While claiming that slashdot presents a double standard when it comes to information, don't forget that you also share this double standard. Or how about I install a webcam in your shower so that we can all watch you when you pee in there?
I don't have a double standard. I think the "information must be free" claim is nonsense. I am a strong supporter of intellctual property rights and for strong privacy laws. Thanks for guessing, though.
Ah this is one of those put your feet up, grab some popcorn moments when you watch slashdotters' collective heads asplode as they are compelled to confront their desire for privacy against their other mantra of "information should be free." Of course, some will claim that there is no contradiction, others will tell me that slashdot is not one monolithic think-block, and others will just blame bush. Tell me again why "personal" information should not be "free" as in speech? No really.. i want to know.
/ citizen of louisiana? your tax dollars are hard at work on ads at slashdot as if somebody will actually choose to relocate to louisiana because of an ad showing two male ends of patch cables coming together.
You know, just because you pull ideas out of your ass doesn't mean you need to post them on Slashdot.
YouTube is now part of Google. Google does business in Thailand and probably has offices there. The location of the physical servers is irrelevant.
For a moment, let's pretend that Google/YouTube don't have ANY physical presence in Thailand. Case closed, right? Well no, not exactly. Thailand has a whole host of options still on the table. I'm sure those will be expounded upon by others, so I won't repeat them here, but the point is: PLEASE DON'T POST ON SLASHDOT THINGS THAT SOUND LIKE "FACTS" THAT YOU JUST MAKE UP OR "SOUND RIGHT" WITHOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT WHATSOEVER. Really.
People: it's time for a bit of intellectual honesty.
Either:
A. Microsoft is a giant evil behemoth that has created for itself a permanent and insurmountable monopoly that needs to be curtailed through government intervention and snide slashdot comments. Microsoft could shiat on a brick and most IT departments would have to buy it. The agreements that it makes with computer manufacturers to pre-install its product, which typically costs about 10% of the actual cost of the PC, is fundamentally wrong.
OR
B. Microsoft is a company that, despite the existence of free-as-in-beer alternatives, has nevertheless managed for many years to become fabulously wealthy by delivering products that seem to be what the market wants. However, as this episode shows, they are neither invincible nor infallible - like all of the software giants that have come before them, despite at one point building an enviable market position, they will erode through some combination of changing technology, bad marketing / product decisions, and so forth. Furthermore, as we see from Dell's (among others') recent actions, computer manufacturers can and will tailor their operating system offerings as they feel the market warrants - Microsoft can no more afford to lose dell than vice versa.
What do you think the current system is? There are tons of useless patents filed. There are probably just as many defensive ones filed. I actually have read better Japanese issued patents, if you read past the bad machine translations. I really do not get the de-valuing of the inventor. Those with assignee's are already getting nothing or next to nothing. The small inventors already make up such a small part of the patent process any more that I do not see this being an issue. Also, the companies supporting it do not exactly have many small time patent filers in their fields.
The above paragraph makes me wonder if you know ANYTHING AT ALL about the patent process, the current realities of patenting in Japan, etc, or are you speaking completely out of your ass. I mean really. The above paragraph shows such a fundmental misunderstanding of the current situation in patents i'm sitting here trying to figure out if it is intended as some kind of joke.
Those of you reading for my posts know that I am often accused of astroturfing for various companies or being a hack or whatever because of my generally pro-copyright views and (since 1997) general lack of enthusiasm for the scalability of OSS. However, on this one I cast my lot with the No Logo, penguin-on-a-black-t-shirt crowd and call this out for what it is: an attempt by very strong corporate interests with large in-house law departments to do an end-round on the prior art of small inventors who have not filed. the result? Anything from a Japan-like insane number of defensive, speculative, and useless patent filing jamboree to a Europe-like devaluation of the value of the inventor in lieu of the mba-like hacks (full disclosure: I have an MBA from a top school, but I also have my bona fides:). The USA may be wrong on the war on Iraq and still using Imperial measurements, but fark the crazy idea of 'whoever files' in this case - it's anti-consumer in every way possible.
Let's see if we can apply actual logic to this question, shall we?
