Er...this will probably get me modded down (Score:-1, greedy) and e-gold isn't just a currency for micropayments, since big payments work better too....but there's a company with what's been called an "offbeat scheme" by the clue-impaired and "just a currency" by me, which has been in the black for more than a year, and has been around since 1996. From the looks of things, we're doing ok, despite very little hype. We store plenty of metal for our customers (of all sorts, in many nations) these days.
Of course, the filthy yellow metal occupies the most emotional spot on the periodic table (see some past replies to my rants) and so far major artists haven't yet set up tipjars, but I'm not giving up. Fairtunes has the right idea, if artists insist on someone else doing it for them, but I think that by using the internet artists should connect more-directly to fans. Some of them already do (I'm thinking of Ted Nugent and Todd Rundgren, among others). Scott Adams gets plenty of great ideas for Dilbert by reading his email, and the same is probably possible for songs.
I think the key is to make payments preferably-voluntary and small, and I think there's certainly space for more than one payment system and more than one currency-flavor. Of course, what do I know? I also think Slashdot-like sites should try to sell mod-points.
JMR
The seller's email address is an AOL account. Makes the auction lose about 99% of it's legitimacy, if you ask me:)
OTOH, he has 29 positive and 0 negative feedbacks -- most from over 6 months ago, which (while not stellar in the world of ebay) isn't too bad. I'd say he'll deliver, if someone is dumb enough to meet the obscenely-high reserve price!
JMR
Hmm. Sad, but not surprising, to hear this. I'm on their 'e-mail me if you ever get a Mac version going' list, and so far they haven't sent me anything. It sounds to me like they jumped the gun. I think the smart business decision would have been to make NO decision until OSX is more fully "out there," and then release a version that (hopefully) works with both that and BSD without too much trouble, and any version of Linux that happens to also work. The Mac user base, while small, is intensely loyal and is willing to pay for stuff. OTOH, our experience with the company was like Michael's -- it wants you to be a non-networked, dialup Windoze user, and if you're not it breaks things or just doesn't work, so maybe my "without too much trouble" is wishful thinking.
Paying for it via a means that retains the right to sell customer information (plastic) was also a bit unpleasant (go ahead, mod me down, but it WAS!). At that point, it's not a matter of trusting ZKS (who are some nice guys, BTW) but "trusting" a credit card company...
JMR
Has told me that voluntary support has been disappointingly low. Oh well. I hope folks will feel differently about music, etc. but it might take lots of education -- at least more than I'd hoped.
JMR
I'm not sure that any systems (even e-gold & PayPal put together) that are widely-deployed enough yet for individual-article sales to be an instant success story, but my point was that if smaller (any!) payments are available, and if you're admittedly running out of money, you should use (or at least TRY!) them along with full subscriptions. Trying it, especially around here where I give a bit away for free, is both easy and free -- just like it would have been for Salon.
I probably should have also included my (constant, and not original with me) idea of tipjars next to free content. I'd have clicked a gram for a number of the Suck articles that have made me laugh over the years. I actually prefer this voluntary model to for-pay content, personally, but I don't know how much success either has gotten. So far, getting the first "major" musician to adopt voluntary tipjars as a way to get something instead of nothing out of online music trading has been a bear for me, but I don't give up easily.
The owner of http://www.two-cents-worth.com/ might be able to tell us how donations are working, if he wants, so I'll ask him. After every (default two-centigram) click of e-gold through his site, he asks for a (default one gram) donation, but he doesn't provide much content, because he relies on his link being in signature files of others' email, and the donation to him is not required to use his service.
JMR
(at least in Salon's case) is that they refuse to even consider alternate ways of getting paid. Needless to say, I'm not going to be nearly as sympathetic as Mr. Katz if/when they die but they don't even bother to ask for tips...
Synopsis of e-mail conversation (not direct quotes) is below...
Salon: "We're losing money on this banner-ad thingy, so now we want $30!"
Me: "Maybe Salon shouldn't lock people into a $30 relationship for wanting to read ONE article, when reading one article can easily be paid-for with e-gold."
Salon: "Sorry, we don't want to think about that right now."
(Who knows? Maybe when Salon runs ALL THE WAY out of money they'll try something new?)
JMR
Speaking once-again only for myself -- nobody else around here is quite this annoying!:)
Are ALL taking this WAAAY too seriously! God and politics have nothing to do with it. The meaning of this is simple, one of my favorite poems has now come true.:)
JMR
(I'm not the tech -- and especially not the wireless web tech -- at this company; and as usual I'm speaking only for myself, but I have "some experience.")
We need a bill-presentment mechanism for the wireless web. I can do an e-gold spend on a mobile phone, but it's a pain in the ass, because there's no way for a merchant to send my phone a short e-mail with a URL that includes the target account number and the requested quantity of e-gold (in whatever units, but ultimately for us everything's grams) to spend (or not). Once my phone gets that mail with the URL, I should be asked whether I want to go from email to the wireless web (yes, otherwise auto-delete the mail) and if I log in correctly I should be previewing a spend on the next screen so all I have to do is click "confirm" if I actually want to pay.
Unfortunately, the telephone companies (see the vaunted, moneylosing "G3") are much better at wasting gobs of money than they are at taking advantage of something useful if they don't own 100% of it. (And frankly, I would NOT trust any phone company to do a currency right, they're too clueless and insecure IMO.) Right now, I should be able to pay my damn phone bill with my phone (even without e-mail bill-presentment) and http://pcs.e-gold.comSHOULD be an easy to find URL on ALL wireless-web enabled phones (IMO, flame me for my constant-greed if you want, but e-gold is one of the only actually-useful things I've found on that tiny, crappy interface).
Phone companies have resisted all attempts at a clue-implant for what-works-now, and instead they singlemindedly focus on wasting their stockholders' loot at an even faster rate than moronic late-'90s dot.coms did! (See "G3" again.) Whatever these huge companies do, we'll keep chugging along and adapt. I like the wireless web, and I'd like it to be more-useful, but I don't need it. I could rant-on, but I won't.:)
JMR
This is a consolidated reply, thanks to the other poster for the correction regarding the Democrats, though frankly I always suspected the Carville-crowd, even though I should have been more specific about the media rather than accusing the national Democrat party for the actions of one individual (and scary) Democrat. On to the main reply...
The Third (and the Ninth) mean what they both say. The Third is the only one that hasn't been violated with impunity since its passage, so let's stick to the Ninth, which is FAR from an inkblot. I repeat: "The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." To put it in simple terms, privacy's not there, so privacy's there. Your flossing example rings only-too-true these days, frankly it makes my point better than it makes yours, as laws like your hypothetical (albeit all-too-easy-to-imagine these days...) anti-flossing law are what SHOULD BE struck down on Ninth amendment (privacy & body-ownership) grounds.
I've never said that judges should be able to argue laws into existence on the basis of the Ninth; rather, I've said that laws (and LOTS of 'em, have you ever seen the entire dead-trees version of the United States Code? It's immense.) should be repealed because of the Ninth, and it hasn't happened! Privacy IS there, and daycare isn't, because privacy (leaving us both the hell alone, as long as we have no victims) doesn't involve enslaving someone else to look after my kids (or to pay the taxes on April 15th to hire someone to look after my kids).
