It's music- instrumental, some with electronic synthesis, some with live playing of keyboards or guitars, sometimes crazed and difficult composing like putting seven notes in the space of 5/4 and breaking up the second and third into 'triplets' using custom-written software because the regular sequencing software just can't deal with time distortions that outlandish. Weeks of recording. Months of rewriting and improving mastering software, and remastering it all. Years of work. Decades (well- two) of dedication.
Yet- and attend, please...
You might HATE it, should you be forced to cough up money for this?
Here's the deal: you can always find someone who'll jerk you off, artistically, for money. Popular music is like that. Usually, when someone says 'give them money so they can make a living doing art' they mean the REAL guys, the people with weird hollow stares, twitching with the burning of their creative fuses, unable to work normal jobs because they drum on counters and can't relate to normal people. Van Gogh crossed with Andy Warhol. "Art".
And that's perfectly valid- but PEOPLE DON'T NECESSARILY LIKE THAT.
It can be art- by a lot of standards it qualifies as art, even good valid art, certainly not hogtied to any particular popular genre, cross-rhythmed enough with 5/4, 7/4 etc time signatures that you'd break your ankles trying to dance to it half the time, composed like an arrow shot at a half-seen target that may only exist in the mind of the composer... but the question is, is this entitled to payment just for being genuine art?
I made it- and I don't think so. I'd love to convince myself otherwise, but just personally my life has never persuaded me that I was owed anything much- just on that personal note, journeys through homeless shelter, psych ward, a whole palette of 'gee, how artist-like' experience has not persuaded me that life owed me anything. To me, my art is worthless, utterly worthless except that I have to do it because there are sounds I just WANT to hear, even if I have to make them myself.
About one time in a hundred, somebody else hears it and is just blown away. I've had some pretty head-inflating reactions. Other times it misses the mark- which is normal.
Do you give anyone who claims to be an artist, money, just in CASE they will do something that really makes it for somebody?
As for me- I have four more CDs to send in to Ampcast- the CDs are Red Book from high res masters, not from mp3s. On every last one I've made for Ampcast, are the words "Please copy this CD for your friends". And I mean it- because I've given up ever hoping to get anything back other than maybe finding some more people who appreciate where I'm at. Kind of the opposite of your vision except that mine isn't a vision, it's a reality. I get a couple bucks off sales of the CDs I put on Ampcast. God knows I work for it, but the work isn't strictly about getting paid or I'd do more commercial music, which I am fully capable of. I'd just spend it on more music gear anyway...
I don't know what the position of the artist in the post-information-age society should be. I just know what my position is. I don't know if that's useful to anybody.
I do know that, of all the people who'd like to have someone 'give them money so they can make a living doing art', a very small number will go to my music page, and even fewer will put up with creating an Ampcast 'myAmp' account for the purpose of downloading entire songs- at no cost to them- even though each download will make me a nickel.
And this is not so wrong, because to many people my art is NOT worth the time it takes to do something in order to have someone else give me a nickel that doesn't even come out of their OWN pocket.
That's not a slam- on me, or on them- because Internet-scale diversity means you won't like most of what you find. The question is, how're you going to track down the 27 people or whatever who WILL get off massively on what I do, and pry them away from their old Mothers Of Invention records and make them listen?
What? "They" do not have any interest in 'relisten value'. If they did, there are LOTS of signed musicians ON major labels who could produce GREAT STUFF if the labels saw fit to develop their careers.
The labels stopped being interested in developing ANY 'catalog killer' artists when Top 40 radio started to take on its current importance. DSotM came from an AOR/FM era. Those days are gone.
Artists who've been around for a long time develop savvy, hire better lawyers, are less easily ripped off. The incentive is NOT to put out lasting albums.
"I believe that terrorism is the ability of someone or a group of people that convince a governed body that it's government can not protect it from 'bad people'."
That is a seriously insightful remark. Someone mod this poster up... isn't this exactly what has happened?
Don't believe me? Start a word processor company. Hell, start a web browser company. Give it a few years and I'll add more and more and more examples- that's the point.
Terrorist is Microsoft's whole modus operandi. They threaten. They 'chill' as in chilling effect. It's just a question of, do we want a society based on terrified obedience of an unelected entity, or not?
