Unfortunately, America has always had problems like this that seem
to clutter up the media, and then eventually people's everyday lives.
Things like the Vietnam war that caused an entire generation to dress
funny and smoke a lot of pot. McCarthyism caused us to put a whole
lot of innocent people in horrible concentration camps just because
we were looking for a communist ghost. Less than 200 years ago we
kept other people in chains, beat them, killed them and forced them
to do our manual labor.
You won't always find the strength or spirit of America on CNN,
just Connie Chung and Larry King yapping away about what a tragedy
it is that a few CEOs scammed some money. Meanwhile thousands of
people are dying in countries that wept for us on 9/11, but we can't
afford the airtime to cover that news.
It's been the norm for the government and the media to blow things
out of proportion and to dig up the wrong dirt on the right issues.
But it's also been the norm for the citizens of the US to fight against
the government for what we believe in. That's why we all turned into
hippies, fought against communist concentration camps, and had a civil war
over slavery.
That's also the reason that we have big discussions like these on Slashdot
about the ethics, definitions and social implications of hacking.
What we need to do is focus less on what's being said, and focus more
on who it's being said to. A bunch of geeks on a web site writing inflammatory
comments about the government really only affects a bunch of geeks that come to
that website and read those comments. It would be more effective if we could
somehow get a real geek in Washington. Unfortunately for politicians to pay attention
to you, you have to waft money in front of their nose. (Here boy! Nice senator
want a campaign donation? Good senator!)
Therein lies the problem. Those with the money are bringing wheelbarrows of it
to their congressman to shut us geeks up, while we piss and moan about it in our
forums.
White, gray, black, purple... it doesn't matter what hat you're wearing now.
If those in control now (Hollywood, Washington) have their way you'll eventually
end up with a pair of matching handcuffs and a free ride to Alcatraz.
Can we at least get away from the terrible analogy of: "Ok, say you someone breaks into your house/car/business but doesn't steal anything"
to mirror the actions of "hacking"?
Yes, it really sounds like it might be a good analogy,
but computers are absolutely none of the above.
There is no such thing as a nice citizen who comes around
to your house and checks to make sure your door is locked
and your jewelry is secured in your house.
There never has been, there never will be, and there never
will need to be, because the Internet is a way different
medium than the real world.
Analogies are great for helping geeks explain computer terms
to non-computer people, but no matter how you slice it an apple
will never be an orange.
A prime example of how it doesn't work is in software "hacking".
If a major gaping security hole in someone's software exists,
it is something that desperately needs to be fixed immediately and brought
to people's attention.
Imagine something simple like an IIS bug (no way!) that allows people
to download the source code for some script on your server that includes
things like database and system passwords. Some well meaning (gray) hacker
tells Microsoft about this, and gets tossed in jail. Meanwhile the same
exploit is found at the same time by a malicious (black) cracker, who
tells all his l337 script kiddie friends and before you know it some poor
startup companies have just given out credit card numbers and secure
corporate information to exactly the wrong kind of people.
Where is the white hat in all this?
Oh, he thought about the exploit, but didn't look into it because that
sort of thing is naughty and he might get his pretty little white hat dirty.
Testing security measures and breaking software is absolutely necessary
if we want to keep robust efficient systems across the country.
Do you really think other countries prosecute their
L337 cR4X0rs when they break into our untested unsecured networks?
There have been hackers ever since there have been computers,
and it needs to stay that way or we will all find ourselves up
that silicon creek without a paddle.
I might be a little off the subject, but I think the issue is less
the fact that you get spammed, and more the fact that your email
address is sold over and over and over again, just because you
were dumb enough to fill it out on your credit card application.
Even if you signed up for an internet site and didn't check any
"spam me" boxes they can still sell your contact info to other businesses.
Just read the fine print on their sites.
An Actual Privacy Policy: "However, without your consent, we do not make your, or your gift or message recipient's email
addresses available to third parties (except for subsidiaries, subcontractors or agents acting on
our behalf in compliance with this Privacy Policy)or any Successor (see below) to our business."
Wait... what was that about except for subsidiaries, and who?
The same thing happens with your phone number and your home address.
You get spammed with email, spammed with phone calls, spammed with faxes,
and spammed in your mailbox.
I think a better solution to the problem is to make it illegal to sell
people's contact information for the purpose of making money.
Not "If you check here" or "If you agree to these terms", not for any reason.
When you give your contact information to a business,
you are giving it to them with the trust that they will use that information
only to contact you if necessary. I can guarantee you that 0% of the people
that sign up for a service are actually glad that their contact information
is sold or traded so that they can get phone calls about low home equity
loan rates.
At least from a legal perspective it would be easier to enforce. If you determined
that a corporation or a business was selling people's contact information, just
notify the authorities and have Uncle Sam come down on their ass. If they're actually
getting paid for it they can't correctly report it on their taxes, and we know
how much the government gets pissed off when they find out you've been hiding
money from them.
