I'm guessing it's actually Microsoft, and the reason is not because they want Linux on XBox, but because they have some sort of legal landmine placed that would (in their twisted minds) give them a shot at filing suit against Linux itself, or somehow doing damage to the GPL, which they hate and fear.
Got any more plausible suggestions? I sure don't. Apart from that I see it the way you do... it'd be the dumbest way I can think of to make a beowulf cluster:) yeah, let's spend a fifth of a million dollars to save a few bucks on generic PCs!
The only other explanation is that someone is rich and crazy...
But how can any geek not appreciate meta-lyrics like:
(Willow) I think this line's mostly filler... o/`
...particularly with the nice twist that the meta-lyric about the 'filler line' being represented by 'I think this line's mostly filler' is given to the one character most likely to have self-doubts about her performing abilities, and most likely to think that no matter what the line actually was?:D
For _good_ singing I'd have to give the nod to Tara and Giles there, with that contrapuntal, emotional bit that resolves into 'wish I could staaaaaay' with a harmony that could cut glass... though I always want to smack Anthony Stewart Head for jamming on the note instead of holding it and letting that harmony ring out:)
You've got to give props to a show that pisses off fast-food sponsors by running a story arc with "DoubleMeat Palace", a fast food chain with beef patties and a Secret Ingredient... which of course the expectation is, "AAAAAA the doublemeat patty is people! It's made from people!"...but in fact, when the secret is exposed, the meat patty is actually made of WOOD pulp (cellulose and vegetable proteins) and the secret ingredient? Rendered beef fat, for flavor.
"So the secret ingredient in DoubleMeat 'beef' is... beef?"
Oooooo, the sponsors were maaaad at Joss for that story arc:D I'm given to understand he got in trouble for it and had to back off from the fast food satire. But most of it had already aired, and it's lovely, ruthless, vicious mockery:)
The difference between Buffy and garbage is, in Buffy when the teen kung fu wisecracking heroine gets her vampire boyfriend to play along the Big Bad Villain by acting as though he's gone bad until she (Faith, the villain) betrays the plans and then Buffy drops the chains with a 'One word? *clank* Psyche...' the aftermath is not her reuniting with vampire boyfriend cheerily. The aftermath has none of the bravado of the 'performing as Slayer' scene, and the specter of the guy turned bad is too disturbing to shake off. There are consequences.
More on the Buffy/Angel deal (and that's still very early in the run): when they confront the evil Mayor who is going to turn into a giant snake demon and eat most of the town, and he taunts them... well, first of all, this is the kind of guy who has 'become invincible' on his to-do list alongside 'Plumber Union reschedule' and 'call temp agency'. It's amazing and brilliant how deadpan the guy is, and it gives him convincingness in a bizarre, disturbing and appealing way. Secondly, when he confronts Buffy (the mortal superhero) and Angel (the immortal vampire), rather than go off in a predictable immortal supervillain kind of way he acknowleges he's going to kill them both but takes a moment to criticise the stupidity of their romantic involvement! Out of genuine interest and experience! "I married my Edna Mae in ought three and I was with her right until the end. Not a pretty scene. Wrinkled and senile and cursing me for my youth, it wasn't our happiest time."
And he's right.
That's Buffy for you. Everything, everything that happens has consequences, nobody is a bit part. It takes its bizarre premise utterly seriously (or does it? In one sixth-season episode even this is brought into question, in a chilling, existential way. For those who know what ep I'm talking about- what is the LAST scene of that episode?) and develops it more brilliantly than just about any other show, past or present, I can think of.
The only comparison I can think of is Patrick McGoohan's famous 'The Prisoner'... and lots of people didn't 'get' that one, either.
It doesn't matter if it never gets an Emmy. It's made history, instead.
It's not _exclusively_ classics geek material- there's a ballplayer for the Red Sox named Dante who also gets a nod this way- but bottom line, cool brother, cool name:)
Spam inevitably progresses to become worldwide. How many spams do you get that you cannot READ because they're in a language you don't speak? And yet, you still get them.
