Thank all that's good and holy for that one. Keep going with the nitty gritty so-much-info-only-a-geek-would-like-it coverage. It would also be cool (if possible) for the verbal interviews to include a link to an MP3(!) of the interview and not just the text version. Good work, keep it up!:) --
Whatever the interpretations of the sales figures, the study is likely to show up in court and in Congress, as judges and lawmakers puzzle over how to treat software like Napster in the future.
If you control the stimulus you control the response.
"The findings come as no surprise and confirm our worst fears," said Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is suing Napster. "This demonstrates the importance of protecting artists' rights on the Internet."
This article is horrible, mainly because if you just glance at it (like our politicians will do) it would seem to support the RIAA, when in fact, it says nothing at all.
It's pretty obvious why reciprocal.com commissioned this study. No one takes these things seriously, anyway.
Hmm, I'm not so sure. I can tell you where this study will resurface.
Whatever the interpretations of the sales figures, the study is likely to show up in court and in Congress, as judges and lawmakers puzzle over how to treat software like Napster in the future. A congressional committee heard testimony yesterday from Napster foes and fans, looking specifically at the online music world's effect on small record labels and retailers.
This is the kind of information the RIAA (and others) use to make their laws. The only way to combat it is to voice your own opinions and experiences.
Like this guy.
Jack Kirk, who manages independent CD store Dr. Wax near Northwestern University, says the labels are reaping the rewards of their own pricing policies. Cash-strapped students have turned to online music swapping because the record companies have priced the CDs of many popular artists out of students' reach, he said. "It costs major labels less than $1 to make a Pearl Jam album, but the list prices are nearly $20," Kirk said. "They've precipitated this themselves--it's ridiculous. The major label companies are (run by) extremely evil people; I'm sorry, but there's no other way to say it."
Hehe, looks like I'm not the only one in need of tact lessons.;-)
--
Re:Jon, corporations are not the danger
on
At The Crossroads
·
· Score: 1
Furthermore, if you decide not to give a private company your business, you don't have to.
This becomes a problem with major media companies. Not only can they be incredibly difficult to avoid supporting, but they also control the flow of information about the world. And other businesses. So, many times, the information that would cause you to not give a private company your business is withheld because of a partnership with a major media company. Proving this is nearly impossible, yet simple reason says it happens, and even simpler reason says it happens much more often when the number of major players dwindles. Everyone is a friend or very powerful, and you don't get is pissing matches with friends and powerful people. It's not good for the bottom line. A homogenous(sp) media is not good for a free society. A homogenous media that lobbies laws to limit competition and rights of citizens doubly so.
Mmmm... take it and run with it you who claim to love the word freedom...
Run, run, just as fast as you can. Can't catch me...I'm on the other coast.;) --
Thanks for the article Jon, this one actually looks like you almost want to stand up for what you believe. I guess as a journalist you need to walk a line. I just post, so I get to pick a side and defend it.
The Net gave America a freer culture than it had ever had, or even quite imagined. The next few years will decide if it stays that way. Were the founders alive -- people like Paine, Jefferson and Franklin -- they would find in the Internet many of their values and dreams for a free and democratic society. And they'd fight to keep it that way.
A Free Press. This was one of the most important issues to the founders of this country (US). A free media, the voice of the country. Many people have seen and commented on the current nature of that entity. We no longer have a "free" press in this country. We have one that is controlled by continually fewer people with increasingly more friends. You don't talk bad or even about your good friends without permission. These few powerful companies control not what we say, but often what we talk about. It's the same (roughly) as the/. universe, where Taco, Hemos, e-mit, and others pick the stories and we talk about them. It is the people at the top who pick the stories, or at least the ones we focus on. The Net has changed that, thank god. Now it is actually possible for me to avoid seeing Elian (a few weeks back) and still get some news of the world. But other forms of media (outside the news) are also under strict control. Some feel this is a good thing, I would argue differently.
I run a website out of my apartment, many other people do the same thing, or use a hosting company, or some other means of making their voice heard. It's quite easy, comparatively. Compared to say..running a TV station, or a radio station, or a newspaper. Quite easy. What the Internet has allowed is for ANYONE to offer the services of a billion dollar corporation. ESPECIALLY in the area of the press. This shift of power has increased competition ENOURMOUSLY for media companies. Instead of trying to compete in the marketplace, they are competing in the courtroom using rules that they are writing through Congress. That's not how I want my market to function.
