I dunno, i think there's plenty of original stuff they could do--they just aren't doing it. I heard from friends how Tribes and Tribes 2 are all team-based, but it never came out for the Mac (or Linux AFAIK), so I was SOL. I'd love to see:
1. More team-based games. How cool would it be to be in a humvee, one guy driving, another at the machine gun, perhaps trying to destroy a tank with 6 guys in it, each doing the job of whatever those 6 guys do in a real tank. Or, *drool*, how about one guy flying the millenium falcon, and two others at each gun, like in the movie? Or any other jet or spaceship, for that matter.
2. Why not add the quake engine to everquest? Right now, EQ is boring, because you just click "attack" over and over again to kill something. But what if you had to be good at mouse-and-keyboard coordination in addition to just having a sword +82? This could partially eliminate newbies buying high-level characters on ebay, because they'd find they're no match for a player 5 levels lower with great m&k skills. Maybe when you get 1000 frags then your strength goes up 1, or something. This actually might be what these guys are up to; I haven't explored the site enough to find out exactly what the game will be like.
3. How about some scheduled large campaigns that emulate great battles of history? You could pick, say, a decisive civil war battle, find out how many people were involved, and once you had enough people signed up, schedule it for a week later. It might be tricky to get it to be fun, but it could be a great way to learn first-hand (well, 1.5st hand) about history. Hell, why not have history classes of rival high schools or universities fight it out?
4. I want to see a EQ-Quake game involving pirates. You'd get a crew (like a clan) together, get a ship, and look for merchant ships that you could attack and plunder. Or you could attack other pirates and steal their loot. Of course, you'd have to constantly keep on the lookout for the British navy. OR (ooo, this could be really cool), you get a bunch of friends together and buy a ship for like $50-100 real money. Your skill at capturing merchant ships would determine if you were able to plunder enough booty to pay for your initial investment.
Alternatively, it could be just a pirate vs. pirate thing, and the publisher could simply take a small % of everyone's loot to pay for hosting fees, servers, etc. That way, it could be worked so that people didn't have to pay those annoying monthly membership fees. It would almost be like gambling! Would the feds step in if it was? What great press that might be!
These games could all look like ass, I wouldn't care. It's all about gameplay. How refreshing would it be to have a new game come out that you didn't need to buy a new computer to play?
Oh well, it was nice ranting, but I guess I'll go back to looking at screenshots, saying "ooh, that looks pretty," and playing tetris, infocom games, and pong.
Okay, after some google searching, I finally found Wilco's site. But WTF? Where the hell can I download the album? I don't even see a place to preview the songs, except for a live show. It says they released it on April 23. What, was it only free for a week? Where are all the informative-link-putting-up karma whores when you need them?
Heh, linux users will love the blurb at the middle left: it says "got quicktime?"
There's a cool map of Nappy's march into Russia, which shows, visually, the losses suffered by the thickness of the line, among other things. Really beautifully rendered. Edward Tutfe (master of information design) is a big fan of it, understandably so.
In a small town in Connecticut, they put a cell phone tower in a church a couple years back. Since then, people keep mentioning ther've been less and less birds around, except for crows, who seem to have multiplied. I'm not saying there's any connection (and it's likely there isn't), but I wouldn't be suprised.
This is the equivalent of a car company patenting their cup holders and suing any other manufacturer who put them in.
Who's the real loser in the end? As Macromedia CEO Rob Burgess points out, "Ultimately, it is our customers, and particularly our mutual customers, that will be harmed." Yup, half of us wind up with burnt, coffee-stained crotches.
So what, now no software developer can include tabbed palettes? Wouldn't it be nice if Adobe said "Hey, Macromedia, you've used one of our ideas, but that's alright, we'll use one of your ideas, and both our products will be the better for it." No more can people stand on the shoulders of giants. Today, you have to stand on your tiptoes. Either that, or knock everyone else down.
Well Adobe, for 2.8m, you've impeded the progress of software development, created enemies, and left your customers with a bad taste in their mouths. And you know what? I bet a lot of people will feel a lot less bad about pirating your software after this. I hope it was worth it.
but I do feel sorry for the people who think the Simpsons are "clever". I wonder if they've ever read anything by Evan Dorkin [houseoffun.com] or Dan Clowes [fantagraphics.com].
