And how does that matter? Open Source is open, meaning it could have been open for months before deployment of binaries. Does the military have to release their code because they are running on a GPL platform?
Right. This was one of the most stupid, mind-less, mind-numbing, time evaporating shows on TV. You might call it a Zero Knowledge or even Negative Knowledge show.
I did see a couple of episodes, fortunately for me I was too well educated to enjoy it.
You can only benchmark what is common to all vendors cards, not what is unique to each one. That's just testing 101. Where did these people go to school?
+2 cents contributed.
and, fairly easy to make this happen...
on
NYT on RFID Tags
·
· Score: 1
As you exit the store just put your goods into a box that sends a very large EM pulse through the goods. That will effectively burn out the little critters...one would think.
Seeing a post like yours makes me want to cry. For years audiophiles blead for technology that would reproduce music perfectly. Lo and behold someone digitized the audio so that it would never degrade. Someone else decided that a good reasonable standard would be 2 channel 16 bit at 44.1 KHz for consumer audio. This was based on the costs and level of engineering everything together as a package at that time in history. 16 bit DAC's at the time were rather expensive. CD production costs were rather expensive.
In any case the majority of people came to love the crystal clear sound that came from CD's. Some audiophiles still lambasted the CD, but for the most part, the sound was clearly superior.
Great, now we finally have achieved what we wanted...great sound. Then look what happened. Some smart folks invent the Internet, but it turns out that the bandwidth offered is rather expensive. So you know what happened? Some smartass fool goes and creates a lossy compression technology that is clearly inferior to the real audio PCM samples. Yet, everyone flocks to it like lemmings. Next thing you know, hey, maybe we really didn't need audio as good as CD quality. Maybe just cassette tape sound is "good enough".
Now we've got people like you saying that MP3's are all you really need. It's people like you who are going to end up splitting the environment into two sets of people. One set, the low-end users are able to buy MP3 albums at a cheap price. The other people, the aristocrats, are going to have to pay gobs of money for the real thing.
Look, for one I WANT low priced real CD quality music samples. I want something that gives me the choice on how I rip them. So I want low priced music.
True, no one wants any copy protection, and what's the point anyway. You can sample almost any audio perfectly these days with a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card at 24 bit 96 KHz. That's much better than CD quality. After the first sample, it's in the digital domain, uncopy protected. It's free to go out to the file sharing networks uncopy protected.
Please, PLEASE, don't say all we need are MP3's, you might as well say let's bring back the 45 because thats about the sound quality you get.
CD's cost too much! CD's cost too much! CD's cost too much!
That's right. We already know asteroids are deadly...even small ones. Look at the meteor that hit Arizona. Or, how about the supposed comet, yea just ice, that hit Tunguska in 1908.
Asteroids aren't very likely to be made of "sponge" matter. There is a good bit of variation in their makeup, but on the whole, anything a few thousand feet wide or more will have a devastating impact.
Also, it is very unlikely that we can get an acceptable "makeup" of the asteroid just by landing in one spot. That's like taking a pole in Florida about whether Floridian's like Bush. You really need to drill...deep.
Frankly, I'd rather give my money to SETI. But the smart thing to do is to go ahead and put that money into the investment of what we WILL do when we find a killer asteroid.
So what if we find out exactly what the asteroids are made of that we send the probes to. Chance would have it that the one that hits us will be made of solid iron. If you are going to spend any money at all, spend it on preparations for the worst case. Anything else is just a waste.
Why didn't they just use a similar technique to what XP uses where you fingerprint the PC by using version strings and chipset codes then xor that with your serial number?
Hmmm...what does change when you move your hard drive from one PC to another?
I don't think he understands "inventing". The problem that open source creates is this...
What idea's are left to invent that can't be copied?
The open source movement literally copies "everything". No company is immune to it's onslaught. And, since open source is equivalent to "free" how can any company survive?
Service? Doesn't servicing open source software sound sort-of like a contradiction?
No, "keys" are used to generate "pads". A pad is what you xor with the data stream. You can't change the definitions to fit your model.