"New circumstances," wrote Jefferson in 1813, "...call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects."
I definitely feel the Internet is a new circumstance. We need new words and new concepts to define the old objects. The biggest one we need to tackle right now is copyright. The current rules are being written and lobbied for by industry against politicians who don't know a client from a server. This is being done by companies that can make sure that the general public NEVER hears about such issues, at least without some serious spin. It is up to those concerned citizens to raise awareness for the issues that they feel are important. I think redefining copyright and IP for this new century is one of the biggest challenges facing THIS country. And I think they need to redefined with the Freedom of the Internet and the Freedom of the People top of mind. If you chain my voice, can my body be far behind? --
A communist is one who actually believes and acts to advance that belief whether in word or in deed without having a gun put to his head.
Hmm, and what do you call the people who do this WITH a gun to their head. Would those be the *smart* flat-earthers or the *dumb* ones?
I am interested in hearing your justification for the Catholic bashing.
How do you put years of personal experience in a post? Actually the only thing that made me take notice was your quote..."...and those fellow travellers who can't admit to themselves and others that they have been supporting a monstrous unadulterated evil." Perhaps "monstrous" and "unadulterated" are a bit strong, but as a metaphor for legions of people following a false teaching, I think it worked pretty well. And yes, I do think the present day Catholic church has many false, totally useless, and baseless, teachings. Which often leads people to do evil in the name of good, i.e. kinda-like how communism works in the real physical world.
Either way, Censorship In China sucks (just to stay a wee bit on-topic) --
Folks, the world is NOT our oyster. Just because someone has something we want does NOT give us the right to take it from them. If someone puts their blood sweat and tears into something, you can't just take it for granted.
I agree. But what I was talking about was the idea. Patenting ideas and genetic structures could very easily lead to a world where one person might have a perfect solution for another, and have the ability to share it, but for economic reasons, won't. Note: I am just talking about the idea, not the implementation of it. I surely wouldn't expect someone to set up a farm in another country to feed it's peasants, but if that person has information or ideas that might help those people...it's still up to them, but I know what I think is right. That was my point. You don't need pure capitalism for IP, it leads to fascism as we are currently seeing in the U.S. --
This is on par with scrupulously maintaining the distinction between the 'smart' flat earthers and the 'dumb' flat earthers.
I'll go ahead and pass on the obvious opening for Christian bashing and move on to ask why you think it is great to stereotype and villify entire populations of countries because of the type of government they were born under?
....and those fellow travellers who can't admit to themselves and others that they have been supporting a monstrous unadulterated evil.
I thought we were going to leave the Cathol ic Church out of it. (you can only ignore so many golden oppurtunities a day...:-) --
And it is the person in China who can earn a better living as a result.
Unfortunately it's not the "person in China" who can earn a better living. Being a communist country (i assume, I haven't studied Mao-style communism) means that it is not the individual who gets a better living, but the community (country) as a whole. Again unfortunately, it seems that the real world effect of this is that the person getting richer is the one working for the government (who own everything anyway) not the one doing the work.
So you are saying that you have hungry children and starving livestock, eh? Well, as a matter of fact my company has some intellectual property that could be of some use to you. Special plants designed specifically to grow well in this environment. What's that? You've got no money? Well then, I think I'll come back around after you've become a bit more civilized and realized that the only way to make money straight off ideas it to keep those ideas to yourself. Good luck with the harvest! --
Re:If he were to publish this article...
on
Censorship In China
·
· Score: 1
Hehe, different strokes for different folks. I got that link from Christy-fundy friend of mine. But it would still get a Chinese site in way hot water. --
What was your point again? Oh yea, it's real easy to hate a bunch of people if you just stereotype them. Did Jesus tell you that? "Love thy neighbor as thyself" sounds pretty communistic to me.;-)
There were no machines. It was an interview with two expert users
That makes it easy. We could just ask them how many times their favorite OS has crashed. If the Mac one can even remember within a factor of 10 how many times that OS has crashed, they should win.