The extreme alternative is to become so paranoid about your personal information
that you won't give it out to anyone for any reason! Imagine buying a house and
telling the bank financing your loan that you can't give them your phone number
or home address because you know they're going to sell that information to a third
party. Either that or you want royalties from them every time they make money
from selling your information.
Hey, now we're talking about information ownership, right?
That sounds like intellectual property, kinda like music, right?
That means we can get it covered under the DMCA, right? Right??
You'd think I would have figured out by the "La" that it was a Spanish name. "La Hoya" in Spanish would sound pretty weird, more like "La Oya" since they don't really pronounce the H.
I've only heard the name spoken before, I've never seen it written (correctly) until now.
Would you still share music illegally if the artist was getting the money directly?
I think the biggest reason that a lot of people laugh off issues about music sharing is
because we all know that the people complaining about music theft are the company fat cats,
not the starving artists. The individual artist really isn't that affected when people
share their music.
Check the numbers.
The RIAA lists around 800 recording companies as members. There are probably around
1,000 artists per recording company.
Say Billy BadGuy hooks up with his 50 friends, each of which has 200 CDs that they have all ripped.
By some magical twist of fate, no two people have the same CD, so we have a total of 10,000 different
CDs that exist on the network to be illegally shared.
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 800 recording companies = $200 per company
Realistically there are probably only about 20 recording companies that likely produced the majority of those CDs.
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 20 real recording companies = $8,000 per company
On the artists side of the fence, if we assume that we have 10,000 different artists:
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 10,000 artists = $16 per artist
Realistically there are probably a few repeats, let's say 1/4 of the CDs are paired up with one other from the same artist.
That means that 2,500 CDs belong to 1,250 artists, and the remaining 7,500 CDs belong to 7,500 artists.
(2,500 CDs * $16) / 1,250 artists = $32 per artist (for 1,250 artists)
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 8,750 artists = ~$18.29 per artist (average for artists)
Pair all of this up with the average number of (signed) artists in the world:
That means that 1 percent of the artists are paying about $18 per 50 geeks sharing files, with the majority
of them paying only $16.
Now to poke at the RIAA's numbers some. They reported that they lost around 600 million dollars
from 2000 to 2001 because of illegal file sharing. Using our above example:
$600,000,000 lost / (10,000 CDs * $16) = 3,750 occurrences
That means that the above example of 50 people with 200 unique CDs would have to have been
repeated (uniquely) almost 3,750 times in order for the RIAA's posted losses to be correct.
3,750 cases * 51 people per case = 191,250 unique naughty people
(How many users are on SlashDot?)
On top of that, their numbers would fail again if any one of the almost 200,000 people
bought any CDs based on what they heard on these networks.
Now any monkey with a keyboard should be able to sit here with these numbers and crunch out some
figures, but in 99 out of 100 calculations, you're going to see this:
Besides all our fun number crunching, the article had some pretty good points.
"Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, once stated that the record business is the only industry in which the bank
still owns the house after the mortgage is paid."
Not only do they still own the house, they can kick you out of it, sell it, and keep all the money.
Then when you try to buy a new house with a different bank, they sue your ass!
"...virtually all contracts renegotiated after a hit album added terms favoring the artist..."
Well that's a no-brainer. Think of it as a poor man with a $5,000 house that the bank is trying to repossess.
All of a sudden he wins the lotto and has $500,000,000. You can bet that bank will be a lot nicer, hoping
he will keep all of his money in their bank accounts.
"Artists know record companies are giving blood, sweat and millions of dollars to help them realize their dreams."
Wonderfully vague statement that should be fun to pick apart.
They neglect to mention that the blood they give is being sucked out of all the other artists that they've
screwed over, and that the dreams they are realizing are for their own billion dollar mansions in La Hoya.
Artists know record companies have been screwing people out of their dreams for years.
To make another parallel, imagine that you want to buy a car so that you can go to work and make some money.
So you go to your local GM dealer and find out that you have to pay them a bunch of money over a few years
for the car. Ok that's not too bad, but wait...
You have to agree to buy another 5 cars from GM over the next 10 years?
You're not allowed to buy a car from any other manufacturer or they can sue you??
You can't get any warranty that the car won't break down even driving it off the lot???
You're not even allowed to test drive the car????
It's not surprising that independent artists end up happily riding horses for most of their career. Sure you might not
be able to get on the expressway, but if your ass hurts from too much riding at least you can get off of the horse.
"You have record companies bought and sold on the strength of copyrights created by artists who sign away
all rights in perpetuity to a faceless corporation."
I've given lots of pro bono computer training
to people ranging from those who just need help
figuring out some drivers to those who have "taken a computer class"
at some worthless training corporation, and think
that knowing how to use Microsoft Word makes them
computer savvy.
