I think that rather than compressed music for their PCs, people want free music. A large percentage of the non-tech-savvy people I know download mp3s solely to burn to CDs. Yet these CDs are available legally; they just don't want to pay for them.
Usury refers to making money solely from money. As such it would encompass charging interest and most investing. It would not encompass all profit generally, however, as making money from production is not usury.
It's a fairly well-known site in the punk community, as it's run by Epitaph Records (Offspring, Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion, Guttermouth, etc.), and sells mp3s of all the Epitaph bands (plus some others). I was just bringing it up as an example of one record label that has tried what you suggest (and an RIAA-member label, no less).
Most college students I know just download the episodes and watch them whenever they want. There's one guy on campus here with a TV capture card who regularly records some of the more popular shows, so everyone knows where to get them off the local network...
I don't know where the discussion of "top 100" came from. I was simply mentioning that these are popular bands who nonetheless cannot sell their mp3s online. I did not say they were the 100 most popular bands in the world.
As for selling the CD, what you want then is simply what cheap-cds.com does - a CD store that lets you access mp3s online (for most albums) after you purchase them. They haven't reported any significant increase in sales after starting the service though.
Uhh, simply because it doesn't sell a certain narrow range of music doesn't mean it's not a "serious" online shop. How about the following: Creedence Clearwater Revival, They Might Be Giants, Bad Religion, Rancid, NOFX, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop.
The point is that they have a good deal of artists who are fairly popular (i.e. regularly have platinum-selling albums). And they still sell virtually no mp3s. Why? Because people download them for free.
The problem being, of course, that this action will shut down 99% of the users of the FastTrack network, which will make it virtually useless. If all you're looking for is an open network, there are already dozens; Gnutella, the various OpenNap clones, etc. FastTrack's advantage was that it had critical mass, which will no longer be the case if all the Windows Kazaa/Morpheus users are cut off.
No one who ever used Napster or Kazaa needed it to find music and video owned by the RIAA/MPAA. What those popular programs provided, was so much goddamn quantity that you could spend the whole day listening to garage bands and obscure music you heard in a commercial when you were 5 years old.
Note that these are not necessarily non-infringing uses either - many of these "underground" or "garage" bands are virulently anti-piracy and anti-mp3 as well, often arguing that mp3s hurt them even more than they hurt the RIAA, because "Metallica can afford to lose 1000 album sales; we can't."
And also, if you take a look at search statistics on these networks, the vast majority of people are looking for the latest Britney Spears single, not for garage bands.
It's hardly practical to share full-length movies over networks or even to store them locally on hard drives -- although you should note that the latter use is not infringing. I for one can't think of a single use for DeCSS that's infringing under the traditional doctrine of fair use, given the current practical technological limitations.
Apparently you haven't been informed about filesharing within the past year or so. There are entire networks and piracy groups dedicated solely to ripping and sharing movies, and such sharing is one of the major bandwidth uses on university campuses. Sharing of full-length movies is also one of the most popular activities on the FastTrack network (Kazaa/Morpheus). It's not particularly impractical - most people find a DivX-compressed DVD to be "good enough," and typically use bitrates such that the final file size is around the size of a CD-R (~700 MB). And with the size of hard drives these days, it's not impractical to have 15-20 of these sitting around; what's more, most people burn them to CD-R's, and I know quite a few people with CD-R spindles of 100 full-length movies.
Unfortunately for your prediction, they sell very few mp3s - the free sample mp3s are the only popular section of their site, and people download the rest from filesharing services.
It's good to see Slashdot editors keep up with technology. FWIW, the FastTrack network (through the Kazaa and Morpheus clients) has consistently been the single largest bandwidth user amongst colleges and universities for the past few months.
What's superior about gIFT to Gnutella? I thought the protocol itself was not superior - the only reason it was used more was because of Kazaa being a large network. And if the large centralized portion of Kazaa shuts down, it loses the advantage, and becomes just another non-centralized network, like Gnutella.
However, it does rely on a central server for managing connections. You connect to the Kazaa server, it passes you lists of other users to connect to (much like the Gnutella host caches do). Theoretically users can keep track of clients themselves, or mirrors of the host servers can be set up, but provisions for this are not built into the major clients - if the central servers shut down, the network shuts down too, because nobody can find anybody else without modified clients.
And their monopoly isn't because nobody else has ever provided competition. It's just that the competition was generally either ridiculously overpriced, technically inferior, or had crappy games. Sega GameGear? Atari Lynx/Jaguar? etc.
If you wish to purchase a specific amount of bandwidth, that's generally what "business" lines are for. Consumer lines are not intended for that purpose. If you purchase a business DSL line, or a T1, or anything else of that sort, you'll be purchasing the specified amount of bandwidth, which will indeed be provided for you to do as you wish with it.
Depends on the service. I use RoadRunner cablemodem, and it very clearly is enumerated in the acceptable use policy - personal use on one computer only.