Man, do I feel sorry for the people who think Evan Dorkin and Dan Clowes are "clever." I wonder if they've read anything by Charles Dickens, Raymond Carver, or Vladimir Nabokov.
Image a Warcraft-like game where the resources (oil, forests) are modeled after their real-life counterparts. You'd gain a whole new perspective on drilling for oil in the middle east, africa, or alaska. You could use the buildings and vehicles to explain concepts about how our government works.
If he used the game to educate people about the issues, then made analogies to the game to explain his stance on them, it would be a great way to get people more involved in elections. Granted, it'll probably be more like the fast-food games mentioned in other posts, and from the article, it seems like it'll be more like a collection of mpgs than a game, but don't knock it just yet.
Maybe you're right--I haven't been to Africa or gotten reliable statistics on it--but I have a hard time believing that all those Africans had no idea anything bad could happen to them as a result of having unprotected sex. STDs have been going on way before AIDS came around, and I can't imagine it's not widely known that sex without a condom can get you more than laid. A lot of the time, they *are* educated, but they ignore it. Take for example Fela Kuti, one of the most brilliant musicians EVER. He was warned by all sorts of people that his promiscuous sexual activites would get him in trouble, but he stubbornly believed that the condom was just a tool the white man used to rob the black man of some of his sexual pleasure. Guess what? He died of AIDS.
Books are--and will always be, at least until print-on-demand rivals the quality and economy of a trade paperback--a completely different story. I and most people I know HATE reading long texts on the screen. The way I see it, the internet is nothing but a boon to the publishing industry. People can preview the works in lo-fi (their browsers) and decide if the book is worth buying or not. I say, anyone willing to sit through the strain of reading a whole book online deserves to get it for free. And anyone printing out a whole book probably just wasted 5 or 10 bucks in ink just to get something that'll take up twice as much space.
However, the only difference between pirated works of music and the actual CDs are bit rate (soon to be negligible) and the packaging. Many people (myself not included) don't mind not having the packaging of an album. This leaves the music industry in a completely different situation from the publishing one.
Okay, you here are the things that make musician good, from the previous repliesL
1. Originality of style
Hmm, The Beatles sounded a lot like everyone else out there when they first started out. I can't really tell the difference between DJs like Sasha, Digweed and Tenaglia. Any most any punk band has the exact same style as the rest of them. Does this make any of them not good?
2. Independence from marketing
The reason I bought Beth Orton's latest CD was because I saw a giant poster of it at Tower Records and it looked like something I might like. Sure enough, it (and she) is amazing. As for people who built their careers on marketing, do you really think Hendrix would be as popular as he is if he'd stayed in Harlem playing the juke joints there? Nope. He'd be remembered only by guitar players, probably as the greatest overlooked guitarist of the 20th century.
3. Writing your own songs
Sinatra never wrote his own songs. None of those guys did. Neither did Sarah Vaughn or Billie Holiday (though she had strange fruit written for her IIRC). I'm not a fan of Joe Cocker, who doesn't write either, but a lot of other people are.
4. Paying your dues in the club scene early in your career.
How about Mississippi John Hurt? He played on his porch with friends his whole life, recorded a few sides in the late 20's, then continued porch-playing and farming. Then in the 60s, he was rediscovered and played in huge venues and festivals. Okay, you say, then they have to simply have some musical experience; practicing a lot or something. Well then, what about Kelley Deal of the Breeders? She'd been working as (of all things) a computer programmer when her sister Kim hired her to sing and play guitar in the band.
I repeat: there is no way to define quality, except in your subjective mind.
Do you really think that people could tell who wrote a piece of classical music? Yup. I can usually tell a Mozart that I've never heard before, and frequently a Bach or a Chopin. They each have a certain way of putting notes together, certain chords and sequences they favor. I'm nothing special though. Anyone can do that, they just have to listen and like the works. Lots of people can even tell you who a given pianist is, just by listening.
I see your point, but the music industry isn't just about the music. Maybe I'm wrong (and I hope so), but I think most people want a superstar with a soundtrack, not just some good tunes to listen to. They want to scream in adoration at a concert, awestruck (even though it might be the same as listening to the CD with really big loud speakers). And you need a major label to accomplish these things.
fucking O-Town, a band manufactured during primetime for God's sake - is this an example of the bands they think are "worth listening to"??
