If a band performs popular (which is distinctive from "good" - "good" is a subjective thing) music then it increases its chances of selling product and recouping the costs of rehearsal studio rental, equipment, recording, manufacturing of media (CDs, cassettes, vinyl, choose your flavour), advertising and all the other costs involved in trying to sell entertainment, and hopefully in the long run it can make a profit.
The chances in such a case are increased but by no means is there any sort of guarantee - when it comes to buying entertainment the public is very fickle and unpredictable; entertainment is very expensive to produce as a whole because of the high number of products which fail miserably (dare I say the majority?). Don't forget, no matter how cool the underground indie band you like is, the stuff they're performing is still their product and they are selling it to a market, whether they or any of their fans want to admit it and use those words or not.
There is no Divine Right of Musicians which guarantees success, oodles of money and hot chicks for someone who is "good" but doesn't live in the real world.
Of course, being bad is not a good way to try and be successful, but when it comes to popular music the music is often secondary - pop culture is what is really on sale most of the time and hence the success of bands such as Jesus and Mary Chain, Girlschool, Motorhead (their first album was pretty bad) etc: they weren't good, they were cool/popular. This is why the music, tv shows etc which everyone loves today will make all the same people roll their eyes in disbelief tens years down the road, and then will be hailed as "kitsch genius" in another five or ten.
I didn't expect this review to be very good, and it's not, IMHO. My take is that it's more of a description of the services, and not a terribly thorough one at that. The first example which jumped out at me was the note about iTunes radio stations - this guy doesn't mention that the radio stations are not supplied by Apple and have nothing to do with the music store - iTunes is an audio-stream player with some third-party stations preprogrammed - you can delete them or add more as you please.
This despite the fact that most of our consumer goods are imported from the States.
Huh?
You should look at the labels of more of the product you buy - even if the headquarters of the companies which "make" the things you own are in the US, most of the stuff they sell is made elsewhere. The US dollar wouldn't figure into play to any great extent. The US is Canada's biggest trading partner by far, but as far as strictly manufactured goods go, well, I'd like to see some numbers about where those are coming from.
Also, even with Canada's increased buying power, Canadian companies which sell in the US market (and there are a LOT of them) are sufferering heavily because of the exchange rate - they have to make up their funds somewhere, and so they look to home.
For a long time Canadians were wont to complain about the value of the dollar, and Americans would make fun of them for it too, but the value is irrelevant - it is important that it is stable, and so the two markets will find a natural balance. It's unfortunate that the Canadian dollar was valued so lowly for so long through the 90s/2000 (despite a charging economy - another thing canadians like to complain about - no matter how strong the economy, things are always bad) as much of the strength of the US dollar was based on imaginary business strength in the dot com area and Magical Accounting in giant american corporations. When the US dollar came back to earth, many canadians who rely on exports suffered because of it.
As an off-topic aside, but back to the manufacturing angle, now that I live in an exotic third-world country I'm learning just how heavy US and Canadian tariffs are on foreign (asian) goods. One example is the friend of mine who recently bought a brand new, fully loaded car from Honda and paid half of what it would cost in the US. Part of the savings is related to lower overhead here, but that percentage is surely a small part of the whole. This raises the question of how the level of trade is measured - if it is strictly in pre-tariff dollars, then it would not be an accurate measure of how much materiel Canada imports from outside north america, and would lead me to question the US's position as Canada's biggest trading partner.
Most of the apartments I ever looked at in San Francisco lacked grounded outlets - this was something I paid attention to. Luckily I ended up living in a recently renovated house which had a room (office) rewired specifically to be computer-friendly. It could have used one or two more outlets, and it was only one room, but I appreciated it nonetheless.
Hence the ideas that downloading music without paying for it is perfectly acceptable, having an illicit cable tv connection is okay or using someone else's wifi network is alright.
Sounds good to me.
I think it's perfectly moral to use something which is owned by someone else so long as you don't hurt anyone.
So i spend a year writing music, rehearsing, and then spend $100,000 recording a CD (a low-ball figure), try to sell it, people want it enough to go to the effort of "sharing" it but won't pay for it and nobody gets hurt? Give me a break.
Sure. But if you're not hurting anyone, then what you're doing is not immoral.
