But it won't stop people from trying to dump on the leader. What's really pathetic are the people talking about how their fantasy MMORPG is sooo much better than WoW, despite the numbers clearly proving it isn't.
Why aren't you making this argument every time that someone "dumps" on Windows, WalMart, Coors Lite, Britney Spears, McDonalds or a Chevy Cobalt?
Despite anything you might think anyone's favorite MMORPG or whatever is based on their opinion. Can someone come up to me and say that WoW is the best and I can say EQ2 is the best and both of us still be right? Absolutely. We choose what's right for ourselves in any particular place and time. Media like games, books and movies cater to target crowds. Maybe I'm just happier with EQ2's vision of the Drow? I don't know.
By the way.... 50,000,000 Elvis fans are wrong... at least for my tastes.
I don't remember even Mao or Stalin saying "kill these people because they aren't atheists". Both Mao and Stalin may have been atheists, but it wasn't atheism that drove their ideologies.
No, but you're taking my point out of the context that "evil" exists without the benefit of religion. While it comes across in a couple of posting and I can't blame you for not quoting the entire thread it still is the point of all of this.
Also note that religion doesn't nessacerily drive the ideologies of those in office who are of a particular religious persuasion. Or do you honestly think that a nation of overwhelmingly religious (mostly Christian) people would have legalized abortion? It's funny to hear people scream "theocracy" in the face of some of what is legal in the United States. So in this way it's extremely easy to see that what one believes doesn't nessacerily translate into what one would have made legal.
Find me an atheist dictator who said "non-atheists are inferior people and we should take away their rights, their lives and their property". There is, of course, no such thing, because there is no philosophy of hatred of other people that comes bundled with atheism.
While there may have been no outright genocide going on I'm sure that if you bother to take on even a cursory knowledge of Mao's Cultural Revolution you'll find more than enough evidence of people being killed, tortured and oppressed for having a religious belief not to mention the destruction of temples and churches and cultural relics that had religious value. So you may want to back up before making such sweeping statements.
You are of course correct, but they have tended to be the standard bearers.
Only because they're the originators of human conditioning. That only makes historical sense. So what about all the villainy done by atheists in the name of human progress? Mao and Stalin (both of whom killed more people in cold blood than Hitler) come to mind. What's your excuse for them?
Just to play devil advocate here, unregulated gambling can and does cause violent crime. Organized crime largely got a foothold due to this prohibition.
So what is better? State regulated gambling or an open kind of gambling where no one is accountable for anything? That's a hard question.
The answers to fixing life on our planet lies within ourselves and uses virtually no money. Why is it that people insist that throwing money at the big problems is the best solution when prevention via commonsense measures is the easiest and most affordable solution? Why do we need organizations like the government to steer us into what we already know is best for us?
Money is not a solution to the worlds problems! Maybe if you demand to live your current lifestyle with the devil-may-care attitude it is. Why not take the situation into our own hands instead of forcing others to lead us like lemmings or wasting generations of resources to find the easy cure to our over consumption and care free lifestyles?
Albums are the perfect example. There is no work of pop music that doesn't use some previous content in its production. The copyright protecting some material, but not other, is arbitrary to the art, even if it's convenient to the business. And since the art is the product, that hurts the business.
I pointed out a specific product and you couldn't find a reason that it hurts the business. That's the bottomline to me. Saying that it's convenient for a business to live off of the old (which means they're still profiting) but it's not as convenient for the artists so that makes it harmful to the business is plainly doublespeak.
More to the point, if that album could be shared without copyright limits after some reasonable time, its free distribution by fans would promote the other products. Like later albums still under copyright, like concert tickets, like T-shirts.
Actually, you're pretty much wrong in this case. Fugazi no longer tours. Nor do they make materials for commercial ventures outside of their albums. Maybe the album would get more interest in the band but that's also moot as Fugazi allows for plenty of free content outside of their handful of albums.
Just look at the music business overall. It's copyright obsessed, squeezing as much profits out of as limited access as possible, instead of just managing the wellspring of actual new creation. The more the business has been the business of restricting copying, including sharing among peers, the worse the product, and the less profitable.
