But in any case, you're kind of right, downloading a high quality video for keeps is still an obscure technology at best. When they adopt a Steam-like video service I wouldn't buy into it either.
If quality was the key point in selling a format than why didn't LaserDisc take off?
I once posted that most of this "format war"s outcome didn't matter because the format would die a fast death anyway and this article only strengthens my belief in this. BluRay is the new LaserDisc. It's nice to have if you have the system to take advantage of the new format with and if you have the money to buy movies at a premium price but aside from that why bother.
The only good thing that BluRays has over LaserDisc in their respective timeframes is that you can still play DVDs on a BluRay player where as I couldn't play a VCR tape on my LD player. But that's it.
Actually, I was talking about activities that are looked on as "nerd" activities.
But since you mention it, the fact is that video games have been around in the public for roughly 30 years, that makes it transgenerational. And being part of that early wave of gamers I can tell you that there were just as many jocks and preps feeding their quarters into gaming machines as there were nerds. Hell, my 70-something (at the time) neighbor get a real blast out of Atari bowling. Btw, she was a girl gamer too! How very stereotypical...
Good Lord, talk about a distortion of what I said...
If I read you right I would agree that the majority of p2p users do not follow copyright as a whole. But they still do not make up a majority. Not even a majority of Americans are on the internet let alone using p2p. And even if they did there is no way that what the bulk of these people are doing is going to be legalized anytime soon. These people know this. Revision of copyright on the level that would need to be made to make most p2p downloads legal would never happen.
I'm going to ask a question and you may call me a troll for doing it but I really want a honest answer from you: Do you honestly think "the silent majority" gives a damn about copyright?
I just find it odd how many Slashdotters put high values on things that the real majority of people either don't care about or don't know about. What the odd part of it is isn't really the value they attribute to it but rather the idea that they think that our little community's interests somehow spread out far beyond these forums.
Yeah, for the first few albums. You can not tell me bands like Radiohead (since they're the darling band of all of slashdot even though their experiment has proven nothing at all) can't get what's coming to them.
Don't get me wrong, the industry is not fantastic. That's why bands need to be represented by a proper lawyer and understand the business before signing on the dotted line. If you read over the "article" by Courtney Love that is listed in this thread you'll see that for the tens of thousands of gambles the industry takes each year putting out an album a very small percentage of them are really profitable. Unfortunately Ms. Love doesn't look at the failures in her math, only the successes. New and unproven artists have to pay the price for this. This is the same reason that most jobs also have a probationary period in which a new employee gets paid less than the standard rate and sometimes get paid nothing to get their foot in the right doors. Everyone pays their dues on different levels.
Or do you really expect labels to foot every cent that the band spends on an album and pay the band a wage in the hopes that their album sells? Obviously the artists don't think that or they would go to an indy label that is much looser with their contracts but put a heavier load on the artists to do for themselves. Artists who are that legitimately concerned have a choice, the question is if they're up to the challenge involved.
Bands have a hand in their own future. The fact that they don't see it for what it is shouldn't be the record companies problem.
I know the knee-jerk reaction thing is a bit heavy around here but to proclaim that the RIAA hates concert sales because artists make money from them is a bit far fetched.
And as for bands who pump out multi-platinum albums who don't make a dime? I'd really like to see the books in that case. If it's true than there is so swamp land I want to offer these people. If you really have a serious fan base and you're not smart enough to go in and say "I sell records, I want a cut or you won't get any more recordings out of me" than you deserve whatever you get.
Do you honestly think that established artists who pre-sell in the hundreds of thousands of albums don't have negotiating power? Please. Now, there are cases where bands foot their own production costs and the band loses because they went over budget but even that is a rarity and somewhat of an unlikeliness today given the great reduction in costs as far as recording and mixing.
As people here keep saying about those "unfair" contracts, "they didn't have to sign". Well maybe, but there didn't used to be a lot of alternatives - the web is big enough now to make stars outside of the cartels' control.