Just a bit about a deathmatch ignoring the strongest facet (for me) of the Linux experience...stability (and they ignored the Free thing too, but that's obviously not important to everyone:(.
You seem to have mistaken my sig as some kind of anti law anarchist.
No, I visited your link and saw you were a gun nut.:) It's a link to "The Most Dangerous Site on the Web!" Aaaaahh! *Wah runs in terror*
I am all about having less government control, but that does not change the fact that DeCSS is illegal, and so is 90% of the mp3s on napster.
Hmm, if we had less government, perhaps 90% of the MP3s and DeCSS wouldn't be illegal. Not that I think copyright law needs to be done away with, just redefined. With less government.
Am I supposed to type in random words in hope of finding a cool band?
Well, I guess I can't help you here;). Most of the bands I look for on Napster are ones that my friends think are cool.
Here's a few from the last few days.
Eminem Brooklyn Funk Essentials Billie Holiday
Type in those random digits from a monkeys fingertips, hit "search", and tell me again that Napster is a bad thing. --
No kidding, most of the Deathmatches I've seen (or participated in) ended when one of the combatants couldn't take any more, fell over, and died. Which begs the question...how many times was each machines revi^H^Hbooted during the "death"match?
--
Yes, it is a Correct Comparison
on
Fahrenheit 451
·
· Score: 1
I think the main theme is the censor of free speech and free thought.
Correct
but this...
I don't see how Napster suppression would limit free speech. and this
Napster is the bookstore and newspaper boys of delivering our information.
don't quite fit together.
When I see one bookstore lobbying congress to make sure that another, incredibly superior and offering better service at a lower price, bookstore would be illegal, I know someone is trying to burn something. If you start burning down the new bookstores and killing the new newsboys, don't you believe that action is limiting free speech? --
To tell you the truth the internet really isn't that vast source of any possible kind of information that one could want. Many, many, many times I have wondered why someone didn't put up such and such information on the net.
What information are you looking for? I used to play a games with some friends where I would look up the answer to pretty much any question (outside the "What was I wearing on Oct 3, 1980" variety) and I rarely had a problem finding stuff. So tell me the truth, what did you want to know?
I'm just here to make sure people don't think Katz's stuff is too useful. If he writes these silly little puff pieces that I could pull out of my ass with better links in under an hour, he deserves a bit of flamage.
How about some links on the Digital Divide, Jon? How about info about the have-nots are buying computers at a higher rate than the haves? (which is obvious if you think about it for a second) How about some "news"?
Katz has a tough audience, one would think that would make him a better writer. One would think...
as an example
Without Universal Access, they will soon be hating the technologically-connected (especially the American variety) who monopolize and dominate the new technologies driving the global economy.
The highest cost of a computing system is the software that runs on it. Maybe Katz should redirect this attack if he really wants to make a difference or if he really understood the issues.
Add them up and the picture paints of co-branding, cross and up selling and DB's that are chock full of not just real data on you but also autogenerated assumptions based upon profiling.
True, but the laws of diminishing marginal utility also applies to marketing information. After a certain point the act of gathering, indexing, and applying all those various "clues" become more expensive, in an ROI sense, than what you could have gotten from the big clues (Male, 25, Heavy Net user, college educated).
This is something that the company who pays me does, and is currently struggling with. We can create elaborate models with 100's of variable that pinpoint who would be the best possible customer, but whether or not that expense is justified when we can find really good models much more easily is a difficult question to answer. The scope of a campaign is also very important in determining the relative value of the model. (and a bunch of other factors)
You were correct, though, not all marketing information is already available. But there is more than enough there already to reveal insightful bits about your personal life without too much time, effort, or big bro tactics. Just ask your friendly neighborhood private investigator who knows how to use the Net. --
Slashdot Mirror
Guess what? It isn't supposed to be! :)
:)
Thank all that's good and holy for that one. Keep going with the nitty gritty so-much-info-only-a-geek-would-like-it coverage. It would also be cool (if possible) for the verbal interviews to include a link to an MP3(!) of the interview and not just the text version. Good work, keep it up!
--
I'm glad to see that the moderators still are able to separate opinion from moderation
Not at all (as you expressed). The moderators here are biased.