That seems like a reasonable solution. It'd probably be easier to implement too, and affect fewer people, so I'm not sure why they don't do it. Slashdotters might not like it (they tend to be the over-users of their connections), but pissing off the top 0.5% of bandwidth users to save say 5-10% of bandwidth costs seems like a good idea.
You are not paying for bandwidth at a fixed rate. That's what business connections are - when you lease a T1, you really are purchasing 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. But when you lease a 1.5 Mbps DSL line, there's a reason you pay significantly less - you're purchasing the right to a maximum of 1.5 Mbps for your own personal non-commercial use. You do not purchase the rights to share this bandwidth, use it for commercial purposes, and so on, which is why you are given a discounted rate. If you want to purchase the bandwidth outright for any use you desire, you can do so - purchase a T1 or a "business DSL" line. But if you choose to buy the discounted restricted line, complaining about the restrictions is a bit disingeneous.
I don't think this is what the companies want; it's what people want. As you may recall, nearly all internet providers used to charge on the per-minute (or per-hour) basis you mention. But people clamored for flat-rate pricing, so they gave it to them. A few held out both options - AOL offered both plans for a while - but the per-hour-pricing plan was so unpopular they eventually scrapped it.
Well the problem is that you don't really pay for that amount of bandwidth. They are banking on the fact that most people won't max out the connection all the time, so you're paying for a certain maximum amount of bandwidth. If everyone does max out their bandwidth all the time, then they'd be forced to actually charge you for the full bandwidth - likely it'd be significantly more than you currently pay. Then your arguments would hold up, but not with the current $40/month or whatever you pay.
Were these blind tests? I've heard plenty of claims like yours that "I can distinguish a 320kbps mp3 from a WAV from the stereo separation," but they all turned out to be people who knew which was the mp3 and which was the WAV. If you know which is which it's easy to convince yourself you hear a difference. Have you tried having someone else compress a WAV to 320kbps mp3 and then uncompress back to WAV, and then listen to the two (unlabeled) WAVs and try to distinguish them? I've never seen a test done like this that concluded there was a difference - the results were always within the test's margin of error of the results you'd get from random guessing.
Yes, many people can tell bad mp3s from the original CD. But in all the listening tests I've seen, a very small percentage of even people with top-of-the-line stereo systems can tell the difference between high-bitrate mp3s and the original CD (specifically the "--dm-preset insane" switch in LAME).
Slashdot Mirror
I think that rather than compressed music for their PCs, people want free music. A large percentage of the non-tech-savvy people I know download mp3s solely to burn to CDs. Yet these CDs are available legally; they just don't want to pay for them.
Usury refers to making money solely from money. As such it would encompass charging interest and most investing. It would not encompass all profit generally, however, as making money from production is not usury.
I suppose.
It's a fairly well-known site in the punk community, as it's run by Epitaph Records (Offspring, Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion, Guttermouth, etc.), and sells mp3s of all the Epitaph bands (plus some others). I was just bringing it up as an example of one record label that has tried what you suggest (and an RIAA-member label, no less).
Most college students I know just download the episodes and watch them whenever they want. There's one guy on campus here with a TV capture card who regularly records some of the more popular shows, so everyone knows where to get them off the local network...
I don't know where the discussion of "top 100" came from. I was simply mentioning that these are popular bands who nonetheless cannot sell their mp3s online. I did not say they were the 100 most popular bands in the world.
As for selling the CD, what you want then is simply what cheap-cds.com does - a CD store that lets you access mp3s online (for most albums) after you purchase them. They haven't reported any significant increase in sales after starting the service though.
Uhh, simply because it doesn't sell a certain narrow range of music doesn't mean it's not a "serious" online shop. How about the following: Creedence Clearwater Revival, They Might Be Giants, Bad Religion, Rancid, NOFX, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop.
The point is that they have a good deal of artists who are fairly popular (i.e. regularly have platinum-selling albums). And they still sell virtually no mp3s. Why? Because people download them for free.
The problem being, of course, that this action will shut down 99% of the users of the FastTrack network, which will make it virtually useless. If all you're looking for is an open network, there are already dozens; Gnutella, the various OpenNap clones, etc. FastTrack's advantage was that it had critical mass, which will no longer be the case if all the Windows Kazaa/Morpheus users are cut off.
...for usury....
That word doesn't mean what I think you think it means.
No one who ever used Napster or Kazaa needed it to find music and video owned by the RIAA/MPAA. What those popular programs provided, was so much goddamn quantity that you could spend the whole day listening to garage bands and obscure music you heard in a commercial when you were 5 years old.
Note that these are not necessarily non-infringing uses either - many of these "underground" or "garage" bands are virulently anti-piracy and anti-mp3 as well, often arguing that mp3s hurt them even more than they hurt the RIAA, because "Metallica can afford to lose 1000 album sales; we can't."
And also, if you take a look at search statistics on these networks, the vast majority of people are looking for the latest Britney Spears single, not for garage bands.