When you have to explain what the difference between
"left" click and "right" click is, or the difference
between Internet Explorer "The Blue E" or Windows Explorer
"The Yellow Square" is, the topic of installing Windows or
Linux becomes moot. With Windows they might at least have
a chance, since M$ caters to "I shut the monitor off, so
my computer must be off" people.
It's a silly comparison anyways. You don't install Linux
because it's easier than Windows. You install Linux because
it's configurable, faster, and doesn't carry all the overhead
that MS software does.
Is it just me or does it seem to anyone else that the AOTC Position Statement is a little inflammatory?
I totally agree that there should be an organization to support and protect geek rights,
but to start off the organization with possible slander towards several very powerful and successful companies with senators in their pockets is political suicide.
You gain respect and political allies by writing and lobbying senators and representatives for their support.
Without their support, we are just a bunch of annoying geeks who fill up their email boxes.
Actually, the date listed on the gulf news report, is 3/4/2002.
So if the baby was reported 8 weeks along by March, that would put the birth in September?
Ironically, a Virgo sign (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
may be a little more appropriate, being the first cloned human.
If you'll kindly take note, the author of the offending quote:
"Now how long until I can buy my own clone?"
was Vegeta99,
who is not one of the
active authors
on slash dot.
It was posted by chrisd
who is listed.
The job of a media source is to quote news submissions
as they are received, not steal the scoop and rewrite
the tag lines as they see fit.
It's also not the responsibility of any media source
to judge the future implications of a news submission.
That's why we have forums to discuss these topics, and while you may believe
the concept of purchasing a clone of yourself is ridiculous,
some other "ignorant stupid" person with a "flawed
view of this subject" might find it not so offensive.
The US gov. has been "cracking down on cybercrime!" for decades now,
but the only people they put in jail are the r3N3g4D3 h4x0r D00D$
are really just lost souls crying out for attention. (ha ha!)
It's not like they can or will do much.
Just like the stupid telemarketers, you can't outlaw phone calls,
and even if you do, who will really enforce it or report it?
I get at least 3 telemarketer calls at home,
and at least 10 unsolicited spams in my snotmail
box every day.
It doesn't have anything to do with signing up for anything,
it's all about the Benjamins. Universities, businesses and
even governmental institutions buy and sell personal information
so they can direct marketing to your front door.
I've never bought anything from a telemarketer, or
on-line from a website ad, yet I still get crappy junk mail in
my snail and email boxes.
How? Simple.
Ex: #1
I get a Gillette razor in the mail from the Army when I turn 18.
Not because the Army is really concerned about me being clean shaven,
for all they know, I may have been struck bald as a child and their
gift becomes some sort of cruel joke. No, I get the razor, because Uncle Sam
wants some greenbacks from Gillette and just happens to have my
age, name and address. Gillette just happens to have a crapload of cheap
razors, and they want me to buy refills from them for the rest of my life.
Ex: #2
I go off to college, and start getting a ton of phone calls for credit cards
in my off-campus house. Is this because the previous occupant was a plastic
money hound? No, it's because the university has determined that my tuition and
the governments contribution combined are not enough to buy the provost's daughter
a new purple Jaguar.
Ex: #3
I go to a web site for a DSL company who's primary business is
"Direct" satellite "TV" (figure it out). I want to determine if DSL
is available in my area, and it asks for my phone number to check availability.
No checkboxes showing anything about "please bug the crap out of me while
I'm eating dinner", so I enter the number click go.
A few days later, I get a phone call from that "Direct" satellite "TV" company,
just to let me know that they are in the area, and they have a "special offer"
if I sign up now! Woo hoo!
Wait a minute, they've been "in the area" for a really long time,
and I never received a phone call before. Come to think of it, the
"special offer" is the same exact one they have on their web site.
Not so special after all, eh?
Ex: #4
I go to the grocery store, and they all of a sudden have these special "bonus"
cards that you can use to get money off on groceries. I sign up for one,
because it's free, and all they're going to do is jack the price up anyways
so that suckers without a card will have to pay extra.
A week later, surprise surprise I start getting grocery advertising and coupon
clipping junk mail at my brand new house.
So it's about damn time the government started smacking the advertising
spam whores with some fines instead of paying them to spam you.
Maybe I'll only get 1 "FREE HOT XXX PORN!" email per day instead of 10.
Thanks to our myopic and narcissistic media and opportunistic, short-sighted politicians,
And how'd you get that, eh?
By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma
which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society!
Yeah, maybe they should do a comparison research between Doom/Quake game players and Everquest/Ultima players, and figure out how to get these stupid kids to just kill themselves and not everybody else!
It's not that big of a deal anyways, companies like SONY and Mitsubishi toss plenty of money at the US and vice versa.
