There are many reasons why ITV Digital isn't doing so well, but it's not all their fault. Firstly, they have a financial disadvantage: not only are they a much smaller company than Sky, but they mustpay huge license fees to the government for the priveledge of existing. Sky, being based off shore, pays no such fees, as they are effectively outside regulation.
Secondly, they exist upon the terrestrial network. They'd like to boost transmitter power so that people like you don't have such problems (I know what you're experiencing, we have encountered the same). But guess what - the government won't let them, because it degrades the analog signal slightly, they can only boost the signal when more people have switched. And people won't switch while they are outside the transmitter range: it's a classic chicken and egg situation.
They are tied down at every angle by regulation - for instance the government requires that they transmit regional TV. Regional TV is in my opinion a waste of time, most people I know don't give a rats ass that Mrs. Nobody got her cat stuck up her tree, or that it's the Xth anniversary of the Albert Docks. However, they must not only transmit regionally, but also subregionally. The total number of separate transmission streams comes to 33! That's 33 separate industrial MPEG decoders, and at a cool quarter million each, that is a significant investment. Sky of course just give the UK the finger.
Murdoch used the classic Microsoft trick of subsidising its way into the market as well - by starting the box wars he raised the inital investment by billions. He can afford to lose that much: dominance of the media is more important to him than actual cold, hard profit. It's similar to the MS X-BOX situation.
Mismanagement from the top doesn't help either - their enormous bids for football were way out. So you see, all these factors have meant that Sky have walked over ITV Digital, and it's NOT a good thing. Bear in mind that, despite ITV having to pay for the networks creation and development (the UK had the first digital TV infrastructure in the world remember), it's also an open platform. Sky TV is of course, utterly closed, and by pulling this sort of stuff, Murdoch is pissing all over the British people. That's why I hate him, even though eventually we got tired of repeated transmission faults and switched... to sky:(
Imagine a directory that literally is the result of the query "all files that were sent to this customer in the last 2 months". Seamless.
Actually you'd be able to do just that, as SQL Server already includes the Natural Language English Query component, which works quite well apparently.
Look at it this way - some of us may wish that the whole world used Linux, but it doesn't. It uses Windows. So when MS announces that they're taking a big risk (and it is a big risk) to try and make such an enormous upgrade to Windows, I think we should be happy that a few years down the road, if Windows is still dominant then at least people will be benefiting from this technology.
But... this doesn't mean we should just sit back and go - well done Microsoft! After all, I recall reading about something similar over at the reiserFS page... how long until Linux users get this technology also?
What's fanatical about wanting to use a mature, well-supported OS instead of a piece of shit like LinuxPPC? Fanaticism is intentionally using an inferior tool for "idealistic" reasons.
Ah, I love being a fanatic! But seriously, I used to think the same way you did, until I realised how much harm the Windows monopoly really did cause. Would an Apple be any better than a MS monopoly? Of course not, and no - no matter what you think of Apple, they would not be any better behaved in a monopoly situation. Or at least, I for one would not be willing to take that risk.
But a monopoly of Linux? That wouldn't be anywhere near as harmful - although it wouldn't necessarily be a totally good thing I'd like to see either;) Linux has its share of faults.
Oh and by the way, I count well supported as being able to go into an IRC channel and get tech support (as well as interesting debates) for free, and being able to phone tech support for when I have problems that IRC isn't suitable for. That's well supported.
I use Linux, though many could argue it's inferior to Windows. As there's no way in hell I could ever afford a Mac right now, I have to consider Macs inferior to Linux anyway so that's a moot point.
Well, maybe. OS X is pretty nice, but that's another story.
Last time my Mac-lover best mate tried Linux the poor quality and performance of Linux PPC ports frustrated him. I pointed out that it's catch-22, having lots of fanatical MacOS users means very few try other operating systems, which means there's little incentive for linux companies to make decent ports and so on.
Problems were really apparent - for instance he tried a distro that was for PPC, but it had no Mac customisations what so ever. It just assumed he was using a 3 button mouse for instance. Hopefully if Red Hat do this properly, rather than just use a fancy compiler, OS X will have some competition on its home ground.
Remember this: open source is complementary to commercial software. A very few people like RMS believe all software should be Free with a capital letter (that bugs the hell out of me), but they are in the minority. The rest of us write open source code because we want to contribute to the community.
