Perhaps I'm being confusing: I don't mean they make $8-9 in profit, I'm saying they generate that in revenue. Apologies if my poor writing was the cause.
As for calculations across the catalog, remember: only 15% of released albums recoup and about a third of those are profitable.
Let's try it theoretically. Say LabelX puts out ten albums, at a cost of a million bucks each. That's ten million dollars in total cost. But eight of them don't recoup, and bring in about $250,000 each. So, we have $2 million in revenue there. Double that if you want to be generous. $4 million. One CD breaks even. Now we have $5 million revenue.
Now that last CD has to generate $5 million just to even the balance sheet. And lately, for various debatable reasons, that last CD hasn't produced that 5 million bucks, or anywhere near it. Sum total? As you correctly noted: a net loss.
True, but all the story focused on was PVR functionality:
Austin, Texas-based BroadQ is offering Qcast Tuner, software to connect the PS2 with a PC running SnapStream Media's video recording software.
That makes it seem like Qcast is simply a UI for Snapstream when it is actually a total media player for the PS2. Since Sept, Broadq has added JPEG/PNG functionality, Xvid, AC3 and Ogg. It's way cooler than Snapstream IMVHO, deserving of a little attention.
Disclaimer: I have no financial interest, nor do I even know anyone at Broadq. I just think it's neat software with awesome potential, and I use it a LOT.
Uh, explain to me why this causes a huge fuss on/., but articles about Qcast for the PS2 (which is four months old and cool as shit) never see the light of day? Qcast just added Ogg support as well. Supports everything The xbox MP does, plus xvid. Has supported AC3 for a few months.
This isn't a grouse, just wondering why a Media Center for 30 million+ installed PS2s holds little interest, but an unavailable hack of xbox that does the same thing is big news.
` Record label offers them more, because it a) sells more due to hassle factor, and b) can partially support it from hardware revenues.
Why do people think Sony Music can offset losses by selling more electronics? Sony Music doesn't sell electronics. Sony Electronics sells electronics. Sony Music is a separate, autonomous company that sells MUSIC.
They don't share revenue. If Sony Music loses money, they can't "offset" it with anything but more music.
Sure the overall global Sony Corp balance sheet might work out, but if Sony Music (or BMG, EMI, Warner Music, UMG) loses money, they fire workers and go out of business. Individual businesses. Remember that.
I'm way too tired this morning to write a long post but gimme a break. If you're going to whine about "the fat cats": A) get your figures right; B) understand the business you are attacking.
They record companies rule the "entertainment" industry (except for pRon for the most part). They fund everything from Friends to The Powder Puff Girls.
Um, not even close. MEDIA companies rule the media portion of the entertainment industry, each separated into different businesses: music, games, filmed entertainment, print.
UMG is only one part of Vivendi Universal. BMG is only one small portion of Bertlesmann. Sony Music is only one part of Sony Corporation. In no case does the music label "rule the entertainment industry." And they don't share revenue with the main corporation like MS does with the Windows and Office teams. If BMG loses money, BMG staffers lose jobs.
Friends is a TV property and would be marketed and controlled by the autonomous film/tv division of a media company. (I'm too tired to look up which one.)
Ditto Powerpuff girls. No "record label" involved. Music labels handle music.
Fund them a million to make an album (big artists) and sell 10 million CDs. Lets say the Label makes $5 a CD, $1 goes to the artist (big artists) , Label made $4 million off of a million dollar investment. Not bad huh? 4:1 return
Uh that's not even close to accurate. Labels don't "fund them a million" to make an album, they offer advances to artists that must be recouped before the artist makes a penny.
Labels do not make $5 per CD, they make more like $8-9. And it is a rare artist that makes 20% of the labels profits. The usual amount is around 15% of 90% of the world wide GROSS. Then you subtract the cost of production, videos, advances, limos, blimp advertising (that's called recoupment) and THEN the band gets a tiny check.
How many music artist sell 10 million albums? A lot.
No. None. Nada. Zip. There hasn't been a CD that sold 10 million copies in almost ten years. The biggest selling CD of 2001 was Hybridtheory, which sold 4 million copies.
None have sold like that since the early 90s. You need to go back to the 80's to see numbers in the teens of millions. 85% of all albums FAIL TO RECOUP. In other words, they fail to make back the money it cost to make them. Of the remaining 15%, more than half only break even. Fewer than 5% of all released albums are profitable, and therefore, the labels must charge a high price to subsidize the 85% that lose money. Simple business.
Spiderman made 900 million", the movie cost like $200 million to make, so they made $500 million lets say, minus all the other stuff
Spiderman's total budget was $139 million, most of which was recouped in the $114 million opening weekend. Current global box office to date is $404 million. Add the 28 million preordered DVD/VHS copies and you'll probably get close to $900 mill before all is said an done. Sony Pictures has had a banner year, and is in no danger, unlike their music brethren. They have had many hit movies this year, all pirated, most profitable. Go figure.