1. Jon Stewart is an entertainer whose personal fortune, success, and prestigate is much more closely tied to personal recognition and likeability rather than the long-term profitability of his network. Hence, he has every reason in the world to want to be associated with the 'free beer' aspects of let's put stuff on youtube.
2. lazy sunday's youtube success doubtlessly brought some fame back to SNL. however, to start as that as a premise and then argue that ergo snl/viacom should not care if the funniest bits of their shows are put onto the internet en masse by anonymous users is completely disingenious. more realistically, it makes sense from SNL's / the network's standpoint to be against random copyright infringing posts of clips from their show but to put carfully selected teaser bits up that may encourage viewers to their television show, where they actually make money through advertising. and this is exactly what they do.
Yo, dude. Let me blow your mind without mind altering substances. You might want to sit down for this one, because it will be intense.
Imagine, just maybe, if the "points" I made weren't actually totally encapsulated in the actual physical bullet points of the UL list that I used. Stay with me now - just imagine that my points may actually have been the sum total of my post wherein a general idea was made quite clear: that the Consumerist poll as structured in no way supported a reasonable conclusion that the RIAA was truly America's worst company. After all, while you're right - I did miss the bracket-of-32 system initially, this in no way invalidates the larger and much more damning flaw: that the sample was flawed, the metholology was flawed, and the conclusions are flawed, to say nothing of the basic dishonesty of slapping on a convenient catchphrasey label like "War On Terror" err... "America's Worst Company" and then running with this.
You said something like "well, the poll wasn't scientific, but...". No buts. If it's a shite poll, and its methods are methologically unsound it ends right there. We don't say "well, creationism isn't scientific but let's quote its results anyway." We say, "this poll was done in a half-assed way, and we could not use it unless we heavily disclaimed it. We certainly don't use its suspect findings as the basis of a conclusion upon which we build other premises", as people here have done.
After your post, I spent some more time looking at the Consumerist. Look, I'm happy you have a job there or are receiving blow jobs from their webmaster or whatever it is that causes you do defend such flawed nonense, but, realy - with headlines such as "80% of geek squad employees say they don't use anti-static wrist straps", well, I mean really. Get some perspective. Don't you just SLIGHTLY suspect that a readership demographic that cares about the percentage of geeek squad employees that wear wrist-straps is a bit uncharacteristic of "America" as a whole, which the label of the conclusion purports to encapsulate? I mean really man.
/ and yes, i saw that they had some more interesting articles too, but they still appeal generally to a highly specific demographic.
Ah sorry - my mistake - I see now that it was a 'ncaa college basketball' style elimination tournament to see which was the worst company. Still, it was a web poll and the bulk of my other points are still valid. Mea culpa.
Folks, this is exactly how bad rumors get started and whoever wrote the headline here should really apologize for some completely irresponsible 'journalism.'
Specifically, I'm talking about the 'worst company in america' award that the RIAA supposedly won.
When I read the headline, it smelled fishy. So, I did a tiny bit of research and found:
The contest was between exactly two companies - Hallibutron and the RIAA. Those were your choices if you participated in this survey. The RIAA won by 3.8%. Wal-mart or none of the above were not choices.
The 'survey' was done by The Consumerist. Sounds impressive, eh? Like The Economist magazine, perhaps? No, not really. It's basically some shitty blog. Hint: their web page currently has ads for 'Replica Rolex Watches
Rolex, Cartier, Gucci, Brietling Only $189!!'
So, this poll was a web poll. Hardly what we'd expect from a true 'Most hated company in America' type deal.
The RIAA may have their bad points, but there's nothing in this survey or elsewhere to suggest that they are the most hated 'company' in the USA, other than perhaps in the overimaginaive minds of a few people who need to spend a little less time glued to the monitor and a bit more time thinking about journalistic ethics.