Go tell that to Ian McKaye, Greg Ginn and Jello Biafra... just to name a few.
Eventually market forces will cut them down to where they earn their cut, by sponsoring, producing, investing, training, managing etc.
This is what they're doing already. The labels front money and use their skills and connections in promotion to help an artist along. Sure, these first few albums don't reap much for the artist but, honestly, how many times do you think labels have produced a couple albums for an artist who didn't even clear the initial investment? I use to spend a lot of time around a record store and worked there on and off, let me tell you, there are some serious losers that came in those boxes from the distributor. They also sent tons of promotional materials and by dealing with smaller artists who dealt on a consignment basis I can tell you that the labels are a big crutch. I know that recording has become cheaper by a great margin but the rest of what a label offers is hard to buy for a new artist. It's that simple.
Uh, guy, I've been dealing directly with artists for over 25 years. This is nothing new. Far from it. Even when I started doing it there was nothing new. These guys had their procedure down pat because it had existed for probably a couple of decades more than that, at least.
And I will say again, come back and discuss it once the labels are gone. It's going to transform music and it's not going to be for the better. If artists decide to work with this system, that's fine with me. My favorite band has abandoned labels and created their own and are buying their back catalog to maintain control over their works. It's a good move for them, but they're established. I don't see many non-established acts surviving the early turbulence of high output and low income.
So, good luck with whatever you think is going to happen. No price beats free and while fans support artists today once the generation of fans who never knew what it was to buy physical media takes on the bulk of musical patronage the whole thing is going to fall apart. Sure, some artists will take on the cause for their own personal amusement but they're not going to be able to pay the bills on it and that means that large tour circuits are going to die. It's that simple. I don't know if you know how much money it takes to put on even a small tour but most artists are either going to be unable to tour or unwilling to risk it.
So, as much as you think it's a victory to leave the RIAA behind the fact is that it's not really a question of the RIAA but a united artist voice to protect their product. Without that artists are going to be helpless victims to P2P. Shake your fist in anger all you want, you're helping to kill what you say you love.
Look at Radiohead's new album. Download it, then pay for it if you can, however much you think it is worth. It still made millions.
First off, unless you're in Radiohead, you don't know the number. They never said what they paid and all published numbers are based on speculation.
Secondly, it's not a real model. It's a known established band that got millions of dollars worth of promotion by way of the media. Had the media shut up about Radiohead's album exactly how many people would have bought it? My guess is not many considering the number of people here who said they were going to throw money at it even though they had no real interest in the music.
We're watching the dying throes of the music "industry" which has been humping musicians for a half century, but music isn't going anywhere my friend.
Yeah, we've been hearing this for years. I tell you what, when all the musicians finally leave the labels and the labels wilt up and die we will talk about what's left behind. For the moment even your over-praise Radiohead is still putting out physical media with the assistance of a label. Let's just hold off with the funeral dirge until we see the industry really die (if it even happens) and what remains.
For me? I agree with the OP, music is going to suffer for this, big time. Pop may do fine but bands that can not or will not tour are going to disappear. Good artists who actually take time to apply their craft are going to become fewer and fewer. Within a decade of the death of the music industry you'll no longer need venues of over 5000 for concerts for any band but the most established bands today. Within 20 years you won't even need that.
When both sides have the same message and the same tactics I guess you're the fool for believing either side is in the right all the time.
And in all honesty, the goings on of one or a small number of people within a party shouldn't sway you too far. If that was the case you wouldn't bother with politics at all.
As is the case with my in-car nav and DVD unit I can not view DVDs on the dash screen or enter the more complex options of the nav without having the e-break on. I can still tell my nav to plot a course home or cancel a route but I can't look up points of interest. The options that are open aren't much different than the use of a normal radio so where is the harm?