The argument can be made, and has been made, just as easily that the ability to share among peers has made the product less profitable. Frankly, it's a much clearer and coherent statement than what I've read here.
FWIW, I just pointed out that licensing is an exception to copyright that proves the rule. That shouldn't be too confusing. BTW, who are "you guys"?
"You guys" are the guys who keep howling that copyright destroys artistic progress. You included business progress on that and it piqued my interests to a point. I still don't see what you're getting at and since you made another "[our point] shouldn't be too confusing" without offering a real explanation instead of just saying (again) that copyright hurts art/business I'm starting to doubt that there is a point to be made.
Give me an example of commercial content that doesn't reuse content that came before it (that isn't licensed or copywritten by the new author).
Well, as much as I really don't understand what the purpose of bringing up it's being licensed (these are the exact kind of things I wish you guys would get to the point over instead of acting like it's simple commonsense to everyone)...
Let's take Fugazi's Repeater album. How does copyright effect this album's ability to be a viable commercial product and a new creation since it used no other copyright protected material.
Lots of commercial content is produced by reusing content that came before it.
Such as? And is that really a good enough of an argument? I really don't see it that way. I can understand it in the frame of fair use but the outright use of a work to produce another work in it's entirety is a very shady interpretation of new content.
The negative effects of relying on copyright rather than creation can also be easily seen in the music industry, as well as other entertainment media. Especially when the copyright prevents the distribution of content whose free distribution is still monetized, like advertising, branding and promotion.
I'll be honest. I'm trying to get my head around this argument and it looks like the same argument in a different wording. If copying other artists is the big idea behind creating new art I don't know if I can really buy into it. I just don't see how this is causing harm to the music industry outside of the question of fair use.
I don't see how something can still have a marketable value and is under the protection of copyright can inhibit the creation of new art. Maybe I'm just dense. I would like to hear what else you have to say because I'd really like to understand where you guys are coming from but I really don't see examples of how not being able to copy another artists works inhibits creativity. It just sounds backwards to me.
Serious campaign finance reform is certainly in order and well overdue but I have serious concerns about not having some form of the fairness doctrine in place. Already the two big parties have too much weight both in dollars and media coverage to allow them to edge out serious competition. While contribution reform may help the situation there is more than one way to skin a cat and the media certainly is a part of this same corrupt system.
The recording artist should hold copyright to the recording rather than the record label, as it is now.
They would have that option if they didn't sell out. Basically what you're asking for is for the copyright owner not to have the ability to sell their copyright. What's so wrong with being able to sell the copyright to a work? It would be like not allowing inventors to sell a patent. It makes no real sense.
Any gamer knows that 2 hours is barely enough time to accomplish anything and if the console turns off after 2 hours of gameplay everyday its not a game anymore, its a chore.
The difference is that it's not the gamer buying the system in this case. Parents may find this reasonable.
It's just like the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
If parents hold this up as a solution, it will spread.
Promotions costs: Very few lesser bands get very much "promotions". Michael Jackson may get a $100 million dollars in promotions. But your average bands do not.
But the fact is that Radiohead got tons of promotions on this album. Maybe they weren't bought and paid for but are you telling me that msnbc.com is going to run a front page article (numerous front page articles, in fact) about every band that does this? Guess not since there is another guy in the thread who's band did the same thing with much much different results. It's still proof that promotion matters and that smaller bands can not afford it. Don't try to skirt the issue. It's not cute.
The thing about Napster & MP3.com was that they were self-promoting systems. With Napster, good or interesting music within a genre floated to the top. That is what this whole media war is about. The record labels are merely promotion machines. Who have controlled the music industry for decades. If you wanted any promotion you have to give 80%-90% of your profits to RIAA. This barrier got broken with the internet. Napster, MP3.com, online radio.
Really? Why is it that I was listening to and buying music from MP3.com back in 2000 but here we are in 07 and this is still considered the "new model" and is still considered unproven, and worse yet the examples we do have are largely failures for small indy bands?
Take iTunes. The break down was something like Apple gets 19 cents, the artist 10-14 cents. And the record label the rest of the 99 cents.
