Who's to say that WorldCom might not aggressively sell "pink contracts" to raise cash flow? I doubt that UUNet will be sold, simply because the most likely buyers already have Internet backbone, and given the FCC's history with backbone mergers, (WorldCom-Sprint merger failed because the DOJ would block any merging of backbone ownership. MCI's backbone was sold prior to merging with WorldCom to satisy FCC and DOJ concerns.), such a deal would not go through. If WorldCom/UUNet can't raise peering charges, then look for them to sell bandwidth any way they can, because it's their greatest asset right now. Sale of MCI and UUNet will be last-resort efforts to save the corporation, because those are their best revenue sources.
The FCC has watched all mergers of companies holding large percentages of the backbone very closely in the past. MCI sold it's share of the backbone to Cable & Wireless to facilitate the meger with WorldCom AOL had to sell off ANS when it merged with TimeWarner. The companies most interested in WorldCom for its MCI or UUNet assets already have large shares of Internet backbone so WorldCom will have similar restrictions for using a merger or sell-off to prevent bankruptcy.
If you need to get up to speed quickly, then, as many have said, find a community college and take a course. Unless you are extremely dedicated, you will get up to speed quicker with a course than just learning on your own from a book.
If you are doing this out of a love of Mathematics, and want to do it on the cheap, go to eBay or the like for textbooks. You can always check with professors at the local community college or University for books they recommend, or even go to the college bookstore and look for used textbooks. Another option is to find someone who tutors college students, and explain what you are trying to do. When you run into stumbling blocks, pay the tutor for an hour or two of time to help you out when you need it.
The previous price-fixing case was more damaging than this one (at least at first glance on this one.) Since a record company has a monopoly on a given CD in the U.S. due to mechanical reproduction copyright, they can charge what they want to the resellers. The RIAA line on digital copyright is that they are holding out for the true value of the copyrighted content. That will be their argument here as well.
What we need is to support more artists who are on their own label (Ani DiFranco, Christine Lavin, etc.) or who are on independent labels. The artists don't get shafted, and we get music at a better price.
I'd like to see more artists take stands like Tom Petty did. His "Hard Promises" album (back in the LP days) was going to be retailed at $9.98, while he wanted it retailed at $8.98. If it was going to be sold at $9.98, he was going to call it "The $8.98 album". The record company caved, and hence the title "Hard Promises."
Take a look at the PAC contributions made to Berman opensecrets.org $37500 from entertainment company PACs, easily the largest category. Communications and Electronics, both individual and PAC contributions dwarf all other contributions. $185K from "TV/Movies/Music." Top Contributors are Disney, AOL/Time-Warner, and Vivendi. He's in the RIAA's back pocket all right. Now we just need to get the mainstream press to report this and question his motives.
Actually there is a 3rd copyright created, a digital performance copyright. The theory is that since any streamed digital broadcast can be copied it is considered a "performance". The royalty is to be split equally between the record label and the artist. Of course the record company will use this royalty recoup the advance paid to the artist, so the artist won't see much of it.
The record industry tried to stiff the artists a few years ago by having musical recordings declared "works for hire." The mechanical reprodcution rights then reverted to the label instead of the artist after 26 years. For more information, check out http://www.recordingartistscoalition.com
I can't speak for Germany, but here in the U.S. freedom of speech *is* a right under the first amendment. The Bill of Rights was ratified especially for circumstances like this. This ruling is equivalent banning linking to Amazon because it carries The Anarchist Cookbok
This ruling can still be appealed in the US Court of Appeals (DC Circuit). I expect an appeal, simply because the cost of royalties for webcasting is ridiculous, even for commercial, big-corporation radio stations that simulcast. Bill Rose of Arbitron, the Nielsen of the radio industry, spells it out beautifully here. Even for the big boys the royalty rate would be about %25 of their advertising revenue. Hopefully the webcasters can hold on for another appeal.
The scariest part is that saying "No you can't see what we're blocking. It's too dangerous." is just a small step away from "Because it's too dangerous, trying to see what we're blocking is now a crime."