You can't crack a one-time-pad...period. You're trying to prove black equals white. If you do that you'll get wiped out at the next zebra crossing.
Crack this...you can only make one guess...I'm thinking of a number between 0 and 255. I've just encrypted it with a pad. The encryption result is 6. Guess my number.
My PC mobo has two different sets of memory slots. The first memory slots are for data that needs to be accurate, reliable, and predictable. The second memory slots are for unpredictable data results.
Therefore whenever I want to perform some calculation that has a random result I just use the random memory addresses.
The second memory slots use PRRAM, or Progressively Random Random Access Memory. This memory is guaranteed to be accurately random to the femtosecond.
I've got 512 Meg of PRRAM in my machine. More than enough for most consumer applications!
PRRAM varies in price too so you have to search hard on the web to get a low price.
The server is exactly the place you DONT want to use a language like Java. On the server you need to handle very large numbers of connections with exceptional processing speed.
Although Java -is- used on servers for a majority of application service provider services, in my humble opinion, it shouldn't be. For server applications only very fast and efficient languages should be used.
I find it contradictory that there was such a rivalry in early speed comarisons between MS IIS and Apache, then people turn around and use Java?
And, why do you need a cross platform language for a server? Again, use a faster language.
...the motherboard manufacturers just don't put the processors on the back side of the motherboards.
Think about it. If the processor and other heat generating chips were on the reverse side you could mount the motherboard in such a way as to press against the large metal backside of your case cabinet. The case cabinet could be designed in such a way as to have indentations that force the processor flat against the case with heat sink gel. In fact the entire case back could be a water-cooled heat sink. This would keep the inside of the case "water-free".
Sure, this would take a radical new case design and motherboard (another industry standard), but that seems to be where we are headed right? I mean processors are getting hotter and Intel and AMD are trying to figure out what to do.
Why not?
BTW, I think it has something to do with the fact that the motherboard components are all wave soldered on one side. This would melt most plastic components on that side. I'm not sure about this.
As I've said before, I don't currently buy any CD's, or so few it isn't worth discussing, not only because of the choices I have in my life now, but because the CD's just cost too much.
LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN...CDs COST TOO MUCH!
I have an inability to take advantage of a market because I am being priced out of it. Every day the number of purchasable items in that market increase. The number of potential purchasers increase. The cost of the industry to create those purchasable items decreases. Yet, always in the end the price is just too high.
If the cost of the average CD was lowered 1/2 to 1/3, I would not only start purchasing CDs in large quantities, I would actually purchase more than enough to offset the perceived losses due to the cost drop. The industry would actually begin to make money off of me, where currently they are not. I could actually take advantage of the large ever growing selection available at the super stores. I would be able to buy if'y selections just to try them out. I would be able to buy promotional stuff too. Read "I would be able to...", please please empower me to buy music. Heck, I might even have enough left over cash to actually entertain the notion of going into an FYI or Virgin store!
The point is that I currently simply cannot afford to spend money like it is growing on trees to make the music companies happy.
It's time to lower the price or all hell's going to break lose.
Obviously you "can" write mammoth programs with 1 billion lines of code without crashing. It's the kind of program you are writing that becomes critical.
Generally, serial programs are the simplest programs to write. Most serial programs control machines that do very repetitive work. It's possible to write serial programs very modularly so that each module has been checked to be bug free. Today's processors execute code so that the result is "serially" computed. Yes, the instructions are pipelined, but the result is that of a serial process.
Where we go wrong is when we start writing code that becomes non-serial. Threads that execute at the same time, serial processes that look-ahead or behind. Most OOP languages tend of obfuscate the complexities behind the code. Huge class libraries that depend on large numbers of hidden connections between other classes make programming a real pain.
Mr. Lanier might be right, but I doubt it. Seems to me that a line of code could be as simple as that of a machine language command, in which case we are already using high level compilers to spit out huge numbers of serial instructions. Does that count? I think it does. Scaling code comes only at the expense of time. Most people simply don't think about the future long enough.
