell. The only thing that had half a chance was internet radio, which you'll note that the Recording Industry manage to kill with an absurd licencing deal.
You are right, however, that the Recording Industry is freaked that they can't control ITMS. We all know of the battle recently were the Recording Industry wanted to raise and differentiate prices, and apple won that one.
with DRM: apple gets a big share of the pie without DRM: apple gets a slightly smaller share (debatable) of a much bigger pie
Just to add to that...
With "open" DRM (multiple music stores using Apple's DRM): apple gets a slightly smaller share (debatable) of the same pie.
Having apple open their DRM to other music stores does nothing to benefit apple, and very little to benefit customers. Choice is good, but unless another store is going to be able to signficantly beat apple's price or selection (and it's the music industry that ultimately sets this, not the store), what's the point? Some people might decide to buy from a different store when Microsoft bundles their next browser with it, but it'll do little to actually grow things. All it will do is hurt apple.
I used to think that, too. That is, I used to think that Apple wouldn't want to get rid of DRM since having it locks people into their products. After Job's posting, I could see how getting rid of DRM could help them more.
So far Apple has the dominant products in both on-line music store and portable player. I don't think DRM is responsible for this success; it's only been important that the products work well together. Moving forward, keeping DRM may lock in people, which could maintain their dominant position. However, I'm sure Apple just doesn't want to maintain - they want to grow. Jobs believes that removing DRM will make both their products (the on-line store directly, and the music player indirectly) better, and therefore attract more customers. Yes, they will face more (and fairer) competition this way, but he beleives that the growth that will occur in the entire online music market will translate into significant growth for Apple. He probably believes his products can continue to be compelling enough over the competition, even without DRM lock-in.
Is he right? Who knows? I just hope he gets his way, because I'd certainly like to be able to buy DRM-free music on-line from such a large catalog.
The article didn't give a whole lot of detail, and also exaggerated the importance of this work. I'm fairly sure the work being discussed in the article is work being done at MIT on splitting and rotating polorazations in using silicon nitride waveguides. There are a number of research groups (including Luxtera, as someone mentioned) looking at using silicon (and other silicon CMOS materials such as silicon nitride) to make highly integrated optical devices. A lot of progress has been made in the past few years on making modulators, detectors, wavelength splitters, and Raman lasers and amplifiers. One of the problems with these devices is most of them really only work on one polarization. For a telecom system however, you often can't control the incoming polarization. So, this work is a device that splits and rotates the two polarizations so they can be dealt with separately. (And can be integrated on the same chip as the rest of the devices). An important acheivement, but this achievement alone isn't going to make an impact. (It's all the pieces together that might). I've also seen that Luxtera has their own different way of dealing with this.
The work is also over a year old (unless there's a new development I'm not aware of). I know two of the students who did the work, and they've gotten their PhDs and moved on.
Just like DVD, most people's first DVD player was a PS2.
There were certainly many people for which this was true, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it was true for most people. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that many of the people who bought the first PS2s used it also as their first DVD player, particularly in Japan where it came out earlier (and had fewer games). By the time you could easily get a PS2 (ie. after the 2000 Christmas season in the states) DVD players were already pretty commonplace. I only know of one of my friends who used his PS2 as his primary DVD player (and he still does, in fact).
With DVD players and the PS2, DVDs were already fairly well established. Certainly not everyone had one yet, but the writing was on the wall. The timing with the PS3 is a little different. Who knows what is going to happen with Blu-ray, HD-DVD, etc.? In the PS2 case, Sony used the DVD playing capability to entice people to buy the PS2. In the PS3, things are switched. Sony is primarily using the PS3 as a means to entice people to choose the Blu-ray format.
Therefore today's high birth rates will drop; today's low death rate will rise till they have exactly the same numerical value.