Yes, apparently. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that other people don't. (So what if none of them have pubes yet.)
The thing is, no part of any of it is bad. The labels shove N'Sync down our throats at our request. If they didn't sell so many albums, they'd drop the band as quickly as they made them. I say great. Let them have their fun. People obviously like it, so where's the harm? I have absolutely no problem with the existence of any major label. They have just a right to business as anyone else. That said, I think I speak for everyone here when I say that when they start compromising our access to the music we like--which likely will have no part of them--or worse, when they attemp to compromise our basic freedoms, then they need to be cut down. They are a business, not a white house wing.
C'mon, I don't know the statistics, but I'm sure the vast majority of AIDS victims are not infants or blood transfusees (how d'ya like that word, spelling/grammar nazis?), they're people who've had promiscuous sex or used unclean drug paraphenelia. I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who contracts it, even it it was from a night with the goatse.cx man. Nobody deserves to die before their time. But the fact is, 99% of the time, AIDS is a preventable disease. I thank the original poster for his objectivity, especially in regards to the "evil drug corporations."
Anyone saying that AIDS is a disease that punishes gays is definately wrong.
Of course. Diseases don't punish people. They merely try to survive and reproduce, just like any other organism. But having sex with someone who's sexual history (and current status) you're not absolutely sure of is like sneaking up on a mother bear and her cubs-- no matter how uneducated you were about it, somewhere it should register that it could get you killed, and if you wind up dead, that definitely sucks, but don't play innocent with me, and don't critisize the government for not filling the pool when you jump in with your eyes closed.
Today, the WTO pulled the trigger on another 2.500 poor AIDS victims.
Besides, what's another two and a half people, in the grand scheme of things?
When Radiohead's "Kid A" first came out, someone at work brought in a copy she had burned off of Napster. I liked it a lot, but I thought two things were kinda wierd: the robotic voice that said "this will not be on the final disc" and the Steve Vai-esque extended guitar solo in the middle. Then someone else at work brought in the real CD, and neither of these things were present! Somehow, the tracks from Napster had been pre-release or something, or maybe even (in the case of the guitar solo) done by another artist altogether. Marcel Duchamp would've shit his pants in excitement. Napster introduced an element of randomness that in effect created a different CD! So now I had burned copies of Kid A: the Napster mix, and the real Kid A (which I prefer), both of which I now listen to. Here I am with 2 CD-Rs. Guess what I did next.
I went out and bought a real copy of Kid A. Not exactly sure why, I guess partly to show my support for the artist and partly to get the packaging. I consider packaging to be a very important part of an album. I would've been alright listening to the CD-Rs, but I just liked it so much I had to buy it. Go figure.
I was with you up to here. Labels serve a very important purpose: they let us know which artists are worth listening to. I don't know about you, but I don't have time to wade through piles of indie crap hoping to find something I like. Most of the good musicians out there, I (and most everybody else) am aware of because a major label spent money in putting them in the limelight. That said, I can't fathom why an artist would stay with a label after they've made it big (and their contract's out). But I'm sure they have their reasons.
Someday Soon
It's already happened. Ani DiFranco built up Righteous Babe records all on her own, after developing a huge and loyal fan base by touring her ass off. Aimee Mann started her own label after getting screwed by a major one. Incidentally, all you/.ers out there who don't buy CDs because they don't want to support the RIAA need to be aware that some labels are artist-owned and you should be going out of your way to support those. There are even some labels that are responsible and great to work with. Rory Block has recorded 10 or 15 albums with Rounder records, and the first few were done without even signing a contract. No, I couldn't believe it either when I heard it, but it's true. Some labels really exist to support the musicians.
As an aside, anyone turned off by Ani should check out Revelling/Reckoning. Her politics still (and probably always will) annoy me, but the music is truly amazing. Just about everything about Aimee Mann is good, and Rory Block can play the old-time country blues like nobody's business.
Go ahead. You can even use Mozart and Britney Spears in your example. No matter what you say, it comes down to personal opinion. If I like superficial teenage pop better than complex heart-wrenching orchestrations, then pop is better. It's all relative.
So what if copyrights were abolished?
