I agree that charities tend to be more effective than gov't, per $ spent, which is very important to note considering the gov't spends millions of $ more than private charities.
The problem is, the charity infrastructure in place is just not large enough, so how are you going to expand it? Government regulations? Guess what happens once these charities are large enough to do their job - bureaucracy develops, efficiency goes down, impersonality goes up. So what you end up with is a gov't social services replacement that is basically the same as gov't, except less dependable. (That is, assuming charities could possibly raise enough money to support everyone who needs food and housing. Which they couldn't, especially during recessions.)
Charities are great, but they're just not capable of fully replacing gov't wealth redistribution if we're talking about feeding/housing everyone in the country (my goal). Humans are just not altruistic enough, especially in a libertarian society where there is no social safety net and money = life.
If you want to talk about limited government, then the question is "how limited." Our government is already quite limited compared to most other first world nations'. You denounce the gov't for discouraging economic achievement, but really, I don't think that, as a financially successful person, I'd be persuaded to leave the country by, say, a 5% higher income tax. As a matter of fact, I would guess that the richer I was, the less likely I'd be to pinch pennies. And where would I flee to, if I wanted to? The UK? Canada? France? Where income taxes are all higher than they are in the US? To turn it around, I don't see hordes of Japanese or European millionaires emigrating to the US to escape their income taxes. (Granted, Europe probably has fewer millionaires per capita, but so what?) Somehow lots of countries can manage these "high" tax rates without imploding - actually, they even manage pretty high quality of life ratings at the same time.
I'm not advocating a high, crippling, total-redistribution progressive tax. I'm advocating a tax rate that strikes a compromise between letting successful people enjoy the spoils of their work/inheritance/whatever, and making sure poor people who don't / can't work aren't dropping dead of hypothermia all over the place or living a lifetime of indentured servitude when they need an operation and they don't have health insurance. THAT, in my mind, is fairness.
The US War on Poverty has been a failure because any kind of war on poverty that could actually work would be unacceptable to the majority (center/right) of the US political spectrum. That's not to say the left has its act together either, especially in the US, but Europe/Canada/Japan seem to be doing at least a little better on this front than the US.
Whether private solutions are more effective than government solutions in fighting poverty, I don't know. I do acknowledge the impersonality and coldness of government "help." My question is, if libertarians advocate private solutions over gov't solutions, what are they waiting for? People are falling into the economic shitter left and right these days, facing some very scary, very serious situations (loss of job, loss of health w/ no insurance, etc.). When was the last time the Libertarian Party organized a food drive? Every libertarian I've ever spoken to has been very smart, articulate, obviously a deep thinker, but I've never heard a libertarian describe his/her (usually it's a he - a young, white, affluent he) experiences volunteering at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. I'm not saying give all poor people free HBO and all the steak they can eat, I'm just saying people should not be prevented from living at a "reasonable" (bottom-of-the-barrel subsistence) standard strictly due to their own poor choices, opportunities, education, luck, etc. in life.
You've not gotten rich in a vacuum. There are laws and regulations in place to protect your property and your rights. In fact the entire social and economic environment you've grown up in has been designed, more or less, to make it easier for you to improve your lot in life. You may not like taxes, but although you've had to pay them, they've also helped you out. For example, you say that you are willing to pay for what public services you use, but you are not willing to pay back the system for the laws and that helped and are helping you immeasurably (and are promulgated and enforced by other people's tax dollars).
You're very smart and you're happy and you're rich. This "socialist" system (if you can even call it that) has obviously done you very well. Tearing it down would increase the difficulty of a lot of others (who weren't as lucky/smart/educated/endowed/whatever as you) who live on the bottom rung to improve THEIR lot. I don't know your parents, but it takes more than hard work alone to get rich. Usually it takes that, plus the right combination of having the right connections, being smart enough, having good luck, being in the right place at the right time, etc. Also you say your parents had no advantages in life. Well, they were white, right? (How did I know that?) That's a little bit of an advantage right there. They were smart, right? That's another, and they always had some money before they got rich, right? They didn't have any serious, expensive-to-treat diseases, right? And as their wealth increased, so did their ability to spend money on furthering their wealth even more, thus accelerating their economic rise, right? I call all of those advantages.