It's hardly practical to share full-length movies over networks or even to store them locally on hard drives -- although you should note that the latter use is not infringing. I for one can't think of a single use for DeCSS that's infringing under the traditional doctrine of fair use, given the current practical technological limitations.
Apparently you haven't been informed about filesharing within the past year or so. There are entire networks and piracy groups dedicated solely to ripping and sharing movies, and such sharing is one of the major bandwidth uses on university campuses. Sharing of full-length movies is also one of the most popular activities on the FastTrack network (Kazaa/Morpheus). It's not particularly impractical - most people find a DivX-compressed DVD to be "good enough," and typically use bitrates such that the final file size is around the size of a CD-R (~700 MB). And with the size of hard drives these days, it's not impractical to have 15-20 of these sitting around; what's more, most people burn them to CD-R's, and I know quite a few people with CD-R spindles of 100 full-length movies.
Try this one.
Unfortunately for your prediction, they sell very few mp3s - the free sample mp3s are the only popular section of their site, and people download the rest from filesharing services.
I had no idea Kazaa was this popular
It's good to see Slashdot editors keep up with technology. FWIW, the FastTrack network (through the Kazaa and Morpheus clients) has consistently been the single largest bandwidth user amongst colleges and universities for the past few months.
What's superior about gIFT to Gnutella? I thought the protocol itself was not superior - the only reason it was used more was because of Kazaa being a large network. And if the large centralized portion of Kazaa shuts down, it loses the advantage, and becomes just another non-centralized network, like Gnutella.
However, it does rely on a central server for managing connections. You connect to the Kazaa server, it passes you lists of other users to connect to (much like the Gnutella host caches do). Theoretically users can keep track of clients themselves, or mirrors of the host servers can be set up, but provisions for this are not built into the major clients - if the central servers shut down, the network shuts down too, because nobody can find anybody else without modified clients.
tenacious d sucks
And their monopoly isn't because nobody else has ever provided competition. It's just that the competition was generally either ridiculously overpriced, technically inferior, or had crappy games. Sega GameGear? Atari Lynx/Jaguar? etc.
I wonder if there's a particular reason Theo considers himself exempt from the standard rules for English grammar...
If you wish to purchase a specific amount of bandwidth, that's generally what "business" lines are for. Consumer lines are not intended for that purpose. If you purchase a business DSL line, or a T1, or anything else of that sort, you'll be purchasing the specified amount of bandwidth, which will indeed be provided for you to do as you wish with it.
Depends on the service. I use RoadRunner cablemodem, and it very clearly is enumerated in the acceptable use policy - personal use on one computer only.
That seems like a reasonable solution. It'd probably be easier to implement too, and affect fewer people, so I'm not sure why they don't do it. Slashdotters might not like it (they tend to be the over-users of their connections), but pissing off the top 0.5% of bandwidth users to save say 5-10% of bandwidth costs seems like a good idea.
You are not paying for bandwidth at a fixed rate. That's what business connections are - when you lease a T1, you really are purchasing 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. But when you lease a 1.5 Mbps DSL line, there's a reason you pay significantly less - you're purchasing the right to a maximum of 1.5 Mbps for your own personal non-commercial use. You do not purchase the rights to share this bandwidth, use it for commercial purposes, and so on, which is why you are given a discounted rate. If you want to purchase the bandwidth outright for any use you desire, you can do so - purchase a T1 or a "business DSL" line. But if you choose to buy the discounted restricted line, complaining about the restrictions is a bit disingeneous.
I don't think this is what the companies want; it's what people want. As you may recall, nearly all internet providers used to charge on the per-minute (or per-hour) basis you mention. But people clamored for flat-rate pricing, so they gave it to them. A few held out both options - AOL offered both plans for a while - but the per-hour-pricing plan was so unpopular they eventually scrapped it.
Well the problem is that you don't really pay for that amount of bandwidth. They are banking on the fact that most people won't max out the connection all the time, so you're paying for a certain maximum amount of bandwidth. If everyone does max out their bandwidth all the time, then they'd be forced to actually charge you for the full bandwidth - likely it'd be significantly more than you currently pay. Then your arguments would hold up, but not with the current $40/month or whatever you pay.
Were these blind tests? I've heard plenty of claims like yours that "I can distinguish a 320kbps mp3 from a WAV from the stereo separation," but they all turned out to be people who knew which was the mp3 and which was the WAV. If you know which is which it's easy to convince yourself you hear a difference. Have you tried having someone else compress a WAV to 320kbps mp3 and then uncompress back to WAV, and then listen to the two (unlabeled) WAVs and try to distinguish them? I've never seen a test done like this that concluded there was a difference - the results were always within the test's margin of error of the results you'd get from random guessing.
Yes, many people can tell bad mp3s from the original CD. But in all the listening tests I've seen, a very small percentage of even people with top-of-the-line stereo systems can tell the difference between high-bitrate mp3s and the original CD (specifically the "--dm-preset insane" switch in LAME).