You need to take a closer look at what may hurt someone - this is the root of most file-sharers' denial. Why am I going to invest a fortune to produce software, games, movies or recorded music if everybody wants it but everybody is too cheap to actually pay for it and "shares" it because "it doesn't hurt anybody"? Why not just walk out of a supermarket with all your groceries without paying for them? Nobody gets hurt, right? Supermarkets make lots of money, they won't suffer... Why don't you open a restaurant and call it McDonald's, and sell food that is exactly like McDonald's food? Nobody will get hurt if you do that, and it will be an easy way to establish a business. Hopefully your customers will choose to pay for their meals though.
You seem to define using something which is owned by someone else as hurting someone in and of itself. To me, you seem to be the one in denial. You don't want to share.
I'm all for sharing, but as the owner, I want to establish the terms of the things I choose to share, just as you choose to do with the lawnmower. As the owner, I get to establish what will in fact "hurt" me. If I borrow your lawn mower, maybe I'll use it to clear a rocky field covered with 3-foot grass in a heavy rain, which I could think is a perfectly acceptable way to use a lawnmower and by my terms "doesn't hurt anybody" - simply saying sharing won't hurt anyone is vague and naive.
Fair enough. Stop arguing with me then. We're at an impasse anyway
It's hard not to argue with someone who is plainly wrong.
My reason wasn't because I could. My reason was that I wanted internet accessing.
So you are impatient, greedy and want things that belong to someone else - let's face facts.
The law shouldn't allow me to go to jail at all for what I did. Certainly not for 10 years.
It's a maximum of ten years. For your crimes you'd probably get a much less severe sentence. Ten years would be applied in a worst-case scenario.
I'm sorry, I just don't follow that rule. If I can use something that "belongs" to someone else, and they aren't going to be harmed by my use of it, then I'm going to. If you need a pen, and you see one lying in front of you, do you go around looking for the owner of the pen, or do you just use it?
There are practical aspects like the pen being insignificant, but if you look at it by the letter of the law then you would still technically be wrong using the pen. I can see how you would want to use an analogy like this because a pen is so insignifcant and it helps trivialize the arguments against you, but a home internet connection isn't as insignificant as a pen. It's not a million dollar issue either (on an individual basis at least, but on a grand scale perhaps it is), but it's still different from using a pen. There is also the issue of setting precedent. If one person can use a neighbour's connection to check email, then why not another for gaming, then why not another for downloading things they shouldn't be?
Unfortunately many people, it seems you are included, have this idea that if something can be taken electronically and "doesn't hurt anybody" then it's not a crime. Hence the ideas that downloading music without paying for it is perfectly acceptable, having an illicit cable tv connection is okay or using someone else's wifi network is alright. Many people's justification for this stance is nothing more than the idea that if something is available it can be taken. The onus is on you not be immoral; security is simply compensation for people who cannot control their urges and greed.
I guess I'm insane. You can borrow my lawn mower any time you want.
Here you are giving permission, but the point was that " I can take your lawn mower and mow my lawn without your permission". Perhaps you cannot address this point because your arguements hold no water. If I am wrong, then please have another try. Unfortunately you seem to be in a deep state of denial and so arguing with you is almost pointless.
...but the oil money is drying up, the country is carrying a huge debt and average income is about a quarter of what it was twenty years ago. Dividends or not, there are a lot of people here who want jobs, although yes, they are unwilling to do most work, jobs which they consider beneath them. Some of those attitudes are slowly changing, but not by much.
There are laws in place now which require businesses to employ a certain number of saudis, or that certain positions must be filled with saudis, but companies get around this by either "hiring" saudis and paying them to stay home (in retail for example, this happens because they are nearly useless in this setting), outright lying about employment numbers, or simply stopping some services - there was a case in the newspapers recently about a school which was forced to stop its bus service for children because its drivers were not saudi, but it could not hire saudis no matter how hard it tried.
Sigh, gm does provide support for this in fact. It is called a garage and they do it in exchange for a lot of money but they do do it.
Sigh, another flawed analogy...
GM does not provide support for this technical issue, they are simply selling another service. They will say they can fix this problem because GM also has a part of its business which repairs cars; they are simply shuffling the customer over to the repair department and charging the customer to fix the problem.
