I think that like many things it depends on where you live.
Here, my Comcast service is fine and dandy. Works great, never seen any bandwidth issues. A friend in Seattle tells me that she switches between Cable and DSL every few months because it alternates who sucks more, Comcast or Qwest... both have issues with capacity.
I have seen a couple outages in the past year or two, but those were only a few minutes long... when I called Comcast they were polite and friendly. The customer service person said. "We don't have a ticket open on that, but I see that only 50 of the 100 boxes on your node are responding, so something is wrong, I will open a ticket for you."
Polite, professional, and even leaked out the size of my node (nice and small, not the 2000 that some people claim).
Cable companies want small nodes: it gives them more room for PPV which is, really, where the money is. The margins on CATV are dirt-slim (the cable company has to pay money for most channels.. so something like HGTV is getting money from the advertisers -and- the cable company). The margin on Internet is good, but not all that great unless you have a huge network like Comcast to move much of your own data around.
The big margin? PPV.
Comcast makes a killing on OnDemand and PPV programming, and OnDemand requires very small nodes.
(The only other time I have called Comcast support was because I had a cable modem that would randomly reboot... The support person interrupted me and asked what model it was, and I told him... he said, "Oh, yeah, those suck, the power connecter gets loose and stops making a good connection. Just bring it into the cable office and get another model." When I went into the cable office I said, "the support people said this modem sucks, can I have a new one?" She took one look at it, and said ok, and got me a different model.)
I wouldn't say the Internet created that: the record companies themselves did by hoarding more and more of the pie (why, for example, do record companies withhold a certain percentage of download sales as "breakage"... left over from the day when some vinyl albums would break in production). By focusing entirely on sales, and ignoring things like "artist development" (ie, financing tours as they did 30 years ago in order to promote albums), they have left the touring income as the only income really available to artists.
The record labels don't do their traditional job (and what they claim to do) in "artist development" so the Internet is picking up the slack.... which of course makes the record companies superfluous: anyone can do the job of pressing and packaging CD's. Distribution is the only real trick, but some small companies (like CDBaby) and some large-we-stock-it-all places (Amazon) make that less problematic. Get your album on Amazon and you have enough distribution to make money.
The mismanagement of the music business is the cause, though.
As for how much they make: the Rolling Stones tour grossed over $500M.
The "social networking sites" (ie facebook, myspace) want that role, and they seem to be doing very well in promoting indy artists. Now that CBS owns last.fm, they may provide the cash and marketing to let Lastfm take a bigger part in the picture.
I believe this is what RIAA is really scared about: the payola (or "consultants") they have been paying for are meaningless with the Internet. Albums are meaningless when you can buy the only non-sucky track on an album and eschew the rest. The can no longer tell big acts, "sorry for screwing you, but we're spending all those millions on Artist Development" and then tell the little guys they made no sales after paying for "breakage" on their digital downloads...
People trust their friends: social groups are great for promoting music, and they are no longer chained to the people in your local circle. That is where real artist development is happening now and why RIAA is upset. They know they are becoming irrelevant.
In the Olden Days, tours were used as a way to promote album sales: record companies heavily subsidized tours and they routinely lost a ton of money. The logic was that they would more than make that money back with merchandising and album sales. (When the record company was funding the tour, they got a cut of every T-shirt sold.)
For most acts these days, however, touring is the only way they make money: they make less money on plastic discs than they used to, but they get to keep the tour profits (these are not shared with the record company, since the label rarely supports the tour at all). T-shirt sales go to the band and maybe the venue, but not the label. Alas, CD's sold at the show routinely make less money than those sold at Amazon... but that's because the band doesn't get a break on their own material while large vendors like Amazon and Walmart do.
People are not going to pay if they don't have to. End of subject.
Really?
You do know that MagnaTune has requested donations for albums for years and done quite well for themselves and their artists? Admittedly they do ask for a minimum of $5 (most likely because for very small amounts it really isn't worth the trouble to process), but routinely get paid much more than that. Artists get a 50% cut of all sales (far better than any normal record company). But you can download 128k mp3's for free, and even use them in non-commercial podcasts.