Does anybody really deserve nothing if they don't work? Not even the ability to have heat in the winter and eat a meager diet? If you say no, what about the kids of the people who don't? I take it your parents didn't raise you to be a compassionate Catholic... I understand your views and I understand how they've been shaped by your life experiences, but I would encourage you to spend some time, just a little, volunteering to help out the less fortunate, or just in some way getting better acquainted with the lower economic/social classes you aren't as familiar with.
Don't be such a pussy, this is slashdot, the way it works is, you need to brew up a set of totally wacky political views and then be absolutely certain that you are right and everyone else is a complete dead wrong fucking wack job. Study up on Libertarianism, my boy
One could argue against the means and say that the reason disproportionately taxing the rich is "fair" is because the rich have, in general, disproportionately benefitted from society (education, infrastructure, etc.). So it's only fair that they should give more back. (Not enough that they won't still be very well off)
Or one could argue against the ends and say that the more equally you tax the rich relative to everyone else, the closer your society gets to a fascist aristocracy, kind of like the USSR but with oppressive corporations instead of oppressive government.
France's economy is fucked right now because their openly socialist government pays for every damn thing. Canada's taxes are skyrocketing out of control for the same reason.
A little melodramatic are we? At least in those countries nobody has to choose between paying rent and eating.
For example, get a good touring bike and ride to another state or country. Less $ than terabytes of storage and something you will actually be able to look back on when you're on your deathbed. Which will likely be pushed further away since you'll be getting in shape as opposed to sitting on your butt and dying of a blood clot at age 50. Take up an activity or a hobby... anything. Don't just be a bump on a log.
If the people have been screwed out of their rights, it's because they've been out-voted. If there is this large contingent of people upset with the system, they should rise up and vote the bums out who made it work this way - not violate the law. Copyright is also not the only problem here, as shepd was complaining about the pricing of new releases.
You're being very naive if you think the RIAA is interested in fairness. What is fairness, and who defines what it is? You're being very naive if you think the legions on slashdot who will illegally copy music that costs more than $X (very low amount) aren't being just as unfair.
Oh I see, YOU are setting the price. Okay. I actually am with you in spirit on this in that I want to see prices go down as well. So I'm going to stand alongside you and say that I want that level of quality as well, but I will pay no more than $4.99 for it with art, $2.50 without art, and DRM encumbered for $0.75. Now, the question is: Which spoiled twat is the RIAA supposed to listen to, you or me? And when the next spoiled twat comes along who demands all this for an even lower price, is the RIAA supposed to listen to him? Where do we draw the line? As a consumer, it's very hard to have an objective view of all this when you've got access to a large portion of western civilization's back catalog for free at your fingertips (KaZaA etc.). I'm glad to hear you've found something that agrees with you in Emusic.
And when did I say anything about the CONSEQUENCES of piracy? I said that piracy (or, to be charitable, whatever you want to call it) is an INDICATOR of nothing except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it.
I've got an idea, maybe the RIAA is trying to become like Ferrari. Their new motto: "You want the cool music, the status symbol music, you gotta pay for it." Of course I'm not really suggesting this, but let's say this is the case. Who am I to argue? I'm a consumer and I can buy / not buy what I see fit, but where is it any of my business to tell the RIAA what to do? "No RIAA, you can't sell CDs that cost this much, you have to sell them cheaper, because I said so."
Thanks for spelling the math out for me. I am impressed, but I need help understanding one more point. Why is it that the pricing practices of the RIAA must conform to your mathematical formula? Why do they have to make sense, or be based on anything at all? If I'm whoever is in charge at a record company, and I want to charge $52.99 for the next Nelly album (let's say I'm a total dazed cokehead), why should I not be allowed to do this? Let's say I want to outsource the printing of all my CD booklets to some print shop in Tibet where each booklet is individually blessed by the Dalai Lama, and as a consequence, each booklet costs me $152, causing the price I charge for the final product to increase to $169.99. Maybe I want to move upmarket. Hell, maybe I've got my own religion which says thou shalt not charge less than $17 for a CD. Why should I not be allowed to do this? Why do I *have* to price my CDs for this dying commodity market? Let's say I do move upmarket, making all my CDs out of glass and gold in place of plastic and aluminum. Does this give people a right to violate my copyright on the $50 CD?