Since your "I might have to start posting this on a regular basis" comment suggests that you are enamoured of your own genius, may I humbly suggest that your majesty get off his high horse and allow his grace to revisit an economics 101 textbook. While I'm afraid that it might cause unfortunately interruption that is the manna from heaven that you clearly feel that your underinformed high-school calibera pontificating amounts to, I suggest that you read the section (usually at about chapter 2) about "substitute goods" and how the market values those. As your majesty is obviously large of brain, I ask thee to consider that the substitutability of goods is not a binary (yes/no) variable, but rather (when considered over a large group of people) some substitutability factor that can be normalized to a number between 0 and 1. Bottled water makes its profit from where it is seen as sufficiently different, superior, or available to tap water as to warrant its increased price. It is clear that pirated downloaded music, even with the risks involved, is seen as being sufficiently substitutable to legitimately purchased music given the price to a very significant, and possibly increasing, segment of the population. By similar token, jewelry is 'free' if you simply break into a jeweler's. However, most of us who have occasional (or even frequent) contact with women are likely to pay for it nevertheless, because, despite the price, breaking in is not a suitable substitute due to the potential social stigma, not to mention time in jail, associated with getting caught.
So, here's a crazy, crazy idea. Given that your knowledge of economics appears to bear similarity to the creationist's knowldge of earth science, Just maybe, if there exists a ladder long enough in all of christendom to allow this, you get off your high horse and actually take a few moments to learn a little of the most basic aspects of economic theory before continuing your role as yet another badly informed internet pseudo-expert so confidently spreading bad reasoning and infantile rationalizaton.
Just like the Horse and Buggy, the RIAA and the music stores were pretty much doomed the second that the internet was created, it just took some time for it to happen.
Your argument rests on the notion that the RIAA is not currently doing the best job at promoting new acts. This is clearly bullshiat. Look at any possible list of 'top N singles' or 'top N albums' and you will see that they are by far acts that are promoted by traditional means - be that by getting them played on Mp3, inserted into movies, plugged with carefully choreographed publicity events, constructed by bringing together 2 artists in order to generate a marketing-based product (Shakira vs Beyonce, etc), targeted and shaped as products by people with MBAs, etc. As much as you and I may find such things distasteful, the reality is that while the internet certainly has great potential, NO significant artist has yet has managed to do a significant end-run around the RIAA and its marketing machine. Put another way, the market still very much the RIAA, even though mano-a-mano we may not like it, just like you and I may not like that Coca-cola is a global-billionaire-company marketing megalith, we have all been fairly well conditioned and will not think twice about recognizing that coca-cola is superior to generic store band cola. The numbers dont lie - marketing and the other things that the RIAA has definite value, even if your conscious brain doesnt like to own up to the fact.
Yes, a few artists have struck out on their own to try to direct sell via the interent or whatever. so far, the unknown bands have achieved at absolute best very very modest success (in fact, i suspect that few if any musicians have gotten anywhwere near the fan base or sales of, say, Strong Bad) and a few well known acts have gone online but are really just coasting from their mainstram RIAA promotion. That is to say, if Madonna suddenly went online right now to direct sell and dumped all her RIAA contracts, we wouldn't be surprised if she still sold a few million albums (and the novelty of such a big star doing it online would also get her free press), but it would be ridiculous to assume that the proto-start-up madonna is going to come today from the internet and thrive without RIAA support. it just ain't happening. maybe you as a slashdot reader in a retro f the riaa thinkgeek t-shirt and a redhat sticker slapped on the side of your PC case will discover some band on the internet that will hold your attention long enough so that you can write some slashdot piece claimning how the riaa is dead, but you are by far the exception.
things sold on allofmp3.com are overwhelmingly RIAA acts (well, except for the russian stuff). this is because people know the RIAA stuff because of RIAA promotion.
things sold on itunes are overwhelmingly RIAA acts. this is because people know the RIAA stuff because of RIAA promotion.
music pirated on emule and similar networks is overwhelmingly RIAA. same logic.
the internet MAY WELL SOMEDAY provide superior marketing and distribution mechanisms, and the various small fanbase building websites and services that we are seeing mentioned in other posts here may well be eventually quite important for this. but as any serious analysis will show, they are as yet a relatively tiny spec on the whole scene. getting your music played on the local fm radio station in any major city will still bring you far more fans than any website or service. sooner or later, there will doubtlessly be a breakout act or two who defy this, but as yet this is by far still the exception.