There are no natural resources in Antarctica...well, except for that big giant alien spaceship that's parked under the snow at the south pole. Better send Mulder back in, looks like the thing has landed again!
Thanks for the cost info in this thread, it really emphasizes the point I am trying to make, even though you've basically stated that the average artists makes nothing.
Look, I'm a full blooded american, I certainly believe companies should be able to make a profit on their products. In the spirit of taking, companies should be able to make "a lot of money". But, I have a real problem with companies going way too far beyond what I feel is "realistic pricing" for products. When you've gone beyond double the cost of producing the product, you've really got to think that something is just plain wrong. I'm not advocating some socialist point of view. I'm only saying that at some point it is benificial, or even philanthropic to price your products at a level at which many people can afford them, and provide your company with a nice cozy return on investment. Pricing things high just so you can live your life with a certain lifestyle is plain greedy and is probably what is wrong with most capitalist countries.
Also, remmember one thing, the number of people on the planet that can potentially purchase CDs goes up every day. Due to that, a single point of sales doesn't need high prices to justify a great profit, it is going to happen anyway as a result of the low cost of the plastic disk.
Due to the prices on CDs, the record companies are alienating me from many potentially new varieties of enjoyable music, or music that I like but can't see the value in buying. That means that the companies are "pricing me out" of sales of music that I might try if prices were lower. As it is, I really can't afford to buy any "if'y" music, I have to purchase only the music that I really really go "jones'ing" for.
I'm not exactly poor. I make a reasonable salary at my job. I just want to get value for the little plastic disks that I am purchasing.
If the music industry was seen as a company as a whole then maybe losses on poorly selling specialty albums could be spread throughout the company. The act of selling those specialty albums at the same cost as great selling albums would be seen as a positive aspect of the company.
As things are the music industry is about ready to really "rake in the dough". Due to the internet, if you can purchase and download entire albums of mp3'd music, then they are just shooting you bits. They don't even have to buy materials to make the product. I'm sure in that respect they "love the internet".
If the music industry falls, because they can't reduce prices, because they would lost profit, then you might say we are all doomed. We've stretched the american dollar as far as it will stretch without tearing. If the dollar tears it is over.
Can I say anymore? Gosh, I LOVE MUSIC! The fact that I just can't afford it really really bites. I would love to go into any Media Play and purchase 2 or 3 albums a week for $4.99. BUT I CAN'T! I JUST CAN'T SEEM TO GET PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THAT PRICES ARE TOO HIGH!
Please, please, please lower the cost of CD's so that people can really start buying them again. You won't lose money, you will actually make more money, I promise!
I for one am so tired of the price structure of audio CD's that I've quit purchasing them outright.
I just purchased the movie "Signs" for $17.99 which I might consider to be "reasonable". For one, "Signs" must have cost millions to make. I don't have the amount at hand, but I must imagine that it cost over 10 million dollars. Now, how much does it cost to produce a single album for a group? Less than a million?
In my view audio CD's should be priced at the point at which it becomes pointless for me to even try to pirate them. The price I think audio CD's should sell for is $4.99 plus applicable tax. At that price it is just not convenient to put together all the effort to copy them or pirate mp3's of them. After all, what I would really like is the original high quality PCM samples not mp3's.
If CD's actually cost around a dollar to produce, then the producers can double that when they sell them. That will be two dollars when they sell them to companies like Best Buy. Then, Best Buy can turn around and sell them for double that price, which is four dollars. Of course there will be some variation from state to state so we add a dollar to cover extra's. At most, a $5.99 cost of a CD would be plenty.
If CD's were priced at one third of what they are now then I'd actually purchase more than I am currently purchasing at the current price, way more than to cover the amount they think they would be losing. A secondary problem is the sheer number of artists that I want to purchase grows by leaps and bounds every year, but my purchasing power does not. Everytime I go into a store like Media Play the number of CD's grows, but I still can't take advantage of that.