Why mention Spiderman anyway? I thought we were discussing music? Sony Music is an autonomous business and doesn't share revenue with Sony Pictures, or the real cash cow: Sony Computer Entertainment: (the Playstation folks.)
The music business is in trouble, but these simplistic "CDs cost 5 cents to make, the "fat cats" are creaming it in off all the CDs they sell" comments are getting tired. The music business is a subsidy business that is in huge trouble because their most valuable asset is also their most vulnerable one, and without sales of hit CDs, there can be no experimentation with bands that migh not break even for two or three CDs. So, we get Nsync, Avril and Britney because labels know THEY will sell.
As Howard Stringer said more than six months ago on MSNBC's Digital Summit, in 2002, not one music label will be profitable. No one is "creaming it in."
To be honest, I was more interested in the second question, which no one seems to have commented on, but to be truthful, it's not really that important. Why it got 19 mods is beyond me. B)
"I'm Fred. I open a coffee shop next to Dunkin Donuts. I sell donuts and coffee at a loss to compete with the market leader. I lose 177,000 dollars in a year. I don't have to pay taxes on that money since I didn't make any. However, uncle sam doesn't *give* me money because I lost 177 million. "
But if Fred's Coffee Shop is simply a division of the "Fred's Monopolistic Hamburgers" chain that had a profit of $5 billion last year, Fred can indeed deduct the $177 millon from the taxes he has to pay on his wildly successful hamburger chain, therefore reducing his overall tax bill.
MS's strategy to initially lose money on the xbox was a sneaky way for them to save millions in taxes, and essentially get entities who would have benefited from those taxes to basically pay for xbox first -year deployment. Hm.
Now I'm hungry. Thanks a lot.
Saw it...passed
on
Review: EyeTV
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· Score: 5, Informative
I saw EyeTV at Macworld NYC during the summer. I had my credit card out to buy one, but saw the MPEG1 quality, and put the card away.
I have a couple of Tivos and the EyeTV quality is well below even the lowest quality I can get on my Tivo. I would rate it at about the same level as a decent telesync of a film...no better. I asked why no MPEG4/Divx compression and didn't get a decent answer.
Also, I don't want to watch TV off my Mac, even on a Cinema Display. I could stream it to my tv using Qcast but then what's the point? Might as well just buy a Tivo.
I'm the most gullible of early adopters and I didn't buy EyeTV. Hopefully it'll improve in time.
I did however buy the very cool Powermate volume knob that they were using to control EyeTV. That's turned out to be a neat gadget, and really nice for film editing.
That's why I said "it would be difficult to quantify" in my original post. As the troll said above, correlation does not imply causation. Totally correct of course.
Same thing in your case. You suggest that if piracy was not possible, 40 million would buy the DVD. You are assuming that piracy is a negative revenue generator.
But in my hypothesis (and it's nothing but a hypothesis) piracy might actually drive revenue. If this is true, then it's possible that without those twenty million illegal DVD downloads, Dreamworks might have only sold 10 million Shrek DVDs.
Be tough to prove it either way, but remember that the MPAA said the VCR would destroy the film industry back in the 70's. Now? Home Video is the number one revenue stream for ALL seven major Hollywood film studios.
I'm not insisting I'm right. But what if it's true? Could Jack Valenti possibly be wrong...twice?
The release of Harry Potter is a crappy cam, and won't affect Theatrical revenue. It's almost unwatchable.
The bigger question is, does film piracy affect revenue at all? A film is not like music: Nevermind and Sticky Fingers will be just as valuable to me in ten years, and I'll listen to them a lot as a soundtrack to whatever else I'm doing. A film takes 100% of my concentration, (well most of it anyway) and you can't watch a film while you do something else..so film and music piracy are vastly different things.
Let's look at a few examples: In the Theatrical Window, Spiderman both broke box office and piracy records, hitting tens of thousands of copies a day at its peak.
In the Home Video window, the Spiderman DVD was released on pirate channels more than a month early and yet it still is going to break all sales records. 28 MILLION in preorders, which blows away anything before it.
The exact same thing happened with Shrek last year..most pirated film - most pirated DVD - best selling DVD.
While it would be difficult to quantify, it's possible that piracy acts simply as promotion when it comes to film: it certainly didn't cause the films above to fail on any scale, and probably won't affect Harry Potter either.
The million dollar question: could the use of piracy channels as a promotional venue actually increase film revenue?
Everyone assumes Valenti and Rosen are right: that piracy is damaging the film and music businesses. But Valenti was dead wrong about VCRs in the 70's and I suggest he's wrong about digital delivery and piracy in the 21st Century.
And 30 minutes wandering the almost empty aisles, looking for anything tolerable left to watch. Then you get to wait in line. Then 20 minutes to drive back. Then 20 more minutes to drive to return it, then 20 minutes back.
