Sign your posts, coward. You think you can paint me an ass because of semantics? A "few" hours of work can be construed several ways. It can be the five hours it may take to come up with words to a song. It may be the two weeks it takes to record that track. It may be the six months of touring to support the album.
Compared to a lifetime of income, six months IS a "few" hours.
How to break the cycle? MP3.com is the record cartel killer!
All "starving musicians" should make their recordings available on MP3.com. You can sell CD's for what they are worth, not inflated record cartel prices, and still get a good royalty.
My argument really is about the process being broken, just as you said. People who think they deserve to get paid $20,000,000 USD for a record album are sniffing glue. If their were open distribution channels for music, no one, not even the Beatles, could sell enough copies to make $20 Million off of one album.
Music is artificially high priced and difficult to transport.
Again, my original question doesn't really seem to be pointed at you. I'll just try and say to every musician out there that I'm sorry that I offended your work ethic. Obviously, most musicians work hard at what they do, especially if they are trying to make a living at it.
But really, the question remains, does the amount of work that goes into producing (NOT marketing, Johnny Cash did not have todays marketing machine, and he didn't need it) a record album justify the cost?
Better yet, does the amount of money ever paid for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band really worth the six months or so the Beatles put into producing that album? It was six months, because six months later, they had another album out.
As far as a 'few hours of work' goes...I put in 1000 hours at work between January 1, 2000 and April 1, 2000. That is the equivalent of six months work at a 40 hour a week job.
You still missed my question. Does your entire 2 weeks of work recording the album entitle you to $20,000,000 US Dollars? Do you think the work you did is worth $20 Million Dollars?
Do you think it is right to still charge $15 for your CD if you have a monopoly on the music distribution channels, but it only costs you $0.50 to create that CD?
I am glad that you gave an intelligent response to my rant, but I think you would probably answer my question: no. You do not seem to feel that you are entitled to $20 million USD for a few hours of work.
My question is directed more towards the Lars types out there, who obviously feel that the world owes them something for nothing.
I do still feel my analogy is the same, because if you don't have any talent as a programmer, you are not getting paid $100k USD per year. Programming is also a 40-80 hour a week job in most circumstances. You find me a "musician" on MTV that works (schmoozing is not working) 200+ hours in a month and I might have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
From your post above it seems I need to re-write my question a little bit:
Do you feel entitled to what is equivalent to winning the lottery in return for the, oh, let's be generous and say, six months it took for you write and record a record album?
If you say yes, I will reply that your morals are flawed. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You seem to believe in TANSTAAFL. Do all the rest of you musicians believe this too?
Ah, yes, now I remember. Such smells are easily forgettable, even after a short time out of "this fucking hole we call L.A." (care of Tool). I spent 6 months of hell there, and finally moved away. I'm happy now.
The RIAA and the record cartels want to completely control the distribution methods of their products. Before, they could threaten manufacturers not to make DAT tapes, and not support Mini Discs, but now, they can't do shite about MP3's.
They can no longer control the price of their "product", and that threatens their ridiculously high margins.
Why should an industry that is worth $40 billion USD only be provided with product by, oh, let's say, less than 50,000 musicians. And let us also say that less than 1,000 of those musicians make more than $1,000,000 USD per year.
Where does the rest of that money go?
Another question I'd like to ask:
You musicians out there, do you feel it is your right to be able to live for the rest of your life off of a few hours of work (songwriting/recording)? And don't bullshit me that it's not a few hours of work, because it is. Programming is the same thing. Sure it make take me years to improve my skills, but the chances of me ever getting paid $20,000,000 USD for one song/program are next to zero, while no-talent boy-bands (that's right N-Sync, Backdoor boys, I'm talking about your dumb asses) rake in the dough because the cartels control the distribution of nearly all music. Do you like the fact that your industry is more akin to a lottery than to art?
"To be honest, it wasn't a great music year," said Andreas Schmidt, chief of the e-commerce group at Bertelsmann, which has a financial stake in Napster. "There were some isolated events, but we didn't put that much good stuff out."
Now I'm going to take a moment to pontificate on the economics of music and software piracy.
Music/Movie (and to a lesser extent, software) executives will tell you that for each pirated copy of "insert your IP product of choice here", the production company loses n dollars. Similar to Autodesk saying that if I (non-engineer in a non-engineering career) were to pirate AutoCAD, they effectively lose $1500 (or whatever).
The truth is, a significant percentage of pirated software/music/movies would never have been purchased in the first place, and the production company is out an insignificant zero.
Not fully true for music cartels, as college students may still be ignoring their $1000 stereo equipment because they can play free music on their $50 computer speakers, but hey, this is the 21st century, right?