Microsoft are racketeers, robbers: essentially, organized crime. They are more like the protection racket. Other corporations specialize more in mass murder, Microsoft is more prone to shake you down. Microsoft will destroy your livelihood, your career, even your personal assets (consider what would happen if they determinedly sued you) but they will not literally kill human beings. That's for the likes of Monsanto and Union Carbide.
Actually, the revealing thing here is what an utterly obvious, correct move that is... to Ballmer.
The reason he is so certain other people will do that is, he does that. Why else would it seem so real to him? This is the way he thinks, reflected back in his expectations of how others will behave.
Naturally, these guys have been pre-emptively doing this sort of thing back at everybody before they could do it first. Now that it looks like they might get it back, Ballmer is freaking.
I'm a little freaked to learn this is the way Ballmer thinks... how easily that rolls off his tongue. First thing he thinks of. How many times has he said things like that?
Cyberdog was a document-centric, OpenDoc based integrated set of internet applications. It used a precursor of Sherlock indexing technology to store email messages, and could search hundreds of megs of 'em in an eyeblink. It had no visible logos, advertisements, or chrome anywhere- there were no splash screens of any sort- FTP windows acted and worked like Finder list views. Links were stored in containers like yellow-lined notebooks, which themselves could be dragged onto things like email messages. I, personally, saw a loosely-collected list of Cyberdog fanciers assemble a stunning, shockingly complete list of Cyberdog references using this technology: one person said "We should have a list of cool Cyberdog stuff, like these links" and posted an incomplete list, five people dragged that embedded document to their desktops and dragged over THEIR links, and dragged it back onto their newsgroup responses, where ten more people saw that and did the same thing, and finally a couple people organised things: result, a collective data gathering effort that would take tens of people, done in an evening with Cyberdog objects, effortlessly.
Microsoft paid Apple to kill that, and OpenDoc, and standardize on IE. Cyberdog was abandoned. I used it for a year after that, until I ended up having to do some site authoring that used Javascript, and grudgingly moved back to Netscape/Eudora/Newswatcher. I'm still on that diet- and usually I don't remember how much poorer I am, or count the number of seconds that these programs force me to sit staring at splash screens to remind me I'm using them.
But... did you even know there was anything as neat as that, out there, ever?
Microsoft is not integration- Apple had internet/OS integration absolutely nailed, far better and more seamlessly and quite humbly and undramatically. Using Cyberdog and the associated programs felt more like the future, years ago, than my Netscape/Eudora/Newswatcher/Fetch setup feels now, in 2002. It wouldn't absolutely require OpenDoc, either- it was about the self-effacing, borderless interface that didn't need to make any kind of statement of "HEY, I'M RUNNING NOW! AREN'T YOU LUCKY YOU HAVE ME??". We could still have that.
We'd have that... I'd have that, right now, if it was not for Microsoft pulling Apple off the project.
Our legal system really can't swallow this. It's just too extreme- they should have tried some other argument. This was a _very_ bad mis-step and one of the most spectacular blunders I've seen the Microsoft side make.
We have Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, saying "You can't enforce the law on us, because then we would be _forced_ to intentionally do horrible damage to the economy of the tech sector. We wouldn't want that now would we?"
He is saying this to a _judge_.
I think things have gone well beyond the stage where David Boies is needed to bring to light the insanity of the defendants. These guys have no idea how deep the hole is that they're digging for themselves... "Let us go free or we'll destroy the economy singlehandedly" is not a sensible argument for the defense of a monopoly. These guys simply do not grasp that they are subject to law- and it's becoming painfully obvious- and the other shoe will have to drop.
With luck, Judge Improbably-Percussive-Name will be able to restrain herself from expressing sentiments of outrage and scorn- but she is damned well going to understand how Judge Jackson felt.
What PC? Mac users and Mac developers read Slashdot and write GPLed code too. I'm on a Mac, and the code I mentioned is for Mac software.
If your response is, "Oh, Apple is six times as bad", I can only say- sure, Apple's done many obnoxious things and even collaborates with Microsoft (defaulting to IE, which may have been coerced), but I'd ask you, who was going to be knifing whose baby?
If Apple was in the same position talking about knifing IP 'babies' of competitors, I would be just as hostile to them. But if they had that kind of ferocity to them they would not be at less than 5% market share, would they? It's just not in them and never has been. Different story...