I see an hour and 20 minutes of driving time to rent a movie. Versus a 20 minute download, during which I can watch the Simpsons? No contest here.
But it's not for modems yet. For users with big pipes (read: I2 colleges, Optonline users, Corporate..) it's actually far less of a PITA to put a movie on to download, and go make dinner, instead of going out in evening traffic, only to find the movie you want isn't there, so you end up watching Glitter or some such rubbish. With the right pipe, this is a great alternative to that drive.
I worked on the site, so I can't comment on the political aspects of it (which are large and complicated) but I can tell you this:
Last night I downloaded a 650mb film in under 20 minutes. I was even shocked when the Movielink Manager estimated the time to download at "less than 25 minutes", thinking it was in error. But the sucker came down at a steady 4mbps.
I've only ever gotten speed like that from Apple FTP, MSDN and one or two Internet 2 guys on IRC. Maybe it's due to huge capacity with probably only me using it (heh) but whatever the complaints, it's hard to complain the download is slow.
After fuming about this as we all probably did, I thought about it and came to this conclusion: EMI's math is inaccurate, and more insidiously, they are hiding some very important facts.
Here's what was said:
"There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. "
This assumes that either; A) all CDRs are used to pirate music or; B) EMI has some magic tracer on blank CDRs that returns which of them was used for illegal purposes. Since neither is true, the EMI statement is rubbish. CDRs are used just as much for backups, non-MP3 warez and coasters as much as they are used for infinging music and film files.
But they mention tapes as well. Ah HA! Now here comes the reall bullshit.
Know what the AHRA is? Well the Audio Home Recording act was enacted to make sure people paid for music they taped. IOW, when you bought a blank TDK cassette, the RIAA and labels assumed you were going to use it to copy music, so they wanted a cut. The therefore dreamed up the "blank royalty" which meant that $3 of the $5.99 you paid for that TDK cassette went to publishers, labels and artists (cough). In return you were given THE RIGHT to make copies.
According to the RIAA:
"This legislation exempts consumers from lawsuits for copyright violations when they record music for private, noncommercial use; eases access to advanced digital audio recording technologies; provides for the payment of modest royalties to songwriters and recording artists and companies; and mandates the inclusion of serial copying management technology in all consumer digital audio recorders to limit multi-generation audio copying (i.e., making copies of copies). "
They get paid for device sales as well. There are similar laws in every First World country, in particular, the UK and Germany.
So Herr EMI, in claiming that ".. 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes [are] bought and used this year for copying music.." well, you're getting PAID for them dude.
What's core? That EMI.de is complaining that people are buying media (for which EMI.de is generously paid) to make copies of music that they are entitled to copy BY LAW. The EMI.de guy is complaining that people are buying media that generates MILLIONS per year for EMI!
When EMI, Warner Music, BMG, UMG and Sony Music offer to give back the blank royalty, then we can begin to discuss what percentage of CDRs are actually put to infringing use.
Analog degradation less than MP3...so why?
on
BMG Stops Producing CDs
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· Score: 5, Interesting
But this is all so silly. Look, most people know the following..(you didn't? ok, now you do.)
The audio degradation experienced by ripping a CD via analog means (by either plugging in a cable into the line-out of the CD player and recording with any PC recording application, or using the 'Rip to Analog" feature of Musicmatch) is far less than the degradation produced by MP3 compression.
Since six years of MP3 has shown us that for the vast majority of people, even 160kbps MP3 encoding is "good enough," how will this stop their music from being pirated?
Very few people actually rip and upload...Gartner and Forrester both agree that 95% of mp3 content on P2P and other filesharing systems comes from less than 10% of the community. All you need is one guy to rip the content to analog, then upload. BMG will see no net reduction of pirating of their content.
Irnonically, the only ones to suffer from this inane decision are those who legitimately purchased the "CD." They will be plagued with a hobbled, limited-use product, which may actually convince them that P2P is actually a more convenient choice. No one else will even notice, as they will continue to download the content.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (I've posted on this software a few times and even tried to post it to/. as a story but...oh well.)
Qcast is the media server people are wishing they had in a few dozen posts here. You don't need to add a hard drive to a DVD player...all you need is a PS2.
Qcast is a two-disk installation. Install Disk 1 on your PC, loaded up with movies and tunes (mpeg1,2,4, xvid, divx, svcd, vcd, mp3.) Then load Disk 2 on networked PS2 (cheaper than Sampo DVE631CF and hard drive) and bingo! You have a spiffy Flash interface on the PS2 for all your PC-based content, which then streams over your network on demand.
No taking apart DVD players..if you need more space, add an IDE or Firewire drive to your PC in about five minutes.