Think of a ratchet that only turns one way, judges properly interpreting the Ninth might UNdo plenty of the damage done by the legislature, but could not ever DO the kind of damage that unthinking Federal judges now do (think mandated spending that leads to more taxes) under the interstate commerce clause, which has been stretched beyond all recognition by a grossly irresponsible Federal judiciary.
I have no illusions that the judiciary (or most of it, at least) would see things my way without a fight (that's why I rant about these things, challenge law professors to debates, etc.) I just think that an expansive reading is fully justified for "magnificent generalities." The "textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct" in the case of a 'fair wage' would be the contract clause, which has been ignored almost as much as the Ninth. A proper interpretation of the contract clause would mean no minimum wage (a politically-unpopular position that's ideally suited to an unelected judiciary, since it's also the right position IMO).
The "So what" about the tax-&-spend drugwar's racist past is that a lot fewer people know about it (or admit it) than should, I have no argument that the constitution also has racist roots but a lot more folks know about that. Plenty of laws (think gun control, for another example) have racist roots that their advocates today don't like to think about, so Jim Ray gets to be a walking, annoying-history-lesson whether or not I want to be. (Having my first & last names -- no relation BTW -- doesn't exactly help...)
The racist effects of the tax-&-spend drugwar can today be seen in just about any prison. Just look at the crack vs powder disparity of the US sentencing commission, which should upset you much more than it apparently does, since it usurps judicial determinations of leniency in many cases. Go visit any US prison, look at the drug inmates, and remember that this country is about 11% black. If you see 11% black inmates, I want to know what prison it is. Typical rates are more like over 50%. You can quibble about people, motives, and effects, but you've not convinced me, so the effects still ARE racist, period. It's harder to speculate about people and motives, but effects can be seen very easily.
The problem with seeing the Tenth in the absence of the Ninth is that Tallahassee can then take over where Washington DC left off in the oppression-game. I own Jim Ray's body, not Washington politicians and (here's where the Tenth comes up short on the drugwar) not Tallahassee politicians with the same last name! IOW, I don't trust the politicians in Washington, but I don't trust the politicians in any of the 50 state capitals, either. Plenty of laws should be repealed on Tenth Amendment grounds (Jenna Bush wouldn't be in trouble for drinking at age 18 if it were followed, for example, but federal highway funding is too complex an issue for this discussion).
The laws against using medical pot (to give a recent example of a Supreme Court unanimous botch-job) should have been repealed on the basis of the Ninth, with the Tenth in the background at best for the medical pot issue, since the Ninth (IMO) covers recreational drug use (like it or not). Viewing the Tenth in a vacuum is a mistake, the Bill of Rights should be read as a whole, and rights of individuals should come first, with states second, and the feds third, as a last resort if the first two can't word (example, the United States SHALL MAINTAIN a Navy, but can raise armies - the founders didn't trust a standing army for good reason -- but that's getting back to the Third amendment). Reality these days is exactly the opposite heirarchy -- Feds over States over lowly individual rights -- obviously I think that's wrong. It's not a mistake that individual rights were always put before group-rights in the Bill of Rights, and always next to the ones that mattered, and the Ninth and Tenth need to be read together just like (IMO) the first and second need to be read together, and thought of at the same time. If you think that the Ninth (or the Third, for that matter) is an inkblot, then by all means, go argue for repeal! (I doubt I'll see this happen, I have yet to find anyone who will argue for that proposition.) You don't have to, because the irresponsible Federal judiciary has effectively repealed it by ignoring it. I'm the one who has to argue and rant, the inkblot crowd merely has to sit back and relax (unless I'm too hard to ignore)!
JMR
Again speaking ONLY for myself here, I'm probably a minority of one in this.
elefantstn is right that the process got VERY dirty with Bork, but it's wrong to say the Democrats were Bork's only opposition (far from it, check the CATO archives from the period if you doubt me) although with video-rental records, it's safe to say that Democrats were clearly the dirtiest.
CATO (and Jim Ray, I'm chairman of the Ninth Amendment Foundation in my other life) opposed Bork in part because of his writings on the Ninth Amendment, which he called "an inkblot." The Ninth Amendment states:
"The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Doesn't seem like an inkblot to me! Plainly, the US constitution and especially the Bill of Rights -- no matter what Bork or (left-wing Democrat Senator) Joseph Biden or a variety of ignoramus-law-professors may say -- is not an exhaustive list of rights, but merely a starting point for the rights we SHOULD expect, and (as Jefferson called them) the Ninth & Tenth Amendments are "magnificent generalities." No, the right to privacy (and even the word, "privacy") never gets mentioned in the constitution, but IT DOESN'T MATTER! because the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and one of those "others" is privacy, like it or not. If you don't like it, I heartily suggest an attempt at repeal!
Of course, another of those 'other' rights is self-medication and general body-self-ownership, whether the Supreme Court, Congress, the states, and various lower courts agree or not. The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is un-American and morally wrong and wasteful, and it has provably-racist roots in the past and provably racist effects today, but nobody wants to admit it and honorably opt for repeal. Instead, they want me to be "reasonable," and spend even more money every April 15th on "treatment," which is a nicer version of prison, and will cost even MORE than too-many prisons letting violent offenders out to make room for more drug "criminals"!
It's funny how nobody wants to debate me on these points in an equal-footing situation. It's easy to find a law professor who will claim that the Ninth is "not important" and "means nothing" (just go to any law school & sit in on con-law if you doubt me) but find me one who thinks that the Ninth should actually be repealed and will debate me in an open forum! You can't? That's because they'd rather not think about it. I may make them mad, but I also make them think about it. The Supreme Court has never invalidated ONE LAW solely on Ninth Amendment grounds, and that's THEIR intellectual problem, not mine. I'm just a thorn in their sides on the issue, and they'll get the respect they want from me when they deserve it, not before! Ok, rant over, back to work.:)
JMR
(ESPECIALLY speaking only for myself today, even more than usual...)
"It is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that Supreme Court justices and other constitutional interpreters have typically fled from the hard moral judgments called for by the Ninth Amendment."
-- Steven Macedo, _The New Right v. The Constitution_ p. 7.
(Go find and read this book.)
Twenty feet up the mast of a sailboat, I easily detected a flock of four pelicans flying together very low, maybe 2-3 feet off the water, in a sort of "V" formation (one lead bird). I was able to "see" the flock about 1.5 - 2 miles away as a dim blip moving pretty fast, and its characteristics attracted my attention so much that I went abovedecks to see what kind of boat it was.
Of course, I was tweaking the radar at the time, and it was a pretty clear, calm, early-to-pre-dawn morning as I recall, so it was probably ideal conditions to detect such things. Still, a pelican flying that low (they use "ground effect" over water to minimize energy spent flying) is a relatively stealthy thing I'd think, compared to anything that contains metal or is big. A pelican is pretty big for a bird, but very small compared to any airplane. They were flying lower than any military aircraft would, too, and I only found out what they were because they were flying toward me. As they got closer, I was even able to resolve the individual birds, though they were close together and it wasn't too clear on the screen IIRC.