Birth rates will definitely drop, but I'm not sure the death rate needs to rise. Most developed nations have close to 0% population growth, and many have falling populations. (I'm pretty sure the only reason the USA has any population growth is immigration). Pretty much all nations go through a population boom as they go from an agricultural to an industrial society. Once nations, like India and China, finish going through this transition, their population will probably level off. (Of course, China has misguidedly forced this to occur early, which is going to lead to a very top heavy population, soon).
However, the energy needs of these nations will explode as they make this transition. This is why I agree with your central point: the world's need for power is going to keeping increasing, a lot. Any solution needs to consider future needs, and not just what we use today.
I think in about 5 years we will have flash drives or disks that are capable of storing 30 gig or more, when that is done there will be a special player format that can be copied to this drive with DRM and time limits...
Or, Microsoft or Sony could allow their game boxes to display the movies directly. Or, if there's a market, some other set-top box will appear.
I agree, that this is only a fist step. The question is, will Netflix be able to build on this step, or will the telcos and cable companies swoop in and steal the show. Because the telcos and cable companies can put in the big pipes necessary for this to work, they definitely have the advantage. (And the telcos want to be assured of that advantage with a tiered internet).
But without DRM, every transaction would have to be priced as a sale, not just of one copy but of many copies, in order to account for unrestrained copying...
You know, I agree, and I have no problem with DRM when I am only paying for a rental. However, DVD's and iTunes prices aren't rental prices.
Thanks for the link to the interview. Although, like most discussions I've seen on the subject, the two sides (and, in particular, the MPAA representative) aren't really listening to the other. Instead they just keep repeating the same things.
If you only consider purchasing power, then obviously he can buy more house with $110,000 than $100,00 (There I go, being obnoxious again). In fact, another poster pointed out that the original question was about house sizes not income, which gets around the discussion we're having http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216488&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=17577108.
However, since I seem to be enjoying this discusion...
It would not be the best house in the best neighborhood, but he would very likely to be able to find something on the edge of town or whatever, or even have it built there. Ok, so perhaps he'd still be able to buy a house somewhere. But you've just agreed that the house wouldn't be a nice as would have been if everyone else was making less, which was my point.
You are correct that overall housing market isn't that tight. As long as there is room to build a house somewhere, the price of that house can't get much above the cost to build a house there, plus the land to put it on. But, yes, that's overly simplistic due to the need to find a job. Not surprisingly, people earn more in areas where the job market is good. The local housing prices reflect this and are higher. Depressed areas may be cheap to live in, but they also offer lower wages. Still, there are some good areas (where wages are high but land and housing is still relatively cheap) and there are bad areas (where wages are Ok, but land and housing is outrageous). The good areas, not suprisingly, tend to be places where there is still area to build more homes.
As others have pointed out, this is a silly question. There could never be such scheme, since the boundaries between legal and illegal use are so fuzzy, and may depend on the intent of the user. What you are really trying to ask is, "Is this fair-use thing just a smoke screen, and is the real reason we all object to DRM is that it prevents you from committing obvious copyright violations?"
I suspect there's some truth to this. I'm sure plenty of people here download music/movies etc. that they don't really have the right to. I personally wouldn't care so much if I couldn't do this. (Although I won't claim that I haven't). However I do like being able to trade and copy CDs from friends. This isn't really legal either, and DRM such as you described would put a stop to this, too.
In it's current form, though, DRM makes it harder for me to do things I should legally be able to do.
One obvious example: iPods play music. iTunes software makes it really easy to tranfer the music from shiny disks I buy onto the iPod. iPods also play videos. However, there is no legal software that I'm aware of (and iTunes certainly doesn't) that allows me to transfer my movies from shiny disks I buy onto the iPod. This is solely due to the DRM on DVDs.
I think illegal trading has served a valuable pupose: I wonder if without illegal trading, we'd have iTunes today. Without any compitition, it would probably be in the music companies best interest to keep forcing us to buy music as complete CD's.