Apple does not have a repair business. If they did, I'm sure customer service would simply say "please hold" and you'd quickly be connected to the repair department who'd be more than happy to draw up an order and quote you some prices to fix your equipment. That would still not be support for a technical issue.
Apple, not having a separate repair business, doesn't offer to fix your machine when you break it - should that really be unexpected?
I saw this one in a local paper two weeks ago here in Riyadh: construction worker - 600 riyals a month, plus housing (providing housing is typical of many jobs here), a twelve hour work day.
It's a misconception that being paid for your work is "really important."
It's not an issue of being paid for everything you ever do. It's one thing to have a day job and be a musician as a hobby. Indeed, I think it is a shame that there isn't more focus on local musicians or just music in the home with friends and family. That is why i don't believe it's correct to automatically label file sharers as 'music lovers'. The demand for big industry entertainment is huge, and the scope of the fight over copyright protection is proof itself of how desperate is the craving for cultural stimulus and entertainment, however meaningless that entertainment may really be. it's quite sad, really.
As for the point about paying musicians, when it comes to professional musicians or writers, or such artists with professional aspirations, the costs and amount of time which must be commited to even modest projects are huge, and expecting to get 'music for free' is just idiotic.
If someone wants music for free and they claim to be a music lover, then they should be getting together with their friends and playing guitars, spoons or pots and pans and enjoying it, and if they want mass-produced entertainment (and even 'alternative' or independant acts are part of the mass-production environment) then those people should fork over their money for the product and shut the fuck up.
Many of the arguments that get raised surrounding copyright and sharing, lead to a conclusion that it should be made possible to control distribution of ANY copyrighted work. That leaves independent artists out in the cold.
How would this leave independant artists in the cold? If anything stronger and fairer payment for use of copyrighted materials would benefit independent artists the most, and they are the ones who need every penny they can get. Anyone who wants to release their copyright or sell it is free to do so, regardless of the scope of their sales figures. Besides, when it comes to sharing of music files through p2p or whatever means, copyright of intelectual property is only part of the issue. There is also the problem of recouping recording costs (whoever may pay those, usually the artist), advertising and marketing costs (which is what makes the artist famous in the first place - music is secondary), and logistical costs involved in running a label, which would be similar to costs involved in any business; paying phone bills, paying salaries, paying for the office rent. Again, independents would benefit the most from a fair payment system because proportionately their investments and risks on return are greater than with major established entertainment companies, and the proof is in the huge number of famous bankrupt indie record labels or artists who tried to go it alone.
I wish we didn't have the equivalent of a State in charge of music distribution. Everybody in the US seems to hear the same music. That's really unnatural. I wish more people would just make music themselves, and focus on the arts as a means of expression and not just as a means of income.
Unfortunately most people are lazy and/or unaware of the potential they have to take control of their own lives. Marketing has a firm grasp on almost everything all of us do, from the food we 'choose' eat to the colour shoes we 'like' to wear, and the firm denial of this control by most people is nothing more than amusing. Instead of people playing harmonicas and singing themselves we have people who will let governments and (especially) corporations tread all over them, yet become outraged because suddenly the free entertainment (which they didn't have two or three years ago) might be taken away from them. There is a twisted sense of 'want' and 'need' in our western culture, as well as a pathetic attitude towards what is worth fighting for, and unfortunately that is just the way it is. Culture is being driven more and more by one thing - entertainment - and people are spoiled rotten for it.
Music lovers or culture addicts? Please, let's keep things in perspective, that mass-marketed entertainment is mostly about cultural inclusion and has little to do with art - good art just makes it easier to sell the culture, but the culture will be wrapped and shipped no matter what.
Besides, a true music lover, especially one who actually performs, would understand how expensive it is to be an artist and how important being paid for your work really is.
Having said all that, the RIAA has the almost the worst tactics I could imagine.
"Building these bicycles is art. It is not something you just do. Every bamboo must be selected and fitted into the frame according to size and quality. The secret lies in treating and handling the material the right way. Learning that takes times and the maintenance takes time as well...? Flavio Deslandes says...
Using bamboo may be some sort of holy grail for bike transport enthusiasts, but I seriously question its current practicality. Training and paying artisans to select the perfect materials and then assemble bikes would more than detract from the benefits bamboo provides. Steel bikes can be thrown together by machines.