By its nature, spam expands without any set limit of relevance. If you read them, it expands to where you cannot read every one because there isn't time in the day- it's coming in faster than you can read it. If you delete them, it expands to where it's coming in faster than you can hit the delete key (assuming you do other things in life besides sit pressing a delete key). If you set up a filter and they all use ADV:, it expands to where it's coming in faster than your modem can operate, or your cable modem. There's no point where it stops.
So it is evil, in the sense of being an 'ecological disaster'. You can't make allowances for it, because it's like holding off the tide with a shovel. Either you destroy it, or it destroys you, inevitably.
To the (apocryphal) telemarketer of this touching story:
QUIT WHILE YOU'RE AHEAD!;)
You may be the only (fictional) telemarketer to have inspired more gratitude than raw, stomach-churning hatred, so get out of the business right away! And live the rest of your life on cat food and talk show appearances:)
I am using what they _copied_, but I don't see that as particularly useful input on their part. It's a pity we don't have a software vendor market in most categories. I suppose games is a category that's pretty open. I was a big fan of the Mac vendor Bungie Software until Microsoft bought them up.
Gee, my first question was, "Microsoft can tell government employees what they can and cannot do?"
It's fine what you say, but disingenious- you do understand that a rep for the FAA can make statements that civilian aircraft can be SHOT DOWN ON SUSPICION by navy gunners and not lose his job, and yet you are suggesting that a mere identification of a government employee publically will cause the person to be held so accountable that they flee the event in fear and abandon all their plans?
Maybe it's somewhere in the middle. How about this? Microsoft lobbying has pressured the government to tighten ranks and not make any mistakes. One of these mistakes is what you mention above. Because of the threats by Microsoft, the employee's superiors crank up the heat, with the results we're seeing. So technically, the reason is as you describe it. The reason it _mattered_ this time is because Microsoft is capable of ordering the government agencies about. Possibly through some sort of blackmail, like threatening to make the agency the focus of the next 'independent report on opensource corruption in government' and get it in trouble? If what you say is true, the agency could have been singled out and attacked in this manner.
Or do you figure 'really heavy lobbying' means just 'woohoo our products are great'? I think somebody was looking for a weakness, and found it in what you outlined above. And attacked it to gain a position of power. And in that situation, Microsoft gave the government orders.
"Indeed Jones-Day actually performed the incorporation ceremony in its Los Angeles offices."
Why am I picturing a darkened room in which a goat is strangled with a SCSI cable?:D
No, wait, how about 13 lawyers and corporate executives, naked and dancing widdershins around a burning Tux plushie? Then they all ritually spit on a drop of Jon Postel's blood. And, having completed the dark ritual, they shake hands, put their suits back on, and do lunch.
Oh, that's _really_ cute. Operative word being 'other software'. I am so glad I'm not a Windows developer right about now....
Legally, this means "I agree to allow Microsoft to make updates, that will be automatically downloaded, and that may break any non-Microsoft software for any reason, or for no reason". There's absolutely no limitation on the 'disable your ability to... use other software' clause. 'And' applies the 'disable' part to the 'other software' part, nowhere is 'other software' defined. Also note it's up to Microsoft what they consider 'reasonable efforts'!
They're getting to be sneakier than the music industry contract lawyers. That is rather disturbing...
Thank you: I've been reading this site literally for hours. It's amazing. That is no exaggeration- she does in fact have a handle on exactly what is wrong, no more and no less.
+1,000,000 informative:D
A particularly impressive page: The Corporation As Feudal Estate. The scholarship and knowledge of historical detail here is awesome. Again, thanks!
My computer will tell my wife/mom/minister/government that I look at pr0n!
But it will.
It's a very simple matter to embed watermarks in, say, kiddy pr0n- or pictures of sunsets _labelled_ as kiddy pr0n. Computer displays picture, does quick scan for watermark, discovers that it's displaying stuff that is a crime, rings up the government and informs. Possibly this leads to an arrest, possibly it just leads to your being kept under very tight surveillance by human beings as a non-active sex offender. Possibly the banks would be interested in this on the basis that if you're in jail you won't have great credit. The possibilities really are impressive. All this is possible with the technology of TODAY, not just two or ten years from now.
No points for hacking into someone's computer and triggering the 'pr0n' alert to have it inform on them. This would be difficult, but considerably easier than undoing the damage that would be done.