Well, how'd you like it if you recorded a CD and a big label copied it and mass-produced it with way nicer packaging then you offered, and stuck it in Wall-mart and Strawberries, sold a million copies, and didn't give you a dime? Or worse, if they represented it as being done by someone else, and that other person got all the fame and fortune and nobody belived you when you said you did it. This is why we need copyright law. Granted, it doesn't need to be longer than 20 years or so, and there's no reason people shouldn't be able to make derivative works (incl. sampling) without permission, but that's another story altogether.
Wow, that's really funny. I actually didn't quote it myself, I grabbed the quote from a site after doing a quick google search (I knew Sheackespeer spelled his name differently, just thought it would be nice to give some proof). Obviously, with names it's a little more important, but language is nothing but a tool for communication. The message is really what matters. I really don't have any problem with bad grammar and misspellings on/., I'm smart enough to know when a "to" means "also" and not "1 more than 1." Yes, it's a bit of an annoyance, because you notice the discrepancy and it throws your mind off the subject for a fraction of a second, but I expect that people posting to/. (including the editors) have better things to do with their time (such as, in the editors' case, making sure the story wasn't posted two days earlier) than to edit every comment as if it was going into printed publication.
Just out of curiosity, are you an actual Kubrick or just a fan?
Give me the old days when people spelled things however they damn well pleased, like:
"The pyrate stole my hatts, three score bookes, and a pounde of sylk cloths."
Here's an interesting quote:
"Most people throughout much of the history of the English language have seemed remarkably unconcerned about niceties of spelling -- even to the point of spelling one word two ways in the same sentence. People were even casual about their names. More than eighty spellings of Shakespeare's name have been found. Shakespeare himself did not spell the name the same way twice in any of his six known signatures and even spelled it two ways in one document, his will. [Bill Bryan, The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way, New York, William Morrow, 1990, pp. 124-5]"
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno, i think there's plenty of original stuff they could do--they just aren't doing it. I heard from friends how Tribes and Tribes 2 are all team-based, but it never came out for the Mac (or Linux AFAIK), so I was SOL. I'd love to see:
1. More team-based games. How cool would it be to be in a humvee, one guy driving, another at the machine gun, perhaps trying to destroy a tank with 6 guys in it, each doing the job of whatever those 6 guys do in a real tank. Or, *drool*, how about one guy flying the millenium falcon, and two others at each gun, like in the movie? Or any other jet or spaceship, for that matter.
2. Why not add the quake engine to everquest? Right now, EQ is boring, because you just click "attack" over and over again to kill something. But what if you had to be good at mouse-and-keyboard coordination in addition to just having a sword +82? This could partially eliminate newbies buying high-level characters on ebay, because they'd find they're no match for a player 5 levels lower with great m&k skills. Maybe when you get 1000 frags then your strength goes up 1, or something. This actually might be what these guys are up to; I haven't explored the site enough to find out exactly what the game will be like.
3. How about some scheduled large campaigns that emulate great battles of history? You could pick, say, a decisive civil war battle, find out how many people were involved, and once you had enough people signed up, schedule it for a week later. It might be tricky to get it to be fun, but it could be a great way to learn first-hand (well, 1.5st hand) about history. Hell, why not have history classes of rival high schools or universities fight it out?
4. I want to see a EQ-Quake game involving pirates. You'd get a crew (like a clan) together, get a ship, and look for merchant ships that you could attack and plunder. Or you could attack other pirates and steal their loot. Of course, you'd have to constantly keep on the lookout for the British navy. OR (ooo, this could be really cool), you get a bunch of friends together and buy a ship for like $50-100 real money. Your skill at capturing merchant ships would determine if you were able to plunder enough booty to pay for your initial investment. Alternatively, it could be just a pirate vs. pirate thing, and the publisher could simply take a small % of everyone's loot to pay for hosting fees, servers, etc. That way, it could be worked so that people didn't have to pay those annoying monthly membership fees. It would almost be like gambling! Would the feds step in if it was? What great press that might be!
These games could all look like ass, I wouldn't care. It's all about gameplay. How refreshing would it be to have a new game come out that you didn't need to buy a new computer to play?
Oh well, it was nice ranting, but I guess I'll go back to looking at screenshots, saying "ooh, that looks pretty," and playing tetris, infocom games, and pong.
