Which is where our best hope lies, sadly enough. Only big companies have the resources, co-ordination and influence to make a difference against this sort of thing.
If you think about it, WHY the hell should other businesses and millions of individuals pay to subsidize ONE freaking industry? An industry that creates a product that is infinitely replicable at that. What exactly do the recording companies do for this country that they deserve such recognition and entitlement? Absolutely fuck all in my opinion.
They pay the advance and then they get it back. They can only lose it if the release sells poorly AND the artist declares bankruptcy. Don't tell me the record companies can't afford to LOAN money.
So really, what other expenses are they paying for? CD fabrication costs MUCH less than it did. Not a whole lot in the cd case anymore. Only other thing is distribution. Most contracts have the ARTIST paying for the promotional stuff as well.
It seems that they're trying to get the ISPs to accept responsiblity for their users' actions. You can sue another large company without nearly as much negative press as suing individual users, but the tricky part is that the ISPs actually have money and the need to fight.
So, the ARIA is trying to get them to accept it, and if they don't there'll probably be a PR campaign aimed at the politicians and lawmakers to pressure them to hold the ISPs responsible. If it goes over well for the ARIA, you can be damn sure the RIAA will try the same.
Of course the Oscars aren't about quality. But some people think they are, and it's good publicity/advertising. Being able to label your movie as an Oscar winner probably does have some effect on sales.
No, repealing the ban on screeners will not allow the indies to win more Oscars, just that they won't win LESS. They do actually win some. The whole point is that the big movies can be seen easily by every member of the Academy. The smaller ones can't and so screeners help them more than they do the big studios.
So Los Angeles County must now just be called Los.
So, I assume its citizens would be Losers? Appropriate. Not necessarily because they are losers, but because apparently, these politicians are the best ones they can get.
Re:Makes you realize...
on
Recycling TV Ads
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I think the problem is more that they don't give you any real information on the actual product.
What they're trying to get you to buy then, isn't the product, but the advertising. I'd prefer it if they spent more time making the product/service better or informing us what it can do for us.
I find it interesting that the first voices they've decided to use are "SOULful" voices.
Makes you realize...
on
Recycling TV Ads
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Makes you realize just how little the ads actually have to do with their products. The Simpsons episode with the artsy-fartsy commerical for Mr. Plow skewered this nicely.
It's just like why we watch movies. The reason why big-budget action movies do better than movies that actually have some genuine insight is that it makes it easier to get a conversation started.
Say, in a serious (and good) drama, there might be many, many subtle and important plot developments that have to be though about. In an action movie, it's "hey remember when he shot that guy and he went..."
Now consider sports. It goes on for 2-3 hours, but it's really only the times when they score (or there's a fight or injury etc.) that people will remember or talk about. These kinds of things get replayed endlessly on sports news, so everyone is fairly guaranteed to see it. Our attention is focussed on these moments. Thus you've got a conversation starter or something to bond over for the course of a season.
Thus, while I like to watch football, but I don't really have any team preference (and don't care to remember the names of the players), I'm not a 'serious' sports fan. But I know and watch enough to say that, "that was a great game" or "did you see that play?" and listen to them bitch about what's wrong with their team (talking to people whose teams win must be short conversations).
Anyway, my on-topic point is that if there are enough memorable and interesting moments to talk about in a videogame match then, yes, it will attract a sport-like audience. I don't thnk that Deathmatches are good enough for that. But team games (like counter-strike) have more complex tactics and factors to maintain interest. Now, it just remains to show the public how to recognize the interesting moments.
Counter-Strike with HLTV and commentary would be neat, but one of the best parts of TV sports is that you can be shown the whole field at once or see stuff that you missed on the replay. User-controlled camera is neat in HLTV, but if you aren't familiar with the game, you won't know where to watch to see the action. Anyway, you can go to gotfrag.com and see that there are people who really pay attention to the competitive videogaming just like sports.
However, considering 90% of home broadband is flat rate, ( and a lot of dedicated business service is too ) since when is the bandwidth being 'stolen'?
Rogers has begun to suspend the accounts of high-bandwith users (while still charging them!). They advertise unlimited usage, but disguise this as a violation of the end-user agreement.
I had something like this happen. Our neighbours (who my folks don't get along with) had a problem with their water, and they shut it off. While we were away, they hooked up a hose to our outside tap and ran it to their house.
They had it on full blast the WHOLE day, and worse, the tap was slightly leaky and so we had some flooding in our backyard as well. Yes, we were damned pissed.
What would happen if several months after the incident with your wife, you called the guy and threatened him again? It would cast your response in a totally different light.
It is also different if this guy is continuing to bother you and your wife. They didn't stop sending him crap, remember?
But isn't the point for each of you to try each other's music? Unless of course, there will be 'threesomes' or 'foursomes'.
The backlash against "'Podmiscuity" will probably come when roving bands of jackers with headphones but not iPods attempt to insinuate themselves into every private iPod coupling.
