Re:But what the hell do you people want?
on
Taming the Web
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· Score: 1
What I want is to be allowed to publish my own writings, music or art, in whatever format I like (i.e. MP3). I want to be able to run servers so that I can have my own website, mail server, etc.
All I want from my ISP is a pipe, fixed IP address and fixed monthly charge.
Is it morally right for large companies to stop me from publishing things, because someone else might use the same tools to violate their precious copyrights?
Where, right now, let's say there are 10 text editors, each has a group of 3 people working on it. If we were to evaluate and
eliminate the worthless projects (as an organization would do) we can better pool our resources together so we can have 2
maybe 3 text editors, each with 10 to 15 people working on them. Doing this increasing the time and manpower each project
has and increases the power, flexibility, and usefulness of the applicatio
It's not particularly easy to decide what is worthless. For example, when Steve Wozniak worked at HP he proposed that HP build a "personal computer". The HP management thought the idea was worthless, so Woz left and the rest is history.
Right now, every Linux project is like a bunch of a warring factions. This is a form of anarchy, and it has proven through
history that anarchies do not do well in the bigger scheme of things.
In other places people don't say "warring" but "competing".
Why not merge IBM, MS and SUN under goverment control? After all they are "warring" trying to do essencially the same thing. Remember how well this type of centralized planning worked for the Soviet Union?
Maybe this is counter-intuitive, but an individual who is passionate about his work can bring about historical changes. It has happended many times in the past..
I'm a big fan of the open source movement, but I'm also a programmer with 22 years in the field. The fact
that most open source software is difficult for me to use is proof enough. Sorry, but that's the cold hard facts.
Don't look at this as a problem, but look at this as an opportunity to make a name for yourself. If you know of some programs you think are hard to use, fix them!
BTW, I have been paid to code for over 23 years and I find most of the Unix/OSS tools much easier to use for serious development. Maybe these tools are harder to learn at first, but are much more powerful once you know how to use them.
However, when you think about it a little, the idea of a disembodied intelligence exiting in a computer is silly. Think what happens to human conciousness when deprived of all sensory input.
Asking someone what was their first computer usually gives a pretty decent picture about how serious they are about
computers.
Valid answers: TRS-80, VIC-20, C64....
Invalid: Pentium 100.....
1) Radio does not sound as good as a CD (mp3 does not suffer from this problem)
Actually it does. MP3 sounds worse than CDs, expecially on a decent stereo system.
p2p costs a TREMENDOUS amount of money in terms of sales.
That's what the record companies say. Others argue that P2P increases sales, because people get to hear music they would otherwise not heard and as a result wind up buying CDs.
Plus potential sales are not money lost. Is it possible to deduct this from your income tax? I projected that I would make $10,000,000 this year. I didn't actually, so does that mean I lost money?
No offense, but that is what the radio is. free advertising, and
free listening for the consumer (more or less). But the difference is that the radio is much more controlled: only certain songs
are put up, and they are of lesser quality than those found on the average CD.
So, why not look at P2P as free advertising, except that it would be controlled by the consumer - you know the person that actually pays money for your product!
People wil buy CDs if you give them something worth having...
For example... if I purchase a CD, and I want to be able to listen to that music in my car (which doesn't have a CD player), I'll
make a tape of it. I don't see a problem with this at all - what do the record companies expect us to do, buy two copies just
so we can listen in the car as well?
AFAIK, this is perfectly legal under fair use provisions of copyright laws.
What the record companies would like is for you to pay a 25 cents each time you listened to a song, and 10 cents each time you hummed it.
Is downloading music that you haven't paid for (like when you don't own the CD, or the right to posses the music) illegal? Yes. Is the same true for movies?
Is taping music off the radio illegal? Even if you haven't paid for it? No!
But they only do that if the 10 copies are actually paid for. This is problem that everyone seems to miss.
To get people to buy CDs you need to provide some additional value over free MP3 files. You can also tape songs of the radio for free, yet most people buy CDs anyways.
So, if CDs contain much better quality of recording, perhaps a nice booklet with pictures and text of the artist and cost $5, then people would be likely to buy them.
Downloading songs and burning CDs is not quite as easy, a buying a ready made product.
Think of distribution of MP3 as radio with infinitely many channels. By having more people exposed to the music you are increasing the chances that someone will buy the CD, or go to a concert and pay.
And the p2p exchange DOES NOT COST THE RECORD COMPANIES A CENT (sorry for shouting). It's a free distribution network for marketing their stuff.
