Re:Creator's rights and copying technologies
on
Ask Neil Gaiman
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I was referring specifically, and with a dollop of irony, to that particularly bilious quote I lifted from his website.
Having said that, I do number Harlan Ellison among my faves, if for no other reason than when I first started reading fantasy and science fiction (what's it been now... 30 years ago... Yipes!) his was the first prose I had seen that managed to both place speculative fiction in "the real world" and utilize "real world" characters in speculative settings. Of course, that's all SOP these days with guys like Gaiman, but the closest I had ever come to a fantasy anti-hero back then was Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone (who likewise enthralled me) so Ellison made quite the impression.
But, I repeat, the whole business model depends on special legislation, imposed on the public by corrupt politicians using shady political campaign financing. I'm being convinced that it's the duty of any ethical person to copy and distribute whatever content will hurt the media companies. Even if it's against the law, just like it was the duty of any ethical person in nazi German to help the jews, even if it was against the law.
Ohhhh, maaaan! I wish you would have told me you were a nut at the beginning of this thread so many hours ago, I would have gotten so much more work done today...
sheesh.
Re:Creator's rights and copying technologies
on
Ask Neil Gaiman
·
· Score: 3, Funny
However, currently, illegal distribution of copyrighted texts has not nearly reached the level of mp3/film/apps/games sharing.
I think that's because you have to be able to *read* to want to steal a book. The bar of entry for music/film/game piracy is not set so high...
Re:Creator's rights and copying technologies
on
Ask Neil Gaiman
·
· Score: 1
An excerpt that will no doubt leave Slashdotters hankering for more:
"Why should any artist, of any kind, continue creating new work, eking out an existence in pursuit of a career, following the muse, when little Internet thieves, rodents without ethic or understanding, steal and steal and steal, conveniencing themselves and "screw the author"? What we're looking at is the death of the professional writer!"
Love him or hate him, ya gotta admit, the man DO know how to turn a phrase...
...how much control do you want to let content owners have over their work after it has been distributed, in order to maximize its utility to the general society?
More than they have without any kind of DRM, that's for sure. Look, people can argue over whether it should be three years, seven years, eleven years, or a hundred years, but clearly an artist who does not perform -- say, an author, for example -- needs some form of protection against some yahoo scanning his new book and posting it on a website. To argue otherwise isn't just anti-IP, it's anti-Artist.
Sure, the suit-clad distributors would like to make a consumer pay each time he hears a song or re-reads a book, and that's a crazy extreme. On the other crazy extreme side are the guys who want to be able to manufacture and market Buffy the Vampire Slayer lingerie without any prior business arrangements with Joss Whedon. There's an in-between somewhere, and if one acknowledges this, then it follows one must also acknowledge the value of a DRM mechanism with fine and wide granualrity that would ideally be artist-controlled.
Well, capitalism would work if people had a brain (i.e. then people wouldn't buy that J.Carry or B. Spears crap) and there would not be any envy...
Lookit here, another guy who's never been 10 years old!
It's not the pandering to juvenile tastes that skews the curve, it's the odd fact that teens and pre-teens have such deep access to such "disposable" cash. These Pop Stars are created in the factory because the young audience to whom they appeal are such big consumers. Then they get older, get off the parental dole, start paying off their student loans, struggle to put gas in their first car, have less money to spend in the mall, and wonder why their (newly-matured) tastes in music and film aren't being catered to.
Well, Duh! If I'm a "Star Maker," do I invest millions of dollars and hours to create the next Brittany Spears (whose fans will buy her backpacks, calendars, and magazines) or do I invent the next King Crimson?
As I've said elsewhere, don't confuse ot equate manufactured Pop Phenomena with "regular" artists.
Tech People, when they are really good, they get stock options.
Tech people, when they are really good, incorporate themselves. So long as you work-for-hire, whether as a tech or an artist, you aren't a "superstar." Most techs aren't superstars; neither are most artists.
A Popular artist becomes popular because she's popular, not because she has any merit. Same in the tech world. You need look no further than personal computer operating systems. But I would ask you not to confuse what goes into Milli Vanilli or Brittany or The Monkees or the current wave of pop-punk bands with the Berliner Philarmoniker simply because they all make "music," just as I would ask you not to confuse Harlan Ellison with Jim Baen's stable because the all write science fiction.