But, take a moment and see what they are biased for, and against.
These are the priveleged of the priveleged, and they still want freedom for all.
--
Whatever the interpretations of the sales figures, the study is likely to show up in court and in Congress, as judges and lawmakers puzzle over how to treat software like Napster in the future.
;)
If you control the stimulus you control the response.
"The findings come as no surprise and confirm our worst fears," said Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is suing Napster. "This demonstrates the importance of protecting artists' rights on the Internet."
How about protecting artist's rights in the real world? (cached for your protection
This article is horrible, mainly because if you just glance at it (like our politicians will do) it would seem to support the RIAA, when in fact, it says nothing at all.
--
It's pretty obvious why reciprocal.com commissioned this study. No one takes these things seriously, anyway.
;-)
Hmm, I'm not so sure. I can tell you where this study will resurface.
Whatever the interpretations of the sales figures, the study is likely to show up in court and in Congress, as judges and lawmakers puzzle over how to treat software like Napster in the future. A congressional committee heard testimony yesterday from Napster foes and fans, looking specifically at the online music world's effect on small record labels and retailers.
This is the kind of information the RIAA (and others) use to make their laws. The only way to combat it is to voice your own opinions and experiences.
Like this guy.
Jack Kirk, who manages independent CD store Dr. Wax near Northwestern University, says the labels are reaping the rewards of their own pricing policies. Cash-strapped students have turned to online music swapping because the record companies have priced the CDs of many popular artists out of students' reach, he said. "It costs major labels less than $1 to make a Pearl Jam album, but the list prices are nearly $20," Kirk said. "They've precipitated this themselves--it's ridiculous. The major label companies are (run by) extremely evil people; I'm sorry, but there's no other way to say it."
Hehe, looks like I'm not the only one in need of tact lessons.
--
Furthermore, if you decide not to give a private company your business, you don't have to.
;)
This becomes a problem with major media companies. Not only can they be incredibly difficult to avoid supporting, but they also control the flow of information about the world. And other businesses. So, many times, the information that would cause you to not give a private company your business is withheld because of a partnership with a major media company. Proving this is nearly impossible, yet simple reason says it happens, and even simpler reason says it happens much more often when the number of major players dwindles. Everyone is a friend or very powerful, and you don't get is pissing matches with friends and powerful people. It's not good for the bottom line. A homogenous(sp) media is not good for a free society. A homogenous media that lobbies laws to limit competition and rights of citizens doubly so.
Mmmm... take it and run with it you who claim to love the word freedom...
Run, run, just as fast as you can. Can't catch me...I'm on the other coast.
--
Thanks for the article Jon, this one actually looks like you almost want to stand up for what you believe. I guess as a journalist you need to walk a line. I just post, so I get to pick a side and defend it.
/. universe, where Taco, Hemos, e-mit, and others pick the stories and we talk about them. It is the people at the top who pick the stories, or at least the ones we focus on. The Net has changed that, thank god. Now it is actually possible for me to avoid seeing Elian (a few weeks back) and still get some news of the world. But other forms of media (outside the news) are also under strict control. Some feel this is a good thing, I would argue differently.
The Net gave America a freer culture than it had ever had, or even quite imagined. The next few years will decide if it stays that way. Were the founders alive -- people like Paine, Jefferson and Franklin -- they would find in the Internet many of their values and dreams for a free and democratic society. And they'd fight to keep it that way.
A Free Press. This was one of the most important issues to the founders of this country (US). A free media, the voice of the country. Many people have seen and commented on the current nature of that entity. We no longer have a "free" press in this country. We have one that is controlled by continually fewer people with increasingly more friends. You don't talk bad or even about your good friends without permission. These few powerful companies control not what we say, but often what we talk about. It's the same (roughly) as the
I run a website out of my apartment, many other people do the same thing, or use a hosting company, or some other means of making their voice heard. It's quite easy, comparatively. Compared to say..running a TV station, or a radio station, or a newspaper. Quite easy. What the Internet has allowed is for ANYONE to offer the services of a billion dollar corporation. ESPECIALLY in the area of the press. This shift of power has increased competition ENOURMOUSLY for media companies. Instead of trying to compete in the marketplace, they are competing in the courtroom using rules that they are writing through Congress. That's not how I want my market to function.