And even better...you can use multiple PS2s to stream different content from the same PC all over the house. Not only that but you can point the PS2 to multiple drives. This blows away a HD-equipped DVD player, since the PS2 plays DVDs natively anyway.
Disclaimer: I neither work for, nor have any financial interest in Qcast. I just think it's cool as shit and no one knows about it. Well you do now.
I agree. I have no cap at all, and used the OOL AUP as an example. I can get up to 9mbps from ftp.apple.com or MSDN..no problem. Then again, I live in the woods and I am one of the very few people on my local OOL cable LAN.
Interestingly, in the "please serve for us" ads on many IRC movie/MP3 channels ops ask for "fast servers:.edus, T3+, or OOL."
Here's a question: I just read my Cablevision AUP for the cable modem service I've bought from them since 1996. Now, I OWN my cable modems (I have four) that I bought from the Wiz to replace the LanCity (after that, Terayon) modems I rented from Cablevision.
Nowhere in this agreement does it say " you may not modify your hardware to squeeze more bandwidth out of us." The ads constantly promise "up to 100 times a 56k modem" but nowhere in the agreement does it prevent "optimization of your own gear to increase throughput efficiency" or any such language.
In fact, I don't see anything about uncapping or hardware modification at all.
There ARE stringent rules about reselling the service, running any kind of server, and warnings that routers and home LANs are NOT supported, but nothing saying "altering your own hardware to increase bandwith" is proscribed.
There are rules about "tampering wih the Optimum Online Service" but it would be a far stretch to say that includes optimizing your own equipment.
And even if this was the interpretation, where is the statement that this violates anything but an AUP, which would be at most a civil infraction.
Actually the Vatican approached us when I was working at a consultancy (not IBM) to do this project. "Mmm, cool," thought I. "They have loadsa money."
Ah, but not so, grasshopper. We met with their librarians and "IT" people and when it came to money, not only did they try and make us feel guilty about charging the Church (I'm Jewish..that didn't work on me) but they wanted us to PAY for the privilege. Yes, we would eat all production costs, hardware, hosting, travel costs, encoding, delivery, etc...AND we were expected to make a "sizable honorarium" to the RCC for the privilege of being permitted to work on the project. (Picture: Ellen Feiss going "nnnnggggh?")
"Hmm, well they have lots of money...they'll pay us for the next project," thought I.
Ah, not so. When I asked as to $$ arrangements for future work we were told that if they liked the library project, we could expect more work, but each project would require an additional honorarium.
"Wow, look at the time, I gotta run," said I. We never even considered doing the work.
Looks like HP got the same treatment, as evidenced by this line in the press release:
"HP's contribution included technical consulting along with donated computer servers, scanners and other hardware items.
Didier Philippe, HP's director of strategy and development in Europe, said the motivation for the donation had more to do with history and art than with business.
But he recognized that the Catholic Church could be a huge buyer."
So they are HOPING the RCC buys some hardware in the future, after they already gave them a couple mil worth of free stuff. Great business sense, eh?
"What this is lacking is a internet/TV convergence device that lets people (especially non-techies) transfer the download to their TV. The lower resolution of a television compared to a monitor will help to cover up the artifacts and other low-quality issues. Sitting 8+ feet from the TV helps too. If WB leased a webtv-like broadband device with a HD big enough to hold a couple movies along then I'd be all over it."
Check this out. It's exactly what you ask for: a insanely simple to use Internet/TV convergence device, which, using the PS2 as an interface, streams mpeg, mp3, divx , xvid and more over your local LAN from your PC. I've been playing with it for over a month and it's beta but cool. Works on Linux, Doze and OSX.
I submitted a story on Qcast to/. September 16, but it got rejected. Ah well.
Actually, I worked on one of the larger movie sites and it actually works like this:
You download a locked file. You can store it for as long as you like, it doesn't "self-delete" or anything. When you decide you want to watch (like just before you go to the airport with five movies on your lappy) you click on the movie file and you are taken to a web page where you do the cc/Paypal thing, and your time starts.
Watch for the prescribed period. Then the file locks down again. You can burn it to CD, throw it on a shelf: whatever. Want to watch it again in a few months/years? Click on the file, authorize it,and watch for another prescribed period.
Not only that, but if you want to burn 50 CDs and give them to your pals, the services will love you. And your friends can authorize the file by just clicking on it..even over a modem.
Now, combine IP VOD with Qcast and you have a real alternative to both Blockbuster and hanging out on an Efnet movie channel XDCC queue.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps I'm being confusing: I don't mean they make $8-9 in profit, I'm saying they generate that in revenue. Apologies if my poor writing was the cause.
As for calculations across the catalog, remember: only 15% of released albums recoup and about a third of those are profitable.
Let's try it theoretically. Say LabelX puts out ten albums, at a cost of a million bucks each. That's ten million dollars in total cost. But eight of them don't recoup, and bring in about $250,000 each. So, we have $2 million in revenue there. Double that if you want to be generous. $4 million. One CD breaks even. Now we have $5 million revenue.