Good point. To some extent this is about Gates and co. inventing limbs to go out on, after which they can say to themselves, 'But we had to go out on this limb- which is why we are compelled to be totally contemptuous of whatever the court demands we do'.
It's an excuse to openly defy the court. Another doomsday plan. Brinksmanship. "You have to choose between either letting us eat up the rest of every industry one by one- or intentionally destroy poor us by sabotaging this stuff that we've bet the company on! Are you ready for that?"
This reeks of doomsday plan. Like hell they don't learn- that's been working OK for them so far. The question is, since MS must inevitably over-reach and collapse (when they pick a 'bet the company' plan that's too extreme, and call the world's bluff with it), when would be a good time for them to blow a gasket? They _can't_ continue this tactic forever without becoming the most wild exaggeration of every rabid slashdotter's worst nightmare. And, like Stalin said of the Pope, 'how many divisions does he have?' Microsoft is not prepared for a serious conflict with, say, a country, in the event of a power struggle, which is the ultimate destination of this sort of thing.
I daresay the bigwigs at MS have exit strategies, though. Or, and this is a disturbing thought- maybe they don't. Maybe their world really IS an elevator with no top floor, and no down button. If so, they are destined for great disappointment. Everything ends.
"Going forward, there will only be two platforms certified by the major hardware and software vendors, Red Hat and UnitedLinux"
I fail to see how this, for the open source community, qualifies as 'going forward'. It sounds like the seizing of power, instead.
Is this a blithe prediction of what will happen in the absence of any activity to the contrary? Or is it a statement that UnitedLinux and/or Red Hat will try to BLOCK 'certification' of other distributions? (cue 'we're just trying to turn a profit' meme here)
Somehow this just seems to be a rejection of something... or at the least a refusal to work towards something... why EXACTLY would JoeBlowLinux not deserve 'certification'? Is it because Joe isn't getting help in meeting the needs of other vendors?...if it's that, then why not?
I know a number of techno and electronic musicians who are doing interesting stuff (not talking about myself here, I'm thinking acts like corruptdata, sporophyte etc ad infinitum). Some of these guys can easily be struggling to subsist, unable to afford a single centralized point of online distribution for their music that's under their control.
So, a lot of them turn to OMDs, which themselves are increasingly demanding money from the artists because it's not coming from the listeners.
So, is Moby's right to have NO decentralized music trading networks that cost him nothing... greater than these starving artists' right to HAVE decentralized music trading networks that cost them nothing?
It's almost like 'Google effect' for art- if it becomes a situation where you can type in 'Chris Johnson' and 'Horse' somewhere (upon hearing, 'hey, that's a wailing guitar solo in that song Horse by Chris Johnson') and have the mp3 in seconds, then there is less pressure on the artist to sign off on a bad deal in order to get their material out there and heard.
This is not an insignificant point, take it from someone who was doing music in the 80s... it's still just as hard to get someone to listen, if not harder, but it's hugely cheaper for the artist to keep a substantial catalog out there and available- and in the ultra-Napster-future that the record companies dread, it will end up costing nothing. No matter what it is, somebody'll have it, and the network can deliver it to you for basically nothing- without charging the artist for the cost of the distribution.
We're not there yet- for instance I bet you the egosearch I mentioned ('Horse' with the guitar leads) will come up dry on everything out there at the moment. More importantly, I _know_ it's not out there in anything new and improved like Ogg Vorbis- because I don't push the CDs, I make the mp3s available freely, and nobody's ever bought the CD- so there's no source for higher-res Napsterized versions until somebody buys/rips/encodes/shares.
But there'll come a day when people swap around full res CDs or DSD like it was mp3s, and there'll come a day when pretty much anything is out there at your fingertips.
Because Moby is a bit outnumbered.
And doesn't need another million, as much as other people need the distribution.
Steven Levy wrote 'Hackers'. He's not an idiot. I'm thinking what happened is, Microsoft people got to him with carefully arranged demonstrations to PRODUCE the kind of writing he ended up with. For instance, some sort of root-kit visual-basic IIS-0wn3r program, in which you just doubleclick it and bam: the site is haxored. If you showed that to Steven Levy, there is no reason he wouldn't write what he did.