"Can anyone honestly say that if M$ offered them financial security for your work, you would really turn them down? Just think of all the good you could do with that money. That good is worth more than your silly M$ hate..."
I think you really should have taken 'Ethics' in college: yes, absolutely, I can say that if Microsoft (their name isn't really 'M$': M$ is a cartoon, Microsoft is real) offered me financial security for my work, I would turn them down. And yes, I have work worth taking over. I am developing dithering routines that push the state of the art, currently under the GPL. It is thinkable that Microsoft could want to take this over, buy the IP, and patent concepts like IIR noise shaping.
And I don't believe that they have all the money people say they have, but they do certainly have a lot more money than _I_ have.
But I also believe they are criminals by nature- they have threatened people (like Avie Tevanian) to try and suppress technologies that were better than what they had, they have acted like thugs and racketeers (the repeating theme of cutting off air supply- most recently with Washington lobbyists!) and they have intentionally lied to the highest courts in my country (the faked video deposition, not to mention half the arguments they make are at the least determined deception if not outright lying).
I am not a boot-stomping patriot type, but I am outright insulted at this last: I consider it treasonous and cannot help but consider that they are intentionally trying to destroy important parts of MY COUNTRY, such as it is, for their own gain. If Middle Eastern nationals tried to sabotage the processes of justice in this country we would declare war on them.
And you can't understand why I wouldn't take money from Microsoft? For my part, I cannot understand why you would. Are you that craven?
If you possess neither soul, guts nor morals, that's fine, but would you mind trying to remember that most people are more principles?
Now, let's have some of the nice randite posters moderate this down as flamebait- because, in fact, it is pretty scathing. I guess the "c'mon, you know you'd take their money if they were offering" was more insulting to me than I'd first realized.
Gah... mp3.com is far from what it used to be, and it should be avoided. Its contract for artists is barely better than the notoriously bad Farmclub agreement: Vivendi retains permanent rights to your music for anything called a 'secure account' forever, even after you leave. Vivendi also gets the right to change the agreement that binds you at any time, with your consent or without, subject only to a few days warning you have during which you can quit mp3.com: that is your only recourse, it does not mean you can take your music from them, and furthermore it's entirely up to you to keep monitoring the agreement for changes: they're not obligated to tell you directly, they need only change it on their website without telling you they've done so.
mp3.com is HORRIBLE. Plus their 'DAM' CDs are burned off of 128K mp3s- this is arguably still Red Book, but it's misleading to claim it is Red Book.
There are better options. I personally use ampcast.com for two major reasons- one, the contract is sane and fair and two, they have common sense and run a good business. I've had material up on besonic.com as well, but they're gradually deleting it because they're moving to a paid-hosting arrangement like Ampcast (only BeSonic is continuing to provide small free accounts for hobby musicians- Ampcast does not). Finally, I've heard some good things about javamusic.com, though I can't speak personally to that- I do know it's another site that hosts and can produce Red Book CDs (from Red Book masters?) like Ampcast.
Don't use mp3.com. Don't use farmclub.com. Don't use any of the major-label controlled sites. I'm not saying this over ideological reasons, though that's a good reason to avoid them. I'm saying it in terms of sheer self-defense. Farmclub offers a 'play on our national TV show!' deal to sucker people in- it's supposed to be 'exposure'. I've talked to someone who's been offered this- it is contingent upon your signing the 80 PAGE CONTRACT they present you with, a contract that flat-out fucks any hope you might have of pursuing a career in the music business by its restrictiveness and insane abusiveness. The person I talked to read the contract, refused to sign, refused to play and bailed out of the whole Farmclub scene. Of course, Farmclub still part-owns the material they'd submitted...
Yeah, it can be humbling. I seem to have got _two_ comments, one of which was serious and one of which was the flame. I remembered making the flame, but I hadn't remembered the serious one (it is a single succinct point). Though for all I know they ignored both of them...
"people furtively agreeing to non-disclosure in back rooms when their business needs to get something done but can't wait for the Ministry of Software to do it."
*ROFL*
Funny how the whole point of the GPL was to make it literally impossible for anyone to be in such a situation over software code, needing to do something but unable to legally get access to the code...
It's entertaining to watch this sort of talk, but has anyone noticed that some of the anti-GPL crowd are INSANE? furrfu...
