This will be great for MS in the long run. They will have wider adoption since there will be a large selection of open source software. Plus, they'll make bank since everyone will still buy the bad ass xbox games.
I've always hated the "Best Of" cds that they try to pass off as new music. Anyway, I bet since there's pretty much zero cost in making such a cd (other than printing and promotion) that that's how they've been making a nice chunk of their money.
Not yet, right now you can only use Apple's implementation with Obj-C Cocoa. The spec is open though, so it would be nice to see someone make a pure Java version.
I think you are getting the roles of consumer and producer mixed up. Producers will always try to optimize their product for price (often at the sacrifice of quality). Consumers (in our materialistic society) will usually consume the most expensive products they can afford.
I've said this before on various other forums, but I believe that the future role of computers in the world of video games is as "digital hubs".
Imagine a game console that hooked up to your LAN, and interacted with your computer. Maybe you could download console games, and store them on your computer. Maybe console games could expose some api, and allow developers to create apps that worked with them. Maybe the game pulls music from your mp3 library and plays it through the console. Anyway, you get the idea.
I think that this would be a much better solution for the gaming community than the current convergence of hardware we are seeing. I really don't want to pay for a hard drive in my Playstation 2 when I have a perfectly good hard drive in my computer. I think console makers would jump all over this to keep the cost of their hardware down.
Not once did I mention any "right" to "steal" copywritten material. I don't expect that our entertainment industry would last through such a transition. That's the beauty of it, no industry in our entertainment. People will continue to make music, and write books even if there is no money involved. Hell look at all the open source software. People have written whole operating systems (which takes a lot more effort than recording a cd) for free! There is no precedent that shows that people stop all creative output if they are not paid for it.
No one has a "right" to derive revenue. If you can't figure out how to make money that's your bad, and not that of the potential consumers. If you think you can rely on selling something that has no physical structure, can be near-instantly copied to anywhere in the world for almost no cost, and other people are more than willing to give away you are seriously mistaken.
Well protecting the author in 1841 may have been a good idea (do to the large cost of manufacture and distribution of things like books), in todays digital society it hardly makes sense. I don't think anyone believes that music or literature, or any other form of entertainment will go away if it's authors aren't compensated. aren't compensated.
I dissagree that a monitary reward is what these artists have earned. Having people listen to your music should be reward enough for any artist. I love music, a lot. I love it enough to invest hours of my time listening to it every day. I do not however, attach a money value to it. Music is information, it doesn't play well in our system designed to deal with physical goods.
If you want to earn money, there are a lot easier ways to do it than making music. If you want to be known and respected, then music is the place to be. Case in point, look at the software engnieer that makes 90k a year, but gets treated like a horses ass. Then look at the musician who has his song pirated 10,000 times a day on gnutella. Who would you rather be? And if you say the engnieer then I've lost respect for you as an artist, and wouldn't pay for your shallow corporate music anyway.
I think it's time to re-evaluate the "value" of music. Of course it's worth something. That something just doesn't happen to be money.
I'll tell you what I'd like to see. No big budget corporate entertainment at all! In the near future I envision that cheap digital video, and editing equipment will make it cheap and easy for people to start making their own "tv shows" and distributing them on the net. Same goes for quality music. Technology is finally reaching a point where the intelligestia don't need to leverage the masses to get media of high pysical quality (as opposed to content quality). It's time for people with taste to take back entertainment.
Imagine if you had portable p2p devices that you could use with metro freenets (http://www.freenetworks.org). Instead of downloading music from anyone within your device's range, you would be connected to all participating parties on the wireless network.
The device could work like a radio that listened to "broadcast" mp3 streams on the network, in addition to the standard p2p mode of operation. If you hear a song that you like, just have the device store the song for you to later download to a machine of your choice. This would allow independent artists/groups of artists to "push" their music out to a listening audience. Make them cheap enough and I see no reason to listen to commercial radio.
Well said. I know you said you enjoy the "real" world of physical digital music, but your first paragraph makes a strong argument for the digital does it not? No scratches on a well encoded mp3, and it's pretty easy to find your music in iTunes.
If you truely enjoy having the physical object in front of you then that's great. I personally find it more satisfying to browse the web for information on the artist I'm currently listening to(instead of being confined to the liner notes. Which are printed in a format with microscopic print). Why don't you collect records, but listen to mp3s? Surely you agree that record artwork and liner notes are much more readable then that of a cd.
I think you have your definition of consumerisim wrong. Here's the def from m-w.com:
"the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable; also : a preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods"
Consumerisim is about buying.