As an example, point me to good examples of companies that have gone under because an open source product stole their market. Now realise this: the open source movement would be nowhere near as big as it is today if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft has total control of the market. Can anybody see Linux really growing at such a rate if say Windows, BeOs and Mac OS X shared the market equally in thirds, and apps could be ported between each in a matter of hours? Nope, didn't think so. Open source exists because the market has been distorted for so long that something new had to happen, and it did.
Finally, know this: open source software competes with a TINY TINY part of the whole software market. Where's the open source competitor to Oracle, Sage, the software that runs our electricity grids, our gas pipes, manages corporations payroll databases. Hmm, I don't see them. Wonder why?
It's because open source competes in markets where there is total control of the market. The desktop is really the only area of computing I can think of (at the moment) where this applies.
Don't worry - ten years from now we'll all still be programmers, in fact the profession will probably have expanded enormously, because programmers will be spending their time writing new code, instead of working their way around Microsofts bugs, or writing hacky little utilities to make up for the lack of a feature we were promised five years ago.
We'll all be earning money, and hopefully contributing at the same time. Relax! It's gonna be fun!:)
Well of course that's the best thing about NTLWorld as opposed to AOL, being able to control it via dun or Linux, but I've repeatedly had problems with their caching web proxy, and their tech support is a pound a minute.
'Linux people'? It's no surprise that Linux won't make it onto the average desktop with that sort of attitude.
Actually (hides face in shame) I would have loved an AOL Linux client a while ago. My family used AOL at the time because a) it was cheap and b) it worked freecall with the UK cable network. An AOL client would have been great - unfortunately there wasn't one of course so we had to leave AOL and switch to NTL World which are pretty bad, worse even than AOL!
So while they may have a point now, the makeup of 'Linux people' is changing, and is moving further away from the geek demographic all the time.
thanks -mike
Of course AOL will have to eventually switch to Mozilla - considering how much they hate MS and how stable Gecko (note: rendering engine not mozilla) has been for some time now I'm surprised they haven't done this already.
It's either that or forever be in bondage to Gates... it won't be long now I'd bet.
Yeah yeah yeah, I used to think that, until I noticed that many of my other linux using friends preferred GNOME to KDE, and don't want to be forced to switch to KDE.
Actually I think that's pretty deep.... people bicker and fight about KDE vs GNOME, Qt vs GTK, but at the end of the day, we're all on the same planet, and we're all in this together. We're very much all in the sauna together.
Software Installation?
on
Penguin2Apple
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· Score: 1
Well, first off I'm a new Linux convert and though I love many things about my new favourite OS, software installation isn't one of them.
I'm not entirely sure how you manage to find Linux software management easier than drag'n'drop or run-the-installer, in fact, a Mac friend of mine who recently tried Linux (OS X performance was killing his old iMac) found the software management was THE thing that switched him off. The whole: X needs Y needs Z needs X mess, the fact that he couldn't even upgrade Mozilla (mandrakes urpmi wouldn't let him uninstall the older one cos gnome needed it) really was offputting. And I share his sentiments.
Now, I've said elsewhere in this story how I think the large amount of code reuse on Linux is a good thing, and it is. But software management is one of the biggest things stopped me recommending it to my non-technical friends. Perhaps GNUpdate will help solve this dilemma?
The | parent comment which writes the reply [ vis-a-vis this ]
"The nest it does" and "the even way" for sorting messages. I like the sound of the even way.
and.. It has been said S0R5, " article of the Yomiuri Shimbun Company (ahead linking Yahoo! News) according to, before pouring radiation, when the beer is drunk, it was found that it is the possibility where it can prevent the obstacle due to being bombed so is. If it can prevent truly, being to be funny, it does, if you want to know, but whether the above that you happen to think such a thing with something. "
I love the fish!
Re:Pay-per-view, pay-per-use, micropayments, etc.
on
More on MPEG4
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· Score: 2, Informative
That's just wrong i'm afraid: I can think of at least one wildly succesful implementation of micropayments which is pay-as-you-go mobile phones in the UK.
Before pay-as-you-go all phones were contract based, ie flat rate (with small additional charges if you go over the limit). However this charging model didn't suit many people who would only use their phones occasionally, or wanted to keep a close eye on their expenses so the payg scheme was introduced. You can buy top up vouchers from shops and post offices, and then your phone shows you how much money you have in your account.
