They did the same thing (if not worse) UO2. Origin/EA/Whatever it is, has turned into a flakey company lately, that just can't deliver a good MMO to the market.
If they would just start releasing the source to these games after the trash them, life would be so much better. Next up... Ultima: Not Gonna Happen.
There will always be Natalie Portman. I just moved to Boston shortly before she moved to SOHO (NYC)... My lucky friend got to hang out with her at a few parties at Harvard. Lucky bastard. Oh well... i'm luckily moving to NYC soon, and SOHO is really nice:)
Personally, i don't see a difference between computers that I use, as long as they are in general offer the same experience. I have an Intel Desktop and laptop, and an iBook, and a G4 tower, and another G4 tower that I use at work. There are also several G4s that I use around school, and I use my gf's computer occasionally.
To me, it doesn't matter too much- as long as the speed is roughly the same (my 800mhz iBook and my dp1.25ghz G4 are close enough for most tasks), and they can do the same things ( I do shy away from the intel computers now, because I can just get things done quicker on the Macs).
I just use my.mac services to pull in all my contacts, iCal, and mail temporarly, and pull up my documents from iDisk, and get to work. All the computers I work on have the same programs loaded (FCP, Finale, Protools, Office and Reason being the most important) and if they didn't i'd probably drag around a HD that just had them on there.
Its just like cars, my gf's father owns a car repair shop and used car lot (one of the few nice ones that I know of), and oddly enough, he doesn't have 'a car' that he drives, or even really care about driving a nice or new car, his wife does, but he just sees it as another machine that he works on. Sure he buys and sells cars weekly, but doesn't have any attachment to any specific car as long as it gets him there.
I've owned about 40-50 computers now, and just see them as computers. I used to stay more on one or two of them, but I didn't have them set up to easily have all my documents, email, and simalar things set up on all of them seemlessly. Now I use my iBook around town, my DP G4 for my editing and more powerful tasks, and the other G4 at work for my main protools tracking. However, if i just switched out some PCI cards, i wouldn't mind using either.
Set up a credit card from a US PO Box? Have a friend in the states set it up and check it for you... give you the PIN number or anything u need. Then just pay your credit card bills online. As a bonus, i figure this would build ur credit here in case you'd ever come the the US and wanted a loan or credit card?
Or you could just pay someone u trust via paypal to buy you gift certifcates.
Hey... I have a story from 2002 that was 'accepted', but i still haven't seen it posted yet, nor can i find it by searching. Oh well. It's not really an issue for me now.
Could u either write a piece of software that u either install on your computer, of just have a policy in your Home directory that basically said that any software that was installed, the companies automatically agreed to the agreement which said, "You may not interfere with this computer in a negative way or send information about this computer without notifiying the user each time"? or somethign else that the software wouldn't comply with and then sue them?
It sounds stupid, but basically that's what half of the spyware does to users... just installs itself or forces an install, and starts sending info without u really agreeing???
In addition in Mass... you can't buy crap for 60K, maybe a parking space in Back Bay if you're lucky. I live in Chestnut Hill/West Roxbury and you can't even think of buying if you don't have nearly 300K to drop, and in Back Bay/Fenway area it's alot worse.
Argh!!! I had a hard enough time getting her to pay attention to it at three hours. Just wait until I can her to watch my 'Great Movie Run'.... All 6 Star Wars Films, LoTR Trillogy Extended Editions, and all three Matrix films.... err perhaps just the first Matrix film on the other hand. Ludovico Technique with Geek Movies... perhaps she'll like them after all.
Totally. I mean, where do they get these programmers at??? Middle schools? preschools? Microsoft? How can anyone with a Comp Sci degree actually make such terrible software, which should be SOOO easy.. With programmers like that out there, it's hard to imagine that computers can ever work at all...
While I normally don't support China in just about any way (due to their human rights stances), I must say Congrats on getting people in space. It's a huge undertaking obviously, and i'm glad to see that everything went well. Perhaps soon we will have more countries docking at the International Space station instead of just Russia and the US.
While we are at it... what does everyone need for OS X? Here's my list:
Msft Office (newest version)
Safari (why use IE?)
Dreamweaver
Quicken
Limewire
Photoshop 7.0
Final Cut Pro
Reason
Protools
Those are just personally what I need to operate well with it... I know those aren't for everyone. I can't even remember what i used on a PC hardly...
Re:Definition of a Compulsary License
on
Why Only Music?
·
· Score: 1
Yea, (un)fortunately, no system currently exisits. It could be cool, but would have a few side effects.