Again, it's numbers you can't confirm. I'm not saying they're wrong but I'm not going to jump at them either. Promotional and production costs still figure in and even with these numbers given it still is a damn sight better then you're original.25 -.50 USD per album claim.
For CDs, many artists never see any money except for their initial signing bonus and the CDs they sell on tour. The big RIAA labels tend to wheedle out & over deduct at every turn. When the actual cost of a CD to manufacture and deliver is about a $1. How do I know this? Because I've been involved in small scale CD projects and it worked out to a $1.50 for a 1,000 CD batch in jewel case with full color inserts - delivered. That was using a third party. Thanks to mass production, printing 500,000 CDs by a mega label with their own printing facilities equates to much less.
Again, quote your sources. I'm finding all of this very hard to believe. Considering that Steely Dan was one of the most profitable bands of the 70s and guess what? They only toured for two albums (and one time it was as an opening band!).
As for your "small scale CD projects". Yeah, the numbers make a bit of sense as I've been there too. But that delivery you speak of it to *you*. Music shops and the distribution system doesn't work in the same fashion (I've been part of those industries too). Large scale distribution is much different than me shipping a product to your home.
This isn't bullshit. Just ask the bands that aren't Michael Jackson, Metallica, or some other super-hit.
(Unfortunately I can't look at the link as I'm at work. Sorry).
You mean the same bands that would have to pay for their promotion up front and would be lucky to break even on an indy venture? You're still skirting the issue when you say shit like this because it still avoids the fact that Radiohead got tons of free promotion. It's not a very good experiment because of that in and of itself. But I guess it's easy to skirt the issues when you don't quote me point for point.
But RIAA knows it's business model is over. That's why it's trying to fight via buying off congressmen to pass new laws extending their control. In fact, RIAA stole every artist's right to royalties for web broadcasted radio. And very few bands will ever see any royalties from web radio as most are indies and just don't rack up enough plays for RIAA to consider it worth sending them a check. That said, RIAA collects for ever single play.
How can they steal every artist's right to royalties but still some of them will see the royalties? Your ramblings make no sense.
Care to site your source on this? I'm extremely skeptical of these kinds of numbers. It sounds like a bunch of made up noise to me. Also, don't forget what cut of that two dollars would have had to have been invested in promotional costs if Radiohead didn't have every news outlet putting it on their frontpage.
How many downloads do you really think this would have drummed up if no one outside of the normal Radiohead crowd knew about it? How many of them would have paid?
I was bringing this up as a point in one of the earlier Radiohead articles. There are so many here who are pointing to this as proof that record labels don't need to be involved. That's easy for an established band. Here, you've put in the same efforts and can hardly afford to buy a couple rounds of beer.
The "pay as you like" model will only work for known bands. Other bands won't see anything significant. It's simply not a good model. It needs heavy revision if it can work at all as the primary model for music sales.
Scoff if you will but I think in future years we're going to see more and more developers and such who get interview on Slashdot or elsewhere that their first dabbling in (*cough*) "code" (*cough*) was GeoCities and the like.
As much as some of us laughed about it back than (myself included) it's a damn sight more interesting and educational in comparison to MySpace.
Slashdot Mirror
But it won't stop people from trying to dump on the leader. What's really pathetic are the people talking about how their fantasy MMORPG is sooo much better than WoW, despite the numbers clearly proving it isn't.
Why aren't you making this argument every time that someone "dumps" on Windows, WalMart, Coors Lite, Britney Spears, McDonalds or a Chevy Cobalt?
Despite anything you might think anyone's favorite MMORPG or whatever is based on their opinion. Can someone come up to me and say that WoW is the best and I can say EQ2 is the best and both of us still be right? Absolutely. We choose what's right for ourselves in any particular place and time. Media like games, books and movies cater to target crowds. Maybe I'm just happier with EQ2's vision of the Drow? I don't know.
By the way.... 50,000,000 Elvis fans are wrong... at least for my tastes.
[knock at the door]
Police: Open this door! Thou art a felon wanted for many counts of villainy against the citizenry of this fair nation!
Dan: How now!? Am I to be jailed? What can I do but beg for the mercy of The Crown?!?!