It's effectively a micropayment system, and it's in use by millions in this country every day.
Anyway, your assertion that micropayments didn't take off because there are a lot of commercial, proprietary implementations that didn't work is also rubbish - all that means is that those systems weren't up to the job.
You also neglect the fact that even in places where the utility companies aren't monopolies, micropayments are still the default
I've already sent Taco an email about this and got a reply back within a couple of hours (damn impressive rob if you're reading this, thanks). Anyway, I know that I would definately consider paying more if I could get the sites content as XML.
After all, what is Slashdot? To me, what makes slashdot great is the content, not the user interface, not even the pretty icons, the content is what matters. If I could have access to all the comments as XML I could basically create my own interface to it: instant replies, instant thread following, instant filtering. And on a 33.6k modem that's not inconsiderable.
I can't be the only modem user who'd like to "download" slashdot like I do my mail, then browse it with a skinnable interface of my choice (Mozillas XUL perhaps?).
Really what they should be telling Microsoft to do is allow competitors to replace IE with their own products by documenting APIs and interfaces.
Adam Lock has already produced an ActiveX control for Mozilla that conforms mostly to the Trident APIS, allowing it to act as a drop in replacement for the IE ActiveX control. It's most definately possible, though at the end of the day surely what rendering engine is used is for the user a purely academic matter anyway.
Firstly, I'm not a lawyer etc, so please correct me if I've misunderstood this - but that sounds like a really really dumb way of running a company.
Let me get this straight: Microsoft pays its wage bills largely by constantly issuing new shares, and its employees then cash in those shares. The whole thing is based mainly on the willingness of investors to give Microsoft more money every month.
So what happens if their share price stays still for a few months, or even goes down? Surely that means that every employee effectively takes a pay cut each and every month, and as I seriously doubt anybody works at Microsoft for the betterment of their soul, there would suddenly not be such a big incentive to stay anymore.
Surely the whole company can't possibly be that unstable? Somebody tell me I'm wrong (or rather, i want to hear I'm right)
No - other news organisations "charge" for links to other peoples content too.
At the simplest level for instance your daily newspaper charges you for the priviledge of reading many stories, not all of which will have come from their own journalists. Much of the news content we take for granted today comes from organisations like Reuters, the Press Association etc which resell content. You could get that content for free theoretically, but you don't, because the value of having all those stories collected together, with added "features" like images, editorials, comments sections outweighs having to go to Reuters, the PA etc to get your news yourself every day.
If I had a credit card I'd pay;) But I'm not old enough yet. Oh well, maybe next year.
that now all the major Linux/Cross platform web browsers, and even IE 6 are paying attention to the W3C standards that we will all one day be choosing our browser based on what we like, rather than what web developers like
Note that this doesn't mean it will never be ready for the desktop, or that Linux is "meant" to be only a server OS. That's rubbish. Linux is making tremendous progress as a desktop OS and is getting significantly better as a result all round, but it isn't up to the standards people coming from Windows or MacOS expect yet. Little things, like the X clipboard issue (which will be fixed soon), the apps looking different, software installation etc. all aren't quite there yet.
They will be soon though - when Linux can truly compete as a desktop, governments will start adopting it. Governments, contrary to some of the opinions expressed here, are not composed of idiots.
A few months ago I saw the definitive open source report for the UK Govt, read by all important civil servants who deal with IT. It said, not surprisingly, that the Open Source development model had promise, and that deploying Linux on the server side would make a great deal of sense. It also said that Linux wasn't ready on the desktop yet, but was getting there fast, and recommended reviewing the situation in a years time.
Don't worry - we're getting there. Linux makes more sense than Windows or the Mac: do you really want something as important to the correct functioning of computers (which are becoming more and more important all the time to civilisation) to be controlled by 1 company? Didn't think so.
Oh yeah, that doesn't mean I hate commercial software or anything. Far from it - but something as pivotal as the OS is not something that one company should own.
Really those hackers should be working on getting KDE and GNOME to work together better, more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for competition, but that has to be balanced with co-operation to make Linux easier to use for everyone.
Also, doesn't anyone get the feeling here that Gnome is becoming less a desktop and more a political pawn every day?
That's garbage. I don't like the conditions that come with some CDs, but where else can I legally get this music. Oh, only at live gigs huh? That isn't so great. I want to be able to listen to music whenever I like - after all the technology lets me.