International competition is great for the world economy, but you have to be careful that things don't turn out like the Japan Bashing that still sometimes happens because of the auto industry.
The poor pitiful recording industry
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The poor pitiful recording industry
Yeah, I really feel sorry for all the musicians out there
that have got big recording contracts and going platinum.
Ever watch MTV cribs?
Sit down some time and have a look.
I just watched one a week ago, where one band member
was showing his winter mansion in Utah.
Not the band's winter home, just one band member's.
Shortly after that came the sad story of lil-romeo.
A 10 year old kid with a huge mansion and a decked out Benz
he can't even drive yet, oh the humanity!
These are the poor recording artists who are losing all
of their money because a bunch of geeks with PCs are
fighting against the industry that charges $18 for a CD
that costs them a penny? What happened to the promises
that the price of CDs would come down after the original
plant manufacturing costs were absorbed?
Hmm.. let's see, I'm still paying $18 how's about you?
Yeah sure, maybe the rock stars deserve to have mansions,
boink lots of blond bimbos and eventuall OD on drugs or kill themselves.
If not, we might not have cool phrases like "Party like a rock star"
How much more pitiful is it that the recording companies take
a big chunk out of the artist's paycheck? They've obviously worked
so hard and paid their dues working for peanuts in the clubs
and eating Mac & Cheese (TM) for years, they deserve to have
a few mansions in La Hoya, right?
How about not.
Some times the government forgets where it got it's roots.
Taxation without representation? Same concept.
The recording industry jacks up the price of CDs to sell to you,
not because they have to in order to pay the janitor, but because
they want to have 3 jaguars instead of just 2.
Then along comes the Boston MP3 Party, and everybody tosses their
CDs in the Potomac to show King RIAAchard they're a little torked off.
Just like in that case, had England actually been a little nicer
about the whole thing we might be drinking tea with crumpets every
day instead of coffee and donuts.
Wake up Lars, it was just a bad dream, nobody is trying to take away
your gold plated Ferrari (--Camp Chaos) they're just sick of paying
to get your ass hairs waxed out.
If the recording industry is really serious about combating the digital
music trading problem, they should try actually lowering prices for the media
they sell. If a CD costed 3 bucks, would anyone even have bothered to rip it?
Sheesh, huge companies like Ford GM & Chrysler all ran huge deals when we were
in the recession, did the price of CDs drop a penny?
Didn't think so.
Poor babies.
Maybe we should send our $$ to them instead of the Red Cross.
Either that or just lock up all the h@x0r$ trading MP3s,
so we can pay for their room & board in prison.
That's a much better solution.
I can definitely relate (as can most of the people reading this,
otherwise they probably wouldn't even be on slashdot) to the
feeling that there is almost a class separation between those
in the know, and the Star Bellied Sneeches.
The real question is, is it just a feeling, or is it really happening?
You could compare the technology gap between yourself and your non-tech
savvy friends or parents to the same gap that probably existed when
your parents were your age figuring out how to use the radio.
But is it the same? Probably not. Computers are FAR more complex
oranges than TV apples, and when there is so much knowledge to
be gained, there is so much of an opening for a knowledge gap.
As someone else pointed out, this same gap exists between most people
and doctors or lawyers, etc... The obvious difference is, you don't
hire a doctor to come to your house and show you how to operate on yourself.
There is very limited action needed by an end recipient of a doctor's or
lawyer's care, where as with a PC you are simply shipped out the door
of the computer store with a confusing manual and your 10 year old kid
who will probably be hacking into NASA before you figure out how to check
your email.
But then, even if the computer companies packed manuals 10 times bigger
(like they did for DOS) than they need to, very few people read it, and
those who read existing manuals are usually disappointed. Having written
several manuals myself, I can state from experience that a user will even
call up and complain that there is no help for the subject, and when you
calmly walk them through the available help system that clearly defines the
process set in place, you can leave that user with the comforted knowledge
that they won't read the manual next time either.
Hence the acronym wars that start: RTFM, FAQ
FAQ which of course used to be a list of answers to "Frequently Asked Questions"
and now has turned into more of a required document listing something more like:
"Questions we think will be asked frequently"
So what can we do??
Keep all information proprietary and share nothing
creating an atmosphere of mystique and intrigue and separating
even further the technologically skilled from the technologically billed?
This worked for a while, as the "Three Geeks in a Garage" companies
skyrocketed to fame and fortune, but by now the big wigs have caught on.
They've known how to keep geeks under their thumb doing their homework
for centuries, and if we keep away all the information all it does is
lock you even more securely in the niche carved for you in today's businesses.
I say do whatever you can. Educate those who you help, and help those who want
to be educated. Make customer service a priority, not an afterthought.
Someday the phrase: "I hate computers"
might just be a thing of the past...