No, seriously, I'm not sure what you're hinting at but as much as I may not agree with Moore but he does have influence, for better or worse. Will his influence be enough to sway the a state or national election? Who knows. He may be able to get to that stature but if I were a Democrat it would be my desire to distance myself from the man. As much as he is influential I also think he does enough damage to push some fence sitters to the other side.
The man is pushing an agenda and people who normally don't listen to political mouthpieces are listening to him and buying into it. That's how it's working for him. Do you know the number of people I hear blab on about "He said..." and they act like it's fact simply because Moore said it?
Anytime you can bend the ears of millions of people by name recognition alone you've accomplished something. And the fact that he has gotten rich for being a raving maniac only proves how well it's working for him. There are tons of people who have tried the same route who have ended up looking like idiots and dead broke.
He, as an individual, may not have changed things on the large scale but he has money, power and a fanbase. He may not be the next Gandhi but he's far more influential than some of the people I see quoted here on a daily basis.
The thing is... it works for Mike Moore. I know it sounds odd but for all the lack of tact and massive asshattery he puts on people still buy his shit hook, line and sinker.
I think people's tolerance for being an asshole rises quickly when you do it in the name of the masses. People like Mike Moore because they think he's standing up for them because he puts on a very "common man" facade. And that's what really sucks about all of it. If it's bullshit when XYZ fucks around and annoys people it would be bullshit for anyone.
While I kind of understand what you mean what I find unfortunate about it all is the people here calling him one of a kind and such. I thought the idea of him devoting his last lecture to this kind of ideology was to hope that more would be like him. I think the people who see the last lecture as a testament of one man have missed the point.
I really wouldn't expect this kind of action out of a guy who built his entire living on annoying the public and ripping off the unwitting...
[/sarcasm]
The fact is that this guy was a half a step above a common thief. He probably had a serious feeling of entitlement and couldn't bear the fact that he had lost it all and would be forced to seek a legitimate job after his stay in the pen.
I feel bad for his family but he got what was coming to him. He was probably no different than most street thugs and we see this kind of violence in that community every day.
I can't speak for anyone else but in my area (Pittsburgh suburbs) most of the towns were built up around steel mills. Now, with most of the mills gone most of the good jobs are to be found in industrial parks. By the nature of business and real estate industrial parks are far from anyone. Acres and acres of land that has no real value unless you develop on it and it's not close enough to anyone else to have an future potential as far as a community expansion.
The number of IT jobs in my community of ~20k that pay as much as I'm making today could probably be counted on one hand. I'd still be over a mile from my house to any store. No theaters, no bookstores, no campuses, no music stores, one library.
There are only two buses that go to Pittsburgh each day (the closest bus-stop is still a mile from my house, no weekend service). I live about 15 miles from my job. If I wanted to go to Pittsburgh it would take me no less than 2 hours to make the 20 miles one-way commute by the bus line. Nearly an hour to make it to the industrial park my job is in and it doesn't even pass by my office so I'll be walking a couple miles back and forth. I would be commuting for 3 hours a day instead of my current 30 minutes commuting daily. The route I use for my commute doesn't allow non-motor vehicles. For me to bike it would be 20 miles one way in the Pennsylvania foothills and even that route is heavily used by autos.
Now, turn back the clock about 50 years and my community was a bit more rural in nature but about 2 miles away is the mill town. I could live there and have a good job working in a mill and up until about 30 years ago it had two movie theaters, stores of all kinds and frequent public transportation if I had the need to get into downtown Pittsburgh.
It's the nature of how business evolved in my area.
Slashdot Mirror
Put it along side the 100% unbreakable DRMs that were defeated with a Sharpie marker.
Damn it, that should read: "Until the adopt a Steam-like", not when.
Check your math, dude. 1000/6 = 166, not 41.
But in any case, you're kind of right, downloading a high quality video for keeps is still an obscure technology at best. When they adopt a Steam-like video service I wouldn't buy into it either.
If quality was the key point in selling a format than why didn't LaserDisc take off?