Fair enough, but the point was that they couldn't get into this business, even if it existed, because piracy (and I doubt that their claim is substantively false) intervened. It doesn't matter what you have for sale - if somebody is giving it away for free and there are no consequences, you will lose. I see nothing wrong with the subway going out of business because somebody invents a faster and more comfortable bus. I do see a giant problem with the subway going out of business because massive numbers of people decide that using fake tokens or jumping the turnstile is morally ok because the subway pollutes, is occasionally late, and is a giant impersonal organization that pays its drivers only a relatively small percentage of its total revenue.
By that standard, shouldn't people, say, in vegitative states or with extreme cases of metal retardation be legally not human, and therefore eligible for the hot dog machine?
On Penn & Teller's Bullshiat, a show with many many many subtle flaws despite it's many many many good parts, they once had a little bit in the PeTA piece about how if animals have rights, then therefore they should have responsibilities. When I first heard this I thought at first that this was just a bit of flat humor, but then it occurred to me that this was actually a very powerful argument. Fine - if the primate deserves equal protection under law, then he should get equal treatment under law as far as paying taxes, sending his offspring to school, not assaulting people by climbing on them, being hygenic, etc.
506. Criminal offenses5 (a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
I bet that many of those cited easily meet the 180 day / $1000 threshold. And, all those who deal in P2P pass both the reproduction and distribution criteria.
Your whole argument rests on the belief that the developers are doing something wrong. If you start from that premise, of course you are going to come to that conclusion. Just like we do things that we wouldn't otherwise do because of google, you encourage others to.
The point is that a better search engine would not force people to change their technologies / add 5-10 lines of "extra" code. extra means extra. A better search engine would do this for you and allow people to use the full extent of tools to create web content and not need to try to manipulate themselves into some format that the dominant search engine happens to like. your proposal adds meaningless work to millions of webmasters jobs rather than simply having google do a better job actually indexing the content of the web.
As always, I'm underwhelmed by idiot slashdot moderators who mark my comment as 'flamebait.' You may not agree with it, but 'flamebait?' It's not even CLOSE to flamebait.
/ most of the comments i make on slashdot that get moderated get BOTH {troll/flamebait} AND {insightful/interesting}. If that doesn't suggest that slashdot's moderation system isn't heavily broken, then I don't know what does. I'd understand {overrated}+{interesting} or something like that, but my comments show rather clearly that moderators are not 'moderating' but rather too often using the system to simply squelch alternative opinions they don't like at the expense of furthering intelligent discussion.
this is a pretty straightforward example of how google holds back the web. this is not google's fault, per se, but it definitely is true. We routinely resort to older, inefficient technologies for our websites simply to please google. it works well for us from an advertising standpoint, but is often incredibly stupid technologically.
The Economist is the best magazine ("newspaper") in the world, which is why I pay a premium price to subscribe to it. The entire USA, sadly, has nothing that comes close. Hey geniuses: don't change anything.
If you do research (via google) on almost any stock spam email you get, you will undoubtedly find yourself either at or reading a press release by 'bullishalerts.com'. For the life of me, I don't understand why this company / website still exists. It's clearly somehow intimately related with the spam as this place just happens to put out and then widely distribute through the web (as opposed to email) all sorts of press releases and other nonsense coiincidentally timed with waves of equivalent spam. the thing is, this is not some website in Nauru - they claim to have an office in downtown Philadelphia. The website, complete with vague nonsense crap and 8th grade writing sort of hints at the caliber of people running it - so why in hell hasn't the FTC or SEC done something?
Umm, because now they can offer a much larger catalogue and you have even less excuse than ever for pirating something that you claim is rare / not available locally?
So, we have some article here purporting to claim that it is impossible to build a business based on DRM.
It only takes one thing to counter an impossibility. I know of somebody who makes about 4 million dollars a year on what is effectivley shareware, a type of DRM. His software is hackable and crackable, but basically at the end of the day DRM, that is, the set of restrictions he puts on his items so that he can sell them digitally, is what makes it work. Furthermore, his business has obsoleted several brick-and-mortar type businesses who were doing about the same thing.
It's time slashdot stops linking to these highly ideological opinion pieces attempting to pass themsleves off as "analysis." It's particularly easy to debunk them when they claim that something is impossible, however.