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, America has always had problems like this that seem to clutter up the media, and then eventually people's everyday lives.
Things like the Vietnam war that caused an entire generation to dress funny and smoke a lot of pot. McCarthyism caused us to put a whole lot of innocent people in horrible concentration camps just because we were looking for a communist ghost. Less than 200 years ago we kept other people in chains, beat them, killed them and forced them to do our manual labor.
You won't always find the strength or spirit of America on CNN, just Connie Chung and Larry King yapping away about what a tragedy it is that a few CEOs scammed some money. Meanwhile thousands of people are dying in countries that wept for us on 9/11, but we can't afford the airtime to cover that news.
It's been the norm for the government and the media to blow things out of proportion and to dig up the wrong dirt on the right issues. But it's also been the norm for the citizens of the US to fight against the government for what we believe in. That's why we all turned into hippies, fought against communist concentration camps, and had a civil war over slavery.
That's also the reason that we have big discussions like these on Slashdot about the ethics, definitions and social implications of hacking. What we need to do is focus less on what's being said, and focus more on who it's being said to. A bunch of geeks on a web site writing inflammatory comments about the government really only affects a bunch of geeks that come to that website and read those comments. It would be more effective if we could somehow get a real geek in Washington. Unfortunately for politicians to pay attention to you, you have to waft money in front of their nose. (Here boy! Nice senator want a campaign donation? Good senator!)
Therein lies the problem. Those with the money are bringing wheelbarrows of it to their congressman to shut us geeks up, while we piss and moan about it in our forums.
White, gray, black, purple... it doesn't matter what hat you're wearing now.
If those in control now (Hollywood, Washington) have their way you'll eventually end up with a pair of matching handcuffs and a free ride to Alcatraz.
Can we at least get away from the terrible analogy of:
"Ok, say you someone breaks into your house/car/business but doesn't steal anything" to mirror the actions of "hacking"?
Yes, it really sounds like it might be a good analogy, but computers are absolutely none of the above.
There is no such thing as a nice citizen who comes around to your house and checks to make sure your door is locked and your jewelry is secured in your house. There never has been, there never will be, and there never will need to be, because the Internet is a way different medium than the real world.
Analogies are great for helping geeks explain computer terms to non-computer people, but no matter how you slice it an apple will never be an orange.
A prime example of how it doesn't work is in software "hacking". If a major gaping security hole in someone's software exists, it is something that desperately needs to be fixed immediately and brought to people's attention.
Imagine something simple like an IIS bug (no way!) that allows people to download the source code for some script on your server that includes things like database and system passwords. Some well meaning (gray) hacker tells Microsoft about this, and gets tossed in jail. Meanwhile the same exploit is found at the same time by a malicious (black) cracker, who tells all his l337 script kiddie friends and before you know it some poor startup companies have just given out credit card numbers and secure corporate information to exactly the wrong kind of people.
Where is the white hat in all this?
Oh, he thought about the exploit, but didn't look into it because that sort of thing is naughty and he might get his pretty little white hat dirty.
Testing security measures and breaking software is absolutely necessary if we want to keep robust efficient systems across the country.
Do you really think other countries prosecute their L337 cR4X0rs when they break into our untested unsecured networks?
There have been hackers ever since there have been computers, and it needs to stay that way or we will all find ourselves up that silicon creek without a paddle.
I might be a little off the subject, but I think the issue is less the fact that you get spammed, and more the fact that your email address is sold over and over and over again, just because you were dumb enough to fill it out on your credit card application. Even if you signed up for an internet site and didn't check any "spam me" boxes they can still sell your contact info to other businesses. Just read the fine print on their sites.
An Actual Privacy Policy:
"However, without your consent, we do not make your, or your gift or message recipient's email addresses available to third parties (except for subsidiaries, subcontractors or agents acting on our behalf in compliance with this Privacy Policy)or any Successor (see below) to our business."
Wait... what was that about except for subsidiaries, and who?
The same thing happens with your phone number and your home address.
You get spammed with email, spammed with phone calls, spammed with faxes, and spammed in your mailbox.
I think a better solution to the problem is to make it illegal to sell people's contact information for the purpose of making money.
Not "If you check here" or "If you agree to these terms", not for any reason.
When you give your contact information to a business, you are giving it to them with the trust that they will use that information only to contact you if necessary. I can guarantee you that 0% of the people that sign up for a service are actually glad that their contact information is sold or traded so that they can get phone calls about low home equity loan rates.
At least from a legal perspective it would be easier to enforce. If you determined that a corporation or a business was selling people's contact information, just notify the authorities and have Uncle Sam come down on their ass. If they're actually getting paid for it they can't correctly report it on their taxes, and we know how much the government gets pissed off when they find out you've been hiding money from them.