Heh. I've worked in computer repair and maintenance. Have you seen non-technical users try to maintain Windows? Believe me, it's not pretty- and there is no grounds for claiming that it's better than Linux. 0 = 0... the real question is, are there people out there who can be paid to fix up busted software? In both cases, the answer is yes- although SO FAR, the Linux repair contingent is both smaller and MORE likely to be useful. The Windows repair contingent is large but often useless..
*ROFL* She is damned lucky if she gets five _cents_. What on earth gives you the idea she'd get even one dollar from the sale of a 15$ CD? Even one DIME?
It's really stunning, amazing to me, to see so many ordinary listeners making their decisions and choosing to act against the RIAA, while still believing things ("Britney probably gets a buck a CD- not more than five") that are orders of magnitude different than the way the business works. The RIAA propaganda DOES work, but it's still not saving them. And, I'd bet you anything you care to name that Britney gets less than a dime net profit per CD- in fact I think it is possible that she has not recouped and never will- she's a dumb kid and probably does not realize she is paying for the tour bus etc. out of her share.
Go ahead and send Britney ten dollars if you like. You could send her a dime and a broken cigarette and still be giving her more than the record company does.
"The recording artists? At first glance, they benifit somewhat, as record sales are the main source of their income, and they don't have to worry about. "
What??
That is generally not the case. It is considerably more likely if the artist/band has a pit-bull business team, including a very tough lawyer. Even so, such an artist has to be able to produce serious promotion and sell records WITHOUT a label to even get into a position where they can do so for a label and benefit anything from it. Metallica's a good example of this- they were able to set their terms for signing, because they were doing so well anyhow they could take it or leave it. Most artists are nowhere near as industrious and hardworking as this.
I guess even your first glance is a bit crooked, if you figure that most artists live off their record sales. That has pretty much never been the case since recorded music began...
1: respectively, the artist and the promoters. Recording time is recoupable- it comes straight out of artist royalties. Stuff like a tour bus also comes out of royalties and is recoupable. It's _arranged_ by promotion- and the promotion also comes out of royalties. It's all recoupable. Read a contract.
2: Not any more. The CD single is seriously deprecated. They _could_ be made, but they're not going to be. They hurt sales of the full album at the full price. This is something of a change, at one point CD singles and cassingles were big business...
3: More than half of it- maybe as much as 75%. It varies. Won't be less than half, certainly.
4: Breakage of the shellac the record is made of. "Free Goods", meaning promotional distribution. The fact that CDs never did have to drop in price as people kept buying the things anyway.
5: Dunno, I don't know football as well as I know the music industry. It reminds me of my local supermarket (a one-supermarket town) and the price of Coke 2-liters. It's a one-supermarket town. They can do what they like. So, the price of Coke varies between 89 cents a 2-liter (on sale), $1.19 (normal) and $1.39 (what they'd like).
I do have to expect this kind of foolishness. I also have to choose not to buy it at $1.39, because only then does it temporarily come down again- and with their 'cards' and quick feedback on how well the stuff is selling, it comes down within a couple weeks, and I stock up, and wait for the next experiment, maybe with Coke at $1.79. Whatever.
Nobody ever said setting high prices has to _result_ in a profit. It can also result in a complete drying up of sales. That's business.
Paranoid mumblings are all very fun, but to do what you suggest, the court would have to throw out copyright law. Do you see many big businesses itching to obliterate copyright law and harm their ability to prosecute people for copying their IP without permission?
'The motion will be for the GPL to be ruled "equivalent to public domain."'
I don't think that is remotely possible. If there's a weak point in law it's that it tends to side with licensors and those who make the rules. GPL is a way of making the rules... and unlike, say, the BSD license, it makes very STRICT rules of what you must do to comply.
In essence, to a lawyer, the GPL is totally unlike giving away. It is laying strict rules for a collaboration that HAPPENS to be with people you don't even know. It has REQUIREMENTS that must be obeyed, or the deal is off. The fact that it produces a pool of 'cooperating' software is of no interest to a lawyer... that's a social effect, we're talking about what the contract is...
If it ever did become invalid, first of all I think it would become invalid only under certain conditions (don't ask me what, because I _don't_ think it will ever be 'ruled' something other than what it is). And second of all, it would absolutely not fall through to being public domain. It would fall through to being normal copyright law, and people affected would have to renegotiate their licenses, perhaps they would have to get direct consent from the authors of code they used or something. There is just no way it would be deemed public domain- it so plainly is NOT trying to be. In some senses (ask a GPL hata;) ) it is not 'giving away' anything...