A hypothetical question that includes words like "everyone" are hard to apply to the real world. If "everyone" earned twice as much as you, the market would only be interested in supplying houses to "everyone" else but you, and you'd indeed be out of luck. In the real world, if everyone's income went up by leaps and bounds, and yours only went up a little bit, you'd wind up with inflation, and your real purchasing power would drop. I don't think that was the point of the question, though. I think the original question was meant to only be about real purchasing power, and I'm just being obnoxious.
Plus, the housing market isn't really all that tight.
It depends where you are. In some areas there's no room to build more homes, so yes, it really is that tight.
The question was more like: Would you rather live in a 1000 sqrft home while all your neighbors had an 850 sqrft home or live in an 1100 sqrft house and neighbors have 2000 sqrft?
Either way the question is really a choice between matching your neighbors (15% difference between 1000 and 850) and not matching (90% difference between 1100 and 2000). All that question may really show is that people would like to fit in with thier neighbors. This isn't too surprising. If the second choice was 1100 for you and 1250 for your neighbors, then it might have some meaning.
a majority of Americans would prefer to earn $100,000 while everyone else earns $85,000, rather than earning $110,000 while everyone else earns $200,000.
Yes, because that person earning $110,000 needs to compete with people earning $200,000 if he/she wants to buy a home. If everyone else earns $200,000, the price of housing will increase so much that someone earning $110,000 won't be able to afford a home.
I know this isn't the point of your arguement, but there are real practical reasons why we might need to earn as much as our peers.
How many people do you think bought from iTunes before having an iPod, and not the other way around?
I agree. Not many.
How many of said users really want to leave the iPod in the first place?
Hard to say.
Let's say you need to replace your iPod (it might break, like my wife's did right after the warranty expired, or you may simply want an upgrade). You might consider an alternative. However, Apple's DRM means that if you want an alternative, you've got to issue of somehow removing the DRM from any of the iTunes songs you've bought. We know that's not impossible (or even terribly difficult), but it's an added hastle which makes one more likely to choose another iPod. In addition, if you want to continue to use the iTunes store, you'll have the same hassle over and over again with any new songs you buy. So, people may now be choosing the iPod, not because it's the best player, but because it's the player compatible with iTunes' DRM.
The truth is, I have to give a lot of credit to Apple for making a player and store that work well together. (Although I'm still pissed about my wife's iPod breaking so quickly). Their success up until now is entirely due to a combination of making good products and marketting, and DRM has nothing to do with it. However, Apple's DRM makes it virtually impossible to competitor to come in, regardless of how good their products may be. (See my post here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216530&cid=175 73658 for more of an explanation). This makes me worry about the future.
Apple's success in this area, so far, has been due to making nice products that people want. That's absolutetly true, and Apple would be just as successful right now, even if iTunes had no DRM.
But looking to the future, Apple's DRM very much works to their advantage. For instance...
Let's say you are Microsoft or Creative and you want to sell a portable player to compete with the iPod. What? Your player won't (easily) play all the music everyone's bought on iTunes? You're SOL.
Let's say you are Amazon or Yahoo and you want to open a store to compete with iTunes. What? You're form of DRM won't allow your music to play on the most popular portable player? You're SOL.
That's the crux of the article. Not that Apple's success is due to DRM, but that DRM makes it impossible for a new player to compete in either of the two areas. Why would Apple want to give that up?
What may eventually happen, is that the media companies will allow DRM-free files to be sold, simply to wrestle power away from Apple.
apple supports DRM because they have to in order to be granted the right to sell media from various studios.
I have no doubt that Apple wouldn't have been able to start the iTunes store without including DRM to make the media companies happy. However, DRM now very much works to Apple's advantage. There's a great synergy between the iTunes store and the iPod. Some of this exsists simply because they are nice products that are designed to work together. However, DRM enforces this synergy because the iPod is the only music player that songs purchased from iTunes (easily) play on. So, once you buy songs from the iTunes store, you are stuck with the iPod as your portable player of choice, unless you want to go through the trouble of burning and re-ripping your files (or breaking the DRM some other way).