This was ordinary, mid-price Raytheon (Apelco) radar sold to any US boater without restrictions, and I'm no radar-expert, I was just messing with the knobs & buttons to see what I could see, and presumably both civilian and military technology have advanced a lot in the past decade+ since. This incident tells me that claims of aircraft stealthiness might be exagerated, especially if big-egos and big-budgets are on the line...
JMR
Speaking only for myself, and from relatively long-ago memory.
I think you just proved beyond a doubt why distributing music on CDs deserves to go the way of the dinosaur. It's so much easier just to download things.
Yes, you're right that downloading is easier and more efficient for you, but there's something you forgot to mention (probably accidentally, I'm not accusing you of anything).
We need to remember to compensate the artists! Musician/actress Courtney Love in her Salon piece says WHAT is needed -- tips (even Robert Cringely has finally, slowly, gotten it) -- but she doesn't say HOW. I have a way to solve the how question, and cut out a lot of middlemen (who won't be happy losing their trips to Scores, etc. that Courtney mentions).
I know, I've said this over & over here on/., but it's still TRUE! e-gold (try it, and I'll click you some if you send me an account number) has been keeping the promises others made about the 'net since since the currency went online in 1996, with minimal hype. Is it perfect? No, but it's good enough to solve the problem of compensating musicians for downloads without compensating 4 layers of record-industry lard-asses in the process, and that's why I rant repeatedly about it. (I want to be the lard-ass who gets the trips to Scores, so I guess this comment rates "-1, greedy-as-hell," but who knows -- I don't care, I just know that we're more efficient with voluntary tips than the present system, and probably better for music, too.) Thanks for listening (again, in many cases).
JMR
My understanding is that what killed it was sabotage. While hydrogen is more explosive, it's also lighter than Helium, and would be usable to fuel the airship cleanly. I'm very much pro-hydrogen, though, I think it's worth the minimal risks, too.
JMR
moderation systems that encourage moderation
on
Suck Stops Sucking
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· Score: 3
You make a very good point when you say, "Maybe what's needed are moderation systems that better encourage, um, moderation." If I'd had (or could have bought) mod-points, I'd have rated your comment "Insightful," but I don't, so I'm going to post this semi-off-topic rant instead.
The question is, how do "we" get there from here? Moderation of the kind we both seek requires that one value what's being used to moderate things. I consider mod-points a short-lived currency, and a potential revenue stream that has been unfortunately-ignored by sites like this one. Slashdot may not need an additional revenue stream, but other sites need both better moderation and a way to support themselves if they're going to take on the "mainstream" media like AOL/Time-Warner.
Take it from me, if you mint a currency, you should NOT constantly give it away. You need to sell it! (Insert blatant self-interest and total-greed disclaimer here. I want them to sell mod points for -- among other things -- e-gold. OTOH, I offer to give the stuff away below! Go figure.) I have a way that they could easily do this. Because e-gold payments are instant and "pushed," and irrevocable, it's unlikely that script-kiddies with credit-card fraud programs would be able to attack the system as they would if payments were delayed and "pulled."
Still, it's also likely that things would not be perfect in/. moderation-land if Cmdrtaco suddenly began selling mod-points along with giving them away. Things are not perfect here NOW (that's what meta-mod is for, though). Perhaps meta-mods on a user that indicated abuse could result in higher prices for future mod points sold to that user? Should insightful/funny commenters get discounts on mod-points? Should meta-mod -- if done correctly, whatever that is -- lead to discounts? I don't know how it would all work, but I'd like folks to think about the way we treat free vs not-free things. For me (I'm cheap) not free encourages moderation, in the "thrift" sense of the word. I treat free things more like they're worth less (but not worthless). Oh well, rant over.
JMR
PS
I will reiterate my offer of 10 grams of e-gold to anyone who hacks the slashcode to make this easy for site-owners to do, along with my offer to click a bit to programmers for free so you can test it (just send me an account number). Surprisingly-few of you have taken me up on this offer, so far. Thanks for listening.
I love it, and wish more folks would use it. If more companies treated PGP use as a potential job-skill, that might happen, but the decentralized trust approach of PGP does not appeal to top-down (pointy-haired) managers, who would prefer to waste money on ANYTHING else, IMO. PGP is strange, in that it's no problem to explain why its needed to people who have lived in the former Communist block, but hard to explain to supposedly-individualist Americans. It has certainly gotten easy enough to use that there's no excuse anymore not to try it. I remember the DOS version, 2.3a -- now THAT was a pain in the ass!
JMR
(Speaking for myself, once again, but at least I'm finally off the topic of e-gold tipjars for musicians!)
Maybe I'm too crass and capitalistic to grasp the concept...Probably so, money's almost always at the back of my mind if it's not at the front, and I freely admit it.
Anyway, ultimately, to me this all boils down to compensating musicians rather than a giant quintopoly. I have a way to do this. My earlier rants have more detail, if anyone's interested, but the bottom line is that artists have to be able to buy (food, shelter, clothing, instruments, studio-time, groupies, controlled-substances, and whatever else they want) or they're not going to keep entertaining us. They're more likely to get more of these things from a tips-based, voluntary system (see rants). Thanks.
JMR
How we pay the artists without overpaying the RIAA
on
Napster Going Legit
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· Score: 2
[Most of you already know what greedy-ol' Jim Ray is going to say, but I have to say it anyway and I don't care if I'm moderated down.]
I can show artists a system that (largely) cuts out any middleman right now, and will lead to (and become the base for) systems that completely do it, like (but not limited-to) ecoin, digigold, and maybe even PayPal (if they're ever profitable, that is...). The demise of Napster, if it happens, will mean very little if I'm right, but it's going to require some new-thinking on all sides.
IMO, to get the full benefit of happy consumers, musicians are going to have to do as Courtney Love said and go to a worldwide-tipjar model that relies on voluntary payments from honest listeners. There will be enough honest listeners to make this worthwhile, even if everyone's not perfectly-honest. For example, I leave nice tips while traveling, even if I know I'm never returning to a place. Part of this has to do with having once had a job that relied on tips, but I think most folks do the same (dare I say it's "good karma" to tip?).
People are used to getting something now for free, and that means the days of $15 CDs' profits sending promoters to Scores while only giving the artists a pittance are over. Fans will voluntarily pay (less, but not nothing) only for non-crappy music, so the days of getting away with bundling it with crappy music are also over. Artists are about to see an age of VERY direct feedback from fans, whether they like it or not. For me, it can't happen soon enough. There will be winners and losers, of course, but overall joe sixpack is going to benefit along with joe musician, while joe promoter busily looks for another sinecure-job and the RIAA bites the dust (good riddance!). The variety of music listened-to will probably VASTLY increase over the next few years, as AOLers discover what more technically-proficient users already know.
Will this all be perfect and utopian and theft-free and wonderful? No. Will it be a better deal than everyone's getting right now from the RIAA quintopoly? Probably so, at least I think it will, but I'm obviously biased-as-hell on this issue, and I'm (as always) speaking only for myself, YMMV, etc.