Pop music is an industry that creates Entertainment Phenomena, not necessarily musicians. And there is nothing wrong with that. If you like it, there is a price to pay for enjoying it, which (it should come as no surprise) is considerably higher than the Greatest Hits Collection you purchase directly from your local band after their show at the coffeehouse downtown. The local bands are better musicians than Brittany, but they are not as big pop stars. Being a Pop Star pays better than being a good musician. Does that surprise you?
Why did Mariah Carey get paid $30 million or so for not selling enough CDs? Why didn't her contract have a penalty clause allowing the recording company to rescind based on insufficient sales?
Negotiation. I'm sure the record company's original contract was far more onerous than what they settled for. But they bet (incorrectly) on making a bundle on Mariah, and gave her a sweet deal at the risk of losing her. That's, as they say, Show Business.
In a capitalist economy, only the bottom line should matter in a corporation. It should not matter if the income is from selling CDs or shock absorbers, the reward for those responsible should hold the same proportion to the overall profit.
If the artist is really, really, good, he will be able to negotiate a better deal, all based upon the promise that the entity with whom he is contracting will profit -- how will a deal with that artist will benefit their bottom line. If an engineer is really really good, I would imagine he would not allow himself to get stuck in some work-for-hire situation where he could not profit proportionately from the re-sale of his ideas, designs, etc. The tech world is filled with smart guys who cut "Mariah-like" deals for themselves; you just don't read about them because Larry Ellison's picture on the cover won't sell many copies of People Magazine.
Why does Jim Carrey command $20 mil per picture? Because his presence in the flick can be the difference between the studio grossing $100 mil or $30 mil. People pay to see him; they don't pay to see the work of the gaffers and the guy who re-compiles the kernal in the CGI render-farm.
People pay to watch the quarterback; they don't come to the stadium to watch the offensive coach map out a strategy.
And (Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment), why should Larry Ellison be rich? Because he had a "vision" about relational databases? BORING!!
On the other hand... artists -- the "superstars" of whom you are envious -- usually are only as good as their last creation. They don't have weeks when their boss goes on vacation and they can "coast," etc.
But this isn't about Jim Carrey or Harlan Ellison or Britany Spears; it's about the vast, vast majority of actors and writers and musicians who aren't neccessarily getting a check (no matter how hard they have worked/not worked) on Friday. I'm for giving them the tools to figure out how best to market themselves. For these people, there should be some middle-ground, with various granularities of control, between latching onto aome RIAA/Hollywood/Major Publishing House behemoth and just "giving it away" on a website. I see this next gen of DRM as providing that.
It wasn't all that long ago that artists where happy for people to hear their work, because if it was good enough more people would pay to see them, and that would keep the food on the table
And many artists still fall into that category. But some artists either don't tour or have limited promotional tours because their music doesn't translate over well "live." (Or do the trance/techno/post-modern-post-production guys not count?)
Then, of course, there are the other artists -- authors, movie-makers, for example -- for whom making a living by charging an audience to experience them "creating" has never been a viable option.
An artist should be able to say, "Look, I made something, here's a free sample; want more? Pay me this amount. Too high? Buy something else from someone else." The extent of the free sample, and the means whereby that free sampling is distributed, should be up to the artist or the artist's distributor/publisher/marketing guru. Some artists have concluded that extensive free samples is good for their business, others have a decidely different perspective. The point being, it is the artists' decision re how hs stuff is disseminated, not yours or mine.
Now, the artists under Jim Baen's imprimatur are in a league apart from the venerable Mr. Ellison, and as such I suspect (actually, I know) that both of their very different strokes are right for both camps. Phish is not Kraftwerk is not Al Stewart; one style of distribution, either completely open or traditionally restrictive, won't work perfectly for all.
Jeez, I thought we grew out of this notion five years ago. I guess as a new generation discovers the Internet, we have to go through the drill over and over. Fair enough.
Information *IS* free. But Entertainment is not, never has been. Because I can render entertainment as data, clone it, and/or easily disseminate it doesn't mean I should. It most certainly does not mean I have a God-given and constitutionally-protected "right" to entertainment.