I agree that the notion of getting people to trust Microsoft is asinine. It would be more appropriate to restrain Microsoft's untrustworthy behavior. Obviously, this has not happened yet...
This has me wondering: at what point did people like this start to sound incurably psychotic to me? It's like a religion: religion of capitalism, and you DO NOT DOUBT the fundamental tenets of it- you're not allowed to- inconvenient facts or realities are not even debated, the holy writ is just shouted over again. "Capitalism is the best, nay the only system! Anything else is not just inferior, it's morally wrong! The world must be taken over by capitalism!" I'm wondering at what point this started to sound this scary and insane. It might have been when I started reading about what happened in Chile when the Chicago Boys tried to impose capitalism by force (in the most raw, 'free-market' way possible), or it might simply be from seeing so many cases of "Capitalism works - period." being said along with crazy stuff.
As an American citizen, I think we'd better start trying to figure out what works better than capitalism, because we're going to be needing it. What I'm seeing is a basically decent concept being turned into a dogmatic religion and going all sour and perverted.
An example: it's been proven through computer modelling that social groups segregate themselves through use of free choice combined with even mild preference. For instance if you have group A and group B, start them evenly distributed, and have them move to new places with the bias of wanting only ONE neighbor of 'their color', eventually they form ghettos. Which, in real life, may contribute to conflict- but it's not produced through any drastic prejudice on the part of the groups, it's an effect produced by the situation itself. Capitalism as applied to this situation would only aggravate it- it's no answer for what's happening. Individual choice isn't everything, any more than collective choice is.
Capitalism, technically, only means 'a way of managing things by exchange of value, primarily'. In practice it's 'rule by those with the most power', kind of self-perpetuating. There's no moral principle saying this is preferable- it's only a way of managing things. I'm getting pretty tired of seeing people go all jihad in favor of it...
Ack. *g* I mean, if you are an ARTIST, you run this agreement by a lawyer. If you are a lawyer, you're already reading this agreement as if it was 'code', including all the subroutines like 'subject to Section IV, you may terminate our license to your stuff at any time' (yay!) 'Section 4.6 On termination of this agreement, all of our rights to your stuff terminate' (yay!) '...except for those necessary for us to maintain perpetual access to it under anything we choose to call a Secure Account...' (boo!)
Contracts by entertainment lawyers are like spaghetti code. Ask one if I'm not correct about that.
Read the damn artist agreement before you deny stuff you don't understand.
Vivendi, through mp3.com, hold a perpetual license to any song hosted on their system for the purposes of something called a 'secure account', if I remember correctly. That narrows the field a bit. It's not a particularly broad license, but it is perpetual. Section 4.6 (b) and (c), upon termination they retain rights necessary to "(b) provide perpetual access to Standard Content and Channel Content added to Secure Accounts pursuant to the terms of this Agreement; (c) provide perpetual access to CD Content to holders of Secure Accounts who purchased that CD Content, or with your permission, otherwise added that CD Content to their Secure Accounts". Sorry.
And I was giving them too much credit: it's not five days, it's three days notice. Section 4.11: "Modification or Amendment of Agreement. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove all or part of this Agreement. Notice of any amendments and/or modifications shall be sent to you or posted in your Artist Admin Area at least three (3) days prior to their effective date. In the event that you do not consent to any such amendments and/or modifications, your sole recourse shall be to terminate this Agreement with respect to any or all Programs, as provided above. A copy of the most current version of this Agreement may be found at: http://www.mp3.com/newartist/agree.html." You'll note in Section 1.2 that among other things they claim a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to "publicly perform, publicly display, broadcast, encode, edit, alter, modify, reproduce, transmit, manufacture, distribute and synchronize with visual images". There is nothing forcing them to do 'non-exclusive', that's just history from pre-Vivendi mp3.com. Under the current agreement, they could change that to 'non-exclusive for material already in use elsewhere and exclusive for anything for which we are the sole licensees as of (date)' on three days notice, and it would be binding: you would hold copyright but you would have agreed to an exclusive license by not cancelling your account.