JMR
PS. Once again, any/. reader can obtain a free click of e-gold from me by sending me an account number. It benefits me for programmer-types to play with my favorite currency so I don't mind. Thanks.
What worries me, both as a listenner and as a music professional, is who will pay these people in the future? Digital tips and performance fees and so forth are all well and good for performers, but if noone is to make any money from recordings in the future, quality will reflect that price.
(WooHoo! Somebody else mentions tips!) Ahem.
I'm only a listener, and not a music professional by any stretch of the imagination, but if I were a performer getting a lot of tips (hopefully e-gold tips, for the sake of shameless plugging) and if I thought that a good deal of the quality of my listeners' experience was due to the recording-dude, I'd damn-sure share the wealth just to keep him around and happy to work with me.
JMR
Exactly. This is NOT about paying artists voluntarily with a tip-model as Ms. Love and others suggest, it's about paying the RIAA for more (as Ms. Love puts it) trips to Scores! The ironic thing is that if this move is "successful," artists will probably get less money than if they used (greed alert) my currency or other means to honestly ask for tips! Most tips would probably be orders of magnitude larger than what Ms. Love claims musicians get for selling a $15 overpriced CD. I know that there are quite a few songs I'd tip half a gram (between 4 and 5 bucks) for if I knew the artist was getting it, rather than some talentless music industry slimeball.
Will they get tips for crappy songs? No. Will they still be able to bundle crappy songs with good ones? Nope. Is this situation bad? You be the judge. My usual offer to Slashdot readers of a small click of e-gold is still open, BTW. Opinions here, as always, are solely my own (but I'm RIGHT, dammit!).
JMR
Continually-ranting about this issue lately, I know, but I sit here with the solution to the problem and nobody's paying much attention yet.
(Warning, I've ranted about this before, so if it seems familiar it probably is.)
Between musicians & fans involves fans being able to directly-pay musicians, bypassing the inefficient layers of "corruption" inherent in the current system. e-gold (among other options) now makes this possible in ways un-dreamed-of in the days of Alan Freed, and it's going to lead to good things for artists and fans (greed-disclamer -- and me!). Slashdot readers are free to contact me for a free spot of my favorite currency if you want to play with our Shopping Cart. e-gold works for this because e-metal payments are pushed, rather than pulled, and settle instantly and internationally. Yes, I'm a greedy self-interested capitalist, but we've been ignored for a long time in favor of failed systems that try to be a real currency but can't, for a variety of reasons. e-gold, in either a tipjar or pay-per-listen model, is what will work today. e-gold has been in the black for over a year, and is not a typical overhyped dot.com (in fact, I'm pretty-much the entire hype-department, in many ways!).
I happen to prefer the tipjar idea to pay-per-listen because I like voluntary stuff, and I have enough faith in what's left of human nature to think that most of us will leave tips. I also have enough faith in the greed and inefficiency of the RIAA to think that tips will end up benefitting artists more than the present system, but I have no proof (yet!). I'm giving e-gold away because it's in my interest for programmers to try and play with e-gold. Thanks for listening, as always I speak only for myself -- since nobody else would claim these opinions anyway.
JMR
AKA Cassandra, among other names...
I suspect, though, that we will begin to see artists circumventing the recording industry
I sure hope so, but it's tough to find one that will try my idea. Even Courtney Love, who is allegedly annoyed at her record company, has not responded to my pleas. I'd prefer not to discuss payola (nobody would ever use my fine favorite currency for anything nefarious!) but I know it still happens.
Part of this could be due to contractual obligations inherent in the standard RIAA type contracts, though, since I'm talking about explicitly taking the RIAA 5 and their cut out of the picture, which probably sounds bad if that cut sends you on regular trips to Scores...
JMR
Yes folks, the money made in the music industry is shared between all artists, not in royalties, but in up front advances and signing bonuses.
I agree 100%, that's the way it is right now, no question.
I'm asking (with the self-interest/greed disclaimer from the previous message intact) whether that's the way it SHOULD be? If we (meaning the fans) reduce the crap-subsidy, does that mean we'll get more non-crap from artists, and find more non-crappy artists? I think so, but I'm biased as hell.
JMR
In my (repeatedly-expressed, I know) opinion, the fans' & artists' interests DO NOT coincide anymore with the huge corporations. Courtney Love, who is now suing her label, has written about this, as have others. Apparently, for that $15 CD, the band gets a very small slice of the pie (less than a buck in the end, I hear, though I'm far from the music business). The rest goes for things like "trips to Scores," to use Courtney's terms. (Scores is a NYC area strip clup.)
The solution, IMNSHO, is a tipjar model. Use my currency (blatant self-interest noted, go ahead and mod me down -1, greedy) or another currency to do a micropayment to the artist/band DIRECTLY! Even if everyone doesn't pay, and they won't, and even if there are some crooks, and there will be, you can make an OK living in a job with tips, and it might just be a better model than what's currently offered musicians by the monolithic RIAA quintopoly. I've been ranting about this solution since CFP99, where I was totally ignored because it's more fun to shout and argue than it is to look at solutions that directly connect artists to fans. Will this make everything easy for artists? No, of course not. You're likely only to get tips for non-crappy stuff, and the days of bundling your shit with the good songs are over, but overall it's going to help artists to directly connect with their fans, and even with our fees (yes, we like to eat) my solution is cheap, since it doesn't send me to Scores (unfortunately).
Any slashdot reader who wants to try e-gold should send me an account number for a small spend. Thanks for listening.
JMR
I can assure you that e-gold is nothing like Beenz or Flooz, which are glorified loyalty schemes that merely CLAIM to be currencies. If I have 50 beenz and you have 50 beenz, there's no way for us to buy something that costs 99 beenz. If I have 50 grams and you have 50 grams, it's fairly trivial (assuming we trust eachother, that is) to get something worth 99 grams.
I'm not sure, anyway, how you can spend "cash" at Amazon. You may be able to use PLASTIC, but credit is hardly cash, it's a conditional promise to (eventually) pay. Ask the Pron-merchants about chargebacks sometime, and you'll get an earful! (Adult sites are -- FINALLY, after much urging from me! -- getting the clue about my currency, BTW).
e-gold is different because payments are instantly 'pushed,' so when you get paid you *STAY* paid (which can be a double-edged sword, plenty of criminals want e-gold for that reason and I have to deal with their victims every day). e-gold is not good for insecure computers or novice computer users who will click on any spam/attachment. We are working on improving all aspects of the currency, but I can't say what I know until it's not vapor, on penalty of the techs killing me slowly with dull knives.
Anyway, to answer your first question, there are dozens of folks who'd be glad to exchange your metal grams for "real" cash (and if you studied history, in most countries the paper USED to be backed by the real metal, instead of just by faith!). For more on playing with the value of money, art, and faith, do a google search on "JSG Boggs" and see what comes up! He's the "yin" to my "yang." For proof that e-gold is better money, take a look at the site, and if you like what you see, try it, and (as for any slashdotter) I'll click you enough to play with and hopefully get you hooked!:)
JMR
Slashdot Mirror
Er...this will probably get me modded down (Score:-1, greedy) and e-gold isn't just a currency for micropayments, since big payments work better too....but there's a company with what's been called an "offbeat scheme" by the clue-impaired and "just a currency" by me, which has been in the black for more than a year, and has been around since 1996. From the looks of things, we're doing ok, despite very little hype. We store plenty of metal for our customers (of all sorts, in many nations) these days.