I've bought a couple albums from them in the past couple of years, and just now I see I need to go back and give them more money since I see some more stuff I want.
The Residents have also had an online store for the past couple of years funded entirely by the honor system: if you need a track, download it and pay them: they only request that you pay more than $3 so that they don't get eaten by billing costs. And, of course, they have also had the "extra special cd" available for most of their works in the past few years (package with bonus CD, book, numbered edition, etc).
They seem to be doing very well despite being the most obscure successful band.
Sure, Radiohead may "lose" some sales... some people will download their music and not pay: most of these would be people who would have never listened to their music anyway. People who were willing to pay cash money for a CD will appreciate being able to pay less online (and not finance MegaMart Music Stores) and even appreciate the convenience of getting the music from their home. Completists will appreciate the bonus edition and will gladly buy it: possession is a major part of being a Completist.
I see no reason why this won't work for known bands with dedicated fans. It would be harder for the little obscure bar band to survive like this, but, then, most of them aren't making much from CD sales either, so it isn't clear that they would actually lose money.
Really? Then how come, say, KEXP, a non-profit public radio station, says that they would have to spend "six figures" more in licensing costs effective July 15th.
This affects even non-profits with existing terrestrial broadcast licenses.
Again, this is why NPR is a major player in this: the "breaks" given to non-profits are insufficient, and will still cost them millions. There are breaks for simulcast.
I believe you are wrong: this is why NPR is part of the campaign. Hundreds of Public Radio stations across the country will be paying these fees... or go silent online.
And EMI seems to be serious about wanting to see every online vendor sell their catalog at a variety of bitrates, formats and prices.
The winnner of the MusicWars will most likely be whoever plays lowball: the company that says, "fine, 99cents for a 128k mp3 that will play one whatever player", trading off lower quality for a lower price. (I would expect some place like Walmart to do this.)
Of course, that won't block out others: there is nothing stopping someone from skipping the per-track model and selling lossless albums at a flat rate per album, or charging per megabyte, or whatever.
Personally, I think EMI is the first of the big-four to have a clue on how to enhance their sales, and I hope Emusic and others figure out just how they want to package this for consumers. The lack of DRM is important, sure, but also the willingness to let each vendor differentiate themselves as they wish. Until this week, what was the difference between Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster, Walmart or any of the other PlaysForSure vendors... now the stores can have the tools to appeal to different market segments and satisfy consumer wants much better.
And I hope you have ID to match that. Again, in many states, ID is required.
Business Watch International (see BWIPOLICE.COM, for example) maintain database servers for pawn transactions and many municipalities are changing their laws to require pawn shops report their transactions electronically. (Here in the Eugene, Oregon area, for example, that is now the law. Not paper pawn slips for the police to wade through, but databases they have live access to.)
Of course, it could even be argued that these sorts of laws protect pawn shops from being charged with "Receiving Stolen Goods" as well as the loss associated with paying for an item that is taken by police after it is determined to be stolen.
The reason, though, this doesn't apply online is because the law regarding virtual goods is nebulous. Does The Sword of Death have a value? If no, then what is the crime? If yes, then why is getting it as a drop not considered taxable income?
Actually, not only do they allow RH, they actually sell it and SUSE on their server lines.
See http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx ?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=becwlk1&s=bsd for example... it comes with no OS, but you can choose from a list of operating systems. They have a series of "Open Source Desktops" that come with FreeDOS (to appease their "you must ship an OS!" agreement with Microsoft no doubt) on a CD, but not installed. I bought one of those a year or so ago and am happy with it.
This is US Dell, though. Apparently the UK branch has not been as willing to loosen the Microsoft noose, but Dell.com has been very good.
(Though, to be honest, I would still buy my servers from ASL, but they have been -so- good to me over the years, I would have a hard time breaking that connection... But certainly Dell is trying and for companies that like the Dell name, that can help speed purchases.)