Also, simple steel bikes require little maintenance, and the little maintenance they do require is in the drive train, brakes and bearings, which would apply to bamboo bikes as well as maintenance of the bamboo frame.
Is Joe Sixpack or Sally Secretary in Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing, Amsterdam or New York City really going to take the time to tenderly care for his/her commuter bike's frame? Think of the thousands of bikes in Japan that sit in the rain every day - would bamboo bikes survive even one year being wet most of the time?
I'm sure these people are aware of this, but in a bicycle design lateral strength is an issue too. I didn't have the patience to read the whole article so perhaps that was addressed too.
(editing out the fluff and getting to the point would have been nice - this thing reads like a sunday newspaper piece gone mad - I'm not interested in his black currant whatevers)
Why are people who want pop music (I said 'want', not 'need', because nobody needs music or pop entertainment) willing to go to such great lengths to get entertainment for free and, if they had their way and nobody paid for entertainment, drive their favourite artists, writers and musicians to bankruptcy, along with the entire entertainment industry, which is supposedly reviled by so many, yet so deeply integrated into the lives of and desperately clung to by those who seem to despise it so much?
Please note - this whole issue revolves around entertainment
ENTERTAINMENT!!!
If you're going to fight against corporate evil, why not fight for something that really matters? Something that might make a meaningful difference and improvement to your life, as well as an improvement in quality of society as a whole.
You may be right - hazy memory, lazy disposition etc. are not exclusively yours:) - but if I am mistaken then it only goes further to demonstrate my point that artists routinely keep their copyrights, even a bunch of shaggy-haired nobodies, barely out of their teens, from liverpool in the early sixties.
Well, no, if a writer, no matter how low-profile, has any brains at all he/she will not sign away copyright, and will be under no obligation to do so.
That sort of thing was common and normal in the 60s (early Beatles - Michael Jackson wons those songs now), and still happened in the 70s (Bruce Springsteen - he unwittingly signed away his ownership in his early days, and subsequently stopped recording/performing for years waiting for his contract to expire - this is where he got his nickname), but if someone hasn't learned from the past, read their contract and understood it, not been overpowered by the 'gee-whiz' factor, not been drunk/stoned at the time and isn't a complete idiot, then they should still own their copyright. It wouldn't surprise me if there were some bands/artists who failed all the the above qualifications and got shafted with a bad contract, but then it could be argued that it's their own damned fault if that were the case.
Some writers sign publishing deals in which the publisher takes a cut from the royalties in exchange for services such as collecting royalties and getting songs into a paying position - again, it's a business deal, separate from a recording contract, so anyone signing a publishing contract should understand it fully.
Copyright royalties are The Big Money. That's why ownership is important, and anybody who even just pieces three chords together and trys to be taken seriously would/should know that.
I learned all this when I was involved in the music industry.
So, on a scale of one to ten, what would you say your level of surprise is that a common journalist hasn't gotten his/her facts entirely correct? Please circle below:
Not to get too far off topic, but the RIAA doesn't hold any copyrights. They represent the recording industry, which includes copyright holders, which in turn includes many of your favourite rock stars.
I believe P2P is damaging to creative industries (entertainment, software, whatever), and I believe it is wrong, but making something even more illegal is not the solution. This is the same approach used in the spectacularly unsuccessful War On Drugs (and we all know about the Prohibition argument).
As a person who has worked in creative fields most of my life (whether music or other areas), and who understands the importance of copyright protection, I think this bill is a last gasp; the entertainment industry needs to change their approach to selling their product. The demand is very obviously there (otherwise this wouldn't be such a huge issue - it's just entertainment for pete's sake, and consumers act like their right to life is being snatched away), so if the business model is there (when I say business model, I mean not just the outlet for sales, but the whole business model, from top to bottom), the product can be made and sold at a profit.
Slashdot Mirror
Time is not wasted on pr0n. ...barring hirsute pr0n and other acts of barbarism, of course.
Log 1) Time wasted on /.
/., on the other hand...
Log 2) Time wasted on pr0n
Time is not wasted on pr0n.
(On the other hand? That's why we have two.)
This will never be adopted in America - with the big wheel mounted on the rear the bus looks funny.