I've got to imagine that the only reason CD's still sell at the $17 and $18 dollar mall prices is because of stupid teenage girls with large parental pocketbooks. And, yes, that was a slam, so yea, I'm blaming the music industry and stupid teenagers for the current prices of CD's.
The cost structure of CD's is now and has always been ridiculous. We are only now beginning to realize that. The music industry is currently living way beyond it's means and it's time to wake them up and serve them some hot coffee. Until that time I'm done with them. My boycott has started and will not abate until the music industry sees reason.
You are sooooo right! Paying for one-time costs is nothing to recurring costs. Same with cell phones. How would you like to pay a $500.00 one time cost for a cell phone? No more charges ever!
Here's the example of what is going on in the printer industry. You think you are getting ripped off by the recording industry do you? Well with printer cartridges at about $30.00 a pop (with a likely production cost of a buck) we are all getting royally screwed.
The printer companies have reduced and in fact taken a little loss on the one time printer cost, so that they can stick us with these high cost cartridges. I am furious. I don't own a printer just for that reason. By paying for those cartridges, we end up supporting that cost structure which I very much disagree with. Now, on top of that, the printer companies won't allow Open Sourced cartridges, which is really all the 3rd party cartridges are. The cartridges are also a big waste since they can't be reused or recycled. Since the cartridges are material (not bits), no P2P file sharing is going to solve this one.
Boycott anyone? Don't buy any printers that use high cost cartridges!
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And how does that matter? Open Source is open, meaning it could have been open for months before deployment of binaries. Does the military have to release their code because they are running on a GPL platform?
+2 cents contributed.
If the enemy can look through your entire source, then they know what your maximum capabilities are, even if it is 100% secure. Is this a good thing?
+2 cents contributed.
Right. This was one of the most stupid, mind-less, mind-numbing, time evaporating shows on TV. You might call it a Zero Knowledge or even Negative Knowledge show.
I did see a couple of episodes, fortunately for me I was too well educated to enjoy it.
+2 cents contributed.
You can only benchmark what is common to all vendors cards, not what is unique to each one. That's just testing 101. Where did these people go to school?
+2 cents contributed.
As you exit the store just put your goods into a box that sends a very large EM pulse through the goods. That will effectively burn out the little critters...one would think.
Right?
+2 cents contributed.
Sounds just like the Linus of Charlie Brown holding tight to that security blanket.
Kids will be kids, but unless they are cartoons, they eventually grow up.
But, alas, I tend to agree with him. I just don't get RISC chips. Why they want to remove things that make programming easier is beyond me.
+2 cents contributed.
Seeing a post like yours makes me want to cry. For years audiophiles blead for technology that would reproduce music perfectly. Lo and behold someone digitized the audio so that it would never degrade. Someone else decided that a good reasonable standard would be 2 channel 16 bit at 44.1 KHz for consumer audio. This was based on the costs and level of engineering everything together as a package at that time in history. 16 bit DAC's at the time were rather expensive. CD production costs were rather expensive.
In any case the majority of people came to love the crystal clear sound that came from CD's. Some audiophiles still lambasted the CD, but for the most part, the sound was clearly superior.
Great, now we finally have achieved what we wanted...great sound. Then look what happened. Some smart folks invent the Internet, but it turns out that the bandwidth offered is rather expensive. So you know what happened? Some smartass fool goes and creates a lossy compression technology that is clearly inferior to the real audio PCM samples. Yet, everyone flocks to it like lemmings. Next thing you know, hey, maybe we really didn't need audio as good as CD quality. Maybe just cassette tape sound is "good enough".
Now we've got people like you saying that MP3's are all you really need. It's people like you who are going to end up splitting the environment into two sets of people. One set, the low-end users are able to buy MP3 albums at a cheap price. The other people, the aristocrats, are going to have to pay gobs of money for the real thing.
Look, for one I WANT low priced real CD quality music samples. I want something that gives me the choice on how I rip them. So I want low priced music.
True, no one wants any copy protection, and what's the point anyway. You can sample almost any audio perfectly these days with a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card at 24 bit 96 KHz. That's much better than CD quality. After the first sample, it's in the digital domain, uncopy protected. It's free to go out to the file sharing networks uncopy protected.