So if less then one percent of the purchase price of an album goes back to the band, wouldn't it be more fare to say I'm supporting the other 99% of the pie? That's the beauty of downloading music for free. You slash that 99% right off the top. If the other one percent goes as a by product, then oh well. Most bands don't even break even on record sales anyway. They are given an advance on sales to cover recording, then forced to record with record label producers and studios. A small percentage of bands to make money on record sales.
I don't think Tool is inde. I just find them a bit more respectable then the Backstreet Boys. They are an artist that in theory I may want to support (barring their last album), but won't becuase my money would go else where. You say that the money from big bands goes to support the creation of smaller bands. That's true, but what do you think costs more money: getting a band like Jimmy Eats World off the ground or marketing Britney Spears. If you stop giving the record company money the later will dissapear the former will be around forever because small inde bands usually like to make music for music's sake.
I've done better then write disposable letters to the CEOs of record companies and RIAA. I've stopped buying from them.
You're right about inde bands. Go to shows to support them.
Please people,
Stop buying cds! When you purchase a cd you are NOT supporting the band. At the very best you are telling the record company to go out and make a clone of the band you are listening to. If you show them that an idea is profitable they will go out and copy it untill it is no longer so.
lblack, don't take this the wrong way, but you sound like a corporate sucker. The fact that looking at a pile of cds makes you feel good means that you've bougtht into what they are selling hook, line and sinker. We live in a ruthless corporate war field, where brainwashing is an everyday occurance. You've been taught over the years that buying things will make you feel good. Your cd collection is less an ode to the music you love, and more a trophy of your consumerisim. Stop worshiping the record companies (and perpetuating the crap, remember revenue from the Tool cd you bought goes to help market Backstreet boys!) and start downloading all of your music online. It's not stealing if you can copy something an infinity number of times forever.
Weren't GI Joe, Thundercats, Voltron, Rainbow Brite, and tons others animated in Japan? Cats with whips, giant killer robots, Rainbow Brite?!? I can hardly see how todays world of Pokemon and others is any differant then the 80's Asian invasion of excellent cartoons.
Slashdot Mirror
This will be great for MS in the long run. They will have wider adoption since there will be a large selection of open source software. Plus, they'll make bank since everyone will still buy the bad ass xbox games.
Nintendo is not going away as long as they sell Gameboy and Pokemon related merchandise.
I've always hated the "Best Of" cds that they try to pass off as new music. Anyway, I bet since there's pretty much zero cost in making such a cd (other than printing and promotion) that that's how they've been making a nice chunk of their money.
Who buys those things anyway?
Not yet, right now you can only use Apple's implementation with Obj-C Cocoa. The spec is open though, so it would be nice to see someone make a pure Java version.
I think you are getting the roles of consumer and producer mixed up. Producers will always try to optimize their product for price (often at the sacrifice of quality). Consumers (in our materialistic society) will usually consume the most expensive products they can afford.
I've said this before on various other forums, but I believe that the future role of computers in the world of video games is as "digital hubs".
Imagine a game console that hooked up to your LAN, and interacted with your computer. Maybe you could download console games, and store them on your computer. Maybe console games could expose some api, and allow developers to create apps that worked with them. Maybe the game pulls music from your mp3 library and plays it through the console. Anyway, you get the idea.
I think that this would be a much better solution for the gaming community than the current convergence of hardware we are seeing. I really don't want to pay for a hard drive in my Playstation 2 when I have a perfectly good hard drive in my computer. I think console makers would jump all over this to keep the cost of their hardware down.
Not once did I mention any "right" to "steal" copywritten material. I don't expect that our entertainment industry would last through such a transition. That's the beauty of it, no industry in our entertainment. People will continue to make music, and write books even if there is no money involved. Hell look at all the open source software. People have written whole operating systems (which takes a lot more effort than recording a cd) for free! There is no precedent that shows that people stop all creative output if they are not paid for it.
No one has a "right" to derive revenue. If you can't figure out how to make money that's your bad, and not that of the potential consumers. If you think you can rely on selling something that has no physical structure, can be near-instantly copied to anywhere in the world for almost no cost, and other people are more than willing to give away you are seriously mistaken.
Well protecting the author in 1841 may have been a good idea (do to the large cost of manufacture and distribution of things like books), in todays digital society it hardly makes sense. I don't think anyone believes that music or literature, or any other form of entertainment will go away if it's authors aren't compensated. aren't compensated.
I dissagree that a monitary reward is what these artists have earned. Having people listen to your music should be reward enough for any artist. I love music, a lot. I love it enough to invest hours of my time listening to it every day. I do not however, attach a money value to it. Music is information, it doesn't play well in our system designed to deal with physical goods.