Now that last CD has to generate $5 million just to even the balance sheet. And lately, for various debatable reasons, that last CD hasn't produced that 5 million bucks, or anywhere near it. Sum total? As you correctly noted: a net loss.
Sorry if I was confusing.
True, but all the story focused on was PVR functionality:
Austin, Texas-based BroadQ is offering Qcast Tuner, software to connect the PS2 with a PC running SnapStream Media's video recording software.
That makes it seem like Qcast is simply a UI for Snapstream when it is actually a total media player for the PS2. Since Sept, Broadq has added JPEG/PNG functionality, Xvid, AC3 and Ogg. It's way cooler than Snapstream IMVHO, deserving of a little attention.
Disclaimer: I have no financial interest, nor do I even know anyone at Broadq. I just think it's neat software with awesome potential, and I use it a LOT.
Uh, explain to me why this causes a huge fuss on /., but articles about Qcast for the PS2 (which is four months old and cool as shit) never see the light of day? Qcast just added Ogg support as well. Supports everything The xbox MP does, plus xvid. Has supported AC3 for a few months.
This isn't a grouse, just wondering why a Media Center for 30 million+ installed PS2s holds little interest, but an unavailable hack of xbox that does the same thing is big news.
Anyone?
Actually, the last CD to sell near 10 million was Nsync's 'No Strings Attached" in 2000 which sold 9.83 million. My bad.
` Record label offers them more, because it a) sells more due to hassle factor, and b) can partially support it from hardware revenues.
Why do people think Sony Music can offset losses by selling more electronics? Sony Music doesn't sell electronics. Sony Electronics sells electronics. Sony Music is a separate, autonomous company that sells MUSIC.
They don't share revenue. If Sony Music loses money, they can't "offset" it with anything but more music.
Sure the overall global Sony Corp balance sheet might work out, but if Sony Music (or BMG, EMI, Warner Music, UMG) loses money, they fire workers and go out of business. Individual businesses. Remember that.
I'm way too tired this morning to write a long post but gimme a break. If you're going to whine about "the fat cats": A) get your figures right; B) understand the business you are attacking.
(quotes from here.)
They record companies rule the "entertainment" industry (except for pRon for the most part). They fund everything from Friends to The Powder Puff Girls.
Um, not even close. MEDIA companies rule the media portion of the entertainment industry, each separated into different businesses: music, games, filmed entertainment, print.
UMG is only one part of Vivendi Universal. BMG is only one small portion of Bertlesmann. Sony Music is only one part of Sony Corporation. In no case does the music label "rule the entertainment industry." And they don't share revenue with the main corporation like MS does with the Windows and Office teams. If BMG loses money, BMG staffers lose jobs.
Friends is a TV property and would be marketed and controlled by the autonomous film/tv division of a media company. (I'm too tired to look up which one.)
Ditto Powerpuff girls. No "record label" involved. Music labels handle music.
Fund them a million to make an album (big artists) and sell 10 million CDs. Lets say the Label makes $5 a CD, $1 goes to the artist (big artists) , Label made $4 million off of a million dollar investment. Not bad huh? 4:1 return
Uh that's not even close to accurate. Labels don't "fund them a million" to make an album, they offer advances to artists that must be recouped before the artist makes a penny.
Labels do not make $5 per CD, they make more like $8-9. And it is a rare artist that makes 20% of the labels profits. The usual amount is around 15% of 90% of the world wide GROSS. Then you subtract the cost of production, videos, advances, limos, blimp advertising (that's called recoupment) and THEN the band gets a tiny check.
How many music artist sell 10 million albums? A lot.
No. None. Nada. Zip. There hasn't been a CD that sold 10 million copies in almost ten years. The biggest selling CD of 2001 was Hybridtheory, which sold 4 million copies.
None have sold like that since the early 90s. You need to go back to the 80's to see numbers in the teens of millions. 85% of all albums FAIL TO RECOUP. In other words, they fail to make back the money it cost to make them. Of the remaining 15%, more than half only break even. Fewer than 5% of all released albums are profitable, and therefore, the labels must charge a high price to subsidize the 85% that lose money. Simple business.
Spiderman made 900 million", the movie cost like $200 million to make, so they made $500 million lets say, minus all the other stuff
Spiderman's total budget was $139 million, most of which was recouped in the $114 million opening weekend. Current global box office to date is $404 million. Add the 28 million preordered DVD/VHS copies and you'll probably get close to $900 mill before all is said an done. Sony Pictures has had a banner year, and is in no danger, unlike their music brethren. They have had many hit movies this year, all pirated, most profitable. Go figure.
Why mention Spiderman anyway? I thought we were discussing music? Sony Music is an autonomous business and doesn't share revenue with Sony Pictures, or the real cash cow: Sony Computer Entertainment: (the Playstation folks.)