It would be fairly trivial for a blocking mechanism to collect the IP addresses of those requesting "dangerous" content. Instant fishing expedition.
Arrest and fine anyone who tries to access illegal content. Given that porn sites are buying up expired domains, someone checking an old bookmark could be in for a nasty surprise when the police come knocking on their door. Now you've slid into a state more like Turkey or Burma, where all Internet access is monitored. All justified by "protecting the citizenry from dangerous content."
Bill Rose from Arbitron had excellent analysis of the cost of the current CARP proposal. (paraphrased below)
If a top-rated radio station in NY had an online listening audience the size of their on-air audience, they would pay $15 million in license fees, or over 25% of their advertising revenue. Similarly, for the entire radio industry, the cost would be $2.4 billion, or %13 of total revenue.
He plainly states that most existing radio stations could not afford to webcast under those conditions, much less any Internet-only stations, whose costs would be double that amount. He even covers the variety of music that is not available on commercial radio that would not be broadcast if web radio were to disappear. If this doesn't convince the Libarian of Congress that the CARP royalty rates are way out of line, then nothing will.
The royalty that the RIAA has been insisting on collecting via webcasting etc. has been based on the mechanical reproduction license. That money doesn't go to the artist, but to those who engineered and mastered the recording (ie the record label). If a compulsory license system is created, the RIAA will still be getting paid. Are Verizon and Kazaa taking this into account? I don't see the RIAA accepting compulsory license fees for the mechanical reproduction license without a *BIG* fight.
Like most other posters, IANAL, nor do I play one on TV. However, subpeona usually means "hand over data related to some specified person or event." Search warrant implies "I have the court's permission to search a specific premises and its contents based on probable cause of crime X." Law enforcement is going to be gravely concerned about evidence handling, especially in the case of a subpeona. The alternatives are either have an officer on site ensuring compliance, or have a "certified" program serve as the agent for law enforcement. By having collection hardware and/or software "certified" as compliant to minimization rules for search and seizure, installed at each ISP and remotely monitored, they can avoid this problem. If the ruling holds, look for law enforcement to pursue this next. I can just picture a legal battle in the future where the defense attorney argues that the MD5 checksum of the collection program doesn't match that of a "certified" collection program, therefore the search was invalid.
Hopefully, with the close media scrutiny that a scandal like this provides, there will be some spillover press onto Oracle's lobbying for a national ID (run on Oracle of course). It would be nice if this raises the public's awareness and provokes their outrage. Articles like this make me especially curious about how much money Oracle has given to Sen. Diane Feinstein's campaigns.
Check out the book "ENIAC" by Scott McCartney (ISBN 0802713483), published in 1999. He covers the entire story in detail, from the early beginnings, to the Sperry vs. Honeywell patent suit, to the differences between ENIAC and Atanasoff's machine. McCartney, in fact, mentions viewing 12 hours of videotape of Mauchly made by Esther Carr. I would imagine this is the same footage Paul David used.
One side effect of DMCA and CBDTPA will have the RIAA is shooting itself in the foot. I volunteer at a public radio station that uses automation. (an Arrakis system for the curious.) Basically it rips CD's to MP3 and makes it possible to program a radio show in a fraction of the time, once a library of music is built up. MP3 over FM broadcast isn't a serious degradation of sound quality.
Going to a DRM-enabled system with unrippable CD's is well beyond the budget of the station. I would assume, though that most commercial stations have similar setups and may well upgrade to a "professional" DRM-enabled system. At this point there are 3 possibilites:
1: Record labels provide CD's to radio stations without DRM. Given the number of promotional copies of CD's I've seen at record shows and in used record stores, piracy would still be rampant.
2: Serious pirates would just buy a "professional" system and rip away.
3: If no "professional" ripping is available, then copy-protected CD's will receive little airplay since they are not compatible with the automation system.
Small label artists and singer-songwriters already get the shaft from ASCAP/BMI since royalties are based on airplay and voting rights in these organizations are based on royalties received. Outcome 3 will just marginalize them even further. Outcomes 1 and 2 mean going to a copy-protected environment will not accomplish the RIAA's goals.