Why not? Beacause at some point you reach the point of diminishing returns. There is always the next great format that is n% better. But at some point people just don't care any more. Do you look at the file size of your mp3s any more? can you REALLY tell the difference between 256khz and 512khz (hint: if you say 'yes', you are lying). At some point you have to stop fighting over that last n% and start working towards what is achievable. To put it another way, you have to stop playing theory (the art of the theoretically possible), and start playing politics (the art of achieving the practically doable.)
microsoft, with its billions, is blind in making strategic business decisions, but you, some slashdot postager, is the one who truly understands what is best for microsoft's business. right.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have a double standard. I think the "information must be free" claim is nonsense. I am a strong supporter of intellctual property rights and for strong privacy laws. Thanks for guessing, though.
Ah this is one of those put your feet up, grab some popcorn moments when you watch slashdotters' collective heads asplode as they are compelled to confront their desire for privacy against their other mantra of "information should be free." Of course, some will claim that there is no contradiction, others will tell me that slashdot is not one monolithic think-block, and others will just blame bush. Tell me again why "personal" information should not be "free" as in speech? No really.. i want to know. / citizen of louisiana? your tax dollars are hard at work on ads at slashdot as if somebody will actually choose to relocate to louisiana because of an ad showing two male ends of patch cables coming together.
You know, just because you pull ideas out of your ass doesn't mean you need to post them on Slashdot.
YouTube is now part of Google. Google does business in Thailand and probably has offices there. The location of the physical servers is irrelevant.
For a moment, let's pretend that Google/YouTube don't have ANY physical presence in Thailand. Case closed, right? Well no, not exactly. Thailand has a whole host of options still on the table. I'm sure those will be expounded upon by others, so I won't repeat them here, but the point is: PLEASE DON'T POST ON SLASHDOT THINGS THAT SOUND LIKE "FACTS" THAT YOU JUST MAKE UP OR "SOUND RIGHT" WITHOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT WHATSOEVER. Really.
People: it's time for a bit of intellectual honesty.
Either:
A. Microsoft is a giant evil behemoth that has created for itself a permanent and insurmountable monopoly that needs to be curtailed through government intervention and snide slashdot comments. Microsoft could shiat on a brick and most IT departments would have to buy it. The agreements that it makes with computer manufacturers to pre-install its product, which typically costs about 10% of the actual cost of the PC, is fundamentally wrong.
OR
B. Microsoft is a company that, despite the existence of free-as-in-beer alternatives, has nevertheless managed for many years to become fabulously wealthy by delivering products that seem to be what the market wants. However, as this episode shows, they are neither invincible nor infallible - like all of the software giants that have come before them, despite at one point building an enviable market position, they will erode through some combination of changing technology, bad marketing / product decisions, and so forth. Furthermore, as we see from Dell's (among others') recent actions, computer manufacturers can and will tailor their operating system offerings as they feel the market warrants - Microsoft can no more afford to lose dell than vice versa.
Those of you reading for my posts know that I am often accused of astroturfing for various companies or being a hack or whatever because of my generally pro-copyright views and (since 1997) general lack of enthusiasm for the scalability of OSS. However, on this one I cast my lot with the No Logo, penguin-on-a-black-t-shirt crowd and call this out for what it is: an attempt by very strong corporate interests with large in-house law departments to do an end-round on the prior art of small inventors who have not filed. the result? Anything from a Japan-like insane number of defensive, speculative, and useless patent filing jamboree to a Europe-like devaluation of the value of the inventor in lieu of the mba-like hacks (full disclosure: I have an MBA from a top school, but I also have my bona fides :). The USA may be wrong on the war on Iraq and still using Imperial measurements, but fark the crazy idea of 'whoever files' in this case - it's anti-consumer in every way possible.
1. Jon Stewart is an entertainer whose personal fortune, success, and prestigate is much more closely tied to personal recognition and likeability rather than the long-term profitability of his network. Hence, he has every reason in the world to want to be associated with the 'free beer' aspects of let's put stuff on youtube.