Please, PLEASE, don't say all we need are MP3's, you might as well say let's bring back the 45 because thats about the sound quality you get.
CD's cost too much! CD's cost too much! CD's cost too much!
+2 cents contributed.
That's right. We already know asteroids are deadly...even small ones. Look at the meteor that hit Arizona. Or, how about the supposed comet, yea just ice, that hit Tunguska in 1908.
Asteroids aren't very likely to be made of "sponge" matter. There is a good bit of variation in their makeup, but on the whole, anything a few thousand feet wide or more will have a devastating impact.
Also, it is very unlikely that we can get an acceptable "makeup" of the asteroid just by landing in one spot. That's like taking a pole in Florida about whether Floridian's like Bush. You really need to drill...deep.
Frankly, I'd rather give my money to SETI. But the smart thing to do is to go ahead and put that money into the investment of what we WILL do when we find a killer asteroid.
So what if we find out exactly what the asteroids are made of that we send the probes to. Chance would have it that the one that hits us will be made of solid iron. If you are going to spend any money at all, spend it on preparations for the worst case. Anything else is just a waste.
+2 cents contributed.
Why didn't they just use a similar technique to what XP uses where you fingerprint the PC by using version strings and chipset codes then xor that with your serial number?
Hmmm...what does change when you move your hard drive from one PC to another?
I don't think he understands "inventing". The problem that open source creates is this...
What idea's are left to invent that can't be copied?
The open source movement literally copies "everything". No company is immune to it's onslaught. And, since open source is equivalent to "free" how can any company survive?
Service? Doesn't servicing open source software sound sort-of like a contradiction?
I have the original DL laserdisk and pioneer player. I don't have the controller board.
Anybody know is this stuff is worth anything yet?
"Tell me the number you were thinking of."
You're the man in the middle...you tell me!
No, "keys" are used to generate "pads". A pad is what you xor with the data stream. You can't change the definitions to fit your model.
You can't crack a one-time-pad...period. You're trying to prove black equals white. If you do that you'll get wiped out at the next zebra crossing.
Crack this...you can only make one guess...I'm thinking of a number between 0 and 255. I've just encrypted it with a pad. The encryption result is 6. Guess my number.
+2 cents contributed.
Umm, one-time-pads have no decryption "key", that is why you can't crack a one-time-pad...ever. One-time-pads only have the pad.
There is -no- deficiency.
You obviously don't understand one-time-pads.
+4 cents contibuted.
My PC mobo has two different sets of memory slots. The first memory slots are for data that needs to be accurate, reliable, and predictable. The second memory slots are for unpredictable data results.
Therefore whenever I want to perform some calculation that has a random result I just use the random memory addresses.
The second memory slots use PRRAM, or Progressively Random Random Access Memory. This memory is guaranteed to be accurately random to the femtosecond.
I've got 512 Meg of PRRAM in my machine. More than enough for most consumer applications!
PRRAM varies in price too so you have to search hard on the web to get a low price.
Good luck!
The server is exactly the place you DONT want to use a language like Java. On the server you need to handle very large numbers of connections with exceptional processing speed.
Although Java -is- used on servers for a majority of application service provider services, in my humble opinion, it shouldn't be. For server applications only very fast and efficient languages should be used.
I find it contradictory that there was such a rivalry in early speed comarisons between MS IIS and Apache, then people turn around and use Java?
And, why do you need a cross platform language for a server? Again, use a faster language.
+2 cents contributed.
...the motherboard manufacturers just don't put the processors on the back side of the motherboards.
Think about it. If the processor and other heat generating chips were on the reverse side you could mount the motherboard in such a way as to press against the large metal backside of your case cabinet. The case cabinet could be designed in such a way as to have indentations that force the processor flat against the case with heat sink gel. In fact the entire case back could be a water-cooled heat sink. This would keep the inside of the case "water-free".