Of course, the filthy yellow metal occupies the most emotional spot on the periodic table (see some past replies to my rants) and so far major artists haven't yet set up tipjars, but I'm not giving up. Fairtunes has the right idea, if artists insist on someone else doing it for them, but I think that by using the internet artists should connect more-directly to fans. Some of them already do (I'm thinking of Ted Nugent and Todd Rundgren, among others). Scott Adams gets plenty of great ideas for Dilbert by reading his email, and the same is probably possible for songs.
I think the key is to make payments preferably-voluntary and small, and I think there's certainly space for more than one payment system and more than one currency-flavor. Of course, what do I know? I also think Slashdot-like sites should try to sell mod-points.
JMR
Speaking ONLY for me!
The seller's email address is an AOL account. Makes the auction lose about 99% of it's legitimacy, if you ask me :)
OTOH, he has 29 positive and 0 negative feedbacks -- most from over 6 months ago, which (while not stellar in the world of ebay) isn't too bad. I'd say he'll deliver, if someone is dumb enough to meet the obscenely-high reserve price!
JMR
Hmm. Sad, but not surprising, to hear this. I'm on their 'e-mail me if you ever get a Mac version going' list, and so far they haven't sent me anything. It sounds to me like they jumped the gun. I think the smart business decision would have been to make NO decision until OSX is more fully "out there," and then release a version that (hopefully) works with both that and BSD without too much trouble, and any version of Linux that happens to also work. The Mac user base, while small, is intensely loyal and is willing to pay for stuff. OTOH, our experience with the company was like Michael's -- it wants you to be a non-networked, dialup Windoze user, and if you're not it breaks things or just doesn't work, so maybe my "without too much trouble" is wishful thinking.
Paying for it via a means that retains the right to sell customer information (plastic) was also a bit unpleasant (go ahead, mod me down, but it WAS!). At that point, it's not a matter of trusting ZKS (who are some nice guys, BTW) but "trusting" a credit card company...
JMR
Has told me that voluntary support has been disappointingly low. Oh well. I hope folks will feel differently about music, etc. but it might take lots of education -- at least more than I'd hoped.
JMR
I'm not sure that any systems (even e-gold & PayPal put together) that are widely-deployed enough yet for individual-article sales to be an instant success story, but my point was that if smaller (any!) payments are available, and if you're admittedly running out of money, you should use (or at least TRY!) them along with full subscriptions. Trying it, especially around here where I give a bit away for free, is both easy and free -- just like it would have been for Salon.
I probably should have also included my (constant, and not original with me) idea of tipjars next to free content. I'd have clicked a gram for a number of the Suck articles that have made me laugh over the years. I actually prefer this voluntary model to for-pay content, personally, but I don't know how much success either has gotten. So far, getting the first "major" musician to adopt voluntary tipjars as a way to get something instead of nothing out of online music trading has been a bear for me, but I don't give up easily.
The owner of http://www.two-cents-worth.com/ might be able to tell us how donations are working, if he wants, so I'll ask him. After every (default two-centigram) click of e-gold through his site, he asks for a (default one gram) donation, but he doesn't provide much content, because he relies on his link being in signature files of others' email, and the donation to him is not required to use his service.
JMR
(at least in Salon's case) is that they refuse to even consider alternate ways of getting paid. Needless to say, I'm not going to be nearly as sympathetic as Mr. Katz if/when they die but they don't even bother to ask for tips...
:)
Synopsis of e-mail conversation (not direct quotes) is below...
Salon: "We're losing money on this banner-ad thingy, so now we want $30!"
Me: "Maybe Salon shouldn't lock people into a $30 relationship for wanting to read ONE article, when reading one article can easily be paid-for with e-gold."
Salon: "Sorry, we don't want to think about that right now."
(Who knows? Maybe when Salon runs ALL THE WAY out of money they'll try something new?)
JMR
Speaking once-again only for myself -- nobody else around here is quite this annoying!
Are ALL taking this WAAAY too seriously! God and politics have nothing to do with it. The meaning of this is simple, one of my favorite poems has now come true. :)
JMR
(I'm not the tech -- and especially not the wireless web tech -- at this company; and as usual I'm speaking only for myself, but I have "some experience.")
:)
We need a bill-presentment mechanism for the wireless web. I can do an e-gold spend on a mobile phone, but it's a pain in the ass, because there's no way for a merchant to send my phone a short e-mail with a URL that includes the target account number and the requested quantity of e-gold (in whatever units, but ultimately for us everything's grams) to spend (or not). Once my phone gets that mail with the URL, I should be asked whether I want to go from email to the wireless web (yes, otherwise auto-delete the mail) and if I log in correctly I should be previewing a spend on the next screen so all I have to do is click "confirm" if I actually want to pay.
Unfortunately, the telephone companies (see the vaunted, moneylosing "G3") are much better at wasting gobs of money than they are at taking advantage of something useful if they don't own 100% of it. (And frankly, I would NOT trust any phone company to do a currency right, they're too clueless and insecure IMO.) Right now, I should be able to pay my damn phone bill with my phone (even without e-mail bill-presentment) and http://pcs.e-gold.com SHOULD be an easy to find URL on ALL wireless-web enabled phones (IMO, flame me for my constant-greed if you want, but e-gold is one of the only actually-useful things I've found on that tiny, crappy interface).
Phone companies have resisted all attempts at a clue-implant for what-works-now, and instead they singlemindedly focus on wasting their stockholders' loot at an even faster rate than moronic late-'90s dot.coms did! (See "G3" again.) Whatever these huge companies do, we'll keep chugging along and adapt. I like the wireless web, and I'd like it to be more-useful, but I don't need it. I could rant-on, but I won't.
JMR
This is a consolidated reply, thanks to the other poster for the correction regarding the Democrats, though frankly I always suspected the Carville-crowd, even though I should have been more specific about the media rather than accusing the national Democrat party for the actions of one individual (and scary) Democrat. On to the main reply...
The Third (and the Ninth) mean what they both say. The Third is the only one that hasn't been violated with impunity since its passage, so let's stick to the Ninth, which is FAR from an inkblot. I repeat: "The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." To put it in simple terms, privacy's not there, so privacy's there. Your flossing example rings only-too-true these days, frankly it makes my point better than it makes yours, as laws like your hypothetical (albeit all-too-easy-to-imagine these days...) anti-flossing law are what SHOULD BE struck down on Ninth amendment (privacy & body-ownership) grounds.