[Dan weeps loudly]
[Viola music plays a sad song in the background]
[Dan slumps over a b0x3n]
Dan: I am ruined. Farewell, my tools of crime, for you are sure to meet a worse fate than I in our common traitorous endeavors.
[The door breaks in, an officer enters the room and grabs Dan by the shoulder with nightstick in hand]
[Fades to black]
Oh, you mean a different kind of dramatic. Sorry, sorry.
There obviously aren't enough HP fans on /.
What? I'm a big H.P. fan. Oh, you mean Harry Potter? Sorry, sorry... I was thinking of writer...
I don't remember even Mao or Stalin saying "kill these people because they aren't atheists". Both Mao and Stalin may have been atheists, but it wasn't atheism that drove their ideologies.
No, but you're taking my point out of the context that "evil" exists without the benefit of religion. While it comes across in a couple of posting and I can't blame you for not quoting the entire thread it still is the point of all of this.
Also note that religion doesn't nessacerily drive the ideologies of those in office who are of a particular religious persuasion. Or do you honestly think that a nation of overwhelmingly religious (mostly Christian) people would have legalized abortion? It's funny to hear people scream "theocracy" in the face of some of what is legal in the United States. So in this way it's extremely easy to see that what one believes doesn't nessacerily translate into what one would have made legal.
Find me an atheist dictator who said "non-atheists are inferior people and we should take away their rights, their lives and their property". There is, of course, no such thing, because there is no philosophy of hatred of other people that comes bundled with atheism.
While there may have been no outright genocide going on I'm sure that if you bother to take on even a cursory knowledge of Mao's Cultural Revolution you'll find more than enough evidence of people being killed, tortured and oppressed for having a religious belief not to mention the destruction of temples and churches and cultural relics that had religious value. So you may want to back up before making such sweeping statements.
You are of course correct, but they have tended to be the standard bearers.
Only because they're the originators of human conditioning. That only makes historical sense. So what about all the villainy done by atheists in the name of human progress? Mao and Stalin (both of whom killed more people in cold blood than Hitler) come to mind. What's your excuse for them?
dontmodmedownbro
Any idea to the contrary is little more than the standard religious doctrine of 'hate that which is different'
Yeah, because hatred doesn't exist outside of religion. [rolling of eyes]
Just to play devil advocate here, unregulated gambling can and does cause violent crime. Organized crime largely got a foothold due to this prohibition.
So what is better? State regulated gambling or an open kind of gambling where no one is accountable for anything? That's a hard question.
Does anyone have a link to the full text of the book so we can judge for ourselves?
Tens of thousands more would follow because they'd want the latest gadget.
Those people will still be bitter (and enslaved to a contract) after getting screwed by Steve Jobs.
From the blurb: "Speaking with his usual frustrated crankiness John Dvorak rants..."
Is "frustrated crankiness" the new corporate-speak for "stupid jackass ways"?
how about we fix life on ours
The answers to fixing life on our planet lies within ourselves and uses virtually no money. Why is it that people insist that throwing money at the big problems is the best solution when prevention via commonsense measures is the easiest and most affordable solution? Why do we need organizations like the government to steer us into what we already know is best for us?
Money is not a solution to the worlds problems! Maybe if you demand to live your current lifestyle with the devil-may-care attitude it is. Why not take the situation into our own hands instead of forcing others to lead us like lemmings or wasting generations of resources to find the easy cure to our over consumption and care free lifestyles?
Albums are the perfect example. There is no work of pop music that doesn't use some previous content in its production. The copyright protecting some material, but not other, is arbitrary to the art, even if it's convenient to the business. And since the art is the product, that hurts the business.
I pointed out a specific product and you couldn't find a reason that it hurts the business. That's the bottomline to me. Saying that it's convenient for a business to live off of the old (which means they're still profiting) but it's not as convenient for the artists so that makes it harmful to the business is plainly doublespeak.
More to the point, if that album could be shared without copyright limits after some reasonable time, its free distribution by fans would promote the other products. Like later albums still under copyright, like concert tickets, like T-shirts.