As long as iTunes is on top, Apple has no interest in getting rid of DRM. If another store with their own type of incapatible DRM becomes very successful, then you'll suddenly see Apple screaming about abolishing DRM. (This is probably the crux of TFA which I haven't had a chance to read, yet).
Slashdot Mirror
If they stop, the music labels will notice their profits dropping and will rebalance their royalty rates to something more reasonable.
You make the presumption that the labels want internet radio to succeede and their profits from internet radio to be maximized. What if what they really want is for internet radio to go away?
Why would they want to do this? Because right now the labels act as the gatekeepers to the radio. That is why musicians sign horrible contracts with them. You want a hit record, you need to get on the radio. You want to get on the radio, you need to sign with a big label. If internet radio takes off, suddenly you'll have new outlets which the labels don't control. In the long run, maintaining this control is more important then any profits they might make of internet radio.
It's not that the internet radio sights didn't expect to have to pay. It's that what they have to pay is orders of magnitude more than what they have to pay to play the same music on traditional radio (to the same number of people). The royalty rate is way out of line. It will likely kill all internet radio, except pirate and large commercial companies who can heavily subsidize it. This is probably exactly what the record companies want, since it'll maintain the status quo over the most powerful marketing tool they have: radio.
Right now, record companies make a lot of money, because they are the gatekeepers to having a hit record. What do you need to have a hit record? At this point, it doesn't take much money to record a good record; you can do a lot in a home studio, (although good producers and engineers do cost a lot). It doesn't take much money to sell a record on the internet. However, what someone can't do without the record companies, is get a song on the radio. Without radio, relatively few people will hear your song, and you won't sell much. However, if the internet radio takes off, suddenly a lot of stuggling artists will have a lot more outlets for their music. Many might find they don't need the record companies anymore.
While the war is far from over, Sony has effectively flanked HD-DVD by equiping it as standard on the PS3
Perhaps, but I think it's probably more significant that Sony owns Sony Pictures Entertainment. That means that there is a large library of content that'll never be available on HD-DVD! The same can't be said in reverse, since most of the other studios are more interested in selling movies than the format.
The one exception is Universal, who is anti-Bluray right now. So, in some sense you have Sony on one side and Universal on the other. Sony's got the better catalog, so Sony wins. (In addition, Universal has less incentive to fight for their format than Sony).
I think you are on the right track. I also agree with others who don't think the solution is taking the competitiveness out of organized sports. I think the real issue is that, at least in the US, most kids lives are over scheduled and organized. This is particularly true about sports. Kids are taken from one organized activity to another, and they never learn to play sports just for fun.
I know from my own experience (and I'm not all that old) that I did not like organized sports much. Not only did I have my athletic ability to contend with (which wasn't all that bad, but wasn't good enough to keep up with the best), but I really didn't get along with a lot of kids. (I'm sure many of the geeks on Slashdot can relate). The reality is, a large number of kids aren't going to be interested in organized sports no matter what you do. They'd rather play with their own friends then be forced to play with a group they don't necessarily get along with, (and may also have very different abilities).
For me this wasn't a problem. I liked sports, just not organized ones, and I had enough friends that I usually had someone to play with. So, we'd play tennis, frisbee, two on two football/basketball, or even the occaasional large self organized baseball game. Today though, I don't know if kids have the time, or the freedom to do this.
I think in our race to be good parents, and insure our kids get exercise, we've made things worse. We've forced them into athletics that they may be unsuited for, and removed the alternative. We are also so paranoid about their safety, that we don't let them play outside on their own enough.
I'm sure TV and videogames have also had some negative effects. Half the reason I played sports with my friends was there wasn't much else to do. On the ther hand, I certainly had videogames and TV as a kid (just not as many games or channels), and I know most parents would kick us outside if we spent to much time with them.