Yes, I think the prices of new CDs in non-discount stores are outrageous as well, and I don't buy them either. But if RIAA wants to price the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers album at $30, and watch as it sells 6 copies nationwide, that's the RIAA's problem. It doesn't give anybody else the right to revolt and commit mass copyright violations of that album. I don't like it any more than anyone else does, but, oh well. Fortunately there are several new distribution ideas coming into being that are much more reasonably priced, like iTunes, Buymusic, Emusic, and whatever else.
You could just as easily turn the question around. "Why the hell should Yoko Ono or Michael Jackson NOT expect to be payed now for the work the Beatles did 40 years ago? They payed for the rights to it, after all." Now I'm not saying I agree with that, but a reasonable limit to copyright is a very subjective thing, so it's up to both sides of this debate to agree on something WITHOUT one side crying, "Wah, it's not fair, I should be able to get whatever I want for whatever I want to pay for it."
Basically you want the entire Beatles back catalog, no no, all music ever recorded, in 96kHz 24-bit uncompressed 6-channel PCM for $1. Get over yourself. Heavy piracy is an indication of NOTHING except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it. If an album at the iTunes Music Store cost $5, you'd be bitching about how it didn't cost $4, and if it cost $4, you'd complain that it didn't cost $2.50. And if it cost $2.50, you'd be outraged that it weren't free, except for the cost of bandwidth. You know what? I think a Ferrari F355 should cost $7.50. Guess what? What I think a Ferrari F355 should cost doesn't mean a god damn motherfucking thing.
I have no idea how your voodoo math with regards to CD and digital music prices is supposed to work, and I have no desire to take the necessary hallucinogens that would enable me to understand. My suggestion would be to stop being such a spoiled twit and learn up on market pricing.
You think it's lame now, but just wait until 10 years into the future when they're still using the same godawful Slashcode with the same eye popping color scheme. Then we'll all be laughing
It causes me to download more stuff than I would if they didn't have the diversion abusing my bandwith and data allowances that I have to pay for.
Yeah, that 1.5KB HTML page with no inline images is a real killer. Those Verisign fuckheads should keep in mind all the real hardcore geeks like me who are still using 150baud acoustic couplers. I'd much rather have them redirect me to Google, which (thanks to the big banner graphic) is about 10X more data for me to load. HMMMMMMMMM.
Most libraries moved to the Library of Congress classification system in the mid '80s. Dewey is still around in libraries for books added before the switchover.
How about "Since we don't have money trees growing on our property, we're going to start charging you this fee, because we don't want to go bankrupt, so you're free to take your business elsewhere, but be reminded that everyone else is subject to the same fees, and it's not like THEY'RE going to absorb them, either."
An army of antisocial self-righteous snobs is more like it. Yeha man all the computerz r gonna crash just like they did in terminator 3!!!!!! did you see that movie woah!!!!
I'm not sure I want a system that requires any band that wants to make money to go on huge long tours rather than sell a lot of records. The Beatles couldn't have thrived in a system like that. Any system that allows a bunch of nomadic stoners to thrive and not the greatest band ever causes me concern.
This "make money touring" idea seems very constraining to me. It seems like it will produce a lot of music that will get old fast. How many young handsome men in tight-fitting heavily-worn secondhand clothing making songs out of major chords and covering their stratocasters in hip stickers can one really take? (Don't answer that ladies/gay men) I've had it up to my neck with MP3-friendly indie rock bands, and their spoiled twat fans who go to the concerts and peer carefully around them to make sure they're not making themselves look uncool by being more into the music than anyone else. These bands ran out of names (not to mention songs) long ago (Neutral Milk Hotel? That's not a name, you cunts), so they might as well just refer to themselves by numbers now, since that's all they really are - small little unique but insignificant numbers in a sea of more insignificance. When will another Bob Dylan, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana - any band that a fairly large culture can get behind and identify with - happen again? The answer looks bleak. The real explanation to the problem is very long and complicated, but I don't see how widespread MP3 distribution of music can do anything but diffuse, jade, and deaden the cultural excitement that music can invoke. Geeks on slashdot tend to look at this in only one way - their analytical, accountant-style way that tries to look for math-like solutions to problems. But music - especially the reasons we humans like music so much! - is more complicated than that and can't really be analyzed on this level.