Actually, you're pretty much wrong in this case. Fugazi no longer tours. Nor do they make materials for commercial ventures outside of their albums. Maybe the album would get more interest in the band but that's also moot as Fugazi allows for plenty of free content outside of their handful of albums.
Just look at the music business overall. It's copyright obsessed, squeezing as much profits out of as limited access as possible, instead of just managing the wellspring of actual new creation. The more the business has been the business of restricting copying, including sharing among peers, the worse the product, and the less profitable.
The argument can be made, and has been made, just as easily that the ability to share among peers has made the product less profitable. Frankly, it's a much clearer and coherent statement than what I've read here.
FWIW, I just pointed out that licensing is an exception to copyright that proves the rule. That shouldn't be too confusing. BTW, who are "you guys"?
"You guys" are the guys who keep howling that copyright destroys artistic progress. You included business progress on that and it piqued my interests to a point. I still don't see what you're getting at and since you made another "[our point] shouldn't be too confusing" without offering a real explanation instead of just saying (again) that copyright hurts art/business I'm starting to doubt that there is a point to be made.
The article has little or no point. We are, again, a victim of the firehose.
An article is submitted to the firehose that mentions "cool cutting edge technology" and is American bashing. What do you think the outcome will be?
The articles voted up due to the firehose are probably as well examined as most others are by posters who lead their posts with "I did not RTFA".
Give me an example of commercial content that doesn't reuse content that came before it (that isn't licensed or copywritten by the new author).
Well, as much as I really don't understand what the purpose of bringing up it's being licensed (these are the exact kind of things I wish you guys would get to the point over instead of acting like it's simple commonsense to everyone)...
Let's take Fugazi's Repeater album. How does copyright effect this album's ability to be a viable commercial product and a new creation since it used no other copyright protected material.
Lots of commercial content is produced by reusing content that came before it.
Such as? And is that really a good enough of an argument? I really don't see it that way. I can understand it in the frame of fair use but the outright use of a work to produce another work in it's entirety is a very shady interpretation of new content.
The negative effects of relying on copyright rather than creation can also be easily seen in the music industry, as well as other entertainment media. Especially when the copyright prevents the distribution of content whose free distribution is still monetized, like advertising, branding and promotion.
I'll be honest. I'm trying to get my head around this argument and it looks like the same argument in a different wording. If copying other artists is the big idea behind creating new art I don't know if I can really buy into it. I just don't see how this is causing harm to the music industry outside of the question of fair use.
I don't see how something can still have a marketable value and is under the protection of copyright can inhibit the creation of new art. Maybe I'm just dense. I would like to hear what else you have to say because I'd really like to understand where you guys are coming from but I really don't see examples of how not being able to copy another artists works inhibits creativity. It just sounds backwards to me.
Serious campaign finance reform is certainly in order and well overdue but I have serious concerns about not having some form of the fairness doctrine in place. Already the two big parties have too much weight both in dollars and media coverage to allow them to edge out serious competition. While contribution reform may help the situation there is more than one way to skin a cat and the media certainly is a part of this same corrupt system.
Copyright has gone so far out of whack that it threatens both the commerce
How do you feel that copyright threatens commerce?
The recording artist should hold copyright to the recording rather than the record label, as it is now.
They would have that option if they didn't sell out. Basically what you're asking for is for the copyright owner not to have the ability to sell their copyright. What's so wrong with being able to sell the copyright to a work? It would be like not allowing inventors to sell a patent. It makes no real sense.
Any gamer knows that 2 hours is barely enough time to accomplish anything and if the console turns off after 2 hours of gameplay everyday its not a game anymore, its a chore.
The difference is that it's not the gamer buying the system in this case. Parents may find this reasonable.
It's just like the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
If parents hold this up as a solution, it will spread.
Promotions costs: Very few lesser bands get very much "promotions". Michael Jackson may get a $100 million dollars in promotions. But your average bands do not.
.25 - .50 USD per album claim.
But the fact is that Radiohead got tons of promotions on this album. Maybe they weren't bought and paid for but are you telling me that msnbc.com is going to run a front page article (numerous front page articles, in fact) about every band that does this? Guess not since there is another guy in the thread who's band did the same thing with much much different results. It's still proof that promotion matters and that smaller bands can not afford it. Don't try to skirt the issue. It's not cute.