The resulting object is more dense then the previous one, or at least I am assuming so. The Law of Conservation of Matter it is called (or mass/energy or whatever).
I don't expect it to be anywhere close to fair or unbiased. I do expect a better class of journalism to come out of/. than I do the National Enquirer.
It is irresponsible for a journalist that has the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people to make huge assumptions like that. The guy really could have meant that he doesn't want the government to "encourage" open source.
I know, I know, he is a shifty bastard because he works and speaks for M$, but it's not right to say what this article is entitled. Especially if one expects to retain credibiltity in what I consider to be an important debate.
If Microsoft succeeds in outlawing open source (that'll be the day!), then I'll be the first to grab a torch and go burn Redmond to the ground, but until then, don't make them sound like they're going to start a shooting war when they are really only trying to impose economic sanctions.
...that Micro$oft wants to outlaw open source. I certainly believe they would have a big old party if it were outlawwed, but this is irresponsible journalism.
You are twisting the words of Microsoft to suit your own ends, and it diminishes your credibility.
Seeing as how my limited resources will help few, I have not bought my plane tickets to South Africa. I could not afford the drugs for one individual. I have written my Senator and Congressman on this though, and I feel that is a lot more that most people will have done, yourself included. So why don't you go moralize to someone else now.
Wow, are all of you a bunch of idiots. At least the several of you that are tossing the word blame around. If you want to blame someone or something for this crisis, blame yourselves.
What ever happened to the altruistic UN organization that wiped smallpox off of the face of the planet? What happened to that kind of worldwide effort to eliminate a killer disease and embetter all of humanity? What happened to us?
This AIDS/HIV thing is out of hand. It must be stopped like smallpox was stopped. Granted, the solution is more expensive, but it must be done anyway.
And you types with the blame game, drop it. That is like blaming Jews for living in Germany in 1939. That is like blaming the Chinese for living in China in 1932.
AND, Yahoo Messenger has both a Java and a pure Linux client. Last I checked, you could do voice with neither, but I think that has more to do with the piss-poor support for sound under Linux (read: this is Creative's fault) than anything else.
Anyway, Yahoo Messenger is pretty big, isn't it? I and a multitude of my friends use it. In fact, I don't know anyone who uses AIM...
I don't moderate based upon opinion jerk-off, and I don't post AC when I'm flaming. Now, if you don't have anything interesting to add, please go suck Natalie Portman's cock.
For the same reason's you'd want to run it on a desktop. Linux can be used as a desktop operating system. There are plenty of office products out there for it, and support for laptops is widespread. Throw "linux on laptops" into a google search and you'll find more info there about installing linux on any model of laptop than you ever would for a particular desktop.
Also, if you are administering Unix machines, X works much better in it's original form than some X clone for win32...
AGREED! As to the other reply. Get a clue. You keep your leukemia, and I'll keep my asthma. Nuclear is the cleanest, and thus the safest form of power generation we have.
I have to side with the other reply on the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge bit. There is "nothing" up there. Of course, there's no trees in Oklafuckinghoma (I just like saying it that way) or Kansas either, but that is besides the point.
Really, one should check out some of the oil projects that are going on on the Alaskan North Shore. I'm not sure where that is, but I used to work for Parsons, an engineering company that did a lot of the design work for the North Shore drilling project. You'd be surprised at how little impact that the project has on the surroundings. If I'm not mistaken, the oil field covers some 40,000 acres of land. The drilling platforms cover only about 90 of those 40,000 acres.
When people go worrying about turning Alaska into a swiss cheesed wasteland, they really ought to look into exactly what is going on there now.
I was a bit peeved. I was paying over $100 USD a month to cool a 700 square foot apartment enough so that my dogs wouldn't overheat. BUT, that does not justify the extremely backward looking statements made by the City of San Diego. The records and financial information of public (now private?) utilities are in the public domain. She could have looked at reports filed with the SEC to see if the power company was really ripping off the public.
Had it actually been the truth, then I wouldn't have been so upset, but it was not the truth. I hate that word truth...let's say fact. Had it been a fact that SoCalEd was ripping off their consumers, I would have not been upset. But what had been the case was that oil and natural gas prices quadrupled and the public is expecting the government/SoCalEd to bail them out.
Hey, SoCalEd, while you are paying for my air conditioning, why don't you fill up my car with gas as well. I mean, as long as us public can vote ourselves bread and circuses...why the hell not? (read: sarcasm, al la Heinlein)
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Sign your posts, coward. You think you can paint me an ass because of semantics? A "few" hours of work can be construed several ways. It can be the five hours it may take to come up with words to a song. It may be the two weeks it takes to record that track. It may be the six months of touring to support the album.