I've never said that judges should be able to argue laws into existence on the basis of the Ninth; rather, I've said that laws (and LOTS of 'em, have you ever seen the entire dead-trees version of the United States Code? It's immense.) should be repealed because of the Ninth, and it hasn't happened! Privacy IS there, and daycare isn't, because privacy (leaving us both the hell alone, as long as we have no victims) doesn't involve enslaving someone else to look after my kids (or to pay the taxes on April 15th to hire someone to look after my kids).
Think of a ratchet that only turns one way, judges properly interpreting the Ninth might UNdo plenty of the damage done by the legislature, but could not ever DO the kind of damage that unthinking Federal judges now do (think mandated spending that leads to more taxes) under the interstate commerce clause, which has been stretched beyond all recognition by a grossly irresponsible Federal judiciary.
I have no illusions that the judiciary (or most of it, at least) would see things my way without a fight (that's why I rant about these things, challenge law professors to debates, etc.) I just think that an expansive reading is fully justified for "magnificent generalities." The "textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct" in the case of a 'fair wage' would be the contract clause, which has been ignored almost as much as the Ninth. A proper interpretation of the contract clause would mean no minimum wage (a politically-unpopular position that's ideally suited to an unelected judiciary, since it's also the right position IMO).
The "So what" about the tax-&-spend drugwar's racist past is that a lot fewer people know about it (or admit it) than should, I have no argument that the constitution also has racist roots but a lot more folks know about that. Plenty of laws (think gun control, for another example) have racist roots that their advocates today don't like to think about, so Jim Ray gets to be a walking, annoying-history-lesson whether or not I want to be. (Having my first & last names -- no relation BTW -- doesn't exactly help...)
The racist effects of the tax-&-spend drugwar can today be seen in just about any prison. Just look at the crack vs powder disparity of the US sentencing commission, which should upset you much more than it apparently does, since it usurps judicial determinations of leniency in many cases. Go visit any US prison, look at the drug inmates, and remember that this country is about 11% black. If you see 11% black inmates, I want to know what prison it is. Typical rates are more like over 50%. You can quibble about people, motives, and effects, but you've not convinced me, so the effects still ARE racist, period. It's harder to speculate about people and motives, but effects can be seen very easily.
The problem with seeing the Tenth in the absence of the Ninth is that Tallahassee can then take over where Washington DC left off in the oppression-game. I own Jim Ray's body, not Washington politicians and (here's where the Tenth comes up short on the drugwar) not Tallahassee politicians with the same last name! IOW, I don't trust the politicians in Washington, but I don't trust the politicians in any of the 50 state capitals, either. Plenty of laws should be repealed on Tenth Amendment grounds (Jenna Bush wouldn't be in trouble for drinking at age 18 if it were followed, for example, but federal highway funding is too complex an issue for this discussion).
The laws against using medical pot (to give a recent example of a Supreme Court unanimous botch-job) should have been repealed on the basis of the Ninth, with the Tenth in the background at best for the medical pot issue, since the Ninth (IMO) covers recreational drug use (like it or not). Viewing the Tenth in a vacuum is a mistake, the Bill of Rights should be read as a whole, and rights of individuals should come first, with states second, and the feds third, as a last resort if the first two can't word (example, the United States SHALL MAINTAIN a Navy, but can raise armies - the founders didn't trust a standing army for good reason -- but that's getting back to the Third amendment). Reality these days is exactly the opposite heirarchy -- Feds over States over lowly individual rights -- obviously I think that's wrong. It's not a mistake that individual rights were always put before group-rights in the Bill of Rights, and always next to the ones that mattered, and the Ninth and Tenth need to be read together just like (IMO) the first and second need to be read together, and thought of at the same time. If you think that the Ninth (or the Third, for that matter) is an inkblot, then by all means, go argue for repeal! (I doubt I'll see this happen, I have yet to find anyone who will argue for that proposition.) You don't have to, because the irresponsible Federal judiciary has effectively repealed it by ignoring it. I'm the one who has to argue and rant, the inkblot crowd merely has to sit back and relax (unless I'm too hard to ignore)!
JMR
Again speaking ONLY for myself here, I'm probably a minority of one in this.
elefantstn is right that the process got VERY dirty with Bork, but it's wrong to say the Democrats were Bork's only opposition (far from it, check the CATO archives from the period if you doubt me) although with video-rental records, it's safe to say that Democrats were clearly the dirtiest.
:)
CATO (and Jim Ray, I'm chairman of the Ninth Amendment Foundation in my other life) opposed Bork in part because of his writings on the Ninth Amendment, which he called "an inkblot." The Ninth Amendment states:
"The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Doesn't seem like an inkblot to me! Plainly, the US constitution and especially the Bill of Rights -- no matter what Bork or (left-wing Democrat Senator) Joseph Biden or a variety of ignoramus-law-professors may say -- is not an exhaustive list of rights, but merely a starting point for the rights we SHOULD expect, and (as Jefferson called them) the Ninth & Tenth Amendments are "magnificent generalities." No, the right to privacy (and even the word, "privacy") never gets mentioned in the constitution, but IT DOESN'T MATTER! because the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and one of those "others" is privacy, like it or not. If you don't like it, I heartily suggest an attempt at repeal!
Of course, another of those 'other' rights is self-medication and general body-self-ownership, whether the Supreme Court, Congress, the states, and various lower courts agree or not. The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is un-American and morally wrong and wasteful, and it has provably-racist roots in the past and provably racist effects today, but nobody wants to admit it and honorably opt for repeal. Instead, they want me to be "reasonable," and spend even more money every April 15th on "treatment," which is a nicer version of prison, and will cost even MORE than too-many prisons letting violent offenders out to make room for more drug "criminals"!
It's funny how nobody wants to debate me on these points in an equal-footing situation. It's easy to find a law professor who will claim that the Ninth is "not important" and "means nothing" (just go to any law school & sit in on con-law if you doubt me) but find me one who thinks that the Ninth should actually be repealed and will debate me in an open forum! You can't? That's because they'd rather not think about it. I may make them mad, but I also make them think about it. The Supreme Court has never invalidated ONE LAW solely on Ninth Amendment grounds, and that's THEIR intellectual problem, not mine. I'm just a thorn in their sides on the issue, and they'll get the respect they want from me when they deserve it, not before! Ok, rant over, back to work.
JMR
(ESPECIALLY speaking only for myself today, even more than usual...)
"It is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that Supreme Court justices and other constitutional interpreters have typically fled from the hard moral judgments called for by the Ninth Amendment."
-- Steven Macedo, _The New Right v. The Constitution_ p. 7.
(Go find and read this book.)
I've offered them something else that's yellow...
JMR
Twenty feet up the mast of a sailboat, I easily detected a flock of four pelicans flying together very low, maybe 2-3 feet off the water, in a sort of "V" formation (one lead bird). I was able to "see" the flock about 1.5 - 2 miles away as a dim blip moving pretty fast, and its characteristics attracted my attention so much that I went abovedecks to see what kind of boat it was.
Of course, I was tweaking the radar at the time, and it was a pretty clear, calm, early-to-pre-dawn morning as I recall, so it was probably ideal conditions to detect such things. Still, a pelican flying that low (they use "ground effect" over water to minimize energy spent flying) is a relatively stealthy thing I'd think, compared to anything that contains metal or is big. A pelican is pretty big for a bird, but very small compared to any airplane. They were flying lower than any military aircraft would, too, and I only found out what they were because they were flying toward me. As they got closer, I was even able to resolve the individual birds, though they were close together and it wasn't too clear on the screen IIRC.
