As a musician myself, I was compelled to comment there. They won't put it up though.
I take the opposite view. I have one album up for sale on iTunes and Amazon and another being uploaded right now - http://tinyurl.com/cdx44l
I don't actually want to be represented by the PRS, but I have no choice. There is no opt out. You will collect royalties on my behalf whether or not I want you to. If I wish my music to be available free for streaming on Internet radio, you will not let me.
So who's worse, Google for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or the PRS for extortion?
I'm not in it for the money - that's the point. Previously last.fm was a place where I could distribute music for free and have people listen to it for free.
My comment about the royalties was just to demonstrate that the fees that people are going to have to pay now are NOT going to go to the independent artists - which I've noticed is a potential excuse given by some commentators - but straight into the pockets of the majors. This was fine when it was advertisers paying (corporate money being transferred to another corporate), but it's a completely different matter when they are asking the listeners to pay.
P.S. If you really want to hear my albums you can go here. I don't claim to be particularly good mind you.
As an artist I have removed my music from there and posted why in the biography section of the page - see here. I also posted in the blog and on the artist/label forums. I am now actively spreading the word around the independent music community as far as I can to encourage other artists to do the same.
Maybe it's just pissing in the wind and last.fm won't care, but I feel I can't allow them to charge money for people to listen to my music when I'm never going to see any royalties:-
The Artist Royalty Program gives credit based on your percentage share of revenue generated for Last.fm by the streaming of a track. In some cases, this revenue share does not amount to a monetary unit (penny, cent, or yen), which means no credit can be added to the royalty account.
If your tracks have not been streamed very much, then your percentage of all streaming on Last.fm will be too small to generate any royalty credit.
In other words, small independents are going to see none of this money they are going to charge. Disgusting.
When Obama got elected I was thinking, "Does this guy have a brother that can come and help us out?"
Are you sure about that? Remember 1997 when "Things could only get better" and the new saviour of British politics was elected as a PM who would single-handedly remove corruption and nepotism from UK politics, all while being an all round nice guy? See how well that's gone...
1) Electoral colleges, not people voting directly for President = archaic
2) Right to bear arms = archaic
It's also archaic because of what isn't in there, for example:-
1) Free healthcare at the point of treatment (viewed as a human rights violation in most of the civilised world)
2) Loser pays court system (people can't afford to defend themselves against legal bullies - you win, you still lose)
3) Equal access to the media for ALL political parties during an election (stops there being an advantage based on wealth)
Oh please, you know damn well what I meant. Yes you have amendments, but those amendments need changing to bring them up to date. Just look at how many of those amendments of yours are over 100 years old?
They didn't like the way the world was run 200 years ago. The problem is, you now have an outdated system that is struggling to cope with the modern world.
Exactly. It's 200 years old and out of date with the modern world. I can't think of any other country that has something so archaic at the centre of it's political/justice system - and even if they do, they will have updated it over the years.
The introductory physics text at my university was the all time classic Physics by Alonso & Finn. It's an awesome book covering pretty much all areas of the subject. It's so good, I still have it on my bookshelf 11 years after I graduated.
Not directly, but the police stopped it for him (so that if he fell he wouldn't be killed).
These guys definitely stop traffic though. You'll notice that although the police tend to break up the event, people don't get arrested and people certainly aren't arrested before that've started to protest.
This was a guy who got thrown out of the Labour conference for protesting (I don't agree that he should have been BTW) - not surprisingly the backlash against this in the national media was massive.
What we're talking about here is to not even be able to voice dissent anywhere in the whole city where the party convention is happening, with people being arrested because they might be thinking about protesting. This is in a whole different league, and I suspect the US national media will barely touch on it.
At that point it ceases to become a religion and turns into a philosophy, which I'd actually argue Buddhism and Arhurianism to be as well. It's the faith part that's irrational, the philosophy part is perfectly rational. Believing in Jesus Christ the son of God is as irrational as believing in King Arthur the son of God (The latter would get you sent to the nuthouse, but not the former. Why?)
However, philosophically agreeing with the teachings of Jesus Christ is perfectly rational as is philosophically agreeing with the teachings of King Arthur.
Because there is little to no evidence that he even existed. You may just as easily say you want to be "like King Arthur" since there is just about the same level evidence of his existence. Most rational people would say that wanting to achieve the "insight into life and humanity" that King Arthur had is a one way ticket straight to the nuthouse...
It happened 8 years ago, get over it already - the world moves on. In terms of human history 9/11 is a mere blip. I guarantee you that more people have been killed on America's roads since then than were killed in the WTC, but does that stop you playing road racing games? Many more innocent people were killed in WWII than in the WTC, but does that stop you playing Call of Duty or similar games? The over-sensitivity and over-the-top sentimentalism over that one event is getting ridiculous.