Thus, the CBDTPA is ineffective, and could make it more difficult for artists to receive airplay.
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Who's to say that WorldCom might not aggressively sell "pink contracts" to raise cash flow? I doubt that UUNet will be sold, simply because the most likely buyers already have Internet backbone, and given the FCC's history with backbone mergers, (WorldCom-Sprint merger failed because the DOJ would block any merging of backbone ownership. MCI's backbone was sold prior to merging with WorldCom to satisy FCC and DOJ concerns.), such a deal would not go through. If WorldCom/UUNet can't raise peering charges, then look for them to sell bandwidth any way they can, because it's their greatest asset right now. Sale of MCI and UUNet will be last-resort efforts to save the corporation, because those are their best revenue sources.
The FCC has watched all mergers of companies holding large percentages of the backbone very closely in the past. MCI sold it's share of the backbone to Cable & Wireless to facilitate the meger with WorldCom AOL had to sell off ANS when it merged with TimeWarner. The companies most interested in WorldCom for its MCI or UUNet assets already have large shares of Internet backbone so WorldCom will have similar restrictions for using a merger or sell-off to prevent bankruptcy.
If you need to get up to speed quickly, then, as many have said, find a community college and take a course. Unless you are extremely dedicated, you will get up to speed quicker with a course than just learning on your own from a book.
If you are doing this out of a love of Mathematics, and want to do it on the cheap, go to eBay or the like for textbooks. You can always check with professors at the local community college or University for books they recommend, or even go to the college bookstore and look for used textbooks. Another option is to find someone who tutors college students, and explain what you are trying to do. When you run into stumbling blocks, pay the tutor for an hour or two of time to help you out when you need it.
One billion iMacs served.
Now the microwave manufacturers are going to have to add another disclaimer to their liability clause and raise the prices of microwaves ;)
Paul Simon was embroiled in a copyright dispute for years with Martin Carthy over his use of Carthy's arrangement for "Scarborough Fair/Canticle"
What we need is to support more artists who are on their own label (Ani DiFranco, Christine Lavin, etc.) or who are on independent labels. The artists don't get shafted, and we get music at a better price.
I'd like to see more artists take stands like Tom Petty did. His "Hard Promises" album (back in the LP days) was going to be retailed at $9.98, while he wanted it retailed at $8.98. If it was going to be sold at $9.98, he was going to call it "The $8.98 album". The record company caved, and hence the title "Hard Promises."
Take a look at the PAC contributions made to Berman opensecrets.org $37500 from entertainment company PACs, easily the largest category. Communications and Electronics, both individual and PAC contributions dwarf all other contributions. $185K from "TV/Movies/Music." Top Contributors are Disney, AOL/Time-Warner, and Vivendi. He's in the RIAA's back pocket all right. Now we just need to get the mainstream press to report this and question his motives.
The record industry tried to stiff the artists a few years ago by having musical recordings declared "works for hire." The mechanical reprodcution rights then reverted to the label instead of the artist after 26 years. For more information, check out http://www.recordingartistscoalition.com
$60 BN? Time to cut back on the "bug bounty's" then. (envisioning Wally from Dilbert: "I'm gonna code me a minivan today!") 8^)
I can't speak for Germany, but here in the U.S. freedom of speech *is* a right under the first amendment. The Bill of Rights was ratified especially for circumstances like this. This ruling is equivalent banning linking to Amazon because it carries The Anarchist Cookbok
This ruling can still be appealed in the US Court of Appeals (DC Circuit). I expect an appeal, simply because the cost of royalties for webcasting is ridiculous, even for commercial, big-corporation radio stations that simulcast. Bill Rose of Arbitron, the Nielsen of the radio industry, spells it out beautifully here. Even for the big boys the royalty rate would be about %25 of their advertising revenue. Hopefully the webcasters can hold on for another appeal.