This was ordinary, mid-price Raytheon (Apelco) radar sold to any US boater without restrictions, and I'm no radar-expert, I was just messing with the knobs & buttons to see what I could see, and presumably both civilian and military technology have advanced a lot in the past decade+ since. This incident tells me that claims of aircraft stealthiness might be exagerated, especially if big-egos and big-budgets are on the line...
JMR
Speaking only for myself, and from relatively long-ago memory.
I think you just proved beyond a doubt why distributing music on CDs deserves to go the way of the dinosaur. It's so much easier just to download things.
/., but it's still TRUE! e-gold (try it, and I'll click you some if you send me an account number) has been keeping the promises others made about the 'net since since the currency went online in 1996, with minimal hype. Is it perfect? No, but it's good enough to solve the problem of compensating musicians for downloads without compensating 4 layers of record-industry lard-asses in the process, and that's why I rant repeatedly about it. (I want to be the lard-ass who gets the trips to Scores, so I guess this comment rates "-1, greedy-as-hell," but who knows -- I don't care, I just know that we're more efficient with voluntary tips than the present system, and probably better for music, too.) Thanks for listening (again, in many cases).
Yes, you're right that downloading is easier and more efficient for you, but there's something you forgot to mention (probably accidentally, I'm not accusing you of anything).
We need to remember to compensate the artists! Musician/actress Courtney Love in her Salon piece says WHAT is needed -- tips (even Robert Cringely has finally, slowly, gotten it) -- but she doesn't say HOW. I have a way to solve the how question, and cut out a lot of middlemen (who won't be happy losing their trips to Scores, etc. that Courtney mentions).
I know, I've said this over & over here on
JMR
My understanding is that what killed it was sabotage. While hydrogen is more explosive, it's also lighter than Helium, and would be usable to fuel the airship cleanly. I'm very much pro-hydrogen, though, I think it's worth the minimal risks, too.
JMR
You make a very good point when you say, "Maybe what's needed are moderation systems that better encourage, um, moderation." If I'd had (or could have bought) mod-points, I'd have rated your comment "Insightful," but I don't, so I'm going to post this semi-off-topic rant instead.
/. moderation-land if Cmdrtaco suddenly began selling mod-points along with giving them away. Things are not perfect here NOW (that's what meta-mod is for, though). Perhaps meta-mods on a user that indicated abuse could result in higher prices for future mod points sold to that user? Should insightful/funny commenters get discounts on mod-points? Should meta-mod -- if done correctly, whatever that is -- lead to discounts? I don't know how it would all work, but I'd like folks to think about the way we treat free vs not-free things. For me (I'm cheap) not free encourages moderation, in the "thrift" sense of the word. I treat free things more like they're worth less (but not worthless). Oh well, rant over.
The question is, how do "we" get there from here? Moderation of the kind we both seek requires that one value what's being used to moderate things. I consider mod-points a short-lived currency, and a potential revenue stream that has been unfortunately-ignored by sites like this one. Slashdot may not need an additional revenue stream, but other sites need both better moderation and a way to support themselves if they're going to take on the "mainstream" media like AOL/Time-Warner.
Take it from me, if you mint a currency, you should NOT constantly give it away. You need to sell it! (Insert blatant self-interest and total-greed disclaimer here. I want them to sell mod points for -- among other things -- e-gold. OTOH, I offer to give the stuff away below! Go figure.) I have a way that they could easily do this. Because e-gold payments are instant and "pushed," and irrevocable, it's unlikely that script-kiddies with credit-card fraud programs would be able to attack the system as they would if payments were delayed and "pulled."
Still, it's also likely that things would not be perfect in
JMR
PS
I will reiterate my offer of 10 grams of e-gold to anyone who hacks the slashcode to make this easy for site-owners to do, along with my offer to click a bit to programmers for free so you can test it (just send me an account number). Surprisingly-few of you have taken me up on this offer, so far. Thanks for listening.
I love it, and wish more folks would use it. If more companies treated PGP use as a potential job-skill, that might happen, but the decentralized trust approach of PGP does not appeal to top-down (pointy-haired) managers, who would prefer to waste money on ANYTHING else, IMO. PGP is strange, in that it's no problem to explain why its needed to people who have lived in the former Communist block, but hard to explain to supposedly-individualist Americans. It has certainly gotten easy enough to use that there's no excuse anymore not to try it. I remember the DOS version, 2.3a -- now THAT was a pain in the ass!
JMR
(Speaking for myself, once again, but at least I'm finally off the topic of e-gold tipjars for musicians!)
Maybe I'm too crass and capitalistic to grasp the concept...Probably so, money's almost always at the back of my mind if it's not at the front, and I freely admit it.
Anyway, ultimately, to me this all boils down to compensating musicians rather than a giant quintopoly. I have a way to do this. My earlier rants have more detail, if anyone's interested, but the bottom line is that artists have to be able to buy (food, shelter, clothing, instruments, studio-time, groupies, controlled-substances, and whatever else they want) or they're not going to keep entertaining us. They're more likely to get more of these things from a tips-based, voluntary system (see rants). Thanks.
JMR
[Most of you already know what greedy-ol' Jim Ray is going to say, but I have to say it anyway and I don't care if I'm moderated down.]
/. reader can obtain a free click of e-gold from me by sending me an account number. It benefits me for programmer-types to play with my favorite currency so I don't mind. Thanks.
I can show artists a system that (largely) cuts out any middleman right now, and will lead to (and become the base for) systems that completely do it, like (but not limited-to) ecoin, digigold, and maybe even PayPal (if they're ever profitable, that is...). The demise of Napster, if it happens, will mean very little if I'm right, but it's going to require some new-thinking on all sides.
IMO, to get the full benefit of happy consumers, musicians are going to have to do as Courtney Love said and go to a worldwide-tipjar model that relies on voluntary payments from honest listeners. There will be enough honest listeners to make this worthwhile, even if everyone's not perfectly-honest. For example, I leave nice tips while traveling, even if I know I'm never returning to a place. Part of this has to do with having once had a job that relied on tips, but I think most folks do the same (dare I say it's "good karma" to tip?).
People are used to getting something now for free, and that means the days of $15 CDs' profits sending promoters to Scores while only giving the artists a pittance are over. Fans will voluntarily pay (less, but not nothing) only for non-crappy music, so the days of getting away with bundling it with crappy music are also over. Artists are about to see an age of VERY direct feedback from fans, whether they like it or not. For me, it can't happen soon enough. There will be winners and losers, of course, but overall joe sixpack is going to benefit along with joe musician, while joe promoter busily looks for another sinecure-job and the RIAA bites the dust (good riddance!). The variety of music listened-to will probably VASTLY increase over the next few years, as AOLers discover what more technically-proficient users already know.