Okay, after some google searching, I finally found Wilco's site. But WTF? Where the hell can I download the album? I don't even see a place to preview the songs, except for a live show. It says they released it on April 23. What, was it only free for a week? Where are all the informative-link-putting-up karma whores when you need them?
Heh, linux users will love the blurb at the middle left: it says "got quicktime?"
There's a cool map of Nappy's march into Russia, which shows, visually, the losses suffered by the thickness of the line, among other things. Really beautifully rendered. Edward Tutfe (master of information design) is a big fan of it, understandably so.
In a small town in Connecticut, they put a cell phone tower in a church a couple years back. Since then, people keep mentioning ther've been less and less birds around, except for crows, who seem to have multiplied. I'm not saying there's any connection (and it's likely there isn't), but I wouldn't be suprised.
Wow, thanks! That's a hell of a compliment.
Maybe. I dunno, I think it's talking more about moral rights, rather then being political. Just thought it was something interesting to think about...
What's next, the hyperlink?
This is the equivalent of a car company patenting their cup holders and suing any other manufacturer who put them in. Who's the real loser in the end? As Macromedia CEO Rob Burgess points out, "Ultimately, it is our customers, and particularly our mutual customers, that will be harmed." Yup, half of us wind up with burnt, coffee-stained crotches.
So what, now no software developer can include tabbed palettes? Wouldn't it be nice if Adobe said "Hey, Macromedia, you've used one of our ideas, but that's alright, we'll use one of your ideas, and both our products will be the better for it." No more can people stand on the shoulders of giants. Today, you have to stand on your tiptoes. Either that, or knock everyone else down.
Well Adobe, for 2.8m, you've impeded the progress of software development, created enemies, and left your customers with a bad taste in their mouths. And you know what? I bet a lot of people will feel a lot less bad about pirating your software after this. I hope it was worth it.
My experience is that the high tech industry is pretty laid off.
they only look bad when they whore themselves for Microsoft money
Hey, that's good business pracitce! In fact, it would seem like they're giving away a free lesson here!
(sorry, had to do it)
When Seagulls Cry
The Threesome Sisters
Uncle Vanya's Raspberry Beret
Ivanov Would Die 4 U
but I do feel sorry for the people who think the Simpsons are "clever". I wonder if they've ever read anything by Evan Dorkin [houseoffun.com] or Dan Clowes [fantagraphics.com].
Man, do I feel sorry for the people who think Evan Dorkin and Dan Clowes are "clever." I wonder if they've read anything by Charles Dickens, Raymond Carver, or Vladimir Nabokov.
2.) What's 6 times 7?
Alternate questions include:
What's yellow and dangerous?
How many roads must a man walk down?
Seriously, there's a big difference between ignorance and stupidity, but I'm sure you're just kidding anyway...
Image a Warcraft-like game where the resources (oil, forests) are modeled after their real-life counterparts. You'd gain a whole new perspective on drilling for oil in the middle east, africa, or alaska. You could use the buildings and vehicles to explain concepts about how our government works.
If he used the game to educate people about the issues, then made analogies to the game to explain his stance on them, it would be a great way to get people more involved in elections. Granted, it'll probably be more like the fast-food games mentioned in other posts, and from the article, it seems like it'll be more like a collection of mpgs than a game, but don't knock it just yet.
Maybe you're right--I haven't been to Africa or gotten reliable statistics on it--but I have a hard time believing that all those Africans had no idea anything bad could happen to them as a result of having unprotected sex. STDs have been going on way before AIDS came around, and I can't imagine it's not widely known that sex without a condom can get you more than laid. A lot of the time, they *are* educated, but they ignore it. Take for example Fela Kuti, one of the most brilliant musicians EVER. He was warned by all sorts of people that his promiscuous sexual activites would get him in trouble, but he stubbornly believed that the condom was just a tool the white man used to rob the black man of some of his sexual pleasure. Guess what? He died of AIDS.
Books are--and will always be, at least until print-on-demand rivals the quality and economy of a trade paperback--a completely different story. I and most people I know HATE reading long texts on the screen. The way I see it, the internet is nothing but a boon to the publishing industry. People can preview the works in lo-fi (their browsers) and decide if the book is worth buying or not. I say, anyone willing to sit through the strain of reading a whole book online deserves to get it for free. And anyone printing out a whole book probably just wasted 5 or 10 bucks in ink just to get something that'll take up twice as much space.