The extreme alternative is to become so paranoid about your personal information that you won't give it out to anyone for any reason! Imagine buying a house and telling the bank financing your loan that you can't give them your phone number or home address because you know they're going to sell that information to a third party. Either that or you want royalties from them every time they make money from selling your information.
Hey, now we're talking about information ownership, right?
That sounds like intellectual property, kinda like music, right?
That means we can get it covered under the DMCA, right? Right??
Yeah... RIIIGHT.
Thanks.
You'd think I would have figured out by the "La" that it was a Spanish name. "La Hoya" in Spanish would sound pretty weird, more like "La Oya" since they don't really pronounce the H.
I've only heard the name spoken before, I've never seen it written (correctly) until now.
The RAC has a good web site: http://www.recordingartistscoalition.com/
Would you still share music illegally if the artist was getting the money directly?
I think the biggest reason that a lot of people laugh off issues about music sharing is because we all know that the people complaining about music theft are the company fat cats, not the starving artists. The individual artist really isn't that affected when people share their music.
Check the numbers.
The RIAA lists around 800 recording companies as members. There are probably around 1,000 artists per recording company.
Say Billy BadGuy hooks up with his 50 friends, each of which has 200 CDs that they have all ripped.
By some magical twist of fate, no two people have the same CD, so we have a total of 10,000 different CDs that exist on the network to be illegally shared.
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 800 recording companies = $200 per company
Realistically there are probably only about 20 recording companies that likely produced the majority of those CDs.
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 20 real recording companies = $8,000 per company
On the artists side of the fence, if we assume that we have 10,000 different artists:
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 10,000 artists = $16 per artist
Realistically there are probably a few repeats, let's say 1/4 of the CDs are paired up with one other from the same artist. That means that 2,500 CDs belong to 1,250 artists, and the remaining 7,500 CDs belong to 7,500 artists.
(2,500 CDs * $16) / 1,250 artists = $32 per artist (for 1,250 artists)
(10,000 CDs * $16) / 8,750 artists = ~$18.29 per artist (average for artists)
Pair all of this up with the average number of (signed) artists in the world:
(7,500 artists + 1,250 popular artists) / 800,000 artists = 0.0109375
That means that 1 percent of the artists are paying about $18 per 50 geeks sharing files, with the majority of them paying only $16.
Now to poke at the RIAA's numbers some. They reported that they lost around 600 million dollars from 2000 to 2001 because of illegal file sharing. Using our above example:
$600,000,000 lost / (10,000 CDs * $16) = 3,750 occurrences
That means that the above example of 50 people with 200 unique CDs would have to have been repeated (uniquely) almost 3,750 times in order for the RIAA's posted losses to be correct.
3,750 cases * 51 people per case = 191,250 unique naughty people
(How many users are on SlashDot?)
On top of that, their numbers would fail again if any one of the almost 200,000 people bought any CDs based on what they heard on these networks.
Now any monkey with a keyboard should be able to sit here with these numbers and crunch out some figures, but in 99 out of 100 calculations, you're going to see this:
Recording Artists + Recording Companies = RIAA Monopoly
Besides all our fun number crunching, the article had some pretty good points.
"Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, once stated that the record business is the only industry in which the bank still owns the house after the mortgage is paid."
Not only do they still own the house, they can kick you out of it, sell it, and keep all the money.
Then when you try to buy a new house with a different bank, they sue your ass!
"...virtually all contracts renegotiated after a hit album added terms favoring the artist..."
Well that's a no-brainer. Think of it as a poor man with a $5,000 house that the bank is trying to repossess. All of a sudden he wins the lotto and has $500,000,000. You can bet that bank will be a lot nicer, hoping he will keep all of his money in their bank accounts.
"Artists know record companies are giving blood, sweat and millions of dollars to help them realize their dreams."
Wonderfully vague statement that should be fun to pick apart.
They neglect to mention that the blood they give is being sucked out of all the other artists that they've screwed over, and that the dreams they are realizing are for their own billion dollar mansions in La Hoya.
Artists know record companies have been screwing people out of their dreams for years.
To make another parallel, imagine that you want to buy a car so that you can go to work and make some money. So you go to your local GM dealer and find out that you have to pay them a bunch of money over a few years for the car. Ok that's not too bad, but wait...
It's not surprising that independent artists end up happily riding horses for most of their career. Sure you might not be able to get on the expressway, but if your ass hurts from too much riding at least you can get off of the horse.
"You have record companies bought and sold on the strength of copyrights created by artists who sign away all rights in perpetuity to a faceless corporation."
Who knew Don Henley was so eloquent?
My thoughts exactly.
I've given lots of pro bono computer training to people ranging from those who just need help figuring out some drivers to those who have "taken a computer class" at some worthless training corporation, and think that knowing how to use Microsoft Word makes them computer savvy.