If a band performs popular (which is distinctive from "good" - "good" is a subjective thing) music then it increases its chances of selling product and recouping the costs of rehearsal studio rental, equipment, recording, manufacturing of media (CDs, cassettes, vinyl, choose your flavour), advertising and all the other costs involved in trying to sell entertainment, and hopefully in the long run it can make a profit.
The chances in such a case are increased but by no means is there any sort of guarantee - when it comes to buying entertainment the public is very fickle and unpredictable; entertainment is very expensive to produce as a whole because of the high number of products which fail miserably (dare I say the majority?). Don't forget, no matter how cool the underground indie band you like is, the stuff they're performing is still their product and they are selling it to a market, whether they or any of their fans want to admit it and use those words or not.
There is no Divine Right of Musicians which guarantees success, oodles of money and hot chicks for someone who is "good" but doesn't live in the real world.
Of course, being bad is not a good way to try and be successful, but when it comes to popular music the music is often secondary - pop culture is what is really on sale most of the time and hence the success of bands such as Jesus and Mary Chain, Girlschool, Motorhead (their first album was pretty bad) etc: they weren't good, they were cool/popular. This is why the music, tv shows etc which everyone loves today will make all the same people roll their eyes in disbelief tens years down the road, and then will be hailed as "kitsch genius" in another five or ten.
I didn't expect this review to be very good, and it's not, IMHO. My take is that it's more of a description of the services, and not a terribly thorough one at that. The first example which jumped out at me was the note about iTunes radio stations - this guy doesn't mention that the radio stations are not supplied by Apple and have nothing to do with the music store - iTunes is an audio-stream player with some third-party stations preprogrammed - you can delete them or add more as you please.
there are lots and lots of non-riaa labels run by folks who sign bands because they like the music, not the sales projections.
But at the end of the day they must still sell product or face bankruptcy. Business is business, like it or not, and sales projections still matter.
This despite the fact that most of our consumer goods are imported from the States.
Huh?
You should look at the labels of more of the product you buy - even if the headquarters of the companies which "make" the things you own are in the US, most of the stuff they sell is made elsewhere. The US dollar wouldn't figure into play to any great extent. The US is Canada's biggest trading partner by far, but as far as strictly manufactured goods go, well, I'd like to see some numbers about where those are coming from.
Also, even with Canada's increased buying power, Canadian companies which sell in the US market (and there are a LOT of them) are sufferering heavily because of the exchange rate - they have to make up their funds somewhere, and so they look to home.
For a long time Canadians were wont to complain about the value of the dollar, and Americans would make fun of them for it too, but the value is irrelevant - it is important that it is stable, and so the two markets will find a natural balance. It's unfortunate that the Canadian dollar was valued so lowly for so long through the 90s/2000 (despite a charging economy - another thing canadians like to complain about - no matter how strong the economy, things are always bad) as much of the strength of the US dollar was based on imaginary business strength in the dot com area and Magical Accounting in giant american corporations. When the US dollar came back to earth, many canadians who rely on exports suffered because of it.
As an off-topic aside, but back to the manufacturing angle, now that I live in an exotic third-world country I'm learning just how heavy US and Canadian tariffs are on foreign (asian) goods. One example is the friend of mine who recently bought a brand new, fully loaded car from Honda and paid half of what it would cost in the US. Part of the savings is related to lower overhead here, but that percentage is surely a small part of the whole. This raises the question of how the level of trade is measured - if it is strictly in pre-tariff dollars, then it would not be an accurate measure of how much materiel Canada imports from outside north america, and would lead me to question the US's position as Canada's biggest trading partner.
Most of the apartments I ever looked at in San Francisco lacked grounded outlets - this was something I paid attention to. Luckily I ended up living in a recently renovated house which had a room (office) rewired specifically to be computer-friendly. It could have used one or two more outlets, and it was only one room, but I appreciated it nonetheless.
Hence the ideas that downloading music without paying for it is perfectly acceptable, having an illicit cable tv connection is okay or using someone else's wifi network is alright.
Sounds good to me.
I think it's perfectly moral to use something which is owned by someone else so long as you don't hurt anyone.
So i spend a year writing music, rehearsing, and then spend $100,000 recording a CD (a low-ball figure), try to sell it, people want it enough to go to the effort of "sharing" it but won't pay for it and nobody gets hurt? Give me a break.