Scott Adams could have told you this. In his books he's written about how his training as a hypnotist convinced him that people don't consciously make most decisions- their brains automatically decide, and awareness tags along afterward to furnish an explanation.
The fun part is figuring out what ways FNORD are used to balk or emphasis this;) those of us who've done things like kick a drinking or drugs habit have had to come to terms with this reality, too. It compels a fundamental mistrust of your own motives. That alone can be helpful, even though you cannot actually have any other motives than your own...
Slashdot Mirror
Either you or I has a particularly sick mind, dude... o_O
Is this art?
It's music- instrumental, some with electronic synthesis, some with live playing of keyboards or guitars, sometimes crazed and difficult composing like putting seven notes in the space of 5/4 and breaking up the second and third into 'triplets' using custom-written software because the regular sequencing software just can't deal with time distortions that outlandish. Weeks of recording. Months of rewriting and improving mastering software, and remastering it all. Years of work. Decades (well- two) of dedication.
Yet- and attend, please...
You might HATE it, should you be forced to cough up money for this?
Here's the deal: you can always find someone who'll jerk you off, artistically, for money. Popular music is like that. Usually, when someone says 'give them money so they can make a living doing art' they mean the REAL guys, the people with weird hollow stares, twitching with the burning of their creative fuses, unable to work normal jobs because they drum on counters and can't relate to normal people. Van Gogh crossed with Andy Warhol. "Art".
And that's perfectly valid- but PEOPLE DON'T NECESSARILY LIKE THAT.
Is this art?
It can be art- by a lot of standards it qualifies as art, even good valid art, certainly not hogtied to any particular popular genre, cross-rhythmed enough with 5/4, 7/4 etc time signatures that you'd break your ankles trying to dance to it half the time, composed like an arrow shot at a half-seen target that may only exist in the mind of the composer... but the question is, is this entitled to payment just for being genuine art?
I made it- and I don't think so. I'd love to convince myself otherwise, but just personally my life has never persuaded me that I was owed anything much- just on that personal note, journeys through homeless shelter, psych ward, a whole palette of 'gee, how artist-like' experience has not persuaded me that life owed me anything. To me, my art is worthless, utterly worthless except that I have to do it because there are sounds I just WANT to hear, even if I have to make them myself.
About one time in a hundred, somebody else hears it and is just blown away. I've had some pretty head-inflating reactions. Other times it misses the mark- which is normal.
Do you give anyone who claims to be an artist, money, just in CASE they will do something that really makes it for somebody?
As for me- I have four more CDs to send in to Ampcast- the CDs are Red Book from high res masters, not from mp3s. On every last one I've made for Ampcast, are the words "Please copy this CD for your friends". And I mean it- because I've given up ever hoping to get anything back other than maybe finding some more people who appreciate where I'm at. Kind of the opposite of your vision except that mine isn't a vision, it's a reality. I get a couple bucks off sales of the CDs I put on Ampcast. God knows I work for it, but the work isn't strictly about getting paid or I'd do more commercial music, which I am fully capable of. I'd just spend it on more music gear anyway...
I don't know what the position of the artist in the post-information-age society should be. I just know what my position is. I don't know if that's useful to anybody.
I do know that, of all the people who'd like to have someone 'give them money so they can make a living doing art', a very small number will go to my music page, and even fewer will put up with creating an Ampcast 'myAmp' account for the purpose of downloading entire songs- at no cost to them- even though each download will make me a nickel.
And this is not so wrong, because to many people my art is NOT worth the time it takes to do something in order to have someone else give me a nickel that doesn't even come out of their OWN pocket.
That's not a slam- on me, or on them- because Internet-scale diversity means you won't like most of what you find. The question is, how're you going to track down the 27 people or whatever who WILL get off massively on what I do, and pry them away from their old Mothers Of Invention records and make them listen?
If I ever figure that out, I'll tell you ;)
The labels stopped being interested in developing ANY 'catalog killer' artists when Top 40 radio started to take on its current importance. DSotM came from an AOR/FM era. Those days are gone.