I bet you the TV/Radio advertising budget of your average record company would cover the costs of running bunch of servers with all their recordings in MP3 format on them.
You didn't answer the question tho. The origional question was how to stop the illegal acts.
The acts should not be illegal. Just think, Napster-like-systems provides a huge distribution channel for the record companies, so that people can get to hear the music, that is completely cost-less for them.
They could use it for marketing instead of paying tons of money for MTV and Radio.
Many things used to be illegal, but that does not make them wrong. One of the reasons for the American Revolution was the heavy taxation levied on the colonists by the King.
I don't necessarily like this approach that they are taking, but at some point, they have to be able to get some legal recourse
for stopping people from sharing copyrighted materials. Either that, or forget the whole copyright system and replace it with
something else, but realistically, that's never going to happen.
Well, the bussiness model of attacking and jailing your customers seems self-limiting.
How about making the entire catalogs of their recordings older than one year available online for $5/month. How about selling CDs with much better quality recording than Mp3 files and how about charging reasonable prices?
If you let your customers create CDs from the MP3 files you can scale down CD production and distribution and drastically reduce the costs.
How about letting you customers decide what they like to hear, rather than having overpaid marketing executives pick the 100 songs that get played on the radio.
Rather than trying to sell 5 million copies of one CD, why not sell one copy of 5 million CDs? There are many CDs that I would buy, if they were only available somewhere - but they will never be reissued, because only 10 would sell.
But the internet and MP3 files make it profitable to sell just 10.
Ban all enthropic data. Ok, after that you can't send your friend compressed data or truly random noise but then again, the
corporation spin-doctors would ask, why would you want to do that anyway?
Why don't we see dial-up connections being shut down as well? Do they
simply feel they are not enough of a threat?
It's harder to prove that it was you that was downloading. After all each time you dial you wind up with a different IP address going into a different modem. Plus, AFAIK, phone companies don't keep logs of local calls.
If your Cable provider is also part of the conglamorate that produces "content", then they are very likely to try and stop people from sharing files - even if the sharing is not illegal (remember "fair use").
This is one danger of these mergers that create companies that want to control everything.
I guess it's time to start building wireless networks....
An idea I had was to start a company that is a data bank for people's personal info. The clients whose information is stored there pay a small fee and the bank makes sure that the data is safe and secure.
This would work in a manner similar to a regular bank that keeps your money. You can imagine writing "info-checks" which pass your info to the people/sites that need it.
You could also imagine a "certifying" service that such a bank could provide. It would verify, as much as possible, that the data you supplied is true. Of course some things are easy to verify, others harder.
Naturally, having standard protocols for exchange this type of information would make it possible for many data banks to exist and compete for customers.
Imagine a server appliance that you keep at home hooked up to your high-speed internet connection. All your personal info resides there, encrypted and protected by passwords.
Then as needed you allow this server to forward selected info to whoever you want.
Napster screwed everything up. It made companies afraid of technology that they're willing to sacrifice features (e.g. TiVo) for
fear of lawsits from other companies. And this "Intellectual Property" they banter on about is so etherical anyway.
Let the big corps lock up their precious "content". This will force more people to go out and find stuff that is free and provided by people who are happy to have an audience and are willing to share their music/writing/pictures....
Slashdot Mirror
All I want from my ISP is a pipe, fixed IP address and fixed monthly charge.
Is it morally right for large companies to stop me from publishing things, because someone else might use the same tools to violate their precious copyrights?
It's not particularly easy to decide what is worthless. For example, when Steve Wozniak worked at HP he proposed that HP build a "personal computer". The HP management thought the idea was worthless, so Woz left and the rest is history.
Right now, every Linux project is like a bunch of a warring factions. This is a form of anarchy, and it has proven through history that anarchies do not do well in the bigger scheme of things.
In other places people don't say "warring" but "competing".
Why not merge IBM, MS and SUN under goverment control? After all they are "warring" trying to do essencially the same thing. Remember how well this type of centralized planning worked for the Soviet Union?
Maybe this is counter-intuitive, but an individual who is passionate about his work can bring about historical changes. It has happended many times in the past..
Don't look at this as a problem, but look at this as an opportunity to make a name for yourself. If you know of some programs you think are hard to use, fix them!
BTW, I have been paid to code for over 23 years and I find most of the Unix/OSS tools much easier to use for serious development. Maybe these tools are harder to learn at first, but are much more powerful once you know how to use them.
Golem XIV
However, when you think about it a little, the idea of a disembodied intelligence exiting in a computer is silly. Think what happens to human conciousness when deprived of all sensory input.