You're right, if I don't like the conditions that doesn't give me the right to violate them. But it does give me the right to bitch mercilessly about them, and that's what we're all doing here. We're saying: this sucks. That doesn't mean we're going to go out and start stealing stuff (well, I'm not anyway). But we can try and change it.
The idea that artists aren't being exploited is itself "BS" in my opinion. What does a musician do if they want to earn a living wage. They make music and then sell it - but the only way to get your music to a mass audience is through the record companies. Other than the net, which is still too new for most artists, there IS NO OTHER WAY.
So the record companies can and do screw artists all the time. Hence all the bile and outrage on these sorts of forums. Oh and as for your stupid little anti-socialist rant, wake up and smell the roses. Not just American, but many large companies screw people, exploit people, bribe people and take the planet up the arse ALL THE TIME. I don't want to setup a corporation and get rich, because in todays climate that would mean I'd have to abandon most of my morals.
Slashdot Mirror
There are many reasons why ITV Digital isn't doing so well, but it's not all their fault. Firstly, they have a financial disadvantage: not only are they a much smaller company than Sky, but they mustpay huge license fees to the government for the priveledge of existing. Sky, being based off shore, pays no such fees, as they are effectively outside regulation.
... to sky :(
Secondly, they exist upon the terrestrial network. They'd like to boost transmitter power so that people like you don't have such problems (I know what you're experiencing, we have encountered the same). But guess what - the government won't let them, because it degrades the analog signal slightly, they can only boost the signal when more people have switched. And people won't switch while they are outside the transmitter range: it's a classic chicken and egg situation.
They are tied down at every angle by regulation - for instance the government requires that they transmit regional TV. Regional TV is in my opinion a waste of time, most people I know don't give a rats ass that Mrs. Nobody got her cat stuck up her tree, or that it's the Xth anniversary of the Albert Docks. However, they must not only transmit regionally, but also subregionally. The total number of separate transmission streams comes to 33! That's 33 separate industrial MPEG decoders, and at a cool quarter million each, that is a significant investment. Sky of course just give the UK the finger.
Murdoch used the classic Microsoft trick of subsidising its way into the market as well - by starting the box wars he raised the inital investment by billions. He can afford to lose that much: dominance of the media is more important to him than actual cold, hard profit. It's similar to the MS X-BOX situation.
Mismanagement from the top doesn't help either - their enormous bids for football were way out. So you see, all these factors have meant that Sky have walked over ITV Digital, and it's NOT a good thing. Bear in mind that, despite ITV having to pay for the networks creation and development (the UK had the first digital TV infrastructure in the world remember), it's also an open platform. Sky TV is of course, utterly closed, and by pulling this sort of stuff, Murdoch is pissing all over the British people. That's why I hate him, even though eventually we got tired of repeated transmission faults and switched
Actually you'd be able to do just that, as SQL Server already includes the Natural Language English Query component, which works quite well apparently.
Look at it this way - some of us may wish that the whole world used Linux, but it doesn't. It uses Windows. So when MS announces that they're taking a big risk (and it is a big risk) to try and make such an enormous upgrade to Windows, I think we should be happy that a few years down the road, if Windows is still dominant then at least people will be benefiting from this technology.
But ... this doesn't mean we should just sit back and go - well done Microsoft! After all, I recall reading about something similar over at the reiserFS page... how long until Linux users get this technology also?
Ah, I love being a fanatic! But seriously, I used to think the same way you did, until I realised how much harm the Windows monopoly really did cause. Would an Apple be any better than a MS monopoly? Of course not, and no - no matter what you think of Apple, they would not be any better behaved in a monopoly situation. Or at least, I for one would not be willing to take that risk.
But a monopoly of Linux? That wouldn't be anywhere near as harmful - although it wouldn't necessarily be a totally good thing I'd like to see either ;) Linux has its share of faults.
Oh and by the way, I count well supported as being able to go into an IRC channel and get tech support (as well as interesting debates) for free, and being able to phone tech support for when I have problems that IRC isn't suitable for. That's well supported.
I use Linux, though many could argue it's inferior to Windows. As there's no way in hell I could ever afford a Mac right now, I have to consider Macs inferior to Linux anyway so that's a moot point.
Glad to hear it worked well for you - bear in mind I'm using their dialup service, which isn't as hot. Wish I could afford broadband!