The Big Problem has always been: What type of technology will allow us to simultaneously protect a consumer's right to Fair Use while preventing him from illegally distributing the entertainment he has purchased? *Everybody* is working on this; if Sony is finally announcing some progress, my only question is "What took you so long?"
Why is it that all interviews online are posted as question, answer, question, answer... Why not do what grown up journalists do and actually write something?
Because most online tech-site interviewers are *not* "grown up journalists," or even writers, and their operations are in fact run on shoe-string budgets which do not provide for in-person interviews. Consequently, when the interview is being conducted over the phone, through IM, or across several e-mail sessions, it's kinda tough to get a feel for what type of sofa upon which the interviewee is sitting.
Note, too, that most of the readers of tech-site interviews are not as discerning as you. They are looking for "news" or "answers" -- and quickly. No one browses OSNews in anticipation of savoring the linguistic bons mots of some proto-Hemingway.
Although one would not know this from reading Slashdot, most teens are not over-educated anti-social punks. Teens want to be popular more than anything else; if goods have a price, they'll pay it. The problem -- from the RIAA's perspective -- has been that file-sharing became socially-acceptable to the point where a new generation of pre-teens just thought "that's the way you get music."
Loud, Page One lawsuits like the one we have been discussing do a lot towards turning the attitude of "But Everybody's doing it!" into one of "Um, maybe we shouldn't be doing this..."
They'd be happier if CD's -- and the concept of "purchase by album" -- remained popular, but that boat has already pulled away from the pier. Now, they *have* to have a viable song-by-download business model; in the final analysis, THAT is the true legacy of Napster.
I'm writing in English; what language are you reading in?
The girl could swear off music for life as a result of ths trauma, cut out her tongue, puncture her eardrums and join a convent in Switzerland. Or she could be driven insane and buy a CD a day for the rest of her life. My point here is that the purchases of this individual person are less than a fraction of a drop in a bucket of rounding errors to the RIAA.
But -- Big Picture -- the message it sends to kids and their parents is PRICELESS.
Start thinking more like a global cartel and less like a clerk working in your uncle's hardware store. The RIAA recognizes that the future is not CD sales, but digital transfers. They have been late in establishing legitimate means of digital commerce, and as result, it became socially acceptable (forget "legal" for a minute) for people who were not agents of the RIAA to distribute these files. Now they are busy as bees attempting to reinsert the genie into the bottle; their to-do list looks something like this:
1. Get a major brand known for its tech-hipness and consumer-friendliness to partner on a download service. --- Status: Done ----
2. Establish as anti-social(dangerous, too much hassle) behavior the use of non-sanctioned "free" services for music downloading. --- Status: In Progress ---
In truth, your generation of 20-somethings is already lost to them. Might as well try and convince my father's generation that cigarettes were bad. But the next gen -- that's fertile territory. And, long term, pre-teens' allegiance to the new pay services and their abandoning of the ways of their big brothers and sisters are what will "make money" for the RIAA, not whether or not some kid they sue stays a customer or not.
Um, what do they care about that? Of course they care. The pre-teen music market is HUGE. The kids are going to get their music one way or another; if they don't download it for free, they are going to download it for a fee or buy the CD.
As for the "legitimate" market of music downloading: iTunes just cleared it's - what? -- 10 millionth song at a buck a song? And the RIAA's members' take of that was...? You may believe that P2P downloads do not cannibalize CD sales, but you cannot possibly feel that it would have no effect on the burgeoning legit download sites.
Considering all that Apple has invested in its music service, you can pretty much be assured that Jobs is actively pressuring the music industry to do its damndest to shut down its "illegal" competition.
Now I wonder how much music this girl will actually buy (and influence her friends to buy) as she enters her prime music consumer years.
Hardly an issue, from the RIAA's perspective.
The real question is, "how much music will this girl ever download again -- and influence her friends never to download again?"
And the parents? You think your average parent of a twelve year old is up on the righteousness (or lack of same) vis-a-vis music downloading? Not one whit. But what this story does do is get them all running to have a sit-down with their children to discuss whether or not they have downloaded music on their Dells, and instruct them never to do it again. Why? Is it illegal, immoral? mmmmmaybe, maybe not, but you can be damn sure they don't want to be on the front page of the Post...