Everybody can watch the iPlayer. It works on Linux, Mac, Solaris etc. Hell, it even works on my Wii.
Seriously, the BBC is supposed to be politically independent, so it is quite right in my opinion to ignore the politics of which codecs it uses - it's mandate is to reach the most available platforms, which it does excellently.
Just to expand on this point, if you look at the official scrabble site you'll see that's because Hasbro only own the Scrabble trademark in the US and Canada. In the rest of the world it's owned by J.W.Spears and Sons - who don't seem to have a problem with the game. My guess is that the rest of the world will carry on playing Scrabulous.
See this is what I really don't understand. $1000 is approximately £500. I earn that in one day. From here it looks like the US economy must be really going down the pan if $1000 is too much for a high end computer.
No, its perfectly unreasonable. Reasonable would be to let both parties trade as they are. Both companies have different names (Orion Bancorp vs Orion Residential Finance), just that one word within those names happens to be the same. It's like Blue Banking Corporation claiming ownership of the word Blue over Blue Finance LLC. Ridiculous.
Recently I happened to release an album on iTunes music store. It takes 28 days to get put up there. Unfortunately another band with the same name released their album the day after mine, though they couldn't have known in advance of the name clash. Both albums are in the same genre. However, after a couple of e-mails back and forth we resolved the thing amicably by deciding that both bands would continue to use the same name, even though technically I could have forced them to change their name as I was there one day earlier.
Legal doesn't necessarily mean reasonable
Being right doesn't necessarily mean reasonable
Sometimes people need to take a step back and realise that.
I'm going to say this to you because you gave the longest rant - if we'd have wanted to hire recent graduates, we'd have damn well hired them. I was particularly highlighting the shortage of SKILLED developers. Yes, I can go out right now and hire 50 junior developers and train them up, but that's not the point of my post. We do have a graduate program, but in this case we'd acquired another company and needed some experienced developers for an integration project.
In other words, your rant is a complete load of bollocks in relation to my original post, and with an attitude like yours where you think you have a God given right to a job, it's no surprise that you found it hard to get a first footing on the career ladder.
Slashdot Mirror
As a musician myself, I was compelled to comment there. They won't put it up though.
I take the opposite view. I have one album up for sale on iTunes and Amazon and another being uploaded right now - http://tinyurl.com/cdx44l I don't actually want to be represented by the PRS, but I have no choice. There is no opt out. You will collect royalties on my behalf whether or not I want you to. If I wish my music to be available free for streaming on Internet radio, you will not let me. So who's worse, Google for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or the PRS for extortion?
I'm not in it for the money - that's the point. Previously last.fm was a place where I could distribute music for free and have people listen to it for free.
My comment about the royalties was just to demonstrate that the fees that people are going to have to pay now are NOT going to go to the independent artists - which I've noticed is a potential excuse given by some commentators - but straight into the pockets of the majors. This was fine when it was advertisers paying (corporate money being transferred to another corporate), but it's a completely different matter when they are asking the listeners to pay.
P.S. If you really want to hear my albums you can go here. I don't claim to be particularly good mind you.
Maybe it's just pissing in the wind and last.fm won't care, but I feel I can't allow them to charge money for people to listen to my music when I'm never going to see any royalties:-
In other words, small independents are going to see none of this money they are going to charge. Disgusting.
Are you sure about that? Remember 1997 when "Things could only get better" and the new saviour of British politics was elected as a PM who would single-handedly remove corruption and nepotism from UK politics, all while being an all round nice guy? See how well that's gone...
Yes, archaic.
1) Electoral colleges, not people voting directly for President = archaic
2) Right to bear arms = archaic
It's also archaic because of what isn't in there, for example:-
1) Free healthcare at the point of treatment (viewed as a human rights violation in most of the civilised world)
2) Loser pays court system (people can't afford to defend themselves against legal bullies - you win, you still lose)
3) Equal access to the media for ALL political parties during an election (stops there being an advantage based on wealth)
Oh please, you know damn well what I meant. Yes you have amendments, but those amendments need changing to bring them up to date. Just look at how many of those amendments of yours are over 100 years old?
They didn't like the way the world was run 200 years ago. The problem is, you now have an outdated system that is struggling to cope with the modern world.
Exactly. It's 200 years old and out of date with the modern world. I can't think of any other country that has something so archaic at the centre of it's political/justice system - and even if they do, they will have updated it over the years.