Last time my Mac-lover best mate tried Linux the poor quality and performance of Linux PPC ports frustrated him. I pointed out that it's catch-22, having lots of fanatical MacOS users means very few try other operating systems, which means there's little incentive for linux companies to make decent ports and so on.
Problems were really apparent - for instance he tried a distro that was for PPC, but it had no Mac customisations what so ever. It just assumed he was using a 3 button mouse for instance. Hopefully if Red Hat do this properly, rather than just use a fancy compiler, OS X will have some competition on its home ground.
Remember this: open source is complementary to commercial software. A very few people like RMS believe all software should be Free with a capital letter (that bugs the hell out of me), but they are in the minority. The rest of us write open source code because we want to contribute to the community.
As an example, point me to good examples of companies that have gone under because an open source product stole their market. Now realise this: the open source movement would be nowhere near as big as it is today if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft has total control of the market. Can anybody see Linux really growing at such a rate if say Windows, BeOs and Mac OS X shared the market equally in thirds, and apps could be ported between each in a matter of hours? Nope, didn't think so. Open source exists because the market has been distorted for so long that something new had to happen, and it did.
Finally, know this: open source software competes with a TINY TINY part of the whole software market. Where's the open source competitor to Oracle, Sage, the software that runs our electricity grids, our gas pipes, manages corporations payroll databases. Hmm, I don't see them. Wonder why?
It's because open source competes in markets where there is total control of the market. The desktop is really the only area of computing I can think of (at the moment) where this applies. Don't worry - ten years from now we'll all still be programmers, in fact the profession will probably have expanded enormously, because programmers will be spending their time writing new code, instead of working their way around Microsofts bugs, or writing hacky little utilities to make up for the lack of a feature we were promised five years ago.
We'll all be earning money, and hopefully contributing at the same time. Relax! It's gonna be fun! :)
Oh, and is it true that it's bad form to reply more than once to a topic? I'd never heard of that one before....
NTL is good for broadband though apparently
Actually (hides face in shame) I would have loved an AOL Linux client a while ago. My family used AOL at the time because a) it was cheap and b) it worked freecall with the UK cable network. An AOL client would have been great - unfortunately there wasn't one of course so we had to leave AOL and switch to NTL World which are pretty bad, worse even than AOL!
So while they may have a point now, the makeup of 'Linux people' is changing, and is moving further away from the geek demographic all the time. thanks -mike
It's either that or forever be in bondage to Gates... it won't be long now I'd bet.
I just wish they'd work more on interoperability
Amen to that! I think that's something we should all remember once the KDE/GNOME trolls start to fly: we're in this together, so let's work together.
How soon before we get cross-toolkit theming support?
Actually I think that's pretty deep.... people bicker and fight about KDE vs GNOME, Qt vs GTK, but at the end of the day, we're all on the same planet, and we're all in this together. We're very much all in the sauna together.
I'm not entirely sure how you manage to find Linux software management easier than drag'n'drop or run-the-installer, in fact, a Mac friend of mine who recently tried Linux (OS X performance was killing his old iMac) found the software management was THE thing that switched him off. The whole: X needs Y needs Z needs X mess, the fact that he couldn't even upgrade Mozilla (mandrakes urpmi wouldn't let him uninstall the older one cos gnome needed it) really was offputting. And I share his sentiments.
Now, I've said elsewhere in this story how I think the large amount of code reuse on Linux is a good thing, and it is. But software management is one of the biggest things stopped me recommending it to my non-technical friends. Perhaps GNUpdate will help solve this dilemma?
I love the fish!
That's just wrong i'm afraid: I can think of at least one wildly succesful implementation of micropayments which is pay-as-you-go mobile phones in the UK.
Before pay-as-you-go all phones were contract based, ie flat rate (with small additional charges if you go over the limit). However this charging model didn't suit many people who would only use their phones occasionally, or wanted to keep a close eye on their expenses so the payg scheme was introduced. You can buy top up vouchers from shops and post offices, and then your phone shows you how much money you have in your account.
It's effectively a micropayment system, and it's in use by millions in this country every day.
Anyway, your assertion that micropayments didn't take off because there are a lot of commercial, proprietary implementations that didn't work is also rubbish - all that means is that those systems weren't up to the job.