In order to actually grab copyright, they would have to assert the work was 'for hire', and that is absurd, so technically, you're right and they can't grab your copyright in the sense of 'legally they own the song as if they'd written it'. They can only grab exclusive, perpetual rights to it in any form imaginable, on three days notice, anytime they want, provided you don't spot them doing it and bail.
I'm not a lawyer. I suggest that if you are a lawyer, you run this agreement by a lawyer. Ask them if I'm telling the truth. I think they will back up everything I've said, to the extent that I've said it- I'm trying to describe very accurately the boundaries within which they can fsck you over completely. And yes, they get perpetual rights. The word perpetual is in there twice, and it's not talking about perpetual motion.
I can say that I've put years of work into the CDs available at the URL above, artwork, mastering, the whole enchilada, and I have sold exactly one CD thus far, and that was to a net-friend who has fancy electrostatic headphones and a SET headphone amp. I'm like 'hey, I have a CD ('Dragons') that would show off that rig very nicely!';)
I would say, right now, no. Nobody will pay for music anymore. The indie scenes are cash-starved. Nobody's gonna pay for full albums no matter how much effort you put into the production. Even at $12 (which is where mine are at).
Frankly, if this kills the RIAA I would consider it a net gain. I do music (when I can afford to spend time on it, which is rarely) because there's sounds I just plain want to hear. I do it out of love and a desire to create. I can live with it if I'll never earn anything from that. And I know the RIAA cannot live without earning vast sums to pay for expensive recording sessions, executive cocaine, payola etc etc... To me that says I have a leverage that they don't- I can stand a drought, they can't.
So do please go to my ampcast site (listed as my URL 'cause it's my favorite URL, and I recently put all the best tracks up top) and download anything you like without attempting to buy a single CD- so long as you extend the same 'honor' TO THE RIAA. Starve me, starve them. I'm more used to ramen and spaghettios than those bastards are, and I LIKE thinking that what I'm seeing is a general trend that will hurt them far more than it hurts me. Godspeed my friends:D
Slashdot Mirror
Got any more plausible suggestions? I sure don't. Apart from that I see it the way you do... it'd be the dumbest way I can think of to make a beowulf cluster :) yeah, let's spend a fifth of a million dollars to save a few bucks on generic PCs!
The only other explanation is that someone is rich and crazy...
(Willow) I think this line's mostly filler... o/`
For _good_ singing I'd have to give the nod to Tara and Giles there, with that contrapuntal, emotional bit that resolves into 'wish I could staaaaaay' with a harmony that could cut glass... though I always want to smack Anthony Stewart Head for jamming on the note instead of holding it and letting that harmony ring out :)
"So the secret ingredient in DoubleMeat 'beef' is... beef?"
Oooooo, the sponsors were maaaad at Joss for that story arc :D I'm given to understand he got in trouble for it and had to back off from the fast food satire. But most of it had already aired, and it's lovely, ruthless, vicious mockery :)
More on the Buffy/Angel deal (and that's still very early in the run): when they confront the evil Mayor who is going to turn into a giant snake demon and eat most of the town, and he taunts them... well, first of all, this is the kind of guy who has 'become invincible' on his to-do list alongside 'Plumber Union reschedule' and 'call temp agency'. It's amazing and brilliant how deadpan the guy is, and it gives him convincingness in a bizarre, disturbing and appealing way. Secondly, when he confronts Buffy (the mortal superhero) and Angel (the immortal vampire), rather than go off in a predictable immortal supervillain kind of way he acknowleges he's going to kill them both but takes a moment to criticise the stupidity of their romantic involvement! Out of genuine interest and experience! "I married my Edna Mae in ought three and I was with her right until the end. Not a pretty scene. Wrinkled and senile and cursing me for my youth, it wasn't our happiest time."
And he's right.
That's Buffy for you. Everything, everything that happens has consequences, nobody is a bit part. It takes its bizarre premise utterly seriously (or does it? In one sixth-season episode even this is brought into question, in a chilling, existential way. For those who know what ep I'm talking about- what is the LAST scene of that episode?) and develops it more brilliantly than just about any other show, past or present, I can think of.
The only comparison I can think of is Patrick McGoohan's famous 'The Prisoner'... and lots of people didn't 'get' that one, either.
It doesn't matter if it never gets an Emmy. It's made history, instead.