One thing that's happening is that bands are stuck in several abusive relationships these days. One (some aren't at this stage yet) is with their blood-sucking record company, another is with their fans. (I'll only go into the one with the fans because the r.c. one is obvious.) A band's primary goal in being a band - even if they say it isn't, with very few exceptions - is to be liked and to be famous. The band realizes it can't get famous without being heard, so it tries to record more, and play more shows to get the word out, and sell CDs at the concerts etc. But they soon learn this doesn't work, because there is too much competition. Music is a market, and any individual band is small beans. So they see that their fans like MP3s and they say, uh, ok, yeah, we like MP3s too! MP3s, yeah man, cool stuff. Hehheh. And they release their songs in MP3 and give all their fans full access to them via the "band blog" or whatever. Basically what they do is whore themselves in every way possible in an effort to compete, and they all end up losing, and the "consumer" wins BIG TIME (in the short-term). Of course, now the consumer is suffering because music is starting to suck, reason being, the consumer is impeding the mechanisms - however flawed those mechanisms might be - by which music reaches mass culture.
Here is what music needs today (or at least here is one thing that would help): For bands to grow backbones. They need to stand up on stage and say, alright, you spoiled thick rimmed glasses-wearing fucks, you're welcome for coming, we're going to play you 12 songs tonight that are all fucking incredible, and if you don't like them, you can go fuck yourselves, because seeing us is a privilege, not a right, and frankly, at $20 a head, you got a great deal. And if I ever catch one of you punks illegally copying OUR MUSIC without our permission, I'll put this 'ere guitar in your crotch. Maybe this sounds funny, but the first talented band to come along with good songs and adopt this strategy of asserting itself - I guarantee it will be bigger than Nirvana was. Do I expect this to happen? No, I pretty much expect more "yes sir, we'll give you the music you like sir, yes you can have MP3s sir, yes we like to give our MP3s away sir!" But I can dream.
Slashdot Mirror
A ton of guts... in more ways than one :)
I agree that charities tend to be more effective than gov't, per $ spent, which is very important to note considering the gov't spends millions of $ more than private charities.
The problem is, the charity infrastructure in place is just not large enough, so how are you going to expand it? Government regulations? Guess what happens once these charities are large enough to do their job - bureaucracy develops, efficiency goes down, impersonality goes up. So what you end up with is a gov't social services replacement that is basically the same as gov't, except less dependable. (That is, assuming charities could possibly raise enough money to support everyone who needs food and housing. Which they couldn't, especially during recessions.)
Charities are great, but they're just not capable of fully replacing gov't wealth redistribution if we're talking about feeding/housing everyone in the country (my goal). Humans are just not altruistic enough, especially in a libertarian society where there is no social safety net and money = life.
If you want to talk about limited government, then the question is "how limited." Our government is already quite limited compared to most other first world nations'. You denounce the gov't for discouraging economic achievement, but really, I don't think that, as a financially successful person, I'd be persuaded to leave the country by, say, a 5% higher income tax. As a matter of fact, I would guess that the richer I was, the less likely I'd be to pinch pennies. And where would I flee to, if I wanted to? The UK? Canada? France? Where income taxes are all higher than they are in the US? To turn it around, I don't see hordes of Japanese or European millionaires emigrating to the US to escape their income taxes. (Granted, Europe probably has fewer millionaires per capita, but so what?) Somehow lots of countries can manage these "high" tax rates without imploding - actually, they even manage pretty high quality of life ratings at the same time.
I'm not advocating a high, crippling, total-redistribution progressive tax. I'm advocating a tax rate that strikes a compromise between letting successful people enjoy the spoils of their work/inheritance/whatever, and making sure poor people who don't / can't work aren't dropping dead of hypothermia all over the place or living a lifetime of indentured servitude when they need an operation and they don't have health insurance. THAT, in my mind, is fairness.