The major labels do perform the filtering service for you, but you'd be amazed at how much excellent stuff gets filtered out.
I think his point is that this particular site (which hasn't emerged from under the Slashdotting, so I have no idea if it's true) doesn't provide any filtering. As opposed to GarageBand, Live365, Pandora, LastFM and all sorts of other routes to finding new music.
<p>
From the Whois entry (since I can't get to the site ATM), it appears to be Nettwerk, which is all fine and dandy: they are one of the larger indie record companies, and have some "brand name" artists in their stable (Avril Lavigne is one that comes to mind... not my taste, but she is successful). Of course they do filtering; they don't sign contracts with anyone who shows up at their door with a guitar. They just seem to have more of a clue that the usual payola schemes to get music on the radio is not scalable and not to their benefit (the big 4 have a lot more money to bribe radio stations). </p> <p>
Nettwerk has sold their music un-drm'd online for years: they have helped pay for lawyers in RIAA lawsuits (especially amusing since some of the "stolen" music came from Nettwerk artists who didn't -care- if someone "stole" their music... is it theft when the "victim" says it is okay?) </p> <p>
If you like their artists, sure, buy from them online. Their shopping system works well. If their artists are not what you like, buy from others: <a href="http://www.dgmlive.com">DGMLive</a>, for example, sells mp3s and FLACs of various rare King Crimson and Fripp performances. For most artists, visit their sites and see if they let you buy online. It certainly helps me spend money: when a recording is a true "impulse purchase" and I get instant gratification (well, after download), I tend to buy more... </p>
Did you read the post you are defending? Geesh. Look here:
Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal. Show them the market for righteous people like yourself exists. This is the first one to put major bands on it's free list in quatitity. If you dont' support them no then there wont be more...
See that, even if I don't like their selection I am supposedly "obliged to buy something to support the movement"
That is pure bullshit. Seriously: the milk analogy is spot-on. If you support free markets capitalism, you are obliged to buy something from every new store to show your support. If you don't you are a hypocrite and probably a communist according to this "logic". Do you really believe this argument?
I already buy my music. Why should I have to give money to some new store to "support the movement"?
Puretracks is not going to release, say, Columbia artists without DRM. Nor will they release Warner artists.
The ONLY thing they will release is the indy artists.
To that I say "So What" -- Emusic already has most of them. Nettwerks, one of the labels they say they will release without DRM has had drm-free downloads on their own site for years. Again, so what?
Why on earth should I, as the grandparent argued, have to download Nettwerks artists from a middleman to avoid being a hypocrite? (I have, in fact, paid to download tracks from Nettwerks in the past.)
Please RTFA: nowhere does Puretracks claim to be releasing "major artists" -- they are only releasing indy artists who allow their tracks to be DRM-free (and who own their music so they can make that decision for themselves). The big labels are not letting Puretracks sell music without DRM.
Why on earth should I buy from Puretracks when I already buy from other sites that offer DRM-free downloads (emusic and dgmlive mostly) and physical CD's for things not available DRM-free.
That makes me a hypocrite because I am not buying from one specific store? Do I have to buy milk at every store in town to prove I believe in a free market?
They are not the first: Emusic was first to sell (mostly) indy music in a large-scale DRM-free way.
So, the message here is: don't try to download copyrighted stuff and you won't get sued for downloading copyrighted stuff.
I think you mean "illegal stuff". I download copyrighted music with BitTorrent quite often and it is very legal: DGMLive has lots of great King Crimson and Robert Fripp material that you are encouraged to use BitTorrent to download after paying them. Since DGM is owned by Fripp and has rights to the King Crimson catalog: they can do that legally and even make a profit.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple's system is a fair balance if you only use iPods and/or iTunes.
Fairplay doesn't work with my Squeezeboxes or my car stereo, both of which play mp3's fine.
Locking music I supposedly "bought" into one vendor's hardware is not good.
I think that like many things it depends on where you live.
Here, my Comcast service is fine and dandy. Works great, never seen any bandwidth issues. A friend in Seattle tells me that she switches between Cable and DSL every few months because it alternates who sucks more, Comcast or Qwest... both have issues with capacity.