Oh, and also, my scale was off intentionally. I group some generations together because there was no inovation in gameplay between the third and fourth, and between the fifth and sixth generations. Things merely got prettier between these generations, so I didn't count them as full generations. This was really my point, not counting the pong type games that came before Atari, there has really been only three types of consoles: early 8-bit, side scrollers, and 3-D. We've already had two of what most people call generations of 3-D consoles. We are due for something really new.
No, not sarcasm, I just left out the all important "not". Next time I need to proofread.
I think you are absolutely right. To develop a good game for the Wii you need to have the Wii and its controller in mind right from the beginning. So, the question is, are third parties going to develop games with the Wii in mind?
So far, I think most developers haven't and weren't going to. However, we all know the Wii's selling as fast as Nintendo can make them, and they are making a respectable amount. Developers are now caught with their pants down, with little in the pipe for what will likely be the best selling console this year. They'll go were the numbers are, so we'll probably see the tide turn soon. However, I am worried because developing a good game takes time, and it'll likely be a year or so before the Wii can really hit its stride. There could be a lull in good games for the Wii come next holiday season. If Sony or Microsoft manage to get a few killer apps out for their systems during that lull, it could knock the wind out of the Wii's sales (pun intended).
I agree with your comments. In addition, your statement "Graphics: Since the PS1, graphics seems to be the focus of most games." made me think about something. One could, perhaps, break gaming consoles up into generations. (I'm sure I'm the first to do this, and in fact this repeats some of what you said).
Generation one: Atari to mid 80's (Collecovision?).
There was no one type of game that dominated here, but in general games were simple do to the limitations of the devices. Graphics, of course, improved between the first of this generation (Atari and Oddesey II) and the end (Colecovision), but there was no change in the type of games played. Of course, we all know this generation ended with a crash.
Generation two: NES to SNES
Here sidescrollers dominated. Graphics (along with adding complexity) are probably the only signficant differences between the first of this genration (NES) and the last (SNES).
Generation three: PS1 to PS2
Now, 3D games dominate. Again, no real change in the type of games from the first to the last of this generation. Just better graphics and more complexity.
Generation four???
We are due for something new. As you and others have said, people are starting to get tired of the same old games with better graphics. In the past, better technology has not just simply allowed better graphics; improvements in technology allowed new types game types which weren't even possible before. However, there's not much you can do with a PS3 that you couldn't have done with a PS1, (with simpler graphics and scaled backed AI). The only difference in gameplay between PS1 games and PS3 games is networking. This, together with improved graphics, may be enough for people. Or, people might start to get bored.
Nintendo realized that brute force wasn't going to allow them to do anything that hadn't been done before. So, they decided that the way to create a new (4th generation) experience was to work on the controller. It seems they were right, although we won't really know for probably another year or so.
Although I don't agree with all of what Chris Hecker said, it is perhaps a shame that Nintendo didn't push the graphics and CPU in their new console a little bit harder than they did. Perhaps it won't matter, but people do like their shiny things.
That was a great summary of what's really happening here. The only thing I can't figure out is if Jobs' statement about ditching DRM is really what he wants, or if it's a Red Herring.
What they just can't seem to grasp is the iTunes is the least of their worries. Once more and more bands become popular via MySpace and the like and home recording gets better and better, the label's usefulness to a band will get smaller and smaller. They should be more worried about acts like Bare Naked Ladies taking their music to the web: That will hurt them more than Apple ever did.
Oh, I wish this were true. But, radio is still king when it comes to marketting music. Myspace, Youtube, your college buddy, etc. just can't compete with the power of radio (or TV back when MTV they showed videos) when it comes to rapidly exposing millions of people to the music you want to sell. The only thing that had half a chance was internet radio, which you'll note that the Recording Industry manage to kill with an absurd licencing deal.
You are right, however, that the Recording Industry is freaked that they can't control ITMS. We all know of the battle recently were the Recording Industry wanted to raise and differentiate prices, and apple won that one.
with DRM: apple gets a big share of the pie
without DRM: apple gets a slightly smaller share (debatable) of a much bigger pie
Just to add to that...