When you have to explain what the difference between "left" click and "right" click is, or the difference between Internet Explorer "The Blue E" or Windows Explorer "The Yellow Square" is, the topic of installing Windows or Linux becomes moot. With Windows they might at least have a chance, since M$ caters to "I shut the monitor off, so my computer must be off" people.
It's a silly comparison anyways. You don't install Linux because it's easier than Windows. You install Linux because it's configurable, faster, and doesn't carry all the overhead that MS software does.
Is it just me or does it seem to anyone else that the AOTC Position Statement is a little inflammatory?
I totally agree that there should be an organization to support and protect geek rights,
but to start off the organization with possible slander towards several very powerful and successful
companies with senators in their pockets is political suicide.
You gain respect and political allies by writing and lobbying senators and representatives for their support.
Without their support, we are just a bunch of annoying geeks who fill up their email boxes.
Actually, the date listed on the gulf news report, is 3/4/2002.
So if the baby was reported 8 weeks along by March, that would put the birth in September?
Ironically, a Virgo sign (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) may be a little more appropriate, being the first cloned human.
The legendary sci-fi kid will then be listed with the likes of Stephen King (September 21st, 1947) if you think the kid is a nightmare,
or Christopher Reeve (September 25th, 1952) if you think he is a positive icon in the scientific and medical field.
If you'll kindly take note, the author of the offending quote:
"Now how long until I can buy my own clone?"
was Vegeta99, who is not one of the active authors on slash dot. It was posted by chrisd who is listed.
The job of a media source is to quote news submissions as they are received, not steal the scoop and rewrite the tag lines as they see fit.
It's also not the responsibility of any media source to judge the future implications of a news submission.
That's why we have forums to discuss these topics, and while you may believe the concept of purchasing a clone of yourself is ridiculous, some other "ignorant stupid" person with a "flawed view of this subject" might find it not so offensive.
For Pete's sake, who ever thought they'd transplant a monkey's head?
The US gov. has been "cracking down on cybercrime!" for decades now,
but the only people they put in jail are the r3N3g4D3 h4x0r D00D$
are really just lost souls crying out for attention. (ha ha!)
It's not like they can or will do much.
Just like the stupid telemarketers, you can't outlaw phone calls,
and even if you do, who will really enforce it or report it?
I get at least 3 telemarketer calls at home,
and at least 10 unsolicited spams in my snotmail box every day.
It doesn't have anything to do with signing up for anything,
it's all about the Benjamins. Universities, businesses and
even governmental institutions buy and sell personal information
so they can direct marketing to your front door.
I've never bought anything from a telemarketer, or
on-line from a website ad, yet I still get crappy junk mail in
my snail and email boxes.
How? Simple.
Ex: #1
I get a Gillette razor in the mail from the Army when I turn 18.
Not because the Army is really concerned about me being clean shaven,
for all they know, I may have been struck bald as a child and their
gift becomes some sort of cruel joke. No, I get the razor, because Uncle Sam
wants some greenbacks from Gillette and just happens to have my
age, name and address. Gillette just happens to have a crapload of cheap
razors, and they want me to buy refills from them for the rest of my life.
Ex: #2
I go off to college, and start getting a ton of phone calls for credit cards
in my off-campus house. Is this because the previous occupant was a plastic
money hound? No, it's because the university has determined that my tuition and
the governments contribution combined are not enough to buy the provost's daughter
a new purple Jaguar.
Ex: #3
I go to a web site for a DSL company who's primary business is
"Direct" satellite "TV" (figure it out). I want to determine if DSL
is available in my area, and it asks for my phone number to check availability.
No checkboxes showing anything about "please bug the crap out of me while
I'm eating dinner", so I enter the number click go.
A few days later, I get a phone call from that "Direct" satellite "TV" company,
just to let me know that they are in the area, and they have a "special offer"
if I sign up now! Woo hoo!
Wait a minute, they've been "in the area" for a really long time,
and I never received a phone call before. Come to think of it, the
"special offer" is the same exact one they have on their web site.
Not so special after all, eh?
Ex: #4
I go to the grocery store, and they all of a sudden have these special "bonus"
cards that you can use to get money off on groceries. I sign up for one,
because it's free, and all they're going to do is jack the price up anyways
so that suckers without a card will have to pay extra.
A week later, surprise surprise I start getting grocery advertising and coupon
clipping junk mail at my brand new house.
So it's about damn time the government started smacking the advertising
spam whores with some fines instead of paying them to spam you.
Maybe I'll only get 1 "FREE HOT XXX PORN!" email per day instead of 10.
-Dave
Thanks to our myopic and narcissistic media and opportunistic, short-sighted politicians,
And how'd you get that, eh?
By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma
which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society!