The music business is in trouble, but these simplistic "CDs cost 5 cents to make, the "fat cats" are creaming it in off all the CDs they sell" comments are getting tired. The music business is a subsidy business that is in huge trouble because their most valuable asset is also their most vulnerable one, and without sales of hit CDs, there can be no experimentation with bands that migh not break even for two or three CDs. So, we get Nsync, Avril and Britney because labels know THEY will sell.
As Howard Stringer said more than six months ago on MSNBC's Digital Summit, in 2002, not one music label will be profitable. No one is "creaming it in."
I wanted a definitive answer. You quoted one answer, DeadVulcan quoted another.
And here's another.
To be honest, I was more interested in the second question, which no one seems to have commented on, but to be truthful, it's not really that important. Why it got 19 mods is beyond me. B)
Oh, please. He's probably been asked this question a billion times. He'll probably give you some bullsh*t answer just because he's sick of it.
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But I searched and couldn't find an answer to that seemingly obvious question.
Hey, I'm just interested, don't shoot me. 16 mods?
A) What was your personal favorite episode of the Original Star Trek series and why?
B) What did you honestly think of TNG, not as as a tv property but as a continuation of the philosophy of your original series?
Probably the first time a bug-induced crash was fixed just by turning on the Raid, rather than vice versa.
Come on, it's funny. I hear you snurfling...
"I'm Fred. I open a coffee shop next to Dunkin Donuts. I sell donuts and coffee at a loss to compete with the market leader. I lose 177,000 dollars in a year. I don't have to pay taxes on that money since I didn't make any. However, uncle sam doesn't *give* me money because I lost 177 million. "
But if Fred's Coffee Shop is simply a division of the "Fred's Monopolistic Hamburgers" chain that had a profit of $5 billion last year, Fred can indeed deduct the $177 millon from the taxes he has to pay on his wildly successful hamburger chain, therefore reducing his overall tax bill.
MS's strategy to initially lose money on the xbox was a sneaky way for them to save millions in taxes, and essentially get entities who would have benefited from those taxes to basically pay for xbox first -year deployment. Hm.
Now I'm hungry. Thanks a lot.
I saw EyeTV at Macworld NYC during the summer. I had my credit card out to buy one, but saw the MPEG1 quality, and put the card away.
I have a couple of Tivos and the EyeTV quality is well below even the lowest quality I can get on my Tivo. I would rate it at about the same level as a decent telesync of a film...no better. I asked why no MPEG4/Divx compression and didn't get a decent answer.
Also, I don't want to watch TV off my Mac, even on a Cinema Display. I could stream it to my tv using Qcast but then what's the point? Might as well just buy a Tivo.
I'm the most gullible of early adopters and I didn't buy EyeTV. Hopefully it'll improve in time.
I did however buy the very cool Powermate volume knob that they were using to control EyeTV. That's turned out to be a neat gadget, and really nice for film editing.
That's why I said "it would be difficult to quantify" in my original post. As the troll said above, correlation does not imply causation. Totally correct of course.
...twice?
Same thing in your case. You suggest that if piracy was not possible, 40 million would buy the DVD. You are assuming that piracy is a negative revenue generator.
But in my hypothesis (and it's nothing but a hypothesis) piracy might actually drive revenue. If this is true, then it's possible that without those twenty million illegal DVD downloads, Dreamworks might have only sold 10 million Shrek DVDs.
Be tough to prove it either way, but remember that the MPAA said the VCR would destroy the film industry back in the 70's. Now? Home Video is the number one revenue stream for ALL seven major Hollywood film studios.
I'm not insisting I'm right. But what if it's true? Could Jack Valenti possibly be wrong
The release of Harry Potter is a crappy cam, and won't affect Theatrical revenue. It's almost unwatchable.
The bigger question is, does film piracy affect revenue at all? A film is not like music: Nevermind and Sticky Fingers will be just as valuable to me in ten years, and I'll listen to them a lot as a soundtrack to whatever else I'm doing. A film takes 100% of my concentration, (well most of it anyway) and you can't watch a film while you do something else..so film and music piracy are vastly different things.
Let's look at a few examples: In the Theatrical Window, Spiderman both broke box office and piracy records, hitting tens of thousands of copies a day at its peak.
In the Home Video window, the Spiderman DVD was released on pirate channels more than a month early and yet it still is going to break all sales records. 28 MILLION in preorders, which blows away anything before it.
The exact same thing happened with Shrek last year..most pirated film - most pirated DVD - best selling DVD.
While it would be difficult to quantify, it's possible that piracy acts simply as promotion when it comes to film: it certainly didn't cause the films above to fail on any scale, and probably won't affect Harry Potter either.
The million dollar question: could the use of piracy channels as a promotional venue actually increase film revenue?