With "open" DRM (multiple music stores using Apple's DRM):
apple gets a slightly smaller share (debatable) of the same pie.
Having apple open their DRM to other music stores does nothing to benefit apple, and very little to benefit customers. Choice is good, but unless another store is going to be able to signficantly beat apple's price or selection (and it's the music industry that ultimately sets this, not the store), what's the point? Some people might decide to buy from a different store when Microsoft bundles their next browser with it, but it'll do little to actually grow things. All it will do is hurt apple.
I used to think that, too. That is, I used to think that Apple wouldn't want to get rid of DRM since having it locks people into their products. After Job's posting, I could see how getting rid of DRM could help them more.
So far Apple has the dominant products in both on-line music store and portable player. I don't think DRM is responsible for this success; it's only been important that the products work well together. Moving forward, keeping DRM may lock in people, which could maintain their dominant position. However, I'm sure Apple just doesn't want to maintain - they want to grow. Jobs believes that removing DRM will make both their products (the on-line store directly, and the music player indirectly) better, and therefore attract more customers. Yes, they will face more (and fairer) competition this way, but he beleives that the growth that will occur in the entire online music market will translate into significant growth for Apple. He probably believes his products can continue to be compelling enough over the competition, even without DRM lock-in.
Is he right? Who knows? I just hope he gets his way, because I'd certainly like to be able to buy DRM-free music on-line from such a large catalog.
The article didn't give a whole lot of detail, and also exaggerated the importance of this work. I'm fairly sure the work being discussed in the article is work being done at MIT on splitting and rotating polorazations in using silicon nitride waveguides. There are a number of research groups (including Luxtera, as someone mentioned) looking at using silicon (and other silicon CMOS materials such as silicon nitride) to make highly integrated optical devices. A lot of progress has been made in the past few years on making modulators, detectors, wavelength splitters, and Raman lasers and amplifiers. One of the problems with these devices is most of them really only work on one polarization. For a telecom system however, you often can't control the incoming polarization. So, this work is a device that splits and rotates the two polarizations so they can be dealt with separately. (And can be integrated on the same chip as the rest of the devices). An important acheivement, but this achievement alone isn't going to make an impact. (It's all the pieces together that might). I've also seen that Luxtera has their own different way of dealing with this.
The work is also over a year old (unless there's a new development I'm not aware of). I know two of the students who did the work, and they've gotten their PhDs and moved on.
Just like DVD, most people's first DVD player was a PS2.
There were certainly many people for which this was true, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it was true for most people. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that many of the people who bought the first PS2s used it also as their first DVD player, particularly in Japan where it came out earlier (and had fewer games). By the time you could easily get a PS2 (ie. after the 2000 Christmas season in the states) DVD players were already pretty commonplace. I only know of one of my friends who used his PS2 as his primary DVD player (and he still does, in fact).
With DVD players and the PS2, DVDs were already fairly well established. Certainly not everyone had one yet, but the writing was on the wall. The timing with the PS3 is a little different. Who knows what is going to happen with Blu-ray, HD-DVD, etc.? In the PS2 case, Sony used the DVD playing capability to entice people to buy the PS2. In the PS3, things are switched. Sony is primarily using the PS3 as a means to entice people to choose the Blu-ray format.
Therefore today's high birth rates will drop; today's low death rate will rise till they have exactly the same numerical value.
Birth rates will definitely drop, but I'm not sure the death rate needs to rise. Most developed nations have close to 0% population growth, and many have falling populations. (I'm pretty sure the only reason the USA has any population growth is immigration). Pretty much all nations go through a population boom as they go from an agricultural to an industrial society. Once nations, like India and China, finish going through this transition, their population will probably level off. (Of course, China has misguidedly forced this to occur early, which is going to lead to a very top heavy population, soon).