I once posted that most of this "format war"s outcome didn't matter because the format would die a fast death anyway and this article only strengthens my belief in this. BluRay is the new LaserDisc. It's nice to have if you have the system to take advantage of the new format with and if you have the money to buy movies at a premium price but aside from that why bother.
The only good thing that BluRays has over LaserDisc in their respective timeframes is that you can still play DVDs on a BluRay player where as I couldn't play a VCR tape on my LD player. But that's it.
Actually, I was talking about activities that are looked on as "nerd" activities.
But since you mention it, the fact is that video games have been around in the public for roughly 30 years, that makes it transgenerational. And being part of that early wave of gamers I can tell you that there were just as many jocks and preps feeding their quarters into gaming machines as there were nerds. Hell, my 70-something (at the time) neighbor get a real blast out of Atari bowling. Btw, she was a girl gamer too! How very stereotypical...
WoW has completely broken down the barriers of stereotyping and social class systems.
The stigma video games as a "nerd" activity is all but dead to my generation.
No, you just think that yours is the first generation to overcome these stereotypes. Don't worry, ever generation thinks the same thing.
WoW players have friends that aren't other WoW players? Who woulda thunk it?
Good Lord, talk about a distortion of what I said...
If I read you right I would agree that the majority of p2p users do not follow copyright as a whole. But they still do not make up a majority. Not even a majority of Americans are on the internet let alone using p2p. And even if they did there is no way that what the bulk of these people are doing is going to be legalized anytime soon. These people know this. Revision of copyright on the level that would need to be made to make most p2p downloads legal would never happen.
But there hasn't been anything truly revolutionary in the world of desktop software in a long time.
You obviously have not played Half-Life 2 is this is what you really think. It Roxzorzz!!!eleven111!1!
I'm going to ask a question and you may call me a troll for doing it but I really want a honest answer from you: Do you honestly think "the silent majority" gives a damn about copyright?
I just find it odd how many Slashdotters put high values on things that the real majority of people either don't care about or don't know about. What the odd part of it is isn't really the value they attribute to it but rather the idea that they think that our little community's interests somehow spread out far beyond these forums.
Yeah, for the first few albums. You can not tell me bands like Radiohead (since they're the darling band of all of slashdot even though their experiment has proven nothing at all) can't get what's coming to them.
Don't get me wrong, the industry is not fantastic. That's why bands need to be represented by a proper lawyer and understand the business before signing on the dotted line. If you read over the "article" by Courtney Love that is listed in this thread you'll see that for the tens of thousands of gambles the industry takes each year putting out an album a very small percentage of them are really profitable. Unfortunately Ms. Love doesn't look at the failures in her math, only the successes. New and unproven artists have to pay the price for this. This is the same reason that most jobs also have a probationary period in which a new employee gets paid less than the standard rate and sometimes get paid nothing to get their foot in the right doors. Everyone pays their dues on different levels.
Or do you really expect labels to foot every cent that the band spends on an album and pay the band a wage in the hopes that their album sells? Obviously the artists don't think that or they would go to an indy label that is much looser with their contracts but put a heavier load on the artists to do for themselves. Artists who are that legitimately concerned have a choice, the question is if they're up to the challenge involved.
Bands have a hand in their own future. The fact that they don't see it for what it is shouldn't be the record companies problem.
*DUCKS*
I know the knee-jerk reaction thing is a bit heavy around here but to proclaim that the RIAA hates concert sales because artists make money from them is a bit far fetched.
And as for bands who pump out multi-platinum albums who don't make a dime? I'd really like to see the books in that case. If it's true than there is so swamp land I want to offer these people. If you really have a serious fan base and you're not smart enough to go in and say "I sell records, I want a cut or you won't get any more recordings out of me" than you deserve whatever you get.
Do you honestly think that established artists who pre-sell in the hundreds of thousands of albums don't have negotiating power? Please. Now, there are cases where bands foot their own production costs and the band loses because they went over budget but even that is a rarity and somewhat of an unlikeliness today given the great reduction in costs as far as recording and mixing.