2. lazy sunday's youtube success doubtlessly brought some fame back to SNL. however, to start as that as a premise and then argue that ergo snl/viacom should not care if the funniest bits of their shows are put onto the internet en masse by anonymous users is completely disingenious. more realistically, it makes sense from SNL's / the network's standpoint to be against random copyright infringing posts of clips from their show but to put carfully selected teaser bits up that may encourage viewers to their television show, where they actually make money through advertising. and this is exactly what they do.
Imagine, just maybe, if the "points" I made weren't actually totally encapsulated in the actual physical bullet points of the UL list that I used. Stay with me now - just imagine that my points may actually have been the sum total of my post wherein a general idea was made quite clear: that the Consumerist poll as structured in no way supported a reasonable conclusion that the RIAA was truly America's worst company. After all, while you're right - I did miss the bracket-of-32 system initially, this in no way invalidates the larger and much more damning flaw: that the sample was flawed, the metholology was flawed, and the conclusions are flawed, to say nothing of the basic dishonesty of slapping on a convenient catchphrasey label like "War On Terror" err... "America's Worst Company" and then running with this.
You said something like "well, the poll wasn't scientific, but...". No buts. If it's a shite poll, and its methods are methologically unsound it ends right there. We don't say "well, creationism isn't scientific but let's quote its results anyway." We say, "this poll was done in a half-assed way, and we could not use it unless we heavily disclaimed it. We certainly don't use its suspect findings as the basis of a conclusion upon which we build other premises", as people here have done.
After your post, I spent some more time looking at the Consumerist. Look, I'm happy you have a job there or are receiving blow jobs from their webmaster or whatever it is that causes you do defend such flawed nonense, but, realy - with headlines such as "80% of geek squad employees say they don't use anti-static wrist straps", well, I mean really. Get some perspective. Don't you just SLIGHTLY suspect that a readership demographic that cares about the percentage of geeek squad employees that wear wrist-straps is a bit uncharacteristic of "America" as a whole, which the label of the conclusion purports to encapsulate? I mean really man.
/ and yes, i saw that they had some more interesting articles too, but they still appeal generally to a highly specific demographic.
Ah sorry - my mistake - I see now that it was a 'ncaa college basketball' style elimination tournament to see which was the worst company. Still, it was a web poll and the bulk of my other points are still valid. Mea culpa.
Specifically, I'm talking about the 'worst company in america' award that the RIAA supposedly won.
When I read the headline, it smelled fishy. So, I did a tiny bit of research and found:
- The contest was between exactly two companies - Hallibutron and the RIAA. Those were your choices if you participated in this survey. The RIAA won by 3.8%. Wal-mart or none of the above were not choices.
- The 'survey' was done by The Consumerist. Sounds impressive, eh? Like The Economist magazine, perhaps? No, not really. It's basically some shitty blog. Hint: their web page currently has ads for 'Replica Rolex Watches
Rolex, Cartier, Gucci, Brietling Only $189!!'
- So, this poll was a web poll. Hardly what we'd expect from a true 'Most hated company in America' type deal.
- See it for yourself here.
The RIAA may have their bad points, but there's nothing in this survey or elsewhere to suggest that they are the most hated 'company' in the USA, other than perhaps in the overimaginaive minds of a few people who need to spend a little less time glued to the monitor and a bit more time thinking about journalistic ethics.Since your "I might have to start posting this on a regular basis" comment suggests that you are enamoured of your own genius, may I humbly suggest that your majesty get off his high horse and allow his grace to revisit an economics 101 textbook. While I'm afraid that it might cause unfortunately interruption that is the manna from heaven that you clearly feel that your underinformed high-school calibera pontificating amounts to, I suggest that you read the section (usually at about chapter 2) about "substitute goods" and how the market values those. As your majesty is obviously large of brain, I ask thee to consider that the substitutability of goods is not a binary (yes/no) variable, but rather (when considered over a large group of people) some substitutability factor that can be normalized to a number between 0 and 1. Bottled water makes its profit from where it is seen as sufficiently different, superior, or available to tap water as to warrant its increased price. It is clear that pirated downloaded music, even with the risks involved, is seen as being sufficiently substitutable to legitimately purchased music given the price to a very significant, and possibly increasing, segment of the population. By similar token, jewelry is 'free' if you simply break into a jeweler's. However, most of us who have occasional (or even frequent) contact with women are likely to pay for it nevertheless, because, despite the price, breaking in is not a suitable substitute due to the potential social stigma, not to mention time in jail, associated with getting caught. So, here's a crazy, crazy idea. Given that your knowledge of economics appears to bear similarity to the creationist's knowldge of earth science, Just maybe, if there exists a ladder long enough in all of christendom to allow this, you get off your high horse and actually take a few moments to learn a little of the most basic aspects of economic theory before continuing your role as yet another badly informed internet pseudo-expert so confidently spreading bad reasoning and infantile rationalizaton.