Artists who've been around for a long time develop savvy, hire better lawyers, are less easily ripped off. The incentive is NOT to put out lasting albums.
That is a seriously insightful remark. Someone mod this poster up... isn't this exactly what has happened?
Don't believe me? Start a word processor company. Hell, start a web browser company. Give it a few years and I'll add more and more and more examples- that's the point.
Terrorist is Microsoft's whole modus operandi. They threaten. They 'chill' as in chilling effect. It's just a question of, do we want a society based on terrified obedience of an unelected entity, or not?
Microsoft are racketeers, robbers: essentially, organized crime. They are more like the protection racket. Other corporations specialize more in mass murder, Microsoft is more prone to shake you down. Microsoft will destroy your livelihood, your career, even your personal assets (consider what would happen if they determinedly sued you) but they will not literally kill human beings. That's for the likes of Monsanto and Union Carbide.
The reason he is so certain other people will do that is, he does that. Why else would it seem so real to him? This is the way he thinks, reflected back in his expectations of how others will behave.
Naturally, these guys have been pre-emptively doing this sort of thing back at everybody before they could do it first. Now that it looks like they might get it back, Ballmer is freaking.
I'm a little freaked to learn this is the way Ballmer thinks... how easily that rolls off his tongue. First thing he thinks of. How many times has he said things like that?
http://www.cyberdog.org/
Cyberdog was a document-centric, OpenDoc based integrated set of internet applications. It used a precursor of Sherlock indexing technology to store email messages, and could search hundreds of megs of 'em in an eyeblink. It had no visible logos, advertisements, or chrome anywhere- there were no splash screens of any sort- FTP windows acted and worked like Finder list views. Links were stored in containers like yellow-lined notebooks, which themselves could be dragged onto things like email messages. I, personally, saw a loosely-collected list of Cyberdog fanciers assemble a stunning, shockingly complete list of Cyberdog references using this technology: one person said "We should have a list of cool Cyberdog stuff, like these links" and posted an incomplete list, five people dragged that embedded document to their desktops and dragged over THEIR links, and dragged it back onto their newsgroup responses, where ten more people saw that and did the same thing, and finally a couple people organised things: result, a collective data gathering effort that would take tens of people, done in an evening with Cyberdog objects, effortlessly.
Microsoft paid Apple to kill that, and OpenDoc, and standardize on IE. Cyberdog was abandoned. I used it for a year after that, until I ended up having to do some site authoring that used Javascript, and grudgingly moved back to Netscape/Eudora/Newswatcher. I'm still on that diet- and usually I don't remember how much poorer I am, or count the number of seconds that these programs force me to sit staring at splash screens to remind me I'm using them.
But... did you even know there was anything as neat as that, out there, ever?
Microsoft is not integration- Apple had internet/OS integration absolutely nailed, far better and more seamlessly and quite humbly and undramatically. Using Cyberdog and the associated programs felt more like the future, years ago, than my Netscape/Eudora/Newswatcher/Fetch setup feels now, in 2002. It wouldn't absolutely require OpenDoc, either- it was about the self-effacing, borderless interface that didn't need to make any kind of statement of "HEY, I'M RUNNING NOW! AREN'T YOU LUCKY YOU HAVE ME??". We could still have that.
We'd have that... I'd have that, right now, if it was not for Microsoft pulling Apple off the project.
Chris Johnson
Our legal system really can't swallow this. It's just too extreme- they should have tried some other argument. This was a _very_ bad mis-step and one of the most spectacular blunders I've seen the Microsoft side make.
We have Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, saying "You can't enforce the law on us, because then we would be _forced_ to intentionally do horrible damage to the economy of the tech sector. We wouldn't want that now would we?"
He is saying this to a _judge_.
I think things have gone well beyond the stage where David Boies is needed to bring to light the insanity of the defendants. These guys have no idea how deep the hole is that they're digging for themselves... "Let us go free or we'll destroy the economy singlehandedly" is not a sensible argument for the defense of a monopoly. These guys simply do not grasp that they are subject to law- and it's becoming painfully obvious- and the other shoe will have to drop.
With luck, Judge Improbably-Percussive-Name will be able to restrain herself from expressing sentiments of outrage and scorn- but she is damned well going to understand how Judge Jackson felt.