As people here keep saying about those "unfair" contracts, "they didn't have to sign". Well maybe, but there didn't used to be a lot of alternatives - the web is big enough now to make stars outside of the cartels' control.
Go tell that to Ian McKaye, Greg Ginn and Jello Biafra... just to name a few.
Eventually market forces will cut them down to where they earn their cut, by sponsoring, producing, investing, training, managing etc.
This is what they're doing already. The labels front money and use their skills and connections in promotion to help an artist along. Sure, these first few albums don't reap much for the artist but, honestly, how many times do you think labels have produced a couple albums for an artist who didn't even clear the initial investment? I use to spend a lot of time around a record store and worked there on and off, let me tell you, there are some serious losers that came in those boxes from the distributor. They also sent tons of promotional materials and by dealing with smaller artists who dealt on a consignment basis I can tell you that the labels are a big crutch. I know that recording has become cheaper by a great margin but the rest of what a label offers is hard to buy for a new artist. It's that simple.
Uh, guy, I've been dealing directly with artists for over 25 years. This is nothing new. Far from it. Even when I started doing it there was nothing new. These guys had their procedure down pat because it had existed for probably a couple of decades more than that, at least.
And I will say again, come back and discuss it once the labels are gone. It's going to transform music and it's not going to be for the better. If artists decide to work with this system, that's fine with me. My favorite band has abandoned labels and created their own and are buying their back catalog to maintain control over their works. It's a good move for them, but they're established. I don't see many non-established acts surviving the early turbulence of high output and low income.
So, good luck with whatever you think is going to happen. No price beats free and while fans support artists today once the generation of fans who never knew what it was to buy physical media takes on the bulk of musical patronage the whole thing is going to fall apart. Sure, some artists will take on the cause for their own personal amusement but they're not going to be able to pay the bills on it and that means that large tour circuits are going to die. It's that simple. I don't know if you know how much money it takes to put on even a small tour but most artists are either going to be unable to tour or unwilling to risk it.
So, as much as you think it's a victory to leave the RIAA behind the fact is that it's not really a question of the RIAA but a united artist voice to protect their product. Without that artists are going to be helpless victims to P2P. Shake your fist in anger all you want, you're helping to kill what you say you love.
Look at Radiohead's new album. Download it, then pay for it if you can, however much you think it is worth. It still made millions.
First off, unless you're in Radiohead, you don't know the number. They never said what they paid and all published numbers are based on speculation.
Secondly, it's not a real model. It's a known established band that got millions of dollars worth of promotion by way of the media. Had the media shut up about Radiohead's album exactly how many people would have bought it? My guess is not many considering the number of people here who said they were going to throw money at it even though they had no real interest in the music.
We're watching the dying throes of the music "industry" which has been humping musicians for a half century, but music isn't going anywhere my friend.
Yeah, we've been hearing this for years. I tell you what, when all the musicians finally leave the labels and the labels wilt up and die we will talk about what's left behind. For the moment even your over-praise Radiohead is still putting out physical media with the assistance of a label. Let's just hold off with the funeral dirge until we see the industry really die (if it even happens) and what remains.
For me? I agree with the OP, music is going to suffer for this, big time. Pop may do fine but bands that can not or will not tour are going to disappear. Good artists who actually take time to apply their craft are going to become fewer and fewer. Within a decade of the death of the music industry you'll no longer need venues of over 5000 for concerts for any band but the most established bands today. Within 20 years you won't even need that.
When both sides have the same message and the same tactics I guess you're the fool for believing either side is in the right all the time.
And in all honesty, the goings on of one or a small number of people within a party shouldn't sway you too far. If that was the case you wouldn't bother with politics at all.
That's if the vehicle is doing 70 MPH...