I have seen a couple outages in the past year or two, but those were only a few minutes long... when I called Comcast they were polite and friendly. The customer service person said. "We don't have a ticket open on that, but I see that only 50 of the 100 boxes on your node are responding, so something is wrong, I will open a ticket for you."
Polite, professional, and even leaked out the size of my node (nice and small, not the 2000 that some people claim).
Cable companies want small nodes: it gives them more room for PPV which is, really, where the money is. The margins on CATV are dirt-slim (the cable company has to pay money for most channels.. so something like HGTV is getting money from the advertisers -and- the cable company). The margin on Internet is good, but not all that great unless you have a huge network like Comcast to move much of your own data around.
The big margin? PPV.
Comcast makes a killing on OnDemand and PPV programming, and OnDemand requires very small nodes.
(The only other time I have called Comcast support was because I had a cable modem that would randomly reboot... The support person interrupted me and asked what model it was, and I told him... he said, "Oh, yeah, those suck, the power connecter gets loose and stops making a good connection. Just bring it into the cable office and get another model." When I went into the cable office I said, "the support people said this modem sucks, can I have a new one?" She took one look at it, and said ok, and got me a different model.)
I wouldn't say the Internet created that: the record companies themselves did by hoarding more and more of the pie (why, for example, do record companies withhold a certain percentage of download sales as "breakage"... left over from the day when some vinyl albums would break in production). By focusing entirely on sales, and ignoring things like "artist development" (ie, financing tours as they did 30 years ago in order to promote albums), they have left the touring income as the only income really available to artists.
The record labels don't do their traditional job (and what they claim to do) in "artist development" so the Internet is picking up the slack.... which of course makes the record companies superfluous: anyone can do the job of pressing and packaging CD's. Distribution is the only real trick, but some small companies (like CDBaby) and some large-we-stock-it-all places (Amazon) make that less problematic. Get your album on Amazon and you have enough distribution to make money.
The mismanagement of the music business is the cause, though.
As for how much they make: the Rolling Stones tour grossed over $500M.
The "social networking sites" (ie facebook, myspace) want that role, and they seem to be doing very well in promoting indy artists. Now that CBS owns last.fm, they may provide the cash and marketing to let Lastfm take a bigger part in the picture.
I believe this is what RIAA is really scared about: the payola (or "consultants") they have been paying for are meaningless with the Internet. Albums are meaningless when you can buy the only non-sucky track on an album and eschew the rest. The can no longer tell big acts, "sorry for screwing you, but we're spending all those millions on Artist Development" and then tell the little guys they made no sales after paying for "breakage" on their digital downloads...
People trust their friends: social groups are great for promoting music, and they are no longer chained to the people in your local circle. That is where real artist development is happening now and why RIAA is upset. They know they are becoming irrelevant.
Actually it is true these days.
In the Olden Days, tours were used as a way to promote album sales: record companies heavily subsidized tours and they routinely lost a ton of money. The logic was that they would more than make that money back with merchandising and album sales. (When the record company was funding the tour, they got a cut of every T-shirt sold.)
For most acts these days, however, touring is the only way they make money: they make less money on plastic discs than they used to, but they get to keep the tour profits (these are not shared with the record company, since the label rarely supports the tour at all). T-shirt sales go to the band and maybe the venue, but not the label. Alas, CD's sold at the show routinely make less money than those sold at Amazon... but that's because the band doesn't get a break on their own material while large vendors like Amazon and Walmart do.
Really?
You do know that MagnaTune has requested donations for albums for years and done quite well for themselves and their artists? Admittedly they do ask for a minimum of $5 (most likely because for very small amounts it really isn't worth the trouble to process), but routinely get paid much more than that. Artists get a 50% cut of all sales (far better than any normal record company). But you can download 128k mp3's for free, and even use them in non-commercial podcasts.
I've bought a couple albums from them in the past couple of years, and just now I see I need to go back and give them more money since I see some more stuff I want.