"New circumstances," wrote Jefferson in 1813, "...call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects."
I definitely feel the Internet is a new circumstance. We need new words and new concepts to define the old objects. The biggest one we need to tackle right now is copyright. The current rules are being written and lobbied for by industry against politicians who don't know a client from a server. This is being done by companies that can make sure that the general public NEVER hears about such issues, at least without some serious spin. It is up to those concerned citizens to raise awareness for the issues that they feel are important. I think redefining copyright and IP for this new century is one of the biggest challenges facing THIS country. And I think they need to redefined with the Freedom of the Internet and the Freedom of the People top of mind. If you chain my voice, can my body be far behind?
--
A communist is one who actually believes and acts to advance that belief whether in word or in deed without having a gun put to his head.
Hmm, and what do you call the people who do this WITH a gun to their head. Would those be the *smart* flat-earthers or the *dumb* ones?
I am interested in hearing your justification for the Catholic bashing.
How do you put years of personal experience in a post? Actually the only thing that made me take notice was your quote..."...and those fellow travellers who can't admit to themselves and others that they have been supporting a monstrous unadulterated evil." Perhaps "monstrous" and "unadulterated" are a bit strong, but as a metaphor for legions of people following a false teaching, I think it worked pretty well. And yes, I do think the present day Catholic church has many false, totally useless, and baseless, teachings. Which often leads people to do evil in the name of good, i.e. kinda-like how communism works in the real physical world.
Either way, Censorship In China sucks (just to stay a wee bit on-topic)
--
Folks, the world is NOT our oyster. Just because someone has something we want does NOT give us the right to take it from them. If someone puts their blood sweat and tears into something, you can't just take it for granted.
I agree. But what I was talking about was the idea. Patenting ideas and genetic structures could very easily lead to a world where one person might have a perfect solution for another, and have the ability to share it, but for economic reasons, won't. Note: I am just talking about the idea, not the implementation of it. I surely wouldn't expect someone to set up a farm in another country to feed it's peasants, but if that person has information or ideas that might help those people...it's still up to them, but I know what I think is right. That was my point. You don't need pure capitalism for IP, it leads to fascism as we are currently seeing in the U.S.
--
This is on par with scrupulously maintaining the distinction between the 'smart' flat earthers and the 'dumb' flat earthers.
....and those fellow travellers who can't admit to themselves and others that they have been supporting a monstrous unadulterated evil.
I'll go ahead and pass on the obvious opening for Christian bashing and move on to ask why you think it is great to stereotype and villify entire populations of countries because of the type of government they were born under?
I thought we were going to leave the Cathol ic Church out of it. (you can only ignore so many golden oppurtunities a day...:-)
--
And it is the person in China who can earn a better living as a result.
Unfortunately it's not the "person in China" who can earn a better living. Being a communist country (i assume, I haven't studied Mao-style communism) means that it is not the individual who gets a better living, but the community (country) as a whole. Again unfortunately, it seems that the real world effect of this is that the person getting richer is the one working for the government (who own everything anyway) not the one doing the work.
--
So you are saying that you have hungry children and starving livestock, eh? Well, as a matter of fact my company has some intellectual property that could be of some use to you. Special plants designed specifically to grow well in this environment. What's that? You've got no money? Well then, I think I'll come back around after you've become a bit more civilized and realized that the only way to make money straight off ideas it to keep those ideas to yourself. Good luck with the harvest!
--
Hehe, different strokes for different folks. I got that link from Christy-fundy friend of mine. But it would still get a Chinese site in way hot water.
--
If you want to support the ToyWar, there are always beautiful lullabies you can buy. I did, they put me in a restful slumber.
--
Communists are communists.
And Christians are christians.
What was your point again? Oh yea, it's real easy to hate a bunch of people if you just stereotype them. Did Jesus tell you that? "Love thy neighbor as thyself" sounds pretty communistic to me.;-)
--
It will if China achieves what it believes to be its manifest destiny. One China (no taiwan).
--
Greed is one of the most powerful motivators in the world and it could be enough to change the government.
Are you saying that greed is good because it's a good motivator, or are you just saying it's a good motivator?