Compared to a lifetime of income, six months IS a "few" hours.
How to break the cycle? MP3.com is the record cartel killer!
All "starving musicians" should make their recordings available on MP3.com. You can sell CD's for what they are worth, not inflated record cartel prices, and still get a good royalty.
My argument really is about the process being broken, just as you said. People who think they deserve to get paid $20,000,000 USD for a record album are sniffing glue. If their were open distribution channels for music, no one, not even the Beatles, could sell enough copies to make $20 Million off of one album.
Music is artificially high priced and difficult to transport.
Again, my original question doesn't really seem to be pointed at you. I'll just try and say to every musician out there that I'm sorry that I offended your work ethic. Obviously, most musicians work hard at what they do, especially if they are trying to make a living at it.
But really, the question remains, does the amount of work that goes into producing (NOT marketing, Johnny Cash did not have todays marketing machine, and he didn't need it) a record album justify the cost?
Better yet, does the amount of money ever paid for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band really worth the six months or so the Beatles put into producing that album? It was six months, because six months later, they had another album out.
As far as a 'few hours of work' goes...I put in 1000 hours at work between January 1, 2000 and April 1, 2000. That is the equivalent of six months work at a 40 hour a week job.
You still missed my question. Does your entire 2 weeks of work recording the album entitle you to $20,000,000 US Dollars? Do you think the work you did is worth $20 Million Dollars?
Do you think it is right to still charge $15 for your CD if you have a monopoly on the music distribution channels, but it only costs you $0.50 to create that CD?
I am glad that you gave an intelligent response to my rant, but I think you would probably answer my question: no. You do not seem to feel that you are entitled to $20 million USD for a few hours of work.
My question is directed more towards the Lars types out there, who obviously feel that the world owes them something for nothing.
I do still feel my analogy is the same, because if you don't have any talent as a programmer, you are not getting paid $100k USD per year. Programming is also a 40-80 hour a week job in most circumstances. You find me a "musician" on MTV that works (schmoozing is not working) 200+ hours in a month and I might have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
From your post above it seems I need to re-write my question a little bit:
Do you feel entitled to what is equivalent to winning the lottery in return for the, oh, let's be generous and say, six months it took for you write and record a record album?
If you say yes, I will reply that your morals are flawed. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You seem to believe in TANSTAAFL. Do all the rest of you musicians believe this too?
Just curious, but was there a point to your post? If not, just as good...
Ah, yes, now I remember. Such smells are easily forgettable, even after a short time out of "this fucking hole we call L.A." (care of Tool). I spent 6 months of hell there, and finally moved away. I'm happy now.
The RIAA and the record cartels want to completely control the distribution methods of their products. Before, they could threaten manufacturers not to make DAT tapes, and not support Mini Discs, but now, they can't do shite about MP3's.
They can no longer control the price of their "product", and that threatens their ridiculously high margins.
Why should an industry that is worth $40 billion USD only be provided with product by, oh, let's say, less than 50,000 musicians. And let us also say that less than 1,000 of those musicians make more than $1,000,000 USD per year.
Where does the rest of that money go?
Another question I'd like to ask:
You musicians out there, do you feel it is your right to be able to live for the rest of your life off of a few hours of work (songwriting/recording)? And don't bullshit me that it's not a few hours of work, because it is. Programming is the same thing. Sure it make take me years to improve my skills, but the chances of me ever getting paid $20,000,000 USD for one song/program are next to zero, while no-talent boy-bands (that's right N-Sync, Backdoor boys, I'm talking about your dumb asses) rake in the dough because the cartels control the distribution of nearly all music. Do you like the fact that your industry is more akin to a lottery than to art?
"To be honest, it wasn't a great music year," said Andreas Schmidt, chief of the e-commerce group at Bertelsmann, which has a financial stake in Napster. "There were some isolated events, but we didn't put that much good stuff out."
I grabbed that little ditty from Salon.com.
Now I'm going to take a moment to pontificate on the economics of music and software piracy.
Music/Movie (and to a lesser extent, software) executives will tell you that for each pirated copy of "insert your IP product of choice here", the production company loses n dollars. Similar to Autodesk saying that if I (non-engineer in a non-engineering career) were to pirate AutoCAD, they effectively lose $1500 (or whatever).
The truth is, a significant percentage of pirated software/music/movies would never have been purchased in the first place, and the production company is out an insignificant zero.
Not fully true for music cartels, as college students may still be ignoring their $1000 stereo equipment because they can play free music on their $50 computer speakers, but hey, this is the 21st century, right?
The resulting object is more dense then the previous one, or at least I am assuming so. The Law of Conservation of Matter it is called (or mass/energy or whatever).