The US War on Poverty has been a failure because any kind of war on poverty that could actually work would be unacceptable to the majority (center/right) of the US political spectrum. That's not to say the left has its act together either, especially in the US, but Europe/Canada/Japan seem to be doing at least a little better on this front than the US.
Whether private solutions are more effective than government solutions in fighting poverty, I don't know. I do acknowledge the impersonality and coldness of government "help." My question is, if libertarians advocate private solutions over gov't solutions, what are they waiting for? People are falling into the economic shitter left and right these days, facing some very scary, very serious situations (loss of job, loss of health w/ no insurance, etc.). When was the last time the Libertarian Party organized a food drive? Every libertarian I've ever spoken to has been very smart, articulate, obviously a deep thinker, but I've never heard a libertarian describe his/her (usually it's a he - a young, white, affluent he) experiences volunteering at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. I'm not saying give all poor people free HBO and all the steak they can eat, I'm just saying people should not be prevented from living at a "reasonable" (bottom-of-the-barrel subsistence) standard strictly due to their own poor choices, opportunities, education, luck, etc. in life.
You've not gotten rich in a vacuum. There are laws and regulations in place to protect your property and your rights. In fact the entire social and economic environment you've grown up in has been designed, more or less, to make it easier for you to improve your lot in life. You may not like taxes, but although you've had to pay them, they've also helped you out. For example, you say that you are willing to pay for what public services you use, but you are not willing to pay back the system for the laws and that helped and are helping you immeasurably (and are promulgated and enforced by other people's tax dollars).
You're very smart and you're happy and you're rich. This "socialist" system (if you can even call it that) has obviously done you very well. Tearing it down would increase the difficulty of a lot of others (who weren't as lucky/smart/educated/endowed/whatever as you) who live on the bottom rung to improve THEIR lot. I don't know your parents, but it takes more than hard work alone to get rich. Usually it takes that, plus the right combination of having the right connections, being smart enough, having good luck, being in the right place at the right time, etc. Also you say your parents had no advantages in life. Well, they were white, right? (How did I know that?) That's a little bit of an advantage right there. They were smart, right? That's another, and they always had some money before they got rich, right? They didn't have any serious, expensive-to-treat diseases, right? And as their wealth increased, so did their ability to spend money on furthering their wealth even more, thus accelerating their economic rise, right? I call all of those advantages.
Does anybody really deserve nothing if they don't work? Not even the ability to have heat in the winter and eat a meager diet? If you say no, what about the kids of the people who don't? I take it your parents didn't raise you to be a compassionate Catholic... I understand your views and I understand how they've been shaped by your life experiences, but I would encourage you to spend some time, just a little, volunteering to help out the less fortunate, or just in some way getting better acquainted with the lower economic/social classes you aren't as familiar with.
Don't be such a pussy, this is slashdot, the way it works is, you need to brew up a set of totally wacky political views and then be absolutely certain that you are right and everyone else is a complete dead wrong fucking wack job. Study up on Libertarianism, my boy
do you take pleasure in being so stupid?
One could argue against the means and say that the reason disproportionately taxing the rich is "fair" is because the rich have, in general, disproportionately benefitted from society (education, infrastructure, etc.). So it's only fair that they should give more back. (Not enough that they won't still be very well off)
Or one could argue against the ends and say that the more equally you tax the rich relative to everyone else, the closer your society gets to a fascist aristocracy, kind of like the USSR but with oppressive corporations instead of oppressive government.
A little melodramatic are we? At least in those countries nobody has to choose between paying rent and eating.
+5 insightful
"One at a time, please"
For example, get a good touring bike and ride to another state or country. Less $ than terabytes of storage and something you will actually be able to look back on when you're on your deathbed. Which will likely be pushed further away since you'll be getting in shape as opposed to sitting on your butt and dying of a blood clot at age 50. Take up an activity or a hobby... anything. Don't just be a bump on a log.
You're being very naive if you think the RIAA is interested in fairness.
What is fairness, and who defines what it is? You're being very naive if you think the legions on slashdot who will illegally copy music that costs more than $X (very low amount) aren't being just as unfair.