Will this all be perfect and utopian and theft-free and wonderful? No. Will it be a better deal than everyone's getting right now from the RIAA quintopoly? Probably so, at least I think it will, but I'm obviously biased-as-hell on this issue, and I'm (as always) speaking only for myself, YMMV, etc.
JMR
PS. Once again, any
What worries me, both as a listenner and as a music professional, is who will pay these people in the future? Digital tips and performance fees and so forth are all well and good for performers, but if noone is to make any money from recordings in the future, quality will reflect that price.
(WooHoo! Somebody else mentions tips!) Ahem.
I'm only a listener, and not a music professional by any stretch of the imagination, but if I were a performer getting a lot of tips (hopefully e-gold tips, for the sake of shameless plugging) and if I thought that a good deal of the quality of my listeners' experience was due to the recording-dude, I'd damn-sure share the wealth just to keep him around and happy to work with me.
JMR
Exactly. This is NOT about paying artists voluntarily with a tip-model as Ms. Love and others suggest, it's about paying the RIAA for more (as Ms. Love puts it) trips to Scores! The ironic thing is that if this move is "successful," artists will probably get less money than if they used (greed alert) my currency or other means to honestly ask for tips! Most tips would probably be orders of magnitude larger than what Ms. Love claims musicians get for selling a $15 overpriced CD. I know that there are quite a few songs I'd tip half a gram (between 4 and 5 bucks) for if I knew the artist was getting it, rather than some talentless music industry slimeball.
Will they get tips for crappy songs? No. Will they still be able to bundle crappy songs with good ones? Nope. Is this situation bad? You be the judge. My usual offer to Slashdot readers of a small click of e-gold is still open, BTW. Opinions here, as always, are solely my own (but I'm RIGHT, dammit!).
JMR
Continually-ranting about this issue lately, I know, but I sit here with the solution to the problem and nobody's paying much attention yet.
(Warning, I've ranted about this before, so if it seems familiar it probably is.)
Between musicians & fans involves fans being able to directly-pay musicians, bypassing the inefficient layers of "corruption" inherent in the current system. e-gold (among other options) now makes this possible in ways un-dreamed-of in the days of Alan Freed, and it's going to lead to good things for artists and fans (greed-disclamer -- and me!). Slashdot readers are free to contact me for a free spot of my favorite currency if you want to play with our Shopping Cart. e-gold works for this because e-metal payments are pushed, rather than pulled, and settle instantly and internationally. Yes, I'm a greedy self-interested capitalist, but we've been ignored for a long time in favor of failed systems that try to be a real currency but can't, for a variety of reasons. e-gold, in either a tipjar or pay-per-listen model, is what will work today. e-gold has been in the black for over a year, and is not a typical overhyped dot.com (in fact, I'm pretty-much the entire hype-department, in many ways!).
I happen to prefer the tipjar idea to pay-per-listen because I like voluntary stuff, and I have enough faith in what's left of human nature to think that most of us will leave tips. I also have enough faith in the greed and inefficiency of the RIAA to think that tips will end up benefitting artists more than the present system, but I have no proof (yet!). I'm giving e-gold away because it's in my interest for programmers to try and play with e-gold. Thanks for listening, as always I speak only for myself -- since nobody else would claim these opinions anyway.
JMR
AKA Cassandra, among other names...
I suspect, though, that we will begin to see artists circumventing the recording industry
I sure hope so, but it's tough to find one that will try my idea. Even Courtney Love, who is allegedly annoyed at her record company, has not responded to my pleas. I'd prefer not to discuss payola (nobody would ever use my fine favorite currency for anything nefarious!) but I know it still happens.
Part of this could be due to contractual obligations inherent in the standard RIAA type contracts, though, since I'm talking about explicitly taking the RIAA 5 and their cut out of the picture, which probably sounds bad if that cut sends you on regular trips to Scores...
JMR
...
Yes folks, the money made in the music industry is shared between all artists, not in royalties, but in up front advances and signing bonuses.
I agree 100%, that's the way it is right now, no question.
I'm asking (with the self-interest/greed disclaimer from the previous message intact) whether that's the way it SHOULD be? If we (meaning the fans) reduce the crap-subsidy, does that mean we'll get more non-crap from artists, and find more non-crappy artists? I think so, but I'm biased as hell.
JMR
In my (repeatedly-expressed, I know) opinion, the fans' & artists' interests DO NOT coincide anymore with the huge corporations. Courtney Love, who is now suing her label, has written about this, as have others. Apparently, for that $15 CD, the band gets a very small slice of the pie (less than a buck in the end, I hear, though I'm far from the music business). The rest goes for things like "trips to Scores," to use Courtney's terms. (Scores is a NYC area strip clup.)
The solution, IMNSHO, is a tipjar model. Use my currency (blatant self-interest noted, go ahead and mod me down -1, greedy) or another currency to do a micropayment to the artist/band DIRECTLY! Even if everyone doesn't pay, and they won't, and even if there are some crooks, and there will be, you can make an OK living in a job with tips, and it might just be a better model than what's currently offered musicians by the monolithic RIAA quintopoly. I've been ranting about this solution since CFP99, where I was totally ignored because it's more fun to shout and argue than it is to look at solutions that directly connect artists to fans. Will this make everything easy for artists? No, of course not. You're likely only to get tips for non-crappy stuff, and the days of bundling your shit with the good songs are over, but overall it's going to help artists to directly connect with their fans, and even with our fees (yes, we like to eat) my solution is cheap, since it doesn't send me to Scores (unfortunately).
Any slashdot reader who wants to try e-gold should send me an account number for a small spend. Thanks for listening.
JMR
I can assure you that e-gold is nothing like Beenz or Flooz, which are glorified loyalty schemes that merely CLAIM to be currencies. If I have 50 beenz and you have 50 beenz, there's no way for us to buy something that costs 99 beenz. If I have 50 grams and you have 50 grams, it's fairly trivial (assuming we trust eachother, that is) to get something worth 99 grams.
:)
I'm not sure, anyway, how you can spend "cash" at Amazon. You may be able to use PLASTIC, but credit is hardly cash, it's a conditional promise to (eventually) pay. Ask the Pron-merchants about chargebacks sometime, and you'll get an earful! (Adult sites are -- FINALLY, after much urging from me! -- getting the clue about my currency, BTW).
e-gold is different because payments are instantly 'pushed,' so when you get paid you *STAY* paid (which can be a double-edged sword, plenty of criminals want e-gold for that reason and I have to deal with their victims every day). e-gold is not good for insecure computers or novice computer users who will click on any spam/attachment. We are working on improving all aspects of the currency, but I can't say what I know until it's not vapor, on penalty of the techs killing me slowly with dull knives.
Anyway, to answer your first question, there are dozens of folks who'd be glad to exchange your metal grams for "real" cash (and if you studied history, in most countries the paper USED to be backed by the real metal, instead of just by faith!). For more on playing with the value of money, art, and faith, do a google search on "JSG Boggs" and see what comes up! He's the "yin" to my "yang." For proof that e-gold is better money, take a look at the site, and if you like what you see, try it, and (as for any slashdotter) I'll click you enough to play with and hopefully get you hooked!
JMR