However, the only difference between pirated works of music and the actual CDs are bit rate (soon to be negligible) and the packaging. Many people (myself not included) don't mind not having the packaging of an album. This leaves the music industry in a completely different situation from the publishing one.
Okay, you here are the things that make musician good, from the previous repliesL
1. Originality of style
Hmm, The Beatles sounded a lot like everyone else out there when they first started out. I can't really tell the difference between DJs like Sasha, Digweed and Tenaglia. Any most any punk band has the exact same style as the rest of them. Does this make any of them not good?
2. Independence from marketing
The reason I bought Beth Orton's latest CD was because I saw a giant poster of it at Tower Records and it looked like something I might like. Sure enough, it (and she) is amazing. As for people who built their careers on marketing, do you really think Hendrix would be as popular as he is if he'd stayed in Harlem playing the juke joints there? Nope. He'd be remembered only by guitar players, probably as the greatest overlooked guitarist of the 20th century.
3. Writing your own songs
Sinatra never wrote his own songs. None of those guys did. Neither did Sarah Vaughn or Billie Holiday (though she had strange fruit written for her IIRC). I'm not a fan of Joe Cocker, who doesn't write either, but a lot of other people are.
4. Paying your dues in the club scene early in your career.
How about Mississippi John Hurt? He played on his porch with friends his whole life, recorded a few sides in the late 20's, then continued porch-playing and farming. Then in the 60s, he was rediscovered and played in huge venues and festivals. Okay, you say, then they have to simply have some musical experience; practicing a lot or something. Well then, what about Kelley Deal of the Breeders? She'd been working as (of all things) a computer programmer when her sister Kim hired her to sing and play guitar in the band.
I repeat: there is no way to define quality, except in your subjective mind.
Do you really think that people could tell who wrote a piece of classical music?
Yup. I can usually tell a Mozart that I've never heard before, and frequently a Bach or a Chopin. They each have a certain way of putting notes together, certain chords and sequences they favor. I'm nothing special though. Anyone can do that, they just have to listen and like the works. Lots of people can even tell you who a given pianist is, just by listening.
I see your point, but the music industry isn't just about the music. Maybe I'm wrong (and I hope so), but I think most people want a superstar with a soundtrack, not just some good tunes to listen to. They want to scream in adoration at a concert, awestruck (even though it might be the same as listening to the CD with really big loud speakers). And you need a major label to accomplish these things.
fucking O-Town, a band manufactured during primetime for God's sake - is this an example of the bands they think are "worth listening to"??
Yes, apparently. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that other people don't. (So what if none of them have pubes yet.) The thing is, no part of any of it is bad. The labels shove N'Sync down our throats at our request. If they didn't sell so many albums, they'd drop the band as quickly as they made them. I say great. Let them have their fun. People obviously like it, so where's the harm? I have absolutely no problem with the existence of any major label. They have just a right to business as anyone else. That said, I think I speak for everyone here when I say that when they start compromising our access to the music we like--which likely will have no part of them--or worse, when they attemp to compromise our basic freedoms, then they need to be cut down. They are a business, not a white house wing.
C'mon, I don't know the statistics, but I'm sure the vast majority of AIDS victims are not infants or blood transfusees (how d'ya like that word, spelling/grammar nazis?), they're people who've had promiscuous sex or used unclean drug paraphenelia. I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who contracts it, even it it was from a night with the goatse.cx man. Nobody deserves to die before their time. But the fact is, 99% of the time, AIDS is a preventable disease. I thank the original poster for his objectivity, especially in regards to the "evil drug corporations."
Anyone saying that AIDS is a disease that punishes gays is definately wrong.
Of course. Diseases don't punish people. They merely try to survive and reproduce, just like any other organism. But having sex with someone who's sexual history (and current status) you're not absolutely sure of is like sneaking up on a mother bear and her cubs-- no matter how uneducated you were about it, somewhere it should register that it could get you killed, and if you wind up dead, that definitely sucks, but don't play innocent with me, and don't critisize the government for not filling the pool when you jump in with your eyes closed.
Today, the WTO pulled the trigger on another 2.500 poor AIDS victims.
Besides, what's another two and a half people, in the grand scheme of things?