If your response is, "Oh, Apple is six times as bad", I can only say- sure, Apple's done many obnoxious things and even collaborates with Microsoft (defaulting to IE, which may have been coerced), but I'd ask you, who was going to be knifing whose baby?
If Apple was in the same position talking about knifing IP 'babies' of competitors, I would be just as hostile to them. But if they had that kind of ferocity to them they would not be at less than 5% market share, would they? It's just not in them and never has been. Different story...
I think you really should have taken 'Ethics' in college: yes, absolutely, I can say that if Microsoft (their name isn't really 'M$': M$ is a cartoon, Microsoft is real) offered me financial security for my work, I would turn them down. And yes, I have work worth taking over. I am developing dithering routines that push the state of the art, currently under the GPL. It is thinkable that Microsoft could want to take this over, buy the IP, and patent concepts like IIR noise shaping.
And I don't believe that they have all the money people say they have, but they do certainly have a lot more money than _I_ have.
But I also believe they are criminals by nature- they have threatened people (like Avie Tevanian) to try and suppress technologies that were better than what they had, they have acted like thugs and racketeers (the repeating theme of cutting off air supply- most recently with Washington lobbyists!) and they have intentionally lied to the highest courts in my country (the faked video deposition, not to mention half the arguments they make are at the least determined deception if not outright lying).
I am not a boot-stomping patriot type, but I am outright insulted at this last: I consider it treasonous and cannot help but consider that they are intentionally trying to destroy important parts of MY COUNTRY, such as it is, for their own gain. If Middle Eastern nationals tried to sabotage the processes of justice in this country we would declare war on them.
And you can't understand why I wouldn't take money from Microsoft? For my part, I cannot understand why you would. Are you that craven?
If you possess neither soul, guts nor morals, that's fine, but would you mind trying to remember that most people are more principles?
Now, let's have some of the nice randite posters moderate this down as flamebait- because, in fact, it is pretty scathing. I guess the "c'mon, you know you'd take their money if they were offering" was more insulting to me than I'd first realized.
mp3.com is HORRIBLE. Plus their 'DAM' CDs are burned off of 128K mp3s- this is arguably still Red Book, but it's misleading to claim it is Red Book.
There are better options. I personally use ampcast.com for two major reasons- one, the contract is sane and fair and two, they have common sense and run a good business. I've had material up on besonic.com as well, but they're gradually deleting it because they're moving to a paid-hosting arrangement like Ampcast (only BeSonic is continuing to provide small free accounts for hobby musicians- Ampcast does not). Finally, I've heard some good things about javamusic.com, though I can't speak personally to that- I do know it's another site that hosts and can produce Red Book CDs (from Red Book masters?) like Ampcast.
Don't use mp3.com. Don't use farmclub.com. Don't use any of the major-label controlled sites. I'm not saying this over ideological reasons, though that's a good reason to avoid them. I'm saying it in terms of sheer self-defense. Farmclub offers a 'play on our national TV show!' deal to sucker people in- it's supposed to be 'exposure'. I've talked to someone who's been offered this- it is contingent upon your signing the 80 PAGE CONTRACT they present you with, a contract that flat-out fucks any hope you might have of pursuing a career in the music business by its restrictiveness and insane abusiveness. The person I talked to read the contract, refused to sign, refused to play and bailed out of the whole Farmclub scene. Of course, Farmclub still part-owns the material they'd submitted...
Be careful out there!
Yeah, it can be humbling. I seem to have got _two_ comments, one of which was serious and one of which was the flame. I remembered making the flame, but I hadn't remembered the serious one (it is a single succinct point). Though for all I know they ignored both of them...
*ROFL*
Funny how the whole point of the GPL was to make it literally impossible for anyone to be in such a situation over software code, needing to do something but unable to legally get access to the code...
It's entertaining to watch this sort of talk, but has anyone noticed that some of the anti-GPL crowd are INSANE? furrfu...
How does this make original authors into Lenin?
Of course, I'm biased- I'm an original author under the GPL. so... OFF WITH HIS HEAD! :D
Know how the 'trollish', 'For someone to think that they have means that they have been assimilated by Microsoft' comment concludes?