Powerful motivation can lead to some horrible acts. The Chinese don't need greed to change their government, they need guns.
--
...I think that site would be down for good.
Here ya go.
--
There were no machines. It was an interview with two expert users
:(.
That makes it easy. We could just ask them how many times their favorite OS has crashed. If the Mac one can even remember within a factor of 10 how many times that OS has crashed, they should win.
Just a bit about a deathmatch ignoring the strongest facet (for me) of the Linux experience...stability (and they ignored the Free thing too, but that's obviously not important to everyone
--
You seem to have mistaken my sig as some kind of anti law anarchist.
:) It's a link to "The Most Dangerous Site on the Web!" Aaaaahh! *Wah runs in terror*
;). Most of the bands I look for on Napster are ones that my friends think are cool.
No, I visited your link and saw you were a gun nut.
I am all about having less government control, but that does not change the fact that DeCSS is illegal, and so is 90% of the mp3s on napster.
Hmm, if we had less government, perhaps 90% of the MP3s and DeCSS wouldn't be illegal. Not that I think copyright law needs to be done away with, just redefined. With less government.
Am I supposed to type in random words in hope of finding a cool band?
Well, I guess I can't help you here
Here's a few from the last few days.
Eminem
Brooklyn Funk Essentials
Billie Holiday
Type in those random digits from a monkeys fingertips, hit "search", and tell me again that Napster is a bad thing.
--
No kidding, most of the Deathmatches I've seen (or participated in) ended when one of the combatants couldn't take any more, fell over, and died. Which begs the question...how many times was each machines revi^H^Hbooted during the "death"match?
--
I think the main theme is the censor of free speech and free thought.
Correct
but this...
I don't see how Napster suppression would limit free speech. and this
Napster is the bookstore and newspaper boys of delivering our information.
don't quite fit together.
When I see one bookstore lobbying congress to make sure that another, incredibly superior and offering better service at a lower price, bookstore would be illegal, I know someone is trying to burn something. If you start burning down the new bookstores and killing the new newsboys, don't you believe that action is limiting free speech?
--
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus
Call it what you want, but its still illegal.
All DeCSS does is dump a 4 gig file on your hard drive.
....
--
To tell you the truth the internet really isn't that vast source of any possible kind of information that one could want. Many, many, many times I have wondered why someone didn't put up such and such information on the net.
What information are you looking for? I used to play a games with some friends where I would look up the answer to pretty much any question (outside the "What was I wearing on Oct 3, 1980" variety) and I rarely had a problem finding stuff. So tell me the truth, what did you want to know?
--
I'm just here to make sure people don't think Katz's stuff is too useful. If he writes these silly little puff pieces that I could pull out of my ass with better links in under an hour, he deserves a bit of flamage.
How about some links on the Digital Divide, Jon? How about info about the have-nots are buying computers at a higher rate than the haves? (which is obvious if you think about it for a second)
How about some "news"?
Katz has a tough audience, one would think that would make him a better writer. One would think...
as an example
Without Universal Access, they will soon be hating the technologically-connected (especially the American variety) who monopolize
and dominate the new technologies driving the global economy.
The highest cost of a computing system is the software that runs on it. Maybe Katz should redirect this attack if he really wants to make a difference or if he really understood the issues.
'Twas a weak article, so I flame it...twice.
--
Add them up and the picture paints of co-branding, cross and up selling and DB's that are chock full of not just real data on you but also autogenerated assumptions based upon profiling.
True, but the laws of diminishing marginal utility also applies to marketing information. After a certain point the act of gathering, indexing, and applying all those various "clues" become more expensive, in an ROI sense, than what you could have gotten from the big clues (Male, 25, Heavy Net user, college educated).
This is something that the company who pays me does, and is currently struggling with. We can create elaborate models with 100's of variable that pinpoint who would be the best possible customer, but whether or not that expense is justified when we can find really good models much more easily is a difficult question to answer. The scope of a campaign is also very important in determining the relative value of the model. (and a bunch of other factors)
You were correct, though, not all marketing information is already available. But there is more than enough there already to reveal insightful bits about your personal life without too much time, effort, or big bro tactics. Just ask your friendly neighborhood private investigator who knows how to use the Net.
--