Dante Alexander Johnson.
It's not _exclusively_ classics geek material- there's a ballplayer for the Red Sox named Dante who also gets a nod this way- but bottom line, cool brother, cool name :)
Hint: it's called incurring massive debt to present the appearance of wealth, and boy does it work! Works for Ponzi scammers too.
It's no wonder you're confused if the original poster's main point was still nonsense :)
Point the IRS at him. He lies, and is trying to live grandiosely. Betcha he cheats on his taxes.
Spam inevitably progresses to become worldwide. How many spams do you get that you cannot READ because they're in a language you don't speak? And yet, you still get them.
By its nature, spam expands without any set limit of relevance. If you read them, it expands to where you cannot read every one because there isn't time in the day- it's coming in faster than you can read it. If you delete them, it expands to where it's coming in faster than you can hit the delete key (assuming you do other things in life besides sit pressing a delete key). If you set up a filter and they all use ADV:, it expands to where it's coming in faster than your modem can operate, or your cable modem. There's no point where it stops.
So it is evil, in the sense of being an 'ecological disaster'. You can't make allowances for it, because it's like holding off the tide with a shovel. Either you destroy it, or it destroys you, inevitably.
QUIT WHILE YOU'RE AHEAD! ;)
You may be the only (fictional) telemarketer to have inspired more gratitude than raw, stomach-churning hatred, so get out of the business right away! And live the rest of your life on cat food and talk show appearances :)
I am using what they _copied_, but I don't see that as particularly useful input on their part. It's a pity we don't have a software vendor market in most categories. I suppose games is a category that's pretty open. I was a big fan of the Mac vendor Bungie Software until Microsoft bought them up.
It's fine what you say, but disingenious- you do understand that a rep for the FAA can make statements that civilian aircraft can be SHOT DOWN ON SUSPICION by navy gunners and not lose his job, and yet you are suggesting that a mere identification of a government employee publically will cause the person to be held so accountable that they flee the event in fear and abandon all their plans?
Maybe it's somewhere in the middle. How about this? Microsoft lobbying has pressured the government to tighten ranks and not make any mistakes. One of these mistakes is what you mention above. Because of the threats by Microsoft, the employee's superiors crank up the heat, with the results we're seeing. So technically, the reason is as you describe it. The reason it _mattered_ this time is because Microsoft is capable of ordering the government agencies about. Possibly through some sort of blackmail, like threatening to make the agency the focus of the next 'independent report on opensource corruption in government' and get it in trouble? If what you say is true, the agency could have been singled out and attacked in this manner.
Or do you figure 'really heavy lobbying' means just 'woohoo our products are great'? I think somebody was looking for a weakness, and found it in what you outlined above. And attacked it to gain a position of power. And in that situation, Microsoft gave the government orders.
Why am I picturing a darkened room in which a goat is strangled with a SCSI cable? :D
No, wait, how about 13 lawyers and corporate executives, naked and dancing widdershins around a burning Tux plushie? Then they all ritually spit on a drop of Jon Postel's blood. And, having completed the dark ritual, they shake hands, put their suits back on, and do lunch.
Legally, this means "I agree to allow Microsoft to make updates, that will be automatically downloaded, and that may break any non-Microsoft software for any reason, or for no reason". There's absolutely no limitation on the 'disable your ability to ... use other software' clause. 'And' applies the 'disable' part to the 'other software' part, nowhere is 'other software' defined. Also note it's up to Microsoft what they consider 'reasonable efforts'!
They're getting to be sneakier than the music industry contract lawyers. That is rather disturbing...
Hush. You're not qualified to understand this.
Just making the observation :D
+1,000,000 informative :D
A particularly impressive page: The Corporation As Feudal Estate. The scholarship and knowledge of historical detail here is awesome. Again, thanks!
But it will.
It's a very simple matter to embed watermarks in, say, kiddy pr0n- or pictures of sunsets _labelled_ as kiddy pr0n. Computer displays picture, does quick scan for watermark, discovers that it's displaying stuff that is a crime, rings up the government and informs. Possibly this leads to an arrest, possibly it just leads to your being kept under very tight surveillance by human beings as a non-active sex offender. Possibly the banks would be interested in this on the basis that if you're in jail you won't have great credit. The possibilities really are impressive. All this is possible with the technology of TODAY, not just two or ten years from now.