The introductory physics text at my university was the all time classic Physics by Alonso & Finn. It's an awesome book covering pretty much all areas of the subject. It's so good, I still have it on my bookshelf 11 years after I graduated.
You mean like these here
Bob
Not directly, but the police stopped it for him (so that if he fell he wouldn't be killed).
These guys definitely stop traffic though. You'll notice that although the police tend to break up the event, people don't get arrested and people certainly aren't arrested before that've started to protest.
Bob
This was a guy who got thrown out of the Labour conference for protesting (I don't agree that he should have been BTW) - not surprisingly the backlash against this in the national media was massive.
What we're talking about here is to not even be able to voice dissent anywhere in the whole city where the party convention is happening, with people being arrested because they might be thinking about protesting. This is in a whole different league, and I suspect the US national media will barely touch on it.
Bob
This is how we do it in a civilised country
Note the quote from the police - Police said despite the massive traffic disruption on the motorway, the man had the right to protest peacefully.
Bob
In most countries you would get arrested for throwing the urine, not merely thinking about it.
Bob
I'm not seeing anything violent in your quotes. Perhaps you could point out what I'm missing?
Bob
Seems like we kind of agree.
Focus more on the concept, less on the person.
At that point it ceases to become a religion and turns into a philosophy, which I'd actually argue Buddhism and Arhurianism to be as well. It's the faith part that's irrational, the philosophy part is perfectly rational. Believing in Jesus Christ the son of God is as irrational as believing in King Arthur the son of God (The latter would get you sent to the nuthouse, but not the former. Why?)
However, philosophically agreeing with the teachings of Jesus Christ is perfectly rational as is philosophically agreeing with the teachings of King Arthur.
So, are you rational or not?
Bob
Because there is little to no evidence that he even existed. You may just as easily say you want to be "like King Arthur" since there is just about the same level evidence of his existence. Most rational people would say that wanting to achieve the "insight into life and humanity" that King Arthur had is a one way ticket straight to the nuthouse...
Bob
It happened 8 years ago, get over it already - the world moves on. In terms of human history 9/11 is a mere blip. I guarantee you that more people have been killed on America's roads since then than were killed in the WTC, but does that stop you playing road racing games? Many more innocent people were killed in WWII than in the WTC, but does that stop you playing Call of Duty or similar games? The over-sensitivity and over-the-top sentimentalism over that one event is getting ridiculous.
Bob
Everybody can watch the iPlayer. It works on Linux, Mac, Solaris etc. Hell, it even works on my Wii.
Seriously, the BBC is supposed to be politically independent, so it is quite right in my opinion to ignore the politics of which codecs it uses - it's mandate is to reach the most available platforms, which it does excellently.
Just to expand on this point, if you look at the official scrabble site you'll see that's because Hasbro only own the Scrabble trademark in the US and Canada. In the rest of the world it's owned by J.W.Spears and Sons - who don't seem to have a problem with the game. My guess is that the rest of the world will carry on playing Scrabulous.
Bob
See this is what I really don't understand. $1000 is approximately £500. I earn that in one day. From here it looks like the US economy must be really going down the pan if $1000 is too much for a high end computer.
Bob
Does this mean that if I download a piece of GPL v3 software I can't use it in a TiVo? Oh wait...
No, its perfectly unreasonable. Reasonable would be to let both parties trade as they are. Both companies have different names (Orion Bancorp vs Orion Residential Finance), just that one word within those names happens to be the same. It's like Blue Banking Corporation claiming ownership of the word Blue over Blue Finance LLC. Ridiculous.
Recently I happened to release an album on iTunes music store. It takes 28 days to get put up there. Unfortunately another band with the same name released their album the day after mine, though they couldn't have known in advance of the name clash. Both albums are in the same genre. However, after a couple of e-mails back and forth we resolved the thing amicably by deciding that both bands would continue to use the same name, even though technically I could have forced them to change their name as I was there one day earlier.
Legal doesn't necessarily mean reasonable
Being right doesn't necessarily mean reasonable
Sometimes people need to take a step back and realise that.
They're not suggesting that they can't carry on using existing software (ie. migrating away from MS), merely that they can't buy NEW software from MS.
Bob
I'm going to say this to you because you gave the longest rant - if we'd have wanted to hire recent graduates, we'd have damn well hired them. I was particularly highlighting the shortage of SKILLED developers. Yes, I can go out right now and hire 50 junior developers and train them up, but that's not the point of my post. We do have a graduate program, but in this case we'd acquired another company and needed some experienced developers for an integration project.
In other words, your rant is a complete load of bollocks in relation to my original post, and with an attitude like yours where you think you have a God given right to a job, it's no surprise that you found it hard to get a first footing on the career ladder.
Bob