However, the energy needs of these nations will explode as they make this transition. This is why I agree with your central point: the world's need for power is going to keeping increasing, a lot. Any solution needs to consider future needs, and not just what we use today.
I think in about 5 years we will have flash drives or disks that are capable of storing 30 gig or more, when that is done there will be a special player format that can be copied to this drive with DRM and time limits...
Or, Microsoft or Sony could allow their game boxes to display the movies directly. Or, if there's a market, some other set-top box will appear.
I agree, that this is only a fist step. The question is, will Netflix be able to build on this step, or will the telcos and cable companies swoop in and steal the show. Because the telcos and cable companies can put in the big pipes necessary for this to work, they definitely have the advantage. (And the telcos want to be assured of that advantage with a tiered internet).
But without DRM, every transaction would have to be priced as a sale, not just of one copy but of many copies, in order to account for unrestrained copying...
You know, I agree, and I have no problem with DRM when I am only paying for a rental. However, DVD's and iTunes prices aren't rental prices.
Thanks for the link to the interview. Although, like most discussions I've seen on the subject, the two sides (and, in particular, the MPAA representative) aren't really listening to the other. Instead they just keep repeating the same things.
If you only consider purchasing power, then obviously he can buy more house with $110,000 than $100,00 (There I go, being obnoxious again). In fact, another poster pointed out that the original question was about house sizes not income, which gets around the discussion we're having http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216488&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=17577108.
However, since I seem to be enjoying this discusion...
It would not be the best house in the best neighborhood, but he would very likely to be able to find something on the edge of town or whatever, or even have it built there.
Ok, so perhaps he'd still be able to buy a house somewhere. But you've just agreed that the house wouldn't be a nice as would have been if everyone else was making less, which was my point.
You are correct that overall housing market isn't that tight. As long as there is room to build a house somewhere, the price of that house can't get much above the cost to build a house there, plus the land to put it on. But, yes, that's overly simplistic due to the need to find a job. Not surprisingly, people earn more in areas where the job market is good. The local housing prices reflect this and are higher. Depressed areas may be cheap to live in, but they also offer lower wages. Still, there are some good areas (where wages are high but land and housing is still relatively cheap) and there are bad areas (where wages are Ok, but land and housing is outrageous). The good areas, not suprisingly, tend to be places where there is still area to build more homes.
As others have pointed out, this is a silly question. There could never be such scheme, since the boundaries between legal and illegal use are so fuzzy, and may depend on the intent of the user. What you are really trying to ask is, "Is this fair-use thing just a smoke screen, and is the real reason we all object to DRM is that it prevents you from committing obvious copyright violations?"
I suspect there's some truth to this. I'm sure plenty of people here download music/movies etc. that they don't really have the right to. I personally wouldn't care so much if I couldn't do this. (Although I won't claim that I haven't). However I do like being able to trade and copy CDs from friends. This isn't really legal either, and DRM such as you described would put a stop to this, too.
In it's current form, though, DRM makes it harder for me to do things I should legally be able to do.
One obvious example: iPods play music. iTunes software makes it really easy to tranfer the music from shiny disks I buy onto the iPod. iPods also play videos. However, there is no legal software that I'm aware of (and iTunes certainly doesn't) that allows me to transfer my movies from shiny disks I buy onto the iPod. This is solely due to the DRM on DVDs.
I think illegal trading has served a valuable pupose: I wonder if without illegal trading, we'd have iTunes today. Without any compitition, it would probably be in the music companies best interest to keep forcing us to buy music as complete CD's.
A hypothetical question that includes words like "everyone" are hard to apply to the real world. If "everyone" earned twice as much as you, the market would only be interested in supplying houses to "everyone" else but you, and you'd indeed be out of luck. In the real world, if everyone's income went up by leaps and bounds, and yours only went up a little bit, you'd wind up with inflation, and your real purchasing power would drop. I don't think that was the point of the question, though. I think the original question was meant to only be about real purchasing power, and I'm just being obnoxious.