Sure. But if you're not hurting anyone, then what you're doing is not immoral.
You need to take a closer look at what may hurt someone - this is the root of most file-sharers' denial. Why am I going to invest a fortune to produce software, games, movies or recorded music if everybody wants it but everybody is too cheap to actually pay for it and "shares" it because "it doesn't hurt anybody"? Why not just walk out of a supermarket with all your groceries without paying for them? Nobody gets hurt, right? Supermarkets make lots of money, they won't suffer... Why don't you open a restaurant and call it McDonald's, and sell food that is exactly like McDonald's food? Nobody will get hurt if you do that, and it will be an easy way to establish a business. Hopefully your customers will choose to pay for their meals though.
You seem to define using something which is owned by someone else as hurting someone in and of itself. To me, you seem to be the one in denial. You don't want to share.
I'm all for sharing, but as the owner, I want to establish the terms of the things I choose to share, just as you choose to do with the lawnmower. As the owner, I get to establish what will in fact "hurt" me. If I borrow your lawn mower, maybe I'll use it to clear a rocky field covered with 3-foot grass in a heavy rain, which I could think is a perfectly acceptable way to use a lawnmower and by my terms "doesn't hurt anybody" - simply saying sharing won't hurt anyone is vague and naive.
Fair enough. Stop arguing with me then. We're at an impasse anyway
It's hard not to argue with someone who is plainly wrong.
My reason wasn't because I could. My reason was that I wanted internet accessing.
So you are impatient, greedy and want things that belong to someone else - let's face facts.
The law shouldn't allow me to go to jail at all for what I did. Certainly not for 10 years.
It's a maximum of ten years. For your crimes you'd probably get a much less severe sentence. Ten years would be applied in a worst-case scenario.
I'm sorry, I just don't follow that rule. If I can use something that "belongs" to someone else, and they aren't going to be harmed by my use of it, then I'm going to. If you need a pen, and you see one lying in front of you, do you go around looking for the owner of the pen, or do you just use it?
There are practical aspects like the pen being insignificant, but if you look at it by the letter of the law then you would still technically be wrong using the pen. I can see how you would want to use an analogy like this because a pen is so insignifcant and it helps trivialize the arguments against you, but a home internet connection isn't as insignificant as a pen. It's not a million dollar issue either (on an individual basis at least, but on a grand scale perhaps it is), but it's still different from using a pen. There is also the issue of setting precedent. If one person can use a neighbour's connection to check email, then why not another for gaming, then why not another for downloading things they shouldn't be?
Unfortunately many people, it seems you are included, have this idea that if something can be taken electronically and "doesn't hurt anybody" then it's not a crime. Hence the ideas that downloading music without paying for it is perfectly acceptable, having an illicit cable tv connection is okay or using someone else's wifi network is alright. Many people's justification for this stance is nothing more than the idea that if something is available it can be taken. The onus is on you not be immoral; security is simply compensation for people who cannot control their urges and greed.
I guess I'm insane. You can borrow my lawn mower any time you want.
Here you are giving permission, but the point was that " I can take your lawn mower and mow my lawn without your permission". Perhaps you cannot address this point because your arguements hold no water. If I am wrong, then please have another try. Unfortunately you seem to be in a deep state of denial and so arguing with you is almost pointless.
...but the oil money is drying up, the country is carrying a huge debt and average income is about a quarter of what it was twenty years ago. Dividends or not, there are a lot of people here who want jobs, although yes, they are unwilling to do most work, jobs which they consider beneath them. Some of those attitudes are slowly changing, but not by much.
There are laws in place now which require businesses to employ a certain number of saudis, or that certain positions must be filled with saudis, but companies get around this by either "hiring" saudis and paying them to stay home (in retail for example, this happens because they are nearly useless in this setting), outright lying about employment numbers, or simply stopping some services - there was a case in the newspapers recently about a school which was forced to stop its bus service for children because its drivers were not saudi, but it could not hire saudis no matter how hard it tried.
Sigh, gm does provide support for this in fact. It is called a garage and they do it in exchange for a lot of money but they do do it.
Sigh, another flawed analogy...
GM does not provide support for this technical issue, they are simply selling another service. They will say they can fix this problem because GM also has a part of its business which repairs cars; they are simply shuffling the customer over to the repair department and charging the customer to fix the problem.