It would be fairly trivial for a blocking mechanism to collect the IP addresses of those requesting "dangerous" content. Instant fishing expedition. Arrest and fine anyone who tries to access illegal content. Given that porn sites are buying up expired domains, someone checking an old bookmark could be in for a nasty surprise when the police come knocking on their door. Now you've slid into a state more like Turkey or Burma, where all Internet access is monitored. All justified by "protecting the citizenry from dangerous content."
If a top-rated radio station in NY had an online listening audience the size of their on-air audience, they would pay $15 million in license fees, or over 25% of their advertising revenue. Similarly, for the entire radio industry, the cost would be $2.4 billion, or %13 of total revenue.
He plainly states that most existing radio stations could not afford to webcast under those conditions, much less any Internet-only stations, whose costs would be double that amount. He even covers the variety of music that is not available on commercial radio that would not be broadcast if web radio were to disappear. If this doesn't convince the Libarian of Congress that the CARP royalty rates are way out of line, then nothing will.
The royalty that the RIAA has been insisting on collecting via webcasting etc. has been based on the mechanical reproduction license. That money doesn't go to the artist, but to those who engineered and mastered the recording (ie the record label). If a compulsory license system is created, the RIAA will still be getting paid. Are Verizon and Kazaa taking this into account? I don't see the RIAA accepting compulsory license fees for the mechanical reproduction license without a *BIG* fight.
Like most other posters, IANAL, nor do I play one on TV. However, subpeona usually means "hand over data related to some specified person or event." Search warrant implies "I have the court's permission to search a specific premises and its contents based on probable cause of crime X." Law enforcement is going to be gravely concerned about evidence handling, especially in the case of a subpeona. The alternatives are either have an officer on site ensuring compliance, or have a "certified" program serve as the agent for law enforcement. By having collection hardware and/or software "certified" as compliant to minimization rules for search and seizure, installed at each ISP and remotely monitored, they can avoid this problem. If the ruling holds, look for law enforcement to pursue this next. I can just picture a legal battle in the future where the defense attorney argues that the MD5 checksum of the collection program doesn't match that of a "certified" collection program, therefore the search was invalid.
Hopefully, with the close media scrutiny that a scandal like this provides, there will be some spillover press onto Oracle's lobbying for a national ID (run on Oracle of course). It would be nice if this raises the public's awareness and provokes their outrage. Articles like this make me especially curious about how much money Oracle has given to Sen. Diane Feinstein's campaigns.
Check out the book "ENIAC" by Scott McCartney (ISBN 0802713483), published in 1999. He covers the entire story in detail, from the early beginnings, to the Sperry vs. Honeywell patent suit, to the differences between ENIAC and Atanasoff's machine. McCartney, in fact, mentions viewing 12 hours of videotape of Mauchly made by Esther Carr. I would imagine this is the same footage Paul David used.
I'd be interesed in seeing the effect this has on the price of notebook hard drives, since IBM's Travelstar series has a large share of the market.
One side effect of DMCA and CBDTPA will have the RIAA is shooting itself in the foot. I volunteer at a public radio station that uses automation. (an Arrakis system for the curious.) Basically it rips CD's to MP3 and makes it possible to program a radio show in a fraction of the time, once a library of music is built up. MP3 over FM broadcast isn't a serious degradation of sound quality.
Going to a DRM-enabled system with unrippable CD's is well beyond the budget of the station. I would assume, though that most commercial stations have similar setups and may well upgrade to a "professional" DRM-enabled system. At this point there are 3 possibilites:
1: Record labels provide CD's to radio stations without DRM. Given the number of promotional copies of CD's I've seen at record shows and in used record stores, piracy would still be rampant.
2: Serious pirates would just buy a "professional" system and rip away.
3: If no "professional" ripping is available, then copy-protected CD's will receive little airplay since they are not compatible with the automation system.
Small label artists and singer-songwriters already get the shaft from ASCAP/BMI since royalties are based on airplay and voting rights in these organizations are based on royalties received. Outcome 3 will just marginalize them even further.
Outcomes 1 and 2 mean going to a copy-protected environment will not accomplish the RIAA's goals.
Thus, the CBDTPA is ineffective, and could make it more difficult for artists to receive airplay.