The Residents have also had an online store for the past couple of years funded entirely by the honor system: if you need a track, download it and pay them: they only request that you pay more than $3 so that they don't get eaten by billing costs. And, of course, they have also had the "extra special cd" available for most of their works in the past few years (package with bonus CD, book, numbered edition, etc).
They seem to be doing very well despite being the most obscure successful band.
Sure, Radiohead may "lose" some sales... some people will download their music and not pay: most of these would be people who would have never listened to their music anyway. People who were willing to pay cash money for a CD will appreciate being able to pay less online (and not finance MegaMart Music Stores) and even appreciate the convenience of getting the music from their home. Completists will appreciate the bonus edition and will gladly buy it: possession is a major part of being a Completist.
I see no reason why this won't work for known bands with dedicated fans. It would be harder for the little obscure bar band to survive like this, but, then, most of them aren't making much from CD sales either, so it isn't clear that they would actually lose money.
It is if you're Zonk.
And that is still 24fps.
Just like NTSC is 30fps, despite half-scanning at 60hz.
Repeating each frame 10 times won't make a movie into 240fps. It is still 24.
You do know movies are 24fps, right?
Do they fool your eye?
Horowitz resigned from the case months ago. Reiser could not afford him.
Because it wasn't $96000. It was $96.
Really? Then how come, say, KEXP, a non-profit public radio station, says that they would have to spend "six figures" more in licensing costs effective July 15th.
This affects even non-profits with existing terrestrial broadcast licenses.
Again, this is why NPR is a major player in this: the "breaks" given to non-profits are insufficient, and will still cost them millions. There are breaks for simulcast.
I believe you are wrong: this is why NPR is part of the campaign. Hundreds of Public Radio stations across the country will be paying these fees... or go silent online.
You, sir, seem to have never watched CSI: modern computers (at least on TV) have infinite resolution.
Wrong.
"If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, whether you must file a federal income tax return depends upon your gross income, your filing status, your age, and whether you are a dependent. For details, see Table 1 and Table 2. You also must file if one of the situations described in Table 3 applies. The filing requirements apply even if you owe no tax." says the IRS.
To my knowledge there aren't any 2 disk 360 games (or even any DVD based games that immediately spring to mind).</quote>
What about Blue Dragon?
And EMI seems to be serious about wanting to see every online vendor sell their catalog at a variety of bitrates, formats and prices.
The winnner of the MusicWars will most likely be whoever plays lowball: the company that says, "fine, 99cents for a 128k mp3 that will play one whatever player", trading off lower quality for a lower price. (I would expect some place like Walmart to do this.)
Of course, that won't block out others: there is nothing stopping someone from skipping the per-track model and selling lossless albums at a flat rate per album, or charging per megabyte, or whatever.
Personally, I think EMI is the first of the big-four to have a clue on how to enhance their sales, and I hope Emusic and others figure out just how they want to package this for consumers. The lack of DRM is important, sure, but also the willingness to let each vendor differentiate themselves as they wish. Until this week, what was the difference between Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster, Walmart or any of the other PlaysForSure vendors... now the stores can have the tools to appeal to different market segments and satisfy consumer wants much better.
And I hope you have ID to match that. Again, in many states, ID is required.
Business Watch International (see BWIPOLICE.COM, for example) maintain database servers for pawn transactions and many municipalities are changing their laws to require pawn shops report their transactions electronically. (Here in the Eugene, Oregon area, for example, that is now the law. Not paper pawn slips for the police to wade through, but databases they have live access to.)
Of course, it could even be argued that these sorts of laws protect pawn shops from being charged with "Receiving Stolen Goods" as well as the loss associated with paying for an item that is taken by police after it is determined to be stolen.
The reason, though, this doesn't apply online is because the law regarding virtual goods is nebulous. Does The Sword of Death have a value? If no, then what is the crime? If yes, then why is getting it as a drop not considered taxable income?