You also neglect the fact that even in places where the utility companies aren't monopolies, micropayments are still the default
I've already sent Taco an email about this and got a reply back within a couple of hours (damn impressive rob if you're reading this, thanks). Anyway, I know that I would definately consider paying more if I could get the sites content as XML.
After all, what is Slashdot? To me, what makes slashdot great is the content, not the user interface, not even the pretty icons, the content is what matters. If I could have access to all the comments as XML I could basically create my own interface to it: instant replies, instant thread following, instant filtering. And on a 33.6k modem that's not inconsiderable.
I can't be the only modem user who'd like to "download" slashdot like I do my mail, then browse it with a skinnable interface of my choice (Mozillas XUL perhaps?).
thanks -mike
Adam Lock has already produced an ActiveX control for Mozilla that conforms mostly to the Trident APIS, allowing it to act as a drop in replacement for the IE ActiveX control. It's most definately possible, though at the end of the day surely what rendering engine is used is for the user a purely academic matter anyway.
Let me get this straight: Microsoft pays its wage bills largely by constantly issuing new shares, and its employees then cash in those shares. The whole thing is based mainly on the willingness of investors to give Microsoft more money every month.
So what happens if their share price stays still for a few months, or even goes down? Surely that means that every employee effectively takes a pay cut each and every month, and as I seriously doubt anybody works at Microsoft for the betterment of their soul, there would suddenly not be such a big incentive to stay anymore.
Surely the whole company can't possibly be that unstable? Somebody tell me I'm wrong (or rather, i want to hear I'm right)
At the simplest level for instance your daily newspaper charges you for the priviledge of reading many stories, not all of which will have come from their own journalists. Much of the news content we take for granted today comes from organisations like Reuters, the Press Association etc which resell content. You could get that content for free theoretically, but you don't, because the value of having all those stories collected together, with added "features" like images, editorials, comments sections outweighs having to go to Reuters, the PA etc to get your news yourself every day.
If I had a credit card I'd pay ;) But I'm not old enough yet. Oh well, maybe next year.
that now all the major Linux/Cross platform web browsers, and even IE 6 are paying attention to the W3C standards that we will all one day be choosing our browser based on what we like, rather than what web developers like
Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet
Note that this doesn't mean it will never be ready for the desktop, or that Linux is "meant" to be only a server OS. That's rubbish. Linux is making tremendous progress as a desktop OS and is getting significantly better as a result all round, but it isn't up to the standards people coming from Windows or MacOS expect yet. Little things, like the X clipboard issue (which will be fixed soon), the apps looking different, software installation etc. all aren't quite there yet.
They will be soon though - when Linux can truly compete as a desktop, governments will start adopting it. Governments, contrary to some of the opinions expressed here, are not composed of idiots.
A few months ago I saw the definitive open source report for the UK Govt, read by all important civil servants who deal with IT. It said, not surprisingly, that the Open Source development model had promise, and that deploying Linux on the server side would make a great deal of sense. It also said that Linux wasn't ready on the desktop yet, but was getting there fast, and recommended reviewing the situation in a years time.
Don't worry - we're getting there. Linux makes more sense than Windows or the Mac: do you really want something as important to the correct functioning of computers (which are becoming more and more important all the time to civilisation) to be controlled by 1 company? Didn't think so.
Oh yeah, that doesn't mean I hate commercial software or anything. Far from it - but something as pivotal as the OS is not something that one company should own.
thanks -mike
Also, doesn't anyone get the feeling here that Gnome is becoming less a desktop and more a political pawn every day?
You're right, if I don't like the conditions that doesn't give me the right to violate them. But it does give me the right to bitch mercilessly about them, and that's what we're all doing here. We're saying: this sucks. That doesn't mean we're going to go out and start stealing stuff (well, I'm not anyway). But we can try and change it.
The idea that artists aren't being exploited is itself "BS" in my opinion. What does a musician do if they want to earn a living wage. They make music and then sell it - but the only way to get your music to a mass audience is through the record companies. Other than the net, which is still too new for most artists, there IS NO OTHER WAY.
So the record companies can and do screw artists all the time. Hence all the bile and outrage on these sorts of forums. Oh and as for your stupid little anti-socialist rant, wake up and smell the roses. Not just American, but many large companies screw people, exploit people, bribe people and take the planet up the arse ALL THE TIME. I don't want to setup a corporation and get rich, because in todays climate that would mean I'd have to abandon most of my morals.
-mike