Just like the Horse and Buggy, the RIAA and the music stores were pretty much doomed the second that the internet was created, it just took some time for it to happen.
Your argument rests on the notion that the RIAA is not currently doing the best job at promoting new acts. This is clearly bullshiat. Look at any possible list of 'top N singles' or 'top N albums' and you will see that they are by far acts that are promoted by traditional means - be that by getting them played on Mp3, inserted into movies, plugged with carefully choreographed publicity events, constructed by bringing together 2 artists in order to generate a marketing-based product (Shakira vs Beyonce, etc), targeted and shaped as products by people with MBAs, etc. As much as you and I may find such things distasteful, the reality is that while the internet certainly has great potential, NO significant artist has yet has managed to do a significant end-run around the RIAA and its marketing machine. Put another way, the market still very much the RIAA, even though mano-a-mano we may not like it, just like you and I may not like that Coca-cola is a global-billionaire-company marketing megalith, we have all been fairly well conditioned and will not think twice about recognizing that coca-cola is superior to generic store band cola. The numbers dont lie - marketing and the other things that the RIAA has definite value, even if your conscious brain doesnt like to own up to the fact.
Yes, a few artists have struck out on their own to try to direct sell via the interent or whatever. so far, the unknown bands have achieved at absolute best very very modest success (in fact, i suspect that few if any musicians have gotten anywhwere near the fan base or sales of, say, Strong Bad) and a few well known acts have gone online but are really just coasting from their mainstram RIAA promotion. That is to say, if Madonna suddenly went online right now to direct sell and dumped all her RIAA contracts, we wouldn't be surprised if she still sold a few million albums (and the novelty of such a big star doing it online would also get her free press), but it would be ridiculous to assume that the proto-start-up madonna is going to come today from the internet and thrive without RIAA support. it just ain't happening. maybe you as a slashdot reader in a retro f the riaa thinkgeek t-shirt and a redhat sticker slapped on the side of your PC case will discover some band on the internet that will hold your attention long enough so that you can write some slashdot piece claimning how the riaa is dead, but you are by far the exception.
things sold on allofmp3.com are overwhelmingly RIAA acts (well, except for the russian stuff). this is because people know the RIAA stuff because of RIAA promotion.
things sold on itunes are overwhelmingly RIAA acts. this is because people know the RIAA stuff because of RIAA promotion.
music pirated on emule and similar networks is overwhelmingly RIAA. same logic.
the internet MAY WELL SOMEDAY provide superior marketing and distribution mechanisms, and the various small fanbase building websites and services that we are seeing mentioned in other posts here may well be eventually quite important for this. but as any serious analysis will show, they are as yet a relatively tiny spec on the whole scene. getting your music played on the local fm radio station in any major city will still bring you far more fans than any website or service. sooner or later, there will doubtlessly be a breakout act or two who defy this, but as yet this is by far still the exception.
alas.
Fair enough, but the point was that they couldn't get into this business, even if it existed, because piracy (and I doubt that their claim is substantively false) intervened. It doesn't matter what you have for sale - if somebody is giving it away for free and there are no consequences, you will lose. I see nothing wrong with the subway going out of business because somebody invents a faster and more comfortable bus. I do see a giant problem with the subway going out of business because massive numbers of people decide that using fake tokens or jumping the turnstile is morally ok because the subway pollutes, is occasionally late, and is a giant impersonal organization that pays its drivers only a relatively small percentage of its total revenue.
By that standard, shouldn't people, say, in vegitative states or with extreme cases of metal retardation be legally not human, and therefore eligible for the hot dog machine?