Sure, this would take a radical new case design and motherboard (another industry standard), but that seems to be where we are headed right? I mean processors are getting hotter and Intel and AMD are trying to figure out what to do.
Why not?
BTW, I think it has something to do with the fact that the motherboard components are all wave soldered on one side. This would melt most plastic components on that side. I'm not sure about this.
As I've said before, I don't currently buy any CD's, or so few it isn't worth discussing, not only because of the choices I have in my life now, but because the CD's just cost too much.
LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN...CDs COST TOO MUCH!
I have an inability to take advantage of a market because I am being priced out of it. Every day the number of purchasable items in that market increase. The number of potential purchasers increase. The cost of the industry to create those purchasable items decreases. Yet, always in the end the price is just too high.
If the cost of the average CD was lowered 1/2 to 1/3, I would not only start purchasing CDs in large quantities, I would actually purchase more than enough to offset the perceived losses due to the cost drop. The industry would actually begin to make money off of me, where currently they are not. I could actually take advantage of the large ever growing selection available at the super stores. I would be able to buy if'y selections just to try them out. I would be able to buy promotional stuff too. Read "I would be able to...", please please empower me to buy music. Heck, I might even have enough left over cash to actually entertain the notion of going into an FYI or Virgin store!
The point is that I currently simply cannot afford to spend money like it is growing on trees to make the music companies happy.
It's time to lower the price or all hell's going to break lose.
$.02 contributed.
Obviously you "can" write mammoth programs with 1 billion lines of code without crashing. It's the kind of program you are writing that becomes critical.
Generally, serial programs are the simplest programs to write. Most serial programs control machines that do very repetitive work. It's possible to write serial programs very modularly so that each module has been checked to be bug free. Today's processors execute code so that the result is "serially" computed. Yes, the instructions are pipelined, but the result is that of a serial process.
Where we go wrong is when we start writing code that becomes non-serial. Threads that execute at the same time, serial processes that look-ahead or behind. Most OOP languages tend of obfuscate the complexities behind the code. Huge class libraries that depend on large numbers of hidden connections between other classes make programming a real pain.
Mr. Lanier might be right, but I doubt it. Seems to me that a line of code could be as simple as that of a machine language command, in which case we are already using high level compilers to spit out huge numbers of serial instructions. Does that count? I think it does. Scaling code comes only at the expense of time. Most people simply don't think about the future long enough.
My 2 cents.
There are no natural resources in Antarctica...well, except for that big giant alien spaceship that's parked under the snow at the south pole. Better send Mulder back in, looks like the thing has landed again!
Thanks for keeping me straight on how things work. Due to my knee-jerk reaction to music prices I don't always consider all the variables.
Problem is, you've only made things seem worse to me. Are you for or against the current prices on CD's?
It still begs the question, how much profit should be made on a piece of plastic that only cost a dollar to fully produce, bits and all?
Thanks for the cost info in this thread, it really emphasizes the point I am trying to make, even though you've basically stated that the average artists makes nothing.
Look, I'm a full blooded american, I certainly believe companies should be able to make a profit on their products. In the spirit of taking, companies should be able to make "a lot of money". But, I have a real problem with companies going way too far beyond what I feel is "realistic pricing" for products. When you've gone beyond double the cost of producing the product, you've really got to think that something is just plain wrong. I'm not advocating some socialist point of view. I'm only saying that at some point it is benificial, or even philanthropic to price your products at a level at which many people can afford them, and provide your company with a nice cozy return on investment. Pricing things high just so you can live your life with a certain lifestyle is plain greedy and is probably what is wrong with most capitalist countries.
Also, remmember one thing, the number of people on the planet that can potentially purchase CDs goes up every day. Due to that, a single point of sales doesn't need high prices to justify a great profit, it is going to happen anyway as a result of the low cost of the plastic disk.
Due to the prices on CDs, the record companies are alienating me from many potentially new varieties of enjoyable music, or music that I like but can't see the value in buying. That means that the companies are "pricing me out" of sales of music that I might try if prices were lower. As it is, I really can't afford to buy any "if'y" music, I have to purchase only the music that I really really go "jones'ing" for.