1) From everything i've seen in copyright law, if you put something into effect it's not retroactive to previous registrations. So this won't put the Beatles on the iTunes store. 2)It probably would be more than 8 cents per song, as that is the rate for just using the song in a recording, so asides from forcing new work into public distribution, it would probably be only marginally cheaper than current systems (iTunes store).
This may all happen, but there's big forces at work here. The RIAA, the Musicians (not everyone wants their music online!), etc... This requires going to congress about it for a copyright amendment, which does happen, but this is a HUGE one. Something's gonna happen, we just don't know what.
Definition of a Compulsary License
on
Why Only Music?
·
· Score: 1
Ok, since everyone seems to be a little off...
A compulsary license has NOTHING to do with you downloading music, and compulsary licenses very rarely happen in fact for reasons that I will explain below.
A compulsary license most often deals with a compulsary mechanical license. This basically says that anyone can record any song, and pay the statutory mechanical rate (set by congress) which is currently 8 cents for songs less than 5 minutes, or 1.55 cents per minute if the song is longer than 5 minutes. There are a few conditions for this. For one, you must give notice to the publishing company (or copyright holder) within 30 days of recording, and prior to release of the song in order to obtain a compulsary license. The songwriter has First Use rights for the song, so basically the song must have been recorded legally and willingly by the artist, and legally distributed on behalf of the artist first before you can record and sell the song. So basically if some intern gives you a tape of a song that Band X is recording, or you get the MP3 of a new radiohead song before it was legally distributed, and you transcribe the song, and play it, you can't legally sell it, because you can't get a compulsary license. However, if you take, "Every Breath You Take", and record it, you can give Sting (or his publisher) notice within 30 days of recording, and before you sell it, and force a compulsary mechanical license.
Before I go any farther, we need to understand something. There are 3 separate entities to think about in dealing with copyright. The Artist, the Record Company, and the Publishing Company. The Artist probably owns part of his/her copyright for the songs splitting it with the Publishing Company. This should be a different company than the record company. The Record company will most likely (99.99% chance if it's a major label) own the Masters. The Artist probably doesn't own any part of the Master recordings of the songs, and probably can't record another copy of them within a certain number of years (or possibly forever), although they might get the masters back some day if they had a really good lawyer or manager to negotiate for them. Let's say for a second that you infringe the copyright on Song A by sampling the melody of the song. Not only would the Record company be able to sue you, but the publishing company would have a suit against you. There's two different copyrights. One for the Master (the recording and any varients of probably), and the Song (the melody, and lyrics... Note: Chord progressions can't be copyrighted, and you need about 5 notes to consist of a melody that might be recognized as copyrightable). Let's say you wanted to legally sample the song, you would have to deal with Harry Fox to get the clearance for the Master, and with the publishing company (although Harry Fox could probably help you with both). One without the other does you little good.
Ok, so back to topic. We have a compulsary mechanical license. Why doesn't this Rock? Well first of all, since it's not your song you can't get Publishing when you sell your CDs. Most record companies will negotiate for a Controller Composition Clause in your record deal that basically says, look since we are making your songs more valueable, charge us less per song to have the license to record and sell them (Yes, your record company too has to pay to record the Song, on the Master). So they normally get 3/4 Statuory Mechanical or less, so they pay about 5 or 6 cents per song. Let's say 5 for now. They will also only pay for about 8 songs.
Here's another seemly useless tangent that will help things make sense. Hopefully as an Artist you will have three major forms of income (although anything's possible). Touring, Record Royalites, and Publishing Royalties and Fees. They are all from different places obviously and should be simple to figure out. The more you can get from each, the better obviously.
Ok, so we are back. So you'll get 40 cents per CD if you h
You can choose your shell to use in OS X... I think it' just under the terminal prefs...
And I've used PCs all my life, until about 4 months ago, and OS X took something like 2 days to get used to.... I haven't turned on my PCs except to get some files from them since i got it.
Who do you know gets 4% royalties? something more like 12-18% is standard. Of course you may get screwed elsewhere in the contract, but i've never heard of 4%. I mean, hell since everything's all-in, the producers gets about 3 points, and sometimes the mix engineer 1 or 1/2 points.
TLC got screwed for other reasons. People dont' understand crosscollaterization and recoupment. TLC wasn't driving around in a Pinto to their shows or living in shacks (hell one of them burnt down a mansion). The record companies gave them money, and they spent it. They had to pay it back. DUH!
Slashdot Mirror
They did the same thing (if not worse) UO2. Origin/EA/Whatever it is, has turned into a flakey company lately, that just can't deliver a good MMO to the market.
If they would just start releasing the source to these games after the trash them, life would be so much better.
Next up... Ultima: Not Gonna Happen.
With little hesetation, even though he's broke
And i'm in the music business, and i think that's wrong!