What would you call it if you did this to an IBM Microdrive?
When can I get this for my battlebot?!?!
See, that sounds a little more reasonable to me. I'd buy that as an explanation of what's his nutz's comments.
I don't expect it to be anywhere close to fair or unbiased. I do expect a better class of journalism to come out of /. than I do the National Enquirer.
It is irresponsible for a journalist that has the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people to make huge assumptions like that. The guy really could have meant that he doesn't want the government to "encourage" open source.
I know, I know, he is a shifty bastard because he works and speaks for M$, but it's not right to say what this article is entitled. Especially if one expects to retain credibiltity in what I consider to be an important debate.
If Microsoft succeeds in outlawing open source (that'll be the day!), then I'll be the first to grab a torch and go burn Redmond to the ground, but until then, don't make them sound like they're going to start a shooting war when they are really only trying to impose economic sanctions.
...that Micro$oft wants to outlaw open source. I certainly believe they would have a big old party if it were outlawwed, but this is irresponsible journalism.
You are twisting the words of Microsoft to suit your own ends, and it diminishes your credibility.
Seeing as how my limited resources will help few, I have not bought my plane tickets to South Africa. I could not afford the drugs for one individual. I have written my Senator and Congressman on this though, and I feel that is a lot more that most people will have done, yourself included. So why don't you go moralize to someone else now.
Wow, are all of you a bunch of idiots. At least the several of you that are tossing the word blame around. If you want to blame someone or something for this crisis, blame yourselves.
What ever happened to the altruistic UN organization that wiped smallpox off of the face of the planet? What happened to that kind of worldwide effort to eliminate a killer disease and embetter all of humanity? What happened to us?
This AIDS/HIV thing is out of hand. It must be stopped like smallpox was stopped. Granted, the solution is more expensive, but it must be done anyway.
And you types with the blame game, drop it. That is like blaming Jews for living in Germany in 1939. That is like blaming the Chinese for living in China in 1932.
AND, Yahoo Messenger has both a Java and a pure Linux client. Last I checked, you could do voice with neither, but I think that has more to do with the piss-poor support for sound under Linux (read: this is Creative's fault) than anything else.
Anyway, Yahoo Messenger is pretty big, isn't it? I and a multitude of my friends use it. In fact, I don't know anyone who uses AIM...
What are the projected population numbers? 50 million damned souls in ten years?
I don't moderate based upon opinion jerk-off, and I don't post AC when I'm flaming. Now, if you don't have anything interesting to add, please go suck Natalie Portman's cock.
For the same reason's you'd want to run it on a desktop. Linux can be used as a desktop operating system. There are plenty of office products out there for it, and support for laptops is widespread. Throw "linux on laptops" into a google search and you'll find more info there about installing linux on any model of laptop than you ever would for a particular desktop.
Also, if you are administering Unix machines, X works much better in it's original form than some X clone for win32...
That is the second most interesting viewpoint on this I have read today...my own being the first of course...
AGREED! As to the other reply. Get a clue. You keep your leukemia, and I'll keep my asthma. Nuclear is the cleanest, and thus the safest form of power generation we have.
I have to side with the other reply on the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge bit. There is "nothing" up there. Of course, there's no trees in Oklafuckinghoma (I just like saying it that way) or Kansas either, but that is besides the point.
Really, one should check out some of the oil projects that are going on on the Alaskan North Shore. I'm not sure where that is, but I used to work for Parsons, an engineering company that did a lot of the design work for the North Shore drilling project. You'd be surprised at how little impact that the project has on the surroundings. If I'm not mistaken, the oil field covers some 40,000 acres of land. The drilling platforms cover only about 90 of those 40,000 acres.
When people go worrying about turning Alaska into a swiss cheesed wasteland, they really ought to look into exactly what is going on there now.
I was a bit peeved. I was paying over $100 USD a month to cool a 700 square foot apartment enough so that my dogs wouldn't overheat. BUT, that does not justify the extremely backward looking statements made by the City of San Diego. The records and financial information of public (now private?) utilities are in the public domain. She could have looked at reports filed with the SEC to see if the power company was really ripping off the public.
Had it actually been the truth, then I wouldn't have been so upset, but it was not the truth. I hate that word truth...let's say fact. Had it been a fact that SoCalEd was ripping off their consumers, I would have not been upset. But what had been the case was that oil and natural gas prices quadrupled and the public is expecting the government/SoCalEd to bail them out.
Hey, SoCalEd, while you are paying for my air conditioning, why don't you fill up my car with gas as well. I mean, as long as us public can vote ourselves bread and circuses...why the hell not? (read: sarcasm, al la Heinlein)