No points for hacking into someone's computer and triggering the 'pr0n' alert to have it inform on them. This would be difficult, but considerably easier than undoing the damage that would be done.
It's an excuse to openly defy the court. Another doomsday plan. Brinksmanship. "You have to choose between either letting us eat up the rest of every industry one by one- or intentionally destroy poor us by sabotaging this stuff that we've bet the company on! Are you ready for that?"
This reeks of doomsday plan. Like hell they don't learn- that's been working OK for them so far. The question is, since MS must inevitably over-reach and collapse (when they pick a 'bet the company' plan that's too extreme, and call the world's bluff with it), when would be a good time for them to blow a gasket? They _can't_ continue this tactic forever without becoming the most wild exaggeration of every rabid slashdotter's worst nightmare. And, like Stalin said of the Pope, 'how many divisions does he have?' Microsoft is not prepared for a serious conflict with, say, a country, in the event of a power struggle, which is the ultimate destination of this sort of thing.
I daresay the bigwigs at MS have exit strategies, though. Or, and this is a disturbing thought- maybe they don't. Maybe their world really IS an elevator with no top floor, and no down button. If so, they are destined for great disappointment. Everything ends.
I fail to see how this, for the open source community, qualifies as 'going forward'. It sounds like the seizing of power, instead.
Is this a blithe prediction of what will happen in the absence of any activity to the contrary? Or is it a statement that UnitedLinux and/or Red Hat will try to BLOCK 'certification' of other distributions? (cue 'we're just trying to turn a profit' meme here)
Somehow this just seems to be a rejection of something... or at the least a refusal to work towards something... why EXACTLY would JoeBlowLinux not deserve 'certification'? Is it because Joe isn't getting help in meeting the needs of other vendors? ...if it's that, then why not?
I know a number of techno and electronic musicians who are doing interesting stuff (not talking about myself here, I'm thinking acts like corruptdata, sporophyte etc ad infinitum). Some of these guys can easily be struggling to subsist, unable to afford a single centralized point of online distribution for their music that's under their control.
So, a lot of them turn to OMDs, which themselves are increasingly demanding money from the artists because it's not coming from the listeners.
So, is Moby's right to have NO decentralized music trading networks that cost him nothing... greater than these starving artists' right to HAVE decentralized music trading networks that cost them nothing?
It's almost like 'Google effect' for art- if it becomes a situation where you can type in 'Chris Johnson' and 'Horse' somewhere (upon hearing, 'hey, that's a wailing guitar solo in that song Horse by Chris Johnson') and have the mp3 in seconds, then there is less pressure on the artist to sign off on a bad deal in order to get their material out there and heard.
This is not an insignificant point, take it from someone who was doing music in the 80s... it's still just as hard to get someone to listen, if not harder, but it's hugely cheaper for the artist to keep a substantial catalog out there and available- and in the ultra-Napster-future that the record companies dread, it will end up costing nothing. No matter what it is, somebody'll have it, and the network can deliver it to you for basically nothing- without charging the artist for the cost of the distribution.
We're not there yet- for instance I bet you the egosearch I mentioned ('Horse' with the guitar leads) will come up dry on everything out there at the moment. More importantly, I _know_ it's not out there in anything new and improved like Ogg Vorbis- because I don't push the CDs, I make the mp3s available freely, and nobody's ever bought the CD- so there's no source for higher-res Napsterized versions until somebody buys/rips/encodes/shares.
But there'll come a day when people swap around full res CDs or DSD like it was mp3s, and there'll come a day when pretty much anything is out there at your fingertips.
Because Moby is a bit outnumbered.
And doesn't need another million, as much as other people need the distribution.
I agree that the notion of getting people to trust Microsoft is asinine. It would be more appropriate to restrain Microsoft's untrustworthy behavior. Obviously, this has not happened yet...
As an American citizen, I think we'd better start trying to figure out what works better than capitalism, because we're going to be needing it. What I'm seeing is a basically decent concept being turned into a dogmatic religion and going all sour and perverted.