Oh I see, YOU are setting the price. Okay. I actually am with you in spirit on this in that I want to see prices go down as well. So I'm going to stand alongside you and say that I want that level of quality as well, but I will pay no more than $4.99 for it with art, $2.50 without art, and DRM encumbered for $0.75. Now, the question is: Which spoiled twat is the RIAA supposed to listen to, you or me? And when the next spoiled twat comes along who demands all this for an even lower price, is the RIAA supposed to listen to him? Where do we draw the line? As a consumer, it's very hard to have an objective view of all this when you've got access to a large portion of western civilization's back catalog for free at your fingertips (KaZaA etc.). I'm glad to hear you've found something that agrees with you in Emusic.
And when did I say anything about the CONSEQUENCES of piracy? I said that piracy (or, to be charitable, whatever you want to call it) is an INDICATOR of nothing except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it.
I've got an idea, maybe the RIAA is trying to become like Ferrari. Their new motto: "You want the cool music, the status symbol music, you gotta pay for it." Of course I'm not really suggesting this, but let's say this is the case. Who am I to argue? I'm a consumer and I can buy / not buy what I see fit, but where is it any of my business to tell the RIAA what to do? "No RIAA, you can't sell CDs that cost this much, you have to sell them cheaper, because I said so."
Thanks for spelling the math out for me. I am impressed, but I need help understanding one more point. Why is it that the pricing practices of the RIAA must conform to your mathematical formula? Why do they have to make sense, or be based on anything at all? If I'm whoever is in charge at a record company, and I want to charge $52.99 for the next Nelly album (let's say I'm a total dazed cokehead), why should I not be allowed to do this? Let's say I want to outsource the printing of all my CD booklets to some print shop in Tibet where each booklet is individually blessed by the Dalai Lama, and as a consequence, each booklet costs me $152, causing the price I charge for the final product to increase to $169.99. Maybe I want to move upmarket. Hell, maybe I've got my own religion which says thou shalt not charge less than $17 for a CD. Why should I not be allowed to do this? Why do I *have* to price my CDs for this dying commodity market? Let's say I do move upmarket, making all my CDs out of glass and gold in place of plastic and aluminum. Does this give people a right to violate my copyright on the $50 CD?
Yes, I think the prices of new CDs in non-discount stores are outrageous as well, and I don't buy them either. But if RIAA wants to price the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers album at $30, and watch as it sells 6 copies nationwide, that's the RIAA's problem. It doesn't give anybody else the right to revolt and commit mass copyright violations of that album. I don't like it any more than anyone else does, but, oh well. Fortunately there are several new distribution ideas coming into being that are much more reasonably priced, like iTunes, Buymusic, Emusic, and whatever else.
You could just as easily turn the question around. "Why the hell should Yoko Ono or Michael Jackson NOT expect to be payed now for the work the Beatles did 40 years ago? They payed for the rights to it, after all." Now I'm not saying I agree with that, but a reasonable limit to copyright is a very subjective thing, so it's up to both sides of this debate to agree on something WITHOUT one side crying, "Wah, it's not fair, I should be able to get whatever I want for whatever I want to pay for it."
Basically you want the entire Beatles back catalog, no no, all music ever recorded, in 96kHz 24-bit uncompressed 6-channel PCM for $1. Get over yourself. Heavy piracy is an indication of NOTHING except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it. If an album at the iTunes Music Store cost $5, you'd be bitching about how it didn't cost $4, and if it cost $4, you'd complain that it didn't cost $2.50. And if it cost $2.50, you'd be outraged that it weren't free, except for the cost of bandwidth. You know what? I think a Ferrari F355 should cost $7.50. Guess what? What I think a Ferrari F355 should cost doesn't mean a god damn motherfucking thing.
I have no idea how your voodoo math with regards to CD and digital music prices is supposed to work, and I have no desire to take the necessary hallucinogens that would enable me to understand. My suggestion would be to stop being such a spoiled twit and learn up on market pricing.
You think it's lame now, but just wait until 10 years into the future when they're still using the same godawful Slashcode with the same eye popping color scheme. Then we'll all be laughing
Yeah, that 1.5KB HTML page with no inline images is a real killer. Those Verisign fuckheads should keep in mind all the real hardcore geeks like me who are still using 150baud acoustic couplers. I'd much rather have them redirect me to Google, which (thanks to the big banner graphic) is about 10X more data for me to load. HMMMMMMMMM.