Guys, remember, always: SlashDot and the popular views expressed hereon are FAR from the mainstream. EVERY single one of us here could never ever buy a CD again, and take turns urinating on the steps of the Sony building, and it would mean jack-all to the RIAA if they could convince a FRACTION of the current generation of pre-teen parents to "properly educate" their kids re downloading.
For those here saying this is bad PR for the RIAA, I say just the opposite. The RIAA does not want to be loved; in fact, the artists and labels are paying them to take the heat so they don't have to. The RIAA wants to be feared, and if they are not feared, they at least want to become so annoying that your average kid sez, "My parents are hassling me, my school is hassling me... y'know what, it just ain't worth it. I'll go to iTunes (or wherever) to download music." It is clearly no accident that the real pogroms have begun only after a certain critical mass of legal download music sources have been established. (And it's interesting to note that the "meaner" the RIAA gets, the richer Apple's coffers are likely to become; there's a "slashdot moral dilemma" for you, eh?)
it would be the coolest thing if RedHat decided to help a school
In fact there was a small city in the mid-west that was scheduled to build a Linux school. But when the school-board realized that by the time they resolved all the dependencies it would be time to graduate, they dropped the idea.
Another Gnu/Linux Grammar School broke ground in Seattle about six years ago. Known as K-12, the project's gotten stalled as the masons and carpenters juggle its construction with the demands of their paying jobs. I understand the foundation is "stable," however.
Unfortunately, there is now some confusion in the community due to a fork of the school that has just broken ground across the street from the original. Called P.S. YALGS (Yet Another Linux Grammar School), the project is currently seeking carpenters, masons, administrators, and teachers; no professional experience neccessary.
Thanks for the math, but what you really need to do is work on the Reading Comprehension. I reference that games are a superior value to movie DVD's in my original post.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I was referring specifically, and with a dollop of irony, to that particularly bilious quote I lifted from his website.
Having said that, I do number Harlan Ellison among my faves, if for no other reason than when I first started reading fantasy and science fiction (what's it been now... 30 years ago... Yipes!) his was the first prose I had seen that managed to both place speculative fiction in "the real world" and utilize "real world" characters in speculative settings. Of course, that's all SOP these days with guys like Gaiman, but the closest I had ever come to a fantasy anti-hero back then was Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone (who likewise enthralled me) so Ellison made quite the impression.
But, I repeat, the whole business model depends on special legislation, imposed on the public by corrupt politicians using shady political campaign financing. I'm being convinced that it's the duty of any ethical person to copy and distribute whatever content will hurt the media companies. Even if it's against the law, just like it was the duty of any ethical person in nazi German to help the jews, even if it was against the law.
Ohhhh, maaaan! I wish you would have told me you were a nut at the beginning of this thread so many hours ago, I would have gotten so much more work done today...
sheesh.
However, currently, illegal distribution of copyrighted texts has not nearly reached the level of mp3/film/apps/games sharing.
I think that's because you have to be able to *read* to want to steal a book. The bar of entry for music/film/game piracy is not set so high...
An excerpt that will no doubt leave Slashdotters hankering for more:
Love him or hate him, ya gotta admit, the man DO know how to turn a phrase...
...how much control do you want to let content owners have over their work after it has been distributed, in order to maximize its utility to the general society?
More than they have without any kind of DRM, that's for sure. Look, people can argue over whether it should be three years, seven years, eleven years, or a hundred years, but clearly an artist who does not perform -- say, an author, for example -- needs some form of protection against some yahoo scanning his new book and posting it on a website. To argue otherwise isn't just anti-IP, it's anti-Artist.
Sure, the suit-clad distributors would like to make a consumer pay each time he hears a song or re-reads a book, and that's a crazy extreme. On the other crazy extreme side are the guys who want to be able to manufacture and market Buffy the Vampire Slayer lingerie without any prior business arrangements with Joss Whedon. There's an in-between somewhere, and if one acknowledges this, then it follows one must also acknowledge the value of a DRM mechanism with fine and wide granualrity that would ideally be artist-controlled.
Well, capitalism would work if people had a brain (i.e. then people wouldn't buy that J.Carry or B. Spears crap) and there would not be any envy...