Everyone assumes Valenti and Rosen are right: that piracy is damaging the film and music businesses. But Valenti was dead wrong about VCRs in the 70's and I suggest he's wrong about digital delivery and piracy in the 21st Century.
And 30 minutes wandering the almost empty aisles, looking for anything tolerable left to watch. Then you get to wait in line. Then 20 minutes to drive back. Then 20 more minutes to drive to return it, then 20 minutes back.
I see an hour and 20 minutes of driving time to rent a movie. Versus a 20 minute download, during which I can watch the Simpsons? No contest here.
But it's not for modems yet. For users with big pipes (read: I2 colleges, Optonline users, Corporate..) it's actually far less of a PITA to put a movie on to download, and go make dinner, instead of going out in evening traffic, only to find the movie you want isn't there, so you end up watching Glitter or some such rubbish. With the right pipe, this is a great alternative to that drive.
And it looks and works sweeeet. B)
I worked on the site, so I can't comment on the political aspects of it (which are large and complicated) but I can tell you this:
Last night I downloaded a 650mb film in under 20 minutes. I was even shocked when the Movielink Manager estimated the time to download at "less than 25 minutes", thinking it was in error. But the sucker came down at a steady 4mbps.
I've only ever gotten speed like that from Apple FTP, MSDN and one or two Internet 2 guys on IRC. Maybe it's due to huge capacity with probably only me using it (heh) but whatever the complaints, it's hard to complain the download is slow.
After fuming about this as we all probably did, I thought about it and came to this conclusion: EMI's math is inaccurate, and more insidiously, they are hiding some very important facts.
.." well, you're getting PAID for them dude.
Here's what was said:
"There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. "
This assumes that either; A) all CDRs are used to pirate music or; B) EMI has some magic tracer on blank CDRs that returns which of them was used for illegal purposes. Since neither is true, the EMI statement is rubbish. CDRs are used just as much for backups, non-MP3 warez and coasters as much as they are used for infinging music and film files.
But they mention tapes as well. Ah HA! Now here comes the reall bullshit.
Know what the AHRA is? Well the Audio Home Recording act was enacted to make sure people paid for music they taped. IOW, when you bought a blank TDK cassette, the RIAA and labels assumed you were going to use it to copy music, so they wanted a cut. The therefore dreamed up the "blank royalty" which meant that $3 of the $5.99 you paid for that TDK cassette went to publishers, labels and artists (cough). In return you were given THE RIGHT to make copies.
According to the RIAA:
"This legislation exempts consumers from lawsuits for copyright violations when they record music for private, noncommercial use; eases access to advanced digital audio recording technologies; provides for the payment of modest royalties to songwriters and recording artists and companies; and mandates the inclusion of serial copying management technology in all consumer digital audio recorders to limit multi-generation audio copying (i.e., making copies of copies). "
They get paid for device sales as well. There are similar laws in every First World country, in particular, the UK and Germany.
So Herr EMI, in claiming that ".. 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes [are] bought and used this year for copying music
What's core? That EMI.de is complaining that people are buying media (for which EMI.de is generously paid) to make copies of music that they are entitled to copy BY LAW. The EMI.de guy is complaining that people are buying media that generates MILLIONS per year for EMI!
When EMI, Warner Music, BMG, UMG and Sony Music offer to give back the blank royalty, then we can begin to discuss what percentage of CDRs are actually put to infringing use.
But this is all so silly. Look, most people know the following..(you didn't? ok, now you do.)
The audio degradation experienced by ripping a CD via analog means (by either plugging in a cable into the line-out of the CD player and recording with any PC recording application, or using the 'Rip to Analog" feature of Musicmatch) is far less than the degradation produced by MP3 compression.
Since six years of MP3 has shown us that for the vast majority of people, even 160kbps MP3 encoding is "good enough," how will this stop their music from being pirated?
Very few people actually rip and upload...Gartner and Forrester both agree that 95% of mp3 content on P2P and other filesharing systems comes from less than 10% of the community. All you need is one guy to rip the content to analog, then upload. BMG will see no net reduction of pirating of their content.
Irnonically, the only ones to suffer from this inane decision are those who legitimately purchased the "CD." They will be plagued with a hobbled, limited-use product, which may actually convince them that P2P is actually a more convenient choice. No one else will even notice, as they will continue to download the content.
Uh, sorry...the link changed last night. Doh.
This is the right one.
Sorry.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (I've posted on this software a few times and even tried to post it to /. as a story but ...oh well.)
Qcast is the media server people are wishing they had in a few dozen posts here. You don't need to add a hard drive to a DVD player...all you need is a PS2.
Qcast is a two-disk installation. Install Disk 1 on your PC, loaded up with movies and tunes (mpeg1,2,4, xvid, divx, svcd, vcd, mp3.) Then load Disk 2 on networked PS2 (cheaper than Sampo DVE631CF and hard drive) and bingo! You have a spiffy Flash interface on the PS2 for all your PC-based content, which then streams over your network on demand.