Actually, not only do they allow RH, they actually sell it and SUSE on their server lines.
x ?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=becwlk1&s=bsd for example... it comes with no OS, but you can choose from a list of operating systems. They have a series of "Open Source Desktops" that come with FreeDOS (to appease their "you must ship an OS!" agreement with Microsoft no doubt) on a CD, but not installed. I bought one of those a year or so ago and am happy with it.
See http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.asp
This is US Dell, though. Apparently the UK branch has not been as willing to loosen the Microsoft noose, but Dell.com has been very good.
(Though, to be honest, I would still buy my servers from ASL, but they have been -so- good to me over the years, I would have a hard time breaking that connection... But certainly Dell is trying and for companies that like the Dell name, that can help speed purchases.)
I think his point is that this particular site (which hasn't emerged from under the Slashdotting, so I have no idea if it's true) doesn't provide any filtering. As opposed to GarageBand, Live365, Pandora, LastFM and all sorts of other routes to finding new music.
<p>
From the Whois entry (since I can't get to the site ATM), it appears to be Nettwerk, which is all fine and dandy: they are one of the larger indie record companies, and have some "brand name" artists in their stable (Avril Lavigne is one that comes to mind... not my taste, but she is successful). Of course they do filtering; they don't sign contracts with anyone who shows up at their door with a guitar. They just seem to have more of a clue that the usual payola schemes to get music on the radio is not scalable and not to their benefit (the big 4 have a lot more money to bribe radio stations).
</p>
<p>
Nettwerk has sold their music un-drm'd online for years: they have helped pay for lawyers in RIAA lawsuits (especially amusing since some of the "stolen" music came from Nettwerk artists who didn't -care- if someone "stole" their music... is it theft when the "victim" says it is okay?)
</p>
<p>
If you like their artists, sure, buy from them online. Their shopping system works well. If their artists are not what you like, buy from others: <a href="http://www.dgmlive.com">DGMLive</a>, for example, sells mp3s and FLACs of various rare King Crimson and Fripp performances. For most artists, visit their sites and see if they let you buy online. It certainly helps me spend money: when a recording is a true "impulse purchase" and I get instant gratification (well, after download), I tend to buy more...
</p>
Did you read the post you are defending? Geesh. Look here:
See that, even if I don't like their selection I am supposedly "obliged to buy something to support the movement"
That is pure bullshit. Seriously: the milk analogy is spot-on. If you support free markets capitalism, you are obliged to buy something from every new store to show your support. If you don't you are a hypocrite and probably a communist according to this "logic". Do you really believe this argument?
I already buy my music. Why should I have to give money to some new store to "support the movement"?
Nonsense.
Puretracks is not going to release, say, Columbia artists without DRM. Nor will they release Warner artists.
The ONLY thing they will release is the indy artists.
To that I say "So What" -- Emusic already has most of them. Nettwerks, one of the labels they say they will release without DRM has had drm-free downloads on their own site for years. Again, so what?
Why on earth should I, as the grandparent argued, have to download Nettwerks artists from a middleman to avoid being a hypocrite? (I have, in fact, paid to download tracks from Nettwerks in the past.)
Please RTFA: nowhere does Puretracks claim to be releasing "major artists" -- they are only releasing indy artists who allow their tracks to be DRM-free (and who own their music so they can make that decision for themselves). The big labels are not letting Puretracks sell music without DRM.
Why on earth should I buy from Puretracks when I already buy from other sites that offer DRM-free downloads (emusic and dgmlive mostly) and physical CD's for things not available DRM-free.
That makes me a hypocrite because I am not buying from one specific store? Do I have to buy milk at every store in town to prove I believe in a free market?
They are not the first: Emusic was first to sell (mostly) indy music in a large-scale DRM-free way.
STANDS: Some Theoretical Acronym Not Described Sufficiently?
I think you mean "illegal stuff". I download copyrighted music with BitTorrent quite often and it is very legal: DGMLive has lots of great King Crimson and Robert Fripp material that you are encouraged to use BitTorrent to download after paying them. Since DGM is owned by Fripp and has rights to the King Crimson catalog: they can do that legally and even make a profit.