Yeah, maybe they should do a comparison research between Doom/Quake game players and Everquest/Ultima players, and figure out how to get these stupid kids to just kill themselves and not everybody else!
It's not that big of a deal anyways, companies like SONY and Mitsubishi toss plenty of money at the US and vice versa.
International competition is great for the world economy, but you have to be careful that things don't turn out like the Japan Bashing that still sometimes happens because of the auto industry.
The poor pitiful recording industry Yeah, I really feel sorry for all the musicians out there that have got big recording contracts and going platinum.
Ever watch MTV cribs?
Sit down some time and have a look.
I just watched one a week ago, where one band member was showing his winter mansion in Utah.
Not the band's winter home, just one band member's. Shortly after that came the sad story of lil-romeo. A 10 year old kid with a huge mansion and a decked out Benz he can't even drive yet, oh the humanity!
These are the poor recording artists who are losing all of their money because a bunch of geeks with PCs are fighting against the industry that charges $18 for a CD that costs them a penny? What happened to the promises that the price of CDs would come down after the original plant manufacturing costs were absorbed?
Hmm.. let's see, I'm still paying $18 how's about you?
Yeah sure, maybe the rock stars deserve to have mansions, boink lots of blond bimbos and eventuall OD on drugs or kill themselves. If not, we might not have cool phrases like "Party like a rock star"
How much more pitiful is it that the recording companies take a big chunk out of the artist's paycheck? They've obviously worked so hard and paid their dues working for peanuts in the clubs and eating Mac & Cheese (TM) for years, they deserve to have a few mansions in La Hoya, right?
How about not.
Some times the government forgets where it got it's roots.
Taxation without representation? Same concept.
The recording industry jacks up the price of CDs to sell to you, not because they have to in order to pay the janitor, but because they want to have 3 jaguars instead of just 2. Then along comes the Boston MP3 Party, and everybody tosses their CDs in the Potomac to show King RIAAchard they're a little torked off.
Just like in that case, had England actually been a little nicer about the whole thing we might be drinking tea with crumpets every day instead of coffee and donuts.
Wake up Lars, it was just a bad dream, nobody is trying to take away your gold plated Ferrari (--Camp Chaos) they're just sick of paying to get your ass hairs waxed out.
If the recording industry is really serious about combating the digital music trading problem, they should try actually lowering prices for the media they sell. If a CD costed 3 bucks, would anyone even have bothered to rip it?
Sheesh, huge companies like Ford GM & Chrysler all ran huge deals when we were in the recession, did the price of CDs drop a penny?
Didn't think so.
Poor babies.
Maybe we should send our $$ to them instead of the Red Cross.
Either that or just lock up all the h@x0r$ trading MP3s, so we can pay for their room & board in prison.
That's a much better solution.
I can definitely relate (as can most of the people reading this, otherwise they probably wouldn't even be on slashdot) to the feeling that there is almost a class separation between those in the know, and the Star Bellied Sneeches. The real question is, is it just a feeling, or is it really happening?
You could compare the technology gap between yourself and your non-tech savvy friends or parents to the same gap that probably existed when your parents were your age figuring out how to use the radio. But is it the same? Probably not. Computers are FAR more complex oranges than TV apples, and when there is so much knowledge to be gained, there is so much of an opening for a knowledge gap.
As someone else pointed out, this same gap exists between most people and doctors or lawyers, etc... The obvious difference is, you don't hire a doctor to come to your house and show you how to operate on yourself. There is very limited action needed by an end recipient of a doctor's or lawyer's care, where as with a PC you are simply shipped out the door of the computer store with a confusing manual and your 10 year old kid who will probably be hacking into NASA before you figure out how to check your email.
But then, even if the computer companies packed manuals 10 times bigger (like they did for DOS) than they need to, very few people read it, and those who read existing manuals are usually disappointed. Having written several manuals myself, I can state from experience that a user will even call up and complain that there is no help for the subject, and when you calmly walk them through the available help system that clearly defines the process set in place, you can leave that user with the comforted knowledge that they won't read the manual next time either.
Hence the acronym wars that start: RTFM, FAQ FAQ which of course used to be a list of answers to "Frequently Asked Questions" and now has turned into more of a required document listing something more like: "Questions we think will be asked frequently"
So what can we do??
Keep all information proprietary and share nothing creating an atmosphere of mystique and intrigue and separating even further the technologically skilled from the technologically billed?
This worked for a while, as the "Three Geeks in a Garage" companies skyrocketed to fame and fortune, but by now the big wigs have caught on. They've known how to keep geeks under their thumb doing their homework for centuries, and if we keep away all the information all it does is lock you even more securely in the niche carved for you in today's businesses.
I say do whatever you can. Educate those who you help, and help those who want to be educated. Make customer service a priority, not an afterthought.
Someday the phrase: "I hate computers" might just be a thing of the past...