If you want to earn money, there are a lot easier ways to do it than making music. If you want to be known and respected, then music is the place to be. Case in point, look at the software engnieer that makes 90k a year, but gets treated like a horses ass. Then look at the musician who has his song pirated 10,000 times a day on gnutella. Who would you rather be? And if you say the engnieer then I've lost respect for you as an artist, and wouldn't pay for your shallow corporate music anyway.
I think it's time to re-evaluate the "value" of music. Of course it's worth something. That something just doesn't happen to be money.
I'll tell you what I'd like to see. No big budget corporate entertainment at all! In the near future I envision that cheap digital video, and editing equipment will make it cheap and easy for people to start making their own "tv shows" and distributing them on the net. Same goes for quality music. Technology is finally reaching a point where the intelligestia don't need to leverage the masses to get media of high pysical quality (as opposed to content quality). It's time for people with taste to take back entertainment.
C-Average
The Fucking Champs (aka C4AM95)
Aesop Rock
Dr. Octagon
Folk Implosion
And...I'll second The Dismemberment Plan
Pick up Peopleware by Tom Demarco, it's a great book. Check out Deathmarch too.
Imagine if you had portable p2p devices that you could use with metro freenets (http://www.freenetworks.org). Instead of downloading music from anyone within your device's range, you would be connected to all participating parties on the wireless network.
The device could work like a radio that listened to "broadcast" mp3 streams on the network, in addition to the standard p2p mode of operation. If you hear a song that you like, just have the device store the song for you to later download to a machine of your choice. This would allow independent artists/groups of artists to "push" their music out to a listening audience. Make them cheap enough and I see no reason to listen to commercial radio.
I'm sure they are right on it, since it worked so good for NeXT.
Well said. I know you said you enjoy the "real" world of physical digital music, but your first paragraph makes a strong argument for the digital does it not? No scratches on a well encoded mp3, and it's pretty easy to find your music in iTunes.
If you truely enjoy having the physical object in front of you then that's great. I personally find it more satisfying to browse the web for information on the artist I'm currently listening to(instead of being confined to the liner notes. Which are printed in a format with microscopic print). Why don't you collect records, but listen to mp3s? Surely you agree that record artwork and liner notes are much more readable then that of a cd.
I think you have your definition of consumerisim wrong. Here's the def from m-w.com:
"the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable; also : a preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods"
Consumerisim is about buying.
So if less then one percent of the purchase price of an album goes back to the band, wouldn't it be more fare to say I'm supporting the other 99% of the pie? That's the beauty of downloading music for free. You slash that 99% right off the top. If the other one percent goes as a by product, then oh well. Most bands don't even break even on record sales anyway. They are given an advance on sales to cover recording, then forced to record with record label producers and studios. A small percentage of bands to make money on record sales.
I don't think Tool is inde. I just find them a bit more respectable then the Backstreet Boys. They are an artist that in theory I may want to support (barring their last album), but won't becuase my money would go else where. You say that the money from big bands goes to support the creation of smaller bands. That's true, but what do you think costs more money: getting a band like Jimmy Eats World off the ground or marketing Britney Spears. If you stop giving the record company money the later will dissapear the former will be around forever because small inde bands usually like to make music for music's sake.
I've done better then write disposable letters to the CEOs of record companies and RIAA. I've stopped buying from them.
You're right about inde bands. Go to shows to support them.
Please people,
Stop buying cds! When you purchase a cd you are NOT supporting the band. At the very best you are telling the record company to go out and make a clone of the band you are listening to. If you show them that an idea is profitable they will go out and copy it untill it is no longer so.
lblack, don't take this the wrong way, but you sound like a corporate sucker. The fact that looking at a pile of cds makes you feel good means that you've bougtht into what they are selling hook, line and sinker. We live in a ruthless corporate war field, where brainwashing is an everyday occurance. You've been taught over the years that buying things will make you feel good. Your cd collection is less an ode to the music you love, and more a trophy of your consumerisim. Stop worshiping the record companies (and perpetuating the crap, remember revenue from the Tool cd you bought goes to help market Backstreet boys!) and start downloading all of your music online. It's not stealing if you can copy something an infinity number of times forever.
Weren't GI Joe, Thundercats, Voltron, Rainbow Brite, and tons others animated in Japan? Cats with whips, giant killer robots, Rainbow Brite?!? I can hardly see how todays world of Pokemon and others is any differant then the 80's Asian invasion of excellent cartoons.
You've gotta love the quote at the end of this article: ``I keep getting skin rashes, but what are you gonna do? The skateboards keep rolling out.''