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Heh. I've worked in computer repair and maintenance. Have you seen non-technical users try to maintain Windows? Believe me, it's not pretty- and there is no grounds for claiming that it's better than Linux. 0 = 0... the real question is, are there people out there who can be paid to fix up busted software? In both cases, the answer is yes- although SO FAR, the Linux repair contingent is both smaller and MORE likely to be useful. The Windows repair contingent is large but often useless..
It's really stunning, amazing to me, to see so many ordinary listeners making their decisions and choosing to act against the RIAA, while still believing things ("Britney probably gets a buck a CD- not more than five") that are orders of magnitude different than the way the business works. The RIAA propaganda DOES work, but it's still not saving them. And, I'd bet you anything you care to name that Britney gets less than a dime net profit per CD- in fact I think it is possible that she has not recouped and never will- she's a dumb kid and probably does not realize she is paying for the tour bus etc. out of her share.
Go ahead and send Britney ten dollars if you like. You could send her a dime and a broken cigarette and still be giving her more than the record company does.
What??
That is generally not the case. It is considerably more likely if the artist/band has a pit-bull business team, including a very tough lawyer. Even so, such an artist has to be able to produce serious promotion and sell records WITHOUT a label to even get into a position where they can do so for a label and benefit anything from it. Metallica's a good example of this- they were able to set their terms for signing, because they were doing so well anyhow they could take it or leave it. Most artists are nowhere near as industrious and hardworking as this.
I guess even your first glance is a bit crooked, if you figure that most artists live off their record sales. That has pretty much never been the case since recorded music began...
1: respectively, the artist and the promoters. Recording time is recoupable- it comes straight out of artist royalties. Stuff like a tour bus also comes out of royalties and is recoupable. It's _arranged_ by promotion- and the promotion also comes out of royalties. It's all recoupable. Read a contract.
2: Not any more. The CD single is seriously deprecated. They _could_ be made, but they're not going to be. They hurt sales of the full album at the full price. This is something of a change, at one point CD singles and cassingles were big business...
3: More than half of it- maybe as much as 75%. It varies. Won't be less than half, certainly.
4: Breakage of the shellac the record is made of. "Free Goods", meaning promotional distribution. The fact that CDs never did have to drop in price as people kept buying the things anyway.
5: Dunno, I don't know football as well as I know the music industry. It reminds me of my local supermarket (a one-supermarket town) and the price of Coke 2-liters. It's a one-supermarket town. They can do what they like. So, the price of Coke varies between 89 cents a 2-liter (on sale), $1.19 (normal) and $1.39 (what they'd like).
I do have to expect this kind of foolishness. I also have to choose not to buy it at $1.39, because only then does it temporarily come down again- and with their 'cards' and quick feedback on how well the stuff is selling, it comes down within a couple weeks, and I stock up, and wait for the next experiment, maybe with Coke at $1.79. Whatever.
Nobody ever said setting high prices has to _result_ in a profit. It can also result in a complete drying up of sales. That's business.
Paranoid mumblings are all very fun, but to do what you suggest, the court would have to throw out copyright law. Do you see many big businesses itching to obliterate copyright law and harm their ability to prosecute people for copying their IP without permission?
I don't think that is remotely possible. If there's a weak point in law it's that it tends to side with licensors and those who make the rules. GPL is a way of making the rules... and unlike, say, the BSD license, it makes very STRICT rules of what you must do to comply.
In essence, to a lawyer, the GPL is totally unlike giving away. It is laying strict rules for a collaboration that HAPPENS to be with people you don't even know. It has REQUIREMENTS that must be obeyed, or the deal is off. The fact that it produces a pool of 'cooperating' software is of no interest to a lawyer... that's a social effect, we're talking about what the contract is...
If it ever did become invalid, first of all I think it would become invalid only under certain conditions (don't ask me what, because I _don't_ think it will ever be 'ruled' something other than what it is). And second of all, it would absolutely not fall through to being public domain. It would fall through to being normal copyright law, and people affected would have to renegotiate their licenses, perhaps they would have to get direct consent from the authors of code they used or something. There is just no way it would be deemed public domain- it so plainly is NOT trying to be. In some senses (ask a GPL hata ;) ) it is not 'giving away' anything...
The fun part is figuring out what ways FNORD are used to balk or emphasis this ;) those of us who've done things like kick a drinking or drugs habit have had to come to terms with this reality, too. It compels a fundamental mistrust of your own motives. That alone can be helpful, even though you cannot actually have any other motives than your own...