Plus, the housing market isn't really all that tight.
It depends where you are. In some areas there's no room to build more homes, so yes, it really is that tight.
The question was more like: Would you rather live in a 1000 sqrft home while all your neighbors had an 850 sqrft home or live in an 1100 sqrft house and neighbors have 2000 sqrft?
Either way the question is really a choice between matching your neighbors (15% difference between 1000 and 850) and not matching (90% difference between 1100 and 2000). All that question may really show is that people would like to fit in with thier neighbors. This isn't too surprising. If the second choice was 1100 for you and 1250 for your neighbors, then it might have some meaning.
a majority of Americans would prefer to earn $100,000 while everyone else earns $85,000, rather than earning $110,000 while everyone else earns $200,000.
Yes, because that person earning $110,000 needs to compete with people earning $200,000 if he/she wants to buy a home. If everyone else earns $200,000, the price of housing will increase so much that someone earning $110,000 won't be able to afford a home.
I know this isn't the point of your arguement, but there are real practical reasons why we might need to earn as much as our peers.
How many people do you think bought from iTunes before having an iPod, and not the other way around?
5 73658 for more of an explanation). This makes me worry about the future.
I agree. Not many.
How many of said users really want to leave the iPod in the first place?
Hard to say.
Let's say you need to replace your iPod (it might break, like my wife's did right after the warranty expired, or you may simply want an upgrade). You might consider an alternative. However, Apple's DRM means that if you want an alternative, you've got to issue of somehow removing the DRM from any of the iTunes songs you've bought. We know that's not impossible (or even terribly difficult), but it's an added hastle which makes one more likely to choose another iPod. In addition, if you want to continue to use the iTunes store, you'll have the same hassle over and over again with any new songs you buy. So, people may now be choosing the iPod, not because it's the best player, but because it's the player compatible with iTunes' DRM.
The truth is, I have to give a lot of credit to Apple for making a player and store that work well together. (Although I'm still pissed about my wife's iPod breaking so quickly). Their success up until now is entirely due to a combination of making good products and marketting, and DRM has nothing to do with it. However, Apple's DRM makes it virtually impossible to competitor to come in, regardless of how good their products may be. (See my post here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216530&cid=17
Apple's success in this area, so far, has been due to making nice products that people want. That's absolutetly true, and Apple would be just as successful right now, even if iTunes had no DRM.
But looking to the future, Apple's DRM very much works to their advantage. For instance...
Let's say you are Microsoft or Creative and you want to sell a portable player to compete with the iPod. What? Your player won't (easily) play all the music everyone's bought on iTunes? You're SOL.
Let's say you are Amazon or Yahoo and you want to open a store to compete with iTunes. What? You're form of DRM won't allow your music to play on the most popular portable player? You're SOL.
That's the crux of the article. Not that Apple's success is due to DRM, but that DRM makes it impossible for a new player to compete in either of the two areas. Why would Apple want to give that up?
What may eventually happen, is that the media companies will allow DRM-free files to be sold, simply to wrestle power away from Apple.
apple supports DRM because they have to in order to be granted the right to sell media from various studios.
I have no doubt that Apple wouldn't have been able to start the iTunes store without including DRM to make the media companies happy. However, DRM now very much works to Apple's advantage. There's a great synergy between the iTunes store and the iPod. Some of this exsists simply because they are nice products that are designed to work together. However, DRM enforces this synergy because the iPod is the only music player that songs purchased from iTunes (easily) play on. So, once you buy songs from the iTunes store, you are stuck with the iPod as your portable player of choice, unless you want to go through the trouble of burning and re-ripping your files (or breaking the DRM some other way).
As long as iTunes is on top, Apple has no interest in getting rid of DRM. If another store with their own type of incapatible DRM becomes very successful, then you'll suddenly see Apple screaming about abolishing DRM. (This is probably the crux of TFA which I haven't had a chance to read, yet).