I'm not exactly poor. I make a reasonable salary at my job. I just want to get value for the little plastic disks that I am purchasing.
If the music industry was seen as a company as a whole then maybe losses on poorly selling specialty albums could be spread throughout the company. The act of selling those specialty albums at the same cost as great selling albums would be seen as a positive aspect of the company.
As things are the music industry is about ready to really "rake in the dough". Due to the internet, if you can purchase and download entire albums of mp3'd music, then they are just shooting you bits. They don't even have to buy materials to make the product. I'm sure in that respect they "love the internet".
If the music industry falls, because they can't reduce prices, because they would lost profit, then you might say we are all doomed. We've stretched the american dollar as far as it will stretch without tearing. If the dollar tears it is over.
Can I say anymore? Gosh, I LOVE MUSIC! The fact that I just can't afford it really really bites. I would love to go into any Media Play and purchase 2 or 3 albums a week for $4.99. BUT I CAN'T! I JUST CAN'T SEEM TO GET PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THAT PRICES ARE TOO HIGH!
Please, please, please lower the cost of CD's so that people can really start buying them again. You won't lose money, you will actually make more money, I promise!
My 2 cents.
I for one am so tired of the price structure of audio CD's that I've quit purchasing them outright.
I just purchased the movie "Signs" for $17.99 which I might consider to be "reasonable". For one, "Signs" must have cost millions to make. I don't have the amount at hand, but I must imagine that it cost over 10 million dollars. Now, how much does it cost to produce a single album for a group? Less than a million?
In my view audio CD's should be priced at the point at which it becomes pointless for me to even try to pirate them. The price I think audio CD's should sell for is $4.99 plus applicable tax. At that price it is just not convenient to put together all the effort to copy them or pirate mp3's of them. After all, what I would really like is the original high quality PCM samples not mp3's.
If CD's actually cost around a dollar to produce, then the producers can double that when they sell them. That will be two dollars when they sell them to companies like Best Buy. Then, Best Buy can turn around and sell them for double that price, which is four dollars. Of course there will be some variation from state to state so we add a dollar to cover extra's. At most, a $5.99 cost of a CD would be plenty.
If CD's were priced at one third of what they are now then I'd actually purchase more than I am currently purchasing at the current price, way more than to cover the amount they think they would be losing. A secondary problem is the sheer number of artists that I want to purchase grows by leaps and bounds every year, but my purchasing power does not. Everytime I go into a store like Media Play the number of CD's grows, but I still can't take advantage of that.
I've got to imagine that the only reason CD's still sell at the $17 and $18 dollar mall prices is because of stupid teenage girls with large parental pocketbooks. And, yes, that was a slam, so yea, I'm blaming the music industry and stupid teenagers for the current prices of CD's.
The cost structure of CD's is now and has always been ridiculous. We are only now beginning to realize that. The music industry is currently living way beyond it's means and it's time to wake them up and serve them some hot coffee. Until that time I'm done with them. My boycott has started and will not abate until the music industry sees reason.
Me too!
You are sooooo right! Paying for one-time costs is nothing to recurring costs. Same with cell phones. How would you like to pay a $500.00 one time cost for a cell phone? No more charges ever!
Yep, no prob here!
Here's the example of what is going on in the printer industry. You think you are getting ripped off by the recording industry do you? Well with printer cartridges at about $30.00 a pop (with a likely production cost of a buck) we are all getting royally screwed.
The printer companies have reduced and in fact taken a little loss on the one time printer cost, so that they can stick us with these high cost cartridges. I am furious. I don't own a printer just for that reason. By paying for those cartridges, we end up supporting that cost structure which I very much disagree with. Now, on top of that, the printer companies won't allow Open Sourced cartridges, which is really all the 3rd party cartridges are. The cartridges are also a big waste since they can't be reused or recycled. Since the cartridges are material (not bits), no P2P file sharing is going to solve this one.
Boycott anyone? Don't buy any printers that use high cost cartridges!