As is the case with my in-car nav and DVD unit I can not view DVDs on the dash screen or enter the more complex options of the nav without having the e-break on. I can still tell my nav to plot a course home or cancel a route but I can't look up points of interest. The options that are open aren't much different than the use of a normal radio so where is the harm?
Gandhi baked you a cake?
No, seriously, I'm not sure what you're hinting at but as much as I may not agree with Moore but he does have influence, for better or worse. Will his influence be enough to sway the a state or national election? Who knows. He may be able to get to that stature but if I were a Democrat it would be my desire to distance myself from the man. As much as he is influential I also think he does enough damage to push some fence sitters to the other side.
The man is pushing an agenda and people who normally don't listen to political mouthpieces are listening to him and buying into it. That's how it's working for him. Do you know the number of people I hear blab on about "He said..." and they act like it's fact simply because Moore said it?
Anytime you can bend the ears of millions of people by name recognition alone you've accomplished something. And the fact that he has gotten rich for being a raving maniac only proves how well it's working for him. There are tons of people who have tried the same route who have ended up looking like idiots and dead broke.
He, as an individual, may not have changed things on the large scale but he has money, power and a fanbase. He may not be the next Gandhi but he's far more influential than some of the people I see quoted here on a daily basis.
The thing is... it works for Mike Moore. I know it sounds odd but for all the lack of tact and massive asshattery he puts on people still buy his shit hook, line and sinker.
I think people's tolerance for being an asshole rises quickly when you do it in the name of the masses. People like Mike Moore because they think he's standing up for them because he puts on a very "common man" facade. And that's what really sucks about all of it. If it's bullshit when XYZ fucks around and annoys people it would be bullshit for anyone.
While I kind of understand what you mean what I find unfortunate about it all is the people here calling him one of a kind and such. I thought the idea of him devoting his last lecture to this kind of ideology was to hope that more would be like him. I think the people who see the last lecture as a testament of one man have missed the point.
Aye! Aye! Aye!
I volunteer to be part of this experiment. Infact, I will give it my all!
I really wouldn't expect this kind of action out of a guy who built his entire living on annoying the public and ripping off the unwitting...
[/sarcasm]
The fact is that this guy was a half a step above a common thief. He probably had a serious feeling of entitlement and couldn't bear the fact that he had lost it all and would be forced to seek a legitimate job after his stay in the pen.
I feel bad for his family but he got what was coming to him. He was probably no different than most street thugs and we see this kind of violence in that community every day.
I can't speak for anyone else but in my area (Pittsburgh suburbs) most of the towns were built up around steel mills. Now, with most of the mills gone most of the good jobs are to be found in industrial parks. By the nature of business and real estate industrial parks are far from anyone. Acres and acres of land that has no real value unless you develop on it and it's not close enough to anyone else to have an future potential as far as a community expansion.
The number of IT jobs in my community of ~20k that pay as much as I'm making today could probably be counted on one hand. I'd still be over a mile from my house to any store. No theaters, no bookstores, no campuses, no music stores, one library.
There are only two buses that go to Pittsburgh each day (the closest bus-stop is still a mile from my house, no weekend service). I live about 15 miles from my job. If I wanted to go to Pittsburgh it would take me no less than 2 hours to make the 20 miles one-way commute by the bus line. Nearly an hour to make it to the industrial park my job is in and it doesn't even pass by my office so I'll be walking a couple miles back and forth. I would be commuting for 3 hours a day instead of my current 30 minutes commuting daily. The route I use for my commute doesn't allow non-motor vehicles. For me to bike it would be 20 miles one way in the Pennsylvania foothills and even that route is heavily used by autos.
Now, turn back the clock about 50 years and my community was a bit more rural in nature but about 2 miles away is the mill town. I could live there and have a good job working in a mill and up until about 30 years ago it had two movie theaters, stores of all kinds and frequent public transportation if I had the need to get into downtown Pittsburgh.
It's the nature of how business evolved in my area.