No taking apart DVD players..if you need more space, add an IDE or Firewire drive to your PC in about five minutes.
And even better...you can use multiple PS2s to stream different content from the same PC all over the house. Not only that but you can point the PS2 to multiple drives. This blows away a HD-equipped DVD player, since the PS2 plays DVDs natively anyway.
Disclaimer: I neither work for, nor have any financial interest in Qcast. I just think it's cool as shit and no one knows about it. Well you do now.
I agree. I have no cap at all, and used the OOL AUP as an example. I can get up to 9mbps from ftp.apple.com or MSDN..no problem. Then again, I live in the woods and I am one of the very few people on my local OOL cable LAN.
.edus, T3+, or OOL."
Interestingly, in the "please serve for us" ads on many IRC movie/MP3 channels ops ask for "fast servers:
I love the Dolans. B)
Here's a question: I just read my Cablevision AUP for the cable modem service I've bought from them since 1996. Now, I OWN my cable modems (I have four) that I bought from the Wiz to replace the LanCity (after that, Terayon) modems I rented from Cablevision.
Nowhere in this agreement does it say " you may not modify your hardware to squeeze more bandwidth out of us." The ads constantly promise "up to 100 times a 56k modem" but nowhere in the agreement does it prevent "optimization of your own gear to increase throughput efficiency" or any such language.
In fact, I don't see anything about uncapping or hardware modification at all.
There ARE stringent rules about reselling the service, running any kind of server, and warnings that routers and home LANs are NOT supported, but nothing saying "altering your own hardware to increase bandwith" is proscribed.
There are rules about "tampering wih the Optimum Online Service" but it would be a far stretch to say that includes optimizing your own equipment.
And even if this was the interpretation, where is the statement that this violates anything but an AUP, which would be at most a civil infraction.
How does this become a Federal crime?
Actually the Vatican approached us when I was working at a consultancy (not IBM) to do this project. "Mmm, cool," thought I. "They have loadsa money."
Ah, but not so, grasshopper. We met with their librarians and "IT" people and when it came to money, not only did they try and make us feel guilty about charging the Church (I'm Jewish..that didn't work on me) but they wanted us to PAY for the privilege. Yes, we would eat all production costs, hardware, hosting, travel costs, encoding, delivery, etc...AND we were expected to make a "sizable honorarium" to the RCC for the privilege of being permitted to work on the project. (Picture: Ellen Feiss going "nnnnggggh?")
"Hmm, well they have lots of money...they'll pay us for the next project," thought I.
Ah, not so. When I asked as to $$ arrangements for future work we were told that if they liked the library project, we could expect more work, but each project would require an additional honorarium.
"Wow, look at the time, I gotta run," said I. We never even considered doing the work.
Looks like HP got the same treatment, as evidenced by this line in the press release:
"HP's contribution included technical consulting along with donated computer servers, scanners and other hardware items.
Didier Philippe, HP's director of strategy and development in Europe, said the motivation for the donation had more to do with history and art than with business.
But he recognized that the Catholic Church could be a huge buyer."
So they are HOPING the RCC buys some hardware in the future, after they already gave them a couple mil worth of free stuff. Great business sense, eh?
I'm calling my broker now.
"What this is lacking is a internet/TV convergence device that lets people (especially non-techies) transfer the download to their TV. The lower resolution of a television compared to a monitor will help to cover up the artifacts and other low-quality issues. Sitting 8+ feet from the TV helps too. If WB leased a webtv-like broadband device with a HD big enough to hold a couple movies along then I'd be all over it."
/. September 16, but it got rejected. Ah well.
Check this out. It's exactly what you ask for: a insanely simple to use Internet/TV convergence device, which, using the PS2 as an interface, streams mpeg, mp3, divx , xvid and more over your local LAN from your PC. I've been playing with it for over a month and it's beta but cool. Works on Linux, Doze and OSX.
I submitted a story on Qcast to
Actually, I worked on one of the larger movie sites and it actually works like this:
You download a locked file. You can store it for as long as you like, it doesn't "self-delete" or anything. When you decide you want to watch (like just before you go to the airport with five movies on your lappy) you click on the movie file and you are taken to a web page where you do the cc/Paypal thing, and your time starts.
Watch for the prescribed period. Then the file locks down again. You can burn it to CD, throw it on a shelf: whatever. Want to watch it again in a few months/years? Click on the file, authorize it,and watch for another prescribed period.
Not only that, but if you want to burn 50 CDs and give them to your pals, the services will love you. And your friends can authorize the file by just clicking on it..even over a modem.
Now, combine IP VOD with Qcast and you have a real alternative to both Blockbuster and hanging out on an Efnet movie channel XDCC queue.