Most libraries moved to the Library of Congress classification system in the mid '80s. Dewey is still around in libraries for books added before the switchover.
How about "Since we don't have money trees growing on our property, we're going to start charging you this fee, because we don't want to go bankrupt, so you're free to take your business elsewhere, but be reminded that everyone else is subject to the same fees, and it's not like THEY'RE going to absorb them, either."
An army of antisocial self-righteous snobs is more like it. Yeha man all the computerz r gonna crash just like they did in terminator 3!!!!!! did you see that movie woah!!!!
Bill Gates != all of the rich, that's how
That he's not just sitting around being idle
No, it's like the next generacean superbowl. Get it right
I'm not sure I want a system that requires any band that wants to make money to go on huge long tours rather than sell a lot of records. The Beatles couldn't have thrived in a system like that. Any system that allows a bunch of nomadic stoners to thrive and not the greatest band ever causes me concern.
This "make money touring" idea seems very constraining to me. It seems like it will produce a lot of music that will get old fast. How many young handsome men in tight-fitting heavily-worn secondhand clothing making songs out of major chords and covering their stratocasters in hip stickers can one really take? (Don't answer that ladies/gay men) I've had it up to my neck with MP3-friendly indie rock bands, and their spoiled twat fans who go to the concerts and peer carefully around them to make sure they're not making themselves look uncool by being more into the music than anyone else. These bands ran out of names (not to mention songs) long ago (Neutral Milk Hotel? That's not a name, you cunts), so they might as well just refer to themselves by numbers now, since that's all they really are - small little unique but insignificant numbers in a sea of more insignificance. When will another Bob Dylan, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana - any band that a fairly large culture can get behind and identify with - happen again? The answer looks bleak. The real explanation to the problem is very long and complicated, but I don't see how widespread MP3 distribution of music can do anything but diffuse, jade, and deaden the cultural excitement that music can invoke. Geeks on slashdot tend to look at this in only one way - their analytical, accountant-style way that tries to look for math-like solutions to problems. But music - especially the reasons we humans like music so much! - is more complicated than that and can't really be analyzed on this level.
One thing that's happening is that bands are stuck in several abusive relationships these days. One (some aren't at this stage yet) is with their blood-sucking record company, another is with their fans. (I'll only go into the one with the fans because the r.c. one is obvious.) A band's primary goal in being a band - even if they say it isn't, with very few exceptions - is to be liked and to be famous. The band realizes it can't get famous without being heard, so it tries to record more, and play more shows to get the word out, and sell CDs at the concerts etc. But they soon learn this doesn't work, because there is too much competition. Music is a market, and any individual band is small beans. So they see that their fans like MP3s and they say, uh, ok, yeah, we like MP3s too! MP3s, yeah man, cool stuff. Hehheh. And they release their songs in MP3 and give all their fans full access to them via the "band blog" or whatever. Basically what they do is whore themselves in every way possible in an effort to compete, and they all end up losing, and the "consumer" wins BIG TIME (in the short-term). Of course, now the consumer is suffering because music is starting to suck, reason being, the consumer is impeding the mechanisms - however flawed those mechanisms might be - by which music reaches mass culture.
Here is what music needs today (or at least here is one thing that would help): For bands to grow backbones. They need to stand up on stage and say, alright, you spoiled thick rimmed glasses-wearing fucks, you're welcome for coming, we're going to play you 12 songs tonight that are all fucking incredible, and if you don't like them, you can go fuck yourselves, because seeing us is a privilege, not a right, and frankly, at $20 a head, you got a great deal. And if I ever catch one of you punks illegally copying OUR MUSIC without our permission, I'll put this 'ere guitar in your crotch. Maybe this sounds funny, but the first talented band to come along with good songs and adopt this strategy of asserting itself - I guarantee it will be bigger than Nirvana was. Do I expect this to happen? No, I pretty much expect more "yes sir, we'll give you the music you like sir, yes you can have MP3s sir, yes we like to give our MP3s away sir!" But I can dream.