The thing about Napster & MP3.com was that they were self-promoting systems. With Napster, good or interesting music within a genre floated to the top. That is what this whole media war is about. The record labels are merely promotion machines. Who have controlled the music industry for decades. If you wanted any promotion you have to give 80%-90% of your profits to RIAA. This barrier got broken with the internet. Napster, MP3.com, online radio.
Really? Why is it that I was listening to and buying music from MP3.com back in 2000 but here we are in 07 and this is still considered the "new model" and is still considered unproven, and worse yet the examples we do have are largely failures for small indy bands?
Take iTunes. The break down was something like Apple gets 19 cents, the artist 10-14 cents. And the record label the rest of the 99 cents.
Again, it's numbers you can't confirm. I'm not saying they're wrong but I'm not going to jump at them either. Promotional and production costs still figure in and even with these numbers given it still is a damn sight better then you're original
For CDs, many artists never see any money except for their initial signing bonus and the CDs they sell on tour. The big RIAA labels tend to wheedle out & over deduct at every turn. When the actual cost of a CD to manufacture and deliver is about a $1. How do I know this? Because I've been involved in small scale CD projects and it worked out to a $1.50 for a 1,000 CD batch in jewel case with full color inserts - delivered. That was using a third party. Thanks to mass production, printing 500,000 CDs by a mega label with their own printing facilities equates to much less.
Again, quote your sources. I'm finding all of this very hard to believe. Considering that Steely Dan was one of the most profitable bands of the 70s and guess what? They only toured for two albums (and one time it was as an opening band!).
As for your "small scale CD projects". Yeah, the numbers make a bit of sense as I've been there too. But that delivery you speak of it to *you*. Music shops and the distribution system doesn't work in the same fashion (I've been part of those industries too). Large scale distribution is much different than me shipping a product to your home.
This isn't bullshit. Just ask the bands that aren't Michael Jackson, Metallica, or some other super-hit.
(Unfortunately I can't look at the link as I'm at work. Sorry).
You mean the same bands that would have to pay for their promotion up front and would be lucky to break even on an indy venture? You're still skirting the issue when you say shit like this because it still avoids the fact that Radiohead got tons of free promotion. It's not a very good experiment because of that in and of itself. But I guess it's easy to skirt the issues when you don't quote me point for point.
But RIAA knows it's business model is over. That's why it's trying to fight via buying off congressmen to pass new laws extending their control. In fact, RIAA stole every artist's right to royalties for web broadcasted radio. And very few bands will ever see any royalties from web radio as most are indies and just don't rack up enough plays for RIAA to consider it worth sending them a check. That said, RIAA collects for ever single play.
How can they steal every artist's right to royalties but still some of them will see the royalties? Your ramblings make no sense.
Care to site your source on this? I'm extremely skeptical of these kinds of numbers. It sounds like a bunch of made up noise to me. Also, don't forget what cut of that two dollars would have had to have been invested in promotional costs if Radiohead didn't have every news outlet putting it on their frontpage.
How many downloads do you really think this would have drummed up if no one outside of the normal Radiohead crowd knew about it? How many of them would have paid?
I was bringing this up as a point in one of the earlier Radiohead articles. There are so many here who are pointing to this as proof that record labels don't need to be involved. That's easy for an established band. Here, you've put in the same efforts and can hardly afford to buy a couple rounds of beer.
The "pay as you like" model will only work for known bands. Other bands won't see anything significant. It's simply not a good model. It needs heavy revision if it can work at all as the primary model for music sales.
Our toddler does this with the cats when they are passed out on the floor.
Passed out? What the hell are you putting in their water dish?
Yeah, this is what I'm talking about.
Scoff if you will but I think in future years we're going to see more and more developers and such who get interview on Slashdot or elsewhere that their first dabbling in (*cough*) "code" (*cough*) was GeoCities and the like.
As much as some of us laughed about it back than (myself included) it's a damn sight more interesting and educational in comparison to MySpace.