Apple does not have a repair business. If they did, I'm sure customer service would simply say "please hold" and you'd quickly be connected to the repair department who'd be more than happy to draw up an order and quote you some prices to fix your equipment. That would still not be support for a technical issue.
Apple, not having a separate repair business, doesn't offer to fix your machine when you break it - should that really be unexpected?
Yes, and unemployment amongst the arabs themselves is very high.
I saw this one in a local paper two weeks ago here in Riyadh: construction worker - 600 riyals a month, plus housing (providing housing is typical of many jobs here), a twelve hour work day.
.26666
A riyal is worth USD
It's a misconception that being paid for your work is "really important."
It's not an issue of being paid for everything you ever do. It's one thing to have a day job and be a musician as a hobby. Indeed, I think it is a shame that there isn't more focus on local musicians or just music in the home with friends and family. That is why i don't believe it's correct to automatically label file sharers as 'music lovers'. The demand for big industry entertainment is huge, and the scope of the fight over copyright protection is proof itself of how desperate is the craving for cultural stimulus and entertainment, however meaningless that entertainment may really be. it's quite sad, really.
As for the point about paying musicians, when it comes to professional musicians or writers, or such artists with professional aspirations, the costs and amount of time which must be commited to even modest projects are huge, and expecting to get 'music for free' is just idiotic.
If someone wants music for free and they claim to be a music lover, then they should be getting together with their friends and playing guitars, spoons or pots and pans and enjoying it, and if they want mass-produced entertainment (and even 'alternative' or independant acts are part of the mass-production environment) then those people should fork over their money for the product and shut the fuck up.
Many of the arguments that get raised surrounding copyright and sharing, lead to a conclusion that it should be made possible to control distribution of ANY copyrighted work. That leaves independent artists out in the cold.
How would this leave independant artists in the cold? If anything stronger and fairer payment for use of copyrighted materials would benefit independent artists the most, and they are the ones who need every penny they can get. Anyone who wants to release their copyright or sell it is free to do so, regardless of the scope of their sales figures. Besides, when it comes to sharing of music files through p2p or whatever means, copyright of intelectual property is only part of the issue. There is also the problem of recouping recording costs (whoever may pay those, usually the artist), advertising and marketing costs (which is what makes the artist famous in the first place - music is secondary), and logistical costs involved in running a label, which would be similar to costs involved in any business; paying phone bills, paying salaries, paying for the office rent. Again, independents would benefit the most from a fair payment system because proportionately their investments and risks on return are greater than with major established entertainment companies, and the proof is in the huge number of famous bankrupt indie record labels or artists who tried to go it alone.
I wish we didn't have the equivalent of a State in charge of music distribution. Everybody in the US seems to hear the same music. That's really unnatural. I wish more people would just make music themselves, and focus on the arts as a means of expression and not just as a means of income.
Unfortunately most people are lazy and/or unaware of the potential they have to take control of their own lives. Marketing has a firm grasp on almost everything all of us do, from the food we 'choose' eat to the colour shoes we 'like' to wear, and the firm denial of this control by most people is nothing more than amusing. Instead of people playing harmonicas and singing themselves we have people who will let governments and (especially) corporations tread all over them, yet become outraged because suddenly the free entertainment (which they didn't have two or three years ago) might be taken away from them. There is a twisted sense of 'want' and 'need' in our western culture, as well as a pathetic attitude towards what is worth fighting for, and unfortunately that is just the way it is. Culture is being driven more and more by one thing - entertainment - and people are spoiled rotten for it.
RIAA Threatens More Music-Lovers
Music lovers or culture addicts? Please, let's keep things in perspective, that mass-marketed entertainment is mostly about cultural inclusion and has little to do with art - good art just makes it easier to sell the culture, but the culture will be wrapped and shipped no matter what.
Besides, a true music lover, especially one who actually performs, would understand how expensive it is to be an artist and how important being paid for your work really is.
Having said all that, the RIAA has the almost the worst tactics I could imagine.
"Building these bicycles is art. It is not something you just do. Every bamboo must be selected and fitted into the frame according to size and quality. The secret lies in treating and handling the material the right way. Learning that takes times and the maintenance takes time as well...? Flavio Deslandes says...