When Radiohead's "Kid A" first came out, someone at work brought in a copy she had burned off of Napster. I liked it a lot, but I thought two things were kinda wierd: the robotic voice that said "this will not be on the final disc" and the Steve Vai-esque extended guitar solo in the middle. Then someone else at work brought in the real CD, and neither of these things were present! Somehow, the tracks from Napster had been pre-release or something, or maybe even (in the case of the guitar solo) done by another artist altogether. Marcel Duchamp would've shit his pants in excitement. Napster introduced an element of randomness that in effect created a different CD! So now I had burned copies of Kid A: the Napster mix, and the real Kid A (which I prefer), both of which I now listen to. Here I am with 2 CD-Rs. Guess what I did next.
I went out and bought a real copy of Kid A. Not exactly sure why, I guess partly to show my support for the artist and partly to get the packaging. I consider packaging to be a very important part of an album. I would've been alright listening to the CD-Rs, but I just liked it so much I had to buy it. Go figure.
Eviscerate The Damn Middlemen
/.ers out there who don't buy CDs because they don't want to support the RIAA need to be aware that some labels are artist-owned and you should be going out of your way to support those. There are even some labels that are responsible and great to work with. Rory Block has recorded 10 or 15 albums with Rounder records, and the first few were done without even signing a contract. No, I couldn't believe it either when I heard it, but it's true. Some labels really exist to support the musicians.
I was with you up to here. Labels serve a very important purpose: they let us know which artists are worth listening to. I don't know about you, but I don't have time to wade through piles of indie crap hoping to find something I like. Most of the good musicians out there, I (and most everybody else) am aware of because a major label spent money in putting them in the limelight. That said, I can't fathom why an artist would stay with a label after they've made it big (and their contract's out). But I'm sure they have their reasons.
Someday Soon
It's already happened. Ani DiFranco built up Righteous Babe records all on her own, after developing a huge and loyal fan base by touring her ass off. Aimee Mann started her own label after getting screwed by a major one. Incidentally, all you
As an aside, anyone turned off by Ani should check out Revelling/Reckoning. Her politics still (and probably always will) annoy me, but the music is truly amazing. Just about everything about Aimee Mann is good, and Rory Block can play the old-time country blues like nobody's business.
And define quality?
Go ahead. You can even use Mozart and Britney Spears in your example. No matter what you say, it comes down to personal opinion. If I like superficial teenage pop better than complex heart-wrenching orchestrations, then pop is better. It's all relative.
So what if copyrights were abolished?
Well, how'd you like it if you recorded a CD and a big label copied it and mass-produced it with way nicer packaging then you offered, and stuck it in Wall-mart and Strawberries, sold a million copies, and didn't give you a dime? Or worse, if they represented it as being done by someone else, and that other person got all the fame and fortune and nobody belived you when you said you did it. This is why we need copyright law. Granted, it doesn't need to be longer than 20 years or so, and there's no reason people shouldn't be able to make derivative works (incl. sampling) without permission, but that's another story altogether.
Wow, that's really funny. I actually didn't quote it myself, I grabbed the quote from a site after doing a quick google search (I knew Sheackespeer spelled his name differently, just thought it would be nice to give some proof). Obviously, with names it's a little more important, but language is nothing but a tool for communication. The message is really what matters. I really don't have any problem with bad grammar and misspellings on /., I'm smart enough to know when a "to" means "also" and not "1 more than 1." Yes, it's a bit of an annoyance, because you notice the discrepancy and it throws your mind off the subject for a fraction of a second, but I expect that people posting to /. (including the editors) have better things to do with their time (such as, in the editors' case, making sure the story wasn't posted two days earlier) than to edit every comment as if it was going into printed publication.
Just out of curiosity, are you an actual Kubrick or just a fan?
Give me the old days when people spelled things however they damn well pleased, like:
"The pyrate stole my hatts, three score bookes, and a pounde of sylk cloths."
Here's an interesting quote:
"Most people throughout much of the history of the English language have seemed remarkably unconcerned about niceties of spelling -- even to the point of spelling one word two ways in the same sentence. People were even casual about their names. More than eighty spellings of Shakespeare's name have been found. Shakespeare himself did not spell the name the same way twice in any of his six known signatures and even spelled it two ways in one document, his will. [Bill Bryan, The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way, New York, William Morrow, 1990, pp. 124-5]"