On Penn & Teller's Bullshiat, a show with many many many subtle flaws despite it's many many many good parts, they once had a little bit in the PeTA piece about how if animals have rights, then therefore they should have responsibilities. When I first heard this I thought at first that this was just a bit of flat humor, but then it occurred to me that this was actually a very powerful argument. Fine - if the primate deserves equal protection under law, then he should get equal treatment under law as far as paying taxes, sending his offspring to school, not assaulting people by climbing on them, being hygenic, etc.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
506. Criminal offenses5
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
I bet that many of those cited easily meet the 180 day / $1000 threshold. And, all those who deal in P2P pass both the reproduction and distribution criteria.
Your whole argument rests on the belief that the developers are doing something wrong. If you start from that premise, of course you are going to come to that conclusion. Just like we do things that we wouldn't otherwise do because of google, you encourage others to. The point is that a better search engine would not force people to change their technologies / add 5-10 lines of "extra" code. extra means extra. A better search engine would do this for you and allow people to use the full extent of tools to create web content and not need to try to manipulate themselves into some format that the dominant search engine happens to like. your proposal adds meaningless work to millions of webmasters jobs rather than simply having google do a better job actually indexing the content of the web.
As always, I'm underwhelmed by idiot slashdot moderators who mark my comment as 'flamebait.' You may not agree with it, but 'flamebait?' It's not even CLOSE to flamebait. / most of the comments i make on slashdot that get moderated get BOTH {troll/flamebait} AND {insightful/interesting}. If that doesn't suggest that slashdot's moderation system isn't heavily broken, then I don't know what does. I'd understand {overrated}+{interesting} or something like that, but my comments show rather clearly that moderators are not 'moderating' but rather too often using the system to simply squelch alternative opinions they don't like at the expense of furthering intelligent discussion.
this is a pretty straightforward example of how google holds back the web. this is not google's fault, per se, but it definitely is true. We routinely resort to older, inefficient technologies for our websites simply to please google. it works well for us from an advertising standpoint, but is often incredibly stupid technologically.
The Economist is the best magazine ("newspaper") in the world, which is why I pay a premium price to subscribe to it. The entire USA, sadly, has nothing that comes close. Hey geniuses: don't change anything.
If you do research (via google) on almost any stock spam email you get, you will undoubtedly find yourself either at or reading a press release by 'bullishalerts.com'. For the life of me, I don't understand why this company / website still exists. It's clearly somehow intimately related with the spam as this place just happens to put out and then widely distribute through the web (as opposed to email) all sorts of press releases and other nonsense coiincidentally timed with waves of equivalent spam. the thing is, this is not some website in Nauru - they claim to have an office in downtown Philadelphia. The website, complete with vague nonsense crap and 8th grade writing sort of hints at the caliber of people running it - so why in hell hasn't the FTC or SEC done something?
while you're ranting on about your military/intellectual property/industrial complex, you may want to consider:
c hology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psy
Umm, because now they can offer a much larger catalogue and you have even less excuse than ever for pirating something that you claim is rare / not available locally?
So, we have some article here purporting to claim that it is impossible to build a business based on DRM.
It only takes one thing to counter an impossibility. I know of somebody who makes about 4 million dollars a year on what is effectivley shareware, a type of DRM. His software is hackable and crackable, but basically at the end of the day DRM, that is, the set of restrictions he puts on his items so that he can sell them digitally, is what makes it work. Furthermore, his business has obsoleted several brick-and-mortar type businesses who were doing about the same thing.
It's time slashdot stops linking to these highly ideological opinion pieces attempting to pass themsleves off as "analysis." It's particularly easy to debunk them when they claim that something is impossible, however.
Why not? Beacause at some point you reach the point of diminishing returns. There is always the next great format that is n% better. But at some point people just don't care any more. Do you look at the file size of your mp3s any more? can you REALLY tell the difference between 256khz and 512khz (hint: if you say 'yes', you are lying). At some point you have to stop fighting over that last n% and start working towards what is achievable. To put it another way, you have to stop playing theory (the art of the theoretically possible), and start playing politics (the art of achieving the practically doable.)
microsoft, with its billions, is blind in making strategic business decisions, but you, some slashdot postager, is the one who truly understands what is best for microsoft's business. right.