Lookit here, another guy who's never been 10 years old!
It's not the pandering to juvenile tastes that skews the curve, it's the odd fact that teens and pre-teens have such deep access to such "disposable" cash. These Pop Stars are created in the factory because the young audience to whom they appeal are such big consumers. Then they get older, get off the parental dole, start paying off their student loans, struggle to put gas in their first car, have less money to spend in the mall, and wonder why their (newly-matured) tastes in music and film aren't being catered to.
Well, Duh! If I'm a "Star Maker," do I invest millions of dollars and hours to create the next Brittany Spears (whose fans will buy her backpacks, calendars, and magazines) or do I invent the next King Crimson?
As I've said elsewhere, don't confuse ot equate manufactured Pop Phenomena with "regular" artists.
Tech People, when they are really good, they get stock options.
Tech people, when they are really good, incorporate themselves. So long as you work-for-hire, whether as a tech or an artist, you aren't a "superstar." Most techs aren't superstars; neither are most artists.
A Popular artist becomes popular because she's popular, not because she has any merit. Same in the tech world. You need look no further than personal computer operating systems. But I would ask you not to confuse what goes into Milli Vanilli or Brittany or The Monkees or the current wave of pop-punk bands with the Berliner Philarmoniker simply because they all make "music," just as I would ask you not to confuse Harlan Ellison with Jim Baen's stable because the all write science fiction.
Pop music is an industry that creates Entertainment Phenomena, not necessarily musicians. And there is nothing wrong with that. If you like it, there is a price to pay for enjoying it, which (it should come as no surprise) is considerably higher than the Greatest Hits Collection you purchase directly from your local band after their show at the coffeehouse downtown. The local bands are better musicians than Brittany, but they are not as big pop stars. Being a Pop Star pays better than being a good musician. Does that surprise you?
Why did Mariah Carey get paid $30 million or so for not selling enough CDs? Why didn't her contract have a penalty clause allowing the recording company to rescind based on insufficient sales?
Negotiation. I'm sure the record company's original contract was far more onerous than what they settled for. But they bet (incorrectly) on making a bundle on Mariah, and gave her a sweet deal at the risk of losing her. That's, as they say, Show Business.
In a capitalist economy, only the bottom line should matter in a corporation. It should not matter if the income is from selling CDs or shock absorbers, the reward for those responsible should hold the same proportion to the overall profit.
If the artist is really, really, good, he will be able to negotiate a better deal, all based upon the promise that the entity with whom he is contracting will profit -- how will a deal with that artist will benefit their bottom line. If an engineer is really really good, I would imagine he would not allow himself to get stuck in some work-for-hire situation where he could not profit proportionately from the re-sale of his ideas, designs, etc. The tech world is filled with smart guys who cut "Mariah-like" deals for themselves; you just don't read about them because Larry Ellison's picture on the cover won't sell many copies of People Magazine.
Also, why should artists be millionaires?
Ahhhh, Class Envy. Now I begin to understand...
Why does Jim Carrey command $20 mil per picture? Because his presence in the flick can be the difference between the studio grossing $100 mil or $30 mil. People pay to see him; they don't pay to see the work of the gaffers and the guy who re-compiles the kernal in the CGI render-farm.
People pay to watch the quarterback; they don't come to the stadium to watch the offensive coach map out a strategy.
And (Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment), why should Larry Ellison be rich? Because he had a "vision" about relational databases? BORING!!
On the other hand... artists -- the "superstars" of whom you are envious -- usually are only as good as their last creation. They don't have weeks when their boss goes on vacation and they can "coast," etc.
But this isn't about Jim Carrey or Harlan Ellison or Britany Spears; it's about the vast, vast majority of actors and writers and musicians who aren't neccessarily getting a check (no matter how hard they have worked/not worked) on Friday. I'm for giving them the tools to figure out how best to market themselves. For these people, there should be some middle-ground, with various granularities of control, between latching onto aome RIAA/Hollywood/Major Publishing House behemoth and just "giving it away" on a website. I see this next gen of DRM as providing that.