Using bamboo may be some sort of holy grail for bike transport enthusiasts, but I seriously question its current practicality. Training and paying artisans to select the perfect materials and then assemble bikes would more than detract from the benefits bamboo provides. Steel bikes can be thrown together by machines.
Also, simple steel bikes require little maintenance, and the little maintenance they do require is in the drive train, brakes and bearings, which would apply to bamboo bikes as well as maintenance of the bamboo frame.
Is Joe Sixpack or Sally Secretary in Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing, Amsterdam or New York City really going to take the time to tenderly care for his/her commuter bike's frame? Think of the thousands of bikes in Japan that sit in the rain every day - would bamboo bikes survive even one year being wet most of the time?
I'm sure these people are aware of this, but in a bicycle design lateral strength is an issue too. I didn't have the patience to read the whole article so perhaps that was addressed too.
(editing out the fluff and getting to the point would have been nice - this thing reads like a sunday newspaper piece gone mad - I'm not interested in his black currant whatevers)
They own what rights? To the recordings perhaps. How will you coerce the copyright holders into your scheme?
(please don't respond with "the corporations own all the copyrights", because they don't - I don't want to explain how that works twice in a week)
Why are people who want pop music (I said 'want', not 'need', because nobody needs music or pop entertainment) willing to go to such great lengths to get entertainment for free and, if they had their way and nobody paid for entertainment, drive their favourite artists, writers and musicians to bankruptcy, along with the entire entertainment industry, which is supposedly reviled by so many, yet so deeply integrated into the lives of and desperately clung to by those who seem to despise it so much?
Please note - this whole issue revolves around entertainment
ENTERTAINMENT!!!
If you're going to fight against corporate evil, why not fight for something that really matters? Something that might make a meaningful difference and improvement to your life, as well as an improvement in quality of society as a whole.
You may be right - hazy memory, lazy disposition etc. are not exclusively yours :) - but if I am mistaken then it only goes further to demonstrate my point that artists routinely keep their copyrights, even a bunch of shaggy-haired nobodies, barely out of their teens, from liverpool in the early sixties.
Take that!
Well, no, if a writer, no matter how low-profile, has any brains at all he/she will not sign away copyright, and will be under no obligation to do so.
That sort of thing was common and normal in the 60s (early Beatles - Michael Jackson wons those songs now), and still happened in the 70s (Bruce Springsteen - he unwittingly signed away his ownership in his early days, and subsequently stopped recording/performing for years waiting for his contract to expire - this is where he got his nickname), but if someone hasn't learned from the past, read their contract and understood it, not been overpowered by the 'gee-whiz' factor, not been drunk/stoned at the time and isn't a complete idiot, then they should still own their copyright. It wouldn't surprise me if there were some bands/artists who failed all the the above qualifications and got shafted with a bad contract, but then it could be argued that it's their own damned fault if that were the case.
Some writers sign publishing deals in which the publisher takes a cut from the royalties in exchange for services such as collecting royalties and getting songs into a paying position - again, it's a business deal, separate from a recording contract, so anyone signing a publishing contract should understand it fully.
Copyright royalties are The Big Money. That's why ownership is important, and anybody who even just pieces three chords together and trys to be taken seriously would/should know that.
I learned all this when I was involved in the music industry.
So, on a scale of one to ten, what would you say your level of surprise is that a common journalist hasn't gotten his/her facts entirely correct? Please circle below:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Not to get too far off topic, but the RIAA doesn't hold any copyrights. They represent the recording industry, which includes copyright holders, which in turn includes many of your favourite rock stars.
I just wanted to make sure things were clear.
I believe P2P is damaging to creative industries (entertainment, software, whatever), and I believe it is wrong, but making something even more illegal is not the solution. This is the same approach used in the spectacularly unsuccessful War On Drugs (and we all know about the Prohibition argument).
As a person who has worked in creative fields most of my life (whether music or other areas), and who understands the importance of copyright protection, I think this bill is a last gasp; the entertainment industry needs to change their approach to selling their product. The demand is very obviously there (otherwise this wouldn't be such a huge issue - it's just entertainment for pete's sake, and consumers act like their right to life is being snatched away), so if the business model is there (when I say business model, I mean not just the outlet for sales, but the whole business model, from top to bottom), the product can be made and sold at a profit.