This is an excellent point.
I'd like to see the AI guys build a robot that can cross Broadway at Times Square, against the light, without getting squashed.
Did you hear about the programmer that was stuck in the shower?
Lather, rinse, repeat.
What about PDP-11? Apple II?
Emacs! Are there any other options?
Too many to list (Python, Java, Linux Drivers. Network Admin, Javascript, MySql..).
Red Hat, 'cause it's easy. Debian when I want to feel virtuous...
Do I get the job? ;-)
No. Selling copies of the tape is. I can make co0ppies for my friends....
And this is bad?! ;-)
Actually it does. MP3 sounds worse than CDs, expecially on a decent stereo system.
p2p costs a TREMENDOUS amount of money in terms of sales.
That's what the record companies say. Others argue that P2P increases sales, because people get to hear music they would otherwise not heard and as a result wind up buying CDs.
Plus potential sales are not money lost. Is it possible to deduct this from your income tax? I projected that I would make $10,000,000 this year. I didn't actually, so does that mean I lost money?
No offense, but that is what the radio is. free advertising, and free listening for the consumer (more or less). But the difference is that the radio is much more controlled: only certain songs are put up, and they are of lesser quality than those found on the average CD.
So, why not look at P2P as free advertising, except that it would be controlled by the consumer - you know the person that actually pays money for your product!
People wil buy CDs if you give them something worth having...
AFAIK, this is perfectly legal under fair use provisions of copyright laws.
What the record companies would like is for you to pay a 25 cents each time you listened to a song, and 10 cents each time you hummed it.
Is taping music off the radio illegal? Even if you haven't paid for it? No!
To get people to buy CDs you need to provide some additional value over free MP3 files. You can also tape songs of the radio for free, yet most people buy CDs anyways.
So, if CDs contain much better quality of recording, perhaps a nice booklet with pictures and text of the artist and cost $5, then people would be likely to buy them.
Downloading songs and burning CDs is not quite as easy, a buying a ready made product.
Think of distribution of MP3 as radio with infinitely many channels. By having more people exposed to the music you are increasing the chances that someone will buy the CD, or go to a concert and pay.
And the p2p exchange DOES NOT COST THE RECORD COMPANIES A CENT (sorry for shouting). It's a free distribution network for marketing their stuff.
I bet you the TV/Radio advertising budget of your average record company would cover the costs of running bunch of servers with all their recordings in MP3 format on them.
The acts should not be illegal. Just think, Napster-like-systems provides a huge distribution channel for the record companies, so that people can get to hear the music, that is completely cost-less for them.
They could use it for marketing instead of paying tons of money for MTV and Radio.
Many things used to be illegal, but that does not make them wrong. One of the reasons for the American Revolution was the heavy taxation levied on the colonists by the King.
Well, the bussiness model of attacking and jailing your customers seems self-limiting.
How about making the entire catalogs of their recordings older than one year available online for $5/month. How about selling CDs with much better quality recording than Mp3 files and how about charging reasonable prices?
If you let your customers create CDs from the MP3 files you can scale down CD production and distribution and drastically reduce the costs.
How about letting you customers decide what they like to hear, rather than having overpaid marketing executives pick the 100 songs that get played on the radio.
Rather than trying to sell 5 million copies of one CD, why not sell one copy of 5 million CDs? There are many CDs that I would buy, if they were only available somewhere - but they will never be reissued, because only 10 would sell.
But the internet and MP3 files make it profitable to sell just 10.
Cool. I won't be able to download compressed IE!
It's harder to prove that it was you that was downloading. After all each time you dial you wind up with a different IP address going into a different modem. Plus, AFAIK, phone companies don't keep logs of local calls.
This is one danger of these mergers that create companies that want to control everything.
I guess it's time to start building wireless networks....
Unless you want to ban encryption on the internet.
This would work in a manner similar to a regular bank that keeps your money. You can imagine writing "info-checks" which pass your info to the people/sites that need it.
You could also imagine a "certifying" service that such a bank could provide. It would verify, as much as possible, that the data you supplied is true. Of course some things are easy to verify, others harder.
Naturally, having standard protocols for exchange this type of information would make it possible for many data banks to exist and compete for customers.
Then as needed you allow this server to forward selected info to whoever you want.
Let the big corps lock up their precious "content". This will force more people to go out and find stuff that is free and provided by people who are happy to have an audience and are willing to share their music/writing/pictures....
Just wait. The best is yet to come.