Have you ever tried watching a FPS game, or any other gaming tournament on a gaming channel on TV? Even just showing the clips, it's terribly boring.
Just try putting yourself in spectator mode for a few hours... you'll reconsider that idea.
Umm, Apple remote desktop? Or what about adding the files that are in a public (to your network) share?
Would this work in the USB port on the Airport Express?
What's a good OS X client for this? They even have it compiled for OS/2 on the main DL page, but no apple support :)
There will always be Natalie Portman. I just moved to Boston shortly before she moved to SOHO (NYC)... My lucky friend got to hang out with her at a few parties at Harvard. Lucky bastard. Oh well... i'm luckily moving to NYC soon, and SOHO is really nice :)
Screw PC users? Try being a Mac user for a day, and then talk about Halo.... or NWN
Personally, i don't see a difference between computers that I use, as long as they are in general offer the same experience. I have an Intel Desktop and laptop, and an iBook, and a G4 tower, and another G4 tower that I use at work. There are also several G4s that I use around school, and I use my gf's computer occasionally. To me, it doesn't matter too much- as long as the speed is roughly the same (my 800mhz iBook and my dp1.25ghz G4 are close enough for most tasks), and they can do the same things ( I do shy away from the intel computers now, because I can just get things done quicker on the Macs). I just use my .mac services to pull in all my contacts, iCal, and mail temporarly, and pull up my documents from iDisk, and get to work. All the computers I work on have the same programs loaded (FCP, Finale, Protools, Office and Reason being the most important) and if they didn't i'd probably drag around a HD that just had them on there.
Its just like cars, my gf's father owns a car repair shop and used car lot (one of the few nice ones that I know of), and oddly enough, he doesn't have 'a car' that he drives, or even really care about driving a nice or new car, his wife does, but he just sees it as another machine that he works on. Sure he buys and sells cars weekly, but doesn't have any attachment to any specific car as long as it gets him there.
I've owned about 40-50 computers now, and just see them as computers. I used to stay more on one or two of them, but I didn't have them set up to easily have all my documents, email, and simalar things set up on all of them seemlessly. Now I use my iBook around town, my DP G4 for my editing and more powerful tasks, and the other G4 at work for my main protools tracking. However, if i just switched out some PCI cards, i wouldn't mind using either.
FCP really likes 2 button mice i think, and Shake requires one to operate well. It's just for their lower apps they see no reason
Set up a credit card from a US PO Box? Have a friend in the states set it up and check it for you... give you the PIN number or anything u need. Then just pay your credit card bills online. As a bonus, i figure this would build ur credit here in case you'd ever come the the US and wanted a loan or credit card?
Or you could just pay someone u trust via paypal to buy you gift certifcates.
Hey... I have a story from 2002 that was 'accepted', but i still haven't seen it posted yet, nor can i find it by searching. Oh well. It's not really an issue for me now.
Could u either write a piece of software that u either install on your computer, of just have a policy in your Home directory that basically said that any software that was installed, the companies automatically agreed to the agreement which said, "You may not interfere with this computer in a negative way or send information about this computer without notifiying the user each time"? or somethign else that the software wouldn't comply with and then sue them?
It sounds stupid, but basically that's what half of the spyware does to users... just installs itself or forces an install, and starts sending info without u really agreeing???
In addition in Mass... you can't buy crap for 60K, maybe a parking space in Back Bay if you're lucky. I live in Chestnut Hill/West Roxbury and you can't even think of buying if you don't have nearly 300K to drop, and in Back Bay/Fenway area it's alot worse.
Argh!!! I had a hard enough time getting her to pay attention to it at three hours. Just wait until I can her to watch my 'Great Movie Run'.... All 6 Star Wars Films, LoTR Trillogy Extended Editions, and all three Matrix films.... err perhaps just the first Matrix film on the other hand.
Ludovico Technique with Geek Movies... perhaps she'll like them after all.
if bush is gonna still be here... i'm at least moving to Canada or England.... never considered the moon though... hmm
Totally. I mean, where do they get these programmers at??? Middle schools? preschools? Microsoft?
How can anyone with a Comp Sci degree actually make such terrible software, which should be SOOO easy..
With programmers like that out there, it's hard to imagine that computers can ever work at all...
Pretty much.... :)
While I normally don't support China in just about any way (due to their human rights stances), I must say Congrats on getting people in space. It's a huge undertaking obviously, and i'm glad to see that everything went well.
Perhaps soon we will have more countries docking at the International Space station instead of just Russia and the US.
Could you sue the company saying that their 'wardialing' or 'hacking' caused you to change your phone number, and lose money in the process?
Msft Office (newest version)
Safari (why use IE?)