It wasn't all that long ago that artists where happy for people to hear their work, because if it was good enough more people would pay to see them, and that would keep the food on the table
And many artists still fall into that category. But some artists either don't tour or have limited promotional tours because their music doesn't translate over well "live." (Or do the trance/techno/post-modern-post-production guys not count?)
Then, of course, there are the other artists -- authors, movie-makers, for example -- for whom making a living by charging an audience to experience them "creating" has never been a viable option.
An artist should be able to say, "Look, I made something, here's a free sample; want more? Pay me this amount. Too high? Buy something else from someone else." The extent of the free sample, and the means whereby that free sampling is distributed, should be up to the artist or the artist's distributor/publisher/marketing guru. Some artists have concluded that extensive free samples is good for their business, others have a decidely different perspective. The point being, it is the artists' decision re how hs stuff is disseminated, not yours or mine.
Now, the artists under Jim Baen's imprimatur are in a league apart from the venerable Mr. Ellison, and as such I suspect (actually, I know) that both of their very different strokes are right for both camps. Phish is not Kraftwerk is not Al Stewart; one style of distribution, either completely open or traditionally restrictive, won't work perfectly for all.
Information was, is and should be free.
Jeez, I thought we grew out of this notion five years ago. I guess as a new generation discovers the Internet, we have to go through the drill over and over. Fair enough.
Information *IS* free. But Entertainment is not, never has been. Because I can render entertainment as data, clone it, and/or easily disseminate it doesn't mean I should. It most certainly does not mean I have a God-given and constitutionally-protected "right" to entertainment.
The Big Problem has always been: What type of technology will allow us to simultaneously protect a consumer's right to Fair Use while preventing him from illegally distributing the entertainment he has purchased? *Everybody* is working on this; if Sony is finally announcing some progress, my only question is "What took you so long?"
I'd love to see one big happy world
So did the Tibetans.
Why is this news that the top dogs are getting even richer?
Are you kidding? Has there ever been more fertile soil for the trademarked Slashdot socialist MS-bashing then this story?
It practically screams, "Hold Page One!"
Why is it that all interviews online are posted as question, answer, question, answer... Why not do what grown up journalists do and actually write something?
Because most online tech-site interviewers are *not* "grown up journalists," or even writers, and their operations are in fact run on shoe-string budgets which do not provide for in-person interviews. Consequently, when the interview is being conducted over the phone, through IM, or across several e-mail sessions, it's kinda tough to get a feel for what type of sofa upon which the interviewee is sitting.
Note, too, that most of the readers of tech-site interviews are not as discerning as you. They are looking for "news" or "answers" -- and quickly. No one browses OSNews in anticipation of savoring the linguistic bons mots of some proto-Hemingway.
I'm not in the least bit interested in whatever else you just wrote up there
I have a vision of you holding your hands over your ears and shouting "I'm not Listening! I'm Not Listening! La LA LA LAA! I'm not Listening!"
But we both know better.
Although one would not know this from reading Slashdot, most teens are not over-educated anti-social punks. Teens want to be popular more than anything else; if goods have a price, they'll pay it. The problem -- from the RIAA's perspective -- has been that file-sharing became socially-acceptable to the point where a new generation of pre-teens just thought "that's the way you get music."
Loud, Page One lawsuits like the one we have been discussing do a lot towards turning the attitude of "But Everybody's doing it!" into one of "Um, maybe we shouldn't be doing this..."
They'd be happier if CD's -- and the concept of "purchase by album" -- remained popular, but that boat has already pulled away from the pier. Now, they *have* to have a viable song-by-download business model; in the final analysis, THAT is the true legacy of Napster.
Try sticking to the question as asked.
I'm writing in English; what language are you reading in?
The girl could swear off music for life as a result of ths trauma, cut out her tongue, puncture her eardrums and join a convent in Switzerland. Or she could be driven insane and buy a CD a day for the rest of her life. My point here is that the purchases of this individual person are less than a fraction of a drop in a bucket of rounding errors to the RIAA.
But -- Big Picture -- the message it sends to kids and their parents is PRICELESS.