An example: it's been proven through computer modelling that social groups segregate themselves through use of free choice combined with even mild preference. For instance if you have group A and group B, start them evenly distributed, and have them move to new places with the bias of wanting only ONE neighbor of 'their color', eventually they form ghettos. Which, in real life, may contribute to conflict- but it's not produced through any drastic prejudice on the part of the groups, it's an effect produced by the situation itself. Capitalism as applied to this situation would only aggravate it- it's no answer for what's happening. Individual choice isn't everything, any more than collective choice is.
Capitalism, technically, only means 'a way of managing things by exchange of value, primarily'. In practice it's 'rule by those with the most power', kind of self-perpetuating. There's no moral principle saying this is preferable- it's only a way of managing things. I'm getting pretty tired of seeing people go all jihad in favor of it...
Contracts by entertainment lawyers are like spaghetti code. Ask one if I'm not correct about that.
Vivendi, through mp3.com, hold a perpetual license to any song hosted on their system for the purposes of something called a 'secure account', if I remember correctly. That narrows the field a bit. It's not a particularly broad license, but it is perpetual. Section 4.6 (b) and (c), upon termination they retain rights necessary to "(b) provide perpetual access to Standard Content and Channel Content added to Secure Accounts pursuant to the terms of this Agreement; (c) provide perpetual access to CD Content to holders of Secure Accounts who purchased that CD Content, or with your permission, otherwise added that CD Content to their Secure Accounts". Sorry.
And I was giving them too much credit: it's not five days, it's three days notice. Section 4.11: "Modification or Amendment of Agreement. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove all or part of this Agreement. Notice of any amendments and/or modifications shall be sent to you or posted in your Artist Admin Area at least three (3) days prior to their effective date. In the event that you do not consent to any such amendments and/or modifications, your sole recourse shall be to terminate this Agreement with respect to any or all Programs, as provided above. A copy of the most current version of this Agreement may be found at: http://www.mp3.com/newartist/agree.html." You'll note in Section 1.2 that among other things they claim a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to "publicly perform, publicly display, broadcast, encode, edit, alter, modify, reproduce, transmit, manufacture, distribute and synchronize with visual images". There is nothing forcing them to do 'non-exclusive', that's just history from pre-Vivendi mp3.com. Under the current agreement, they could change that to 'non-exclusive for material already in use elsewhere and exclusive for anything for which we are the sole licensees as of (date)' on three days notice, and it would be binding: you would hold copyright but you would have agreed to an exclusive license by not cancelling your account.
In order to actually grab copyright, they would have to assert the work was 'for hire', and that is absurd, so technically, you're right and they can't grab your copyright in the sense of 'legally they own the song as if they'd written it'. They can only grab exclusive, perpetual rights to it in any form imaginable, on three days notice, anytime they want, provided you don't spot them doing it and bail.
I'm not a lawyer. I suggest that if you are a lawyer, you run this agreement by a lawyer. Ask them if I'm telling the truth. I think they will back up everything I've said, to the extent that I've said it- I'm trying to describe very accurately the boundaries within which they can fsck you over completely. And yes, they get perpetual rights. The word perpetual is in there twice, and it's not talking about perpetual motion.
I would say, right now, no. Nobody will pay for music anymore. The indie scenes are cash-starved. Nobody's gonna pay for full albums no matter how much effort you put into the production. Even at $12 (which is where mine are at).
Frankly, if this kills the RIAA I would consider it a net gain. I do music (when I can afford to spend time on it, which is rarely) because there's sounds I just plain want to hear. I do it out of love and a desire to create. I can live with it if I'll never earn anything from that. And I know the RIAA cannot live without earning vast sums to pay for expensive recording sessions, executive cocaine, payola etc etc... To me that says I have a leverage that they don't- I can stand a drought, they can't.
So do please go to my ampcast site (listed as my URL 'cause it's my favorite URL, and I recently put all the best tracks up top) and download anything you like without attempting to buy a single CD- so long as you extend the same 'honor' TO THE RIAA. Starve me, starve them. I'm more used to ramen and spaghettios than those bastards are, and I LIKE thinking that what I'm seeing is a general trend that will hurt them far more than it hurts me. Godspeed my friends :D