Dreamweaver
Quicken
Limewire
Photoshop 7.0
Final Cut Pro
Reason
Protools
Those are just personally what I need to operate well with it... I know those aren't for everyone. I can't even remember what i used on a PC hardly...
Yea, (un)fortunately, no system currently exisits. It could be cool, but would have a few side effects.
1) From everything i've seen in copyright law, if you put something into effect it's not retroactive to previous registrations. So this won't put the Beatles on the iTunes store.
2)It probably would be more than 8 cents per song, as that is the rate for just using the song in a recording, so asides from forcing new work into public distribution, it would probably be only marginally cheaper than current systems (iTunes store).
This may all happen, but there's big forces at work here. The RIAA, the Musicians (not everyone wants their music online!), etc... This requires going to congress about it for a copyright amendment, which does happen, but this is a HUGE one. Something's gonna happen, we just don't know what.
Ok, since everyone seems to be a little off...
A compulsary license has NOTHING to do with you downloading music, and compulsary licenses very rarely happen in fact for reasons that I will explain below.
A compulsary license most often deals with a compulsary mechanical license. This basically says that anyone can record any song, and pay the statutory mechanical rate (set by congress) which is currently 8 cents for songs less than 5 minutes, or 1.55 cents per minute if the song is longer than 5 minutes.
There are a few conditions for this. For one, you must give notice to the publishing company (or copyright holder) within 30 days of recording, and prior to release of the song in order to obtain a compulsary license. The songwriter has First Use rights for the song, so basically the song must have been recorded legally and willingly by the artist, and legally distributed on behalf of the artist first before you can record and sell the song.
So basically if some intern gives you a tape of a song that Band X is recording, or you get the MP3 of a new radiohead song before it was legally distributed, and you transcribe the song, and play it, you can't legally sell it, because you can't get a compulsary license.
However, if you take, "Every Breath You Take", and record it, you can give Sting (or his publisher) notice within 30 days of recording, and before you sell it, and force a compulsary mechanical license.
Before I go any farther, we need to understand something. There are 3 separate entities to think about in dealing with copyright. The Artist, the Record Company, and the Publishing Company. The Artist probably owns part of his/her copyright for the songs splitting it with the Publishing Company. This should be a different company than the record company. The Record company will most likely (99.99% chance if it's a major label) own the Masters. The Artist probably doesn't own any part of the Master recordings of the songs, and probably can't record another copy of them within a certain number of years (or possibly forever), although they might get the masters back some day if they had a really good lawyer or manager to negotiate for them. Let's say for a second that you infringe the copyright on Song A by sampling the melody of the song. Not only would the Record company be able to sue you, but the publishing company would have a suit against you. There's two different copyrights. One for the Master (the recording and any varients of probably), and the Song (the melody, and lyrics... Note: Chord progressions can't be copyrighted, and you need about 5 notes to consist of a melody that might be recognized as copyrightable).
Let's say you wanted to legally sample the song, you would have to deal with Harry Fox to get the clearance for the Master, and with the publishing company (although Harry Fox could probably help you with both). One without the other does you little good.
Ok, so back to topic. We have a compulsary mechanical license. Why doesn't this Rock? Well first of all, since it's not your song you can't get Publishing when you sell your CDs. Most record companies will negotiate for a Controller Composition Clause in your record deal that basically says, look since we are making your songs more valueable, charge us less per song to have the license to record and sell them (Yes, your record company too has to pay to record the Song, on the Master). So they normally get 3/4 Statuory Mechanical or less, so they pay about 5 or 6 cents per song. Let's say 5 for now. They will also only pay for about 8 songs.
Here's another seemly useless tangent that will help things make sense. Hopefully as an Artist you will have three major forms of income (although anything's possible). Touring, Record Royalites, and Publishing Royalties and Fees. They are all from different places obviously and should be simple to figure out. The more you can get from each, the better obviously.
Ok, so we are back. So you'll get 40 cents per CD if you h
You can choose your shell to use in OS X... I think it' just under the terminal prefs...
And I've used PCs all my life, until about 4 months ago, and OS X took something like 2 days to get used to.... I haven't turned on my PCs except to get some files from them since i got it.
Who do you know gets 4% royalties? something more like 12-18% is standard. Of course you may get screwed elsewhere in the contract, but i've never heard of 4%. I mean, hell since everything's all-in, the producers gets about 3 points, and sometimes the mix engineer 1 or 1/2 points.
TLC got screwed for other reasons. People dont' understand crosscollaterization and recoupment. TLC wasn't driving around in a Pinto to their shows or living in shacks (hell one of them burnt down a mansion). The record companies gave them money, and they spent it. They had to pay it back. DUH!