Start thinking more like a global cartel and less like a clerk working in your uncle's hardware store. The RIAA recognizes that the future is not CD sales, but digital transfers. They have been late in establishing legitimate means of digital commerce, and as result, it became socially acceptable (forget "legal" for a minute) for people who were not agents of the RIAA to distribute these files. Now they are busy as bees attempting to reinsert the genie into the bottle; their to-do list looks something like this:
1. Get a major brand known for its tech-hipness and consumer-friendliness to partner on a download service. --- Status: Done ----
2. Establish as anti-social(dangerous, too much hassle) behavior the use of non-sanctioned "free" services for music downloading. --- Status: In Progress ---
In truth, your generation of 20-somethings is already lost to them. Might as well try and convince my father's generation that cigarettes were bad. But the next gen -- that's fertile territory. And, long term, pre-teens' allegiance to the new pay services and their abandoning of the ways of their big brothers and sisters are what will "make money" for the RIAA, not whether or not some kid they sue stays a customer or not.
Um, what do they care about that?
Of course they care. The pre-teen music market is HUGE. The kids are going to get their music one way or another; if they don't download it for free, they are going to download it for a fee or buy the CD.
As for the "legitimate" market of music downloading: iTunes just cleared it's - what? -- 10 millionth song at a buck a song? And the RIAA's members' take of that was...? You may believe that P2P downloads do not cannibalize CD sales, but you cannot possibly feel that it would have no effect on the burgeoning legit download sites.
Considering all that Apple has invested in its music service, you can pretty much be assured that Jobs is actively pressuring the music industry to do its damndest to shut down its "illegal" competition.
Now I wonder how much music this girl will actually buy (and influence her friends to buy) as she enters her prime music consumer years.
Hardly an issue, from the RIAA's perspective.
The real question is, "how much music will this girl ever download again -- and influence her friends never to download again?"
And the parents? You think your average parent of a twelve year old is up on the righteousness (or lack of same) vis-a-vis music downloading? Not one whit. But what this story does do is get them all running to have a sit-down with their children to discuss whether or not they have downloaded music on their Dells, and instruct them never to do it again. Why? Is it illegal, immoral? mmmmmaybe, maybe not, but you can be damn sure they don't want to be on the front page of the Post...
Guys, remember, always: SlashDot and the popular views expressed hereon are FAR from the mainstream. EVERY single one of us here could never ever buy a CD again, and take turns urinating on the steps of the Sony building, and it would mean jack-all to the RIAA if they could convince a FRACTION of the current generation of pre-teen parents to "properly educate" their kids re downloading.
For those here saying this is bad PR for the RIAA, I say just the opposite. The RIAA does not want to be loved; in fact, the artists and labels are paying them to take the heat so they don't have to. The RIAA wants to be feared, and if they are not feared, they at least want to become so annoying that your average kid sez, "My parents are hassling me, my school is hassling me... y'know what, it just ain't worth it. I'll go to iTunes (or wherever) to download music." It is clearly no accident that the real pogroms have begun only after a certain critical mass of legal download music sources have been established. (And it's interesting to note that the "meaner" the RIAA gets, the richer Apple's coffers are likely to become; there's a "slashdot moral dilemma" for you, eh?)
Maybe it's just ultrasound coming up from the sewers?
it would be the coolest thing if RedHat decided to help a school
In fact there was a small city in the mid-west that was scheduled to build a Linux school. But when the school-board realized that by the time they resolved all the dependencies it would be time to graduate, they dropped the idea.
Another Gnu/Linux Grammar School broke ground in Seattle about six years ago. Known as K-12, the project's gotten stalled as the masons and carpenters juggle its construction with the demands of their paying jobs. I understand the foundation is "stable," however.
Unfortunately, there is now some confusion in the community due to a fork of the school that has just broken ground across the street from the original. Called P.S. YALGS (Yet Another Linux Grammar School), the project is currently seeking carpenters, masons, administrators, and teachers; no professional experience neccessary.
Thanks for the math, but what you really need to do is work on the Reading Comprehension. I reference that games are a superior value to movie DVD's in my original post.
..next thing you'll know, we'll get an actor elected as president.
Those were the good ol' days, kid. Small government, wars that ended, and a Commander-in-Chief who kept his trousers on while working.
Come to think of it, the music was a lot better back then too, wasn't it?
lower costs to own a DVD?
Are you kidding? With the exception of video games, DVDs represnt the best value in entertainment. What would *you* call a fair price to own a DVD?