Oh yeah, and people should be put into prison upon being born, because that is human genome piracy.
It's at least two counts of human genome piracy. One half from your mother and one half from your father, as well as whatever claims their fathers, mothers and further ancestors have on it.
If you're cloned, then you would be a lesser pirate, but all pirates of course deserve the same fate. Maybe you could argue that you are the same person as the person you were cloned from and pin some of the blame on them.
This is a very distinctive difference, because bad press and legal action are about equally harmful in the US.
I think that bad press is more harmful than most legal actions. Legal action is pretty much guaranteed for a company of any real size and most have their own lawyers ready to deal with it. Stuff can be delayed for years until it doesn't really matter to anyone any more, and there's so much legal stuff all the time that most people ignore it.
However, bad press can create immediate and lasting negative impressions of a company (even if the company isn't actually at fault). I think it's rare that bad press does no damage (hence the bad part). Of course, some legal actions can create bad press...
BAD LAWYER, no drugs! Between that, the 'near death experience' and 'literally ran for their lives' comments, this article paints a very amusing picture of coked out lawyers being chased and shot at by the Spam Mafia.
Well, Millenium Actress was subbed, although it was only in limited release to promote the DVD release.
Would it have done better in wide release? Probably not by much.
I really can't think of too many anime movies that would do really well over here in wide release and subtitled. If you can name some, I would be very interested to hear it.
Slashdot Mirror
The other alternative is to track them down and burn them alive.
Neither of the above is desirable since mistakes will be made and innocents will be put out of business or killed.
Let's wait for the first innocent to be immolated before we take this option off the table, please.
Which is where our best hope lies, sadly enough. Only big companies have the resources, co-ordination and influence to make a difference against this sort of thing.
If you think about it, WHY the hell should other businesses and millions of individuals pay to subsidize ONE freaking industry? An industry that creates a product that is infinitely replicable at that. What exactly do the recording companies do for this country that they deserve such recognition and entitlement? Absolutely fuck all in my opinion.
They pay the advance and then they get it back. They can only lose it if the release sells poorly AND the artist declares bankruptcy. Don't tell me the record companies can't afford to LOAN money.
So really, what other expenses are they paying for? CD fabrication costs MUCH less than it did. Not a whole lot in the cd case anymore. Only other thing is distribution. Most contracts have the ARTIST paying for the promotional stuff as well.
That is the record company's only chance to recoup production costs and make a profit.
Actually, most artist contracts state that the ARTIST has to pay the recording costs.
It seems that they're trying to get the ISPs to accept responsiblity for their users' actions. You can sue another large company without nearly as much negative press as suing individual users, but the tricky part is that the ISPs actually have money and the need to fight.
So, the ARIA is trying to get them to accept it, and if they don't there'll probably be a PR campaign aimed at the politicians and lawmakers to pressure them to hold the ISPs responsible. If it goes over well for the ARIA, you can be damn sure the RIAA will try the same.
Of course the Oscars aren't about quality. But some people think they are, and it's good publicity/advertising. Being able to label your movie as an Oscar winner probably does have some effect on sales.
No, repealing the ban on screeners will not allow the indies to win more Oscars, just that they won't win LESS. They do actually win some. The whole point is that the big movies can be seen easily by every member of the Academy. The smaller ones can't and so screeners help them more than they do the big studios.
So Los Angeles County must now just be called Los.
So, I assume its citizens would be Losers? Appropriate. Not necessarily because they are losers, but because apparently, these politicians are the best ones they can get.
I think the problem is more that they don't give you any real information on the actual product.
What they're trying to get you to buy then, isn't the product, but the advertising. I'd prefer it if they spent more time making the product/service better or informing us what it can do for us.
I find it interesting that the first voices they've decided to use are "SOULful" voices.
Makes you realize just how little the ads actually have to do with their products. The Simpsons episode with the artsy-fartsy commerical for Mr. Plow skewered this nicely.
Yeah, we called the water company. We got a credit for that month's bill.
It's just like why we watch movies. The reason why big-budget action movies do better than movies that actually have some genuine insight is that it makes it easier to get a conversation started.
Say, in a serious (and good) drama, there might be many, many subtle and important plot developments that have to be though about. In an action movie, it's "hey remember when he shot that guy and he went..."
Now consider sports. It goes on for 2-3 hours, but it's really only the times when they score (or there's a fight or injury etc.) that people will remember or talk about. These kinds of things get replayed endlessly on sports news, so everyone is fairly guaranteed to see it. Our attention is focussed on these moments. Thus you've got a conversation starter or something to bond over for the course of a season.
Thus, while I like to watch football, but I don't really have any team preference (and don't care to remember the names of the players), I'm not a 'serious' sports fan. But I know and watch enough to say that, "that was a great game" or "did you see that play?" and listen to them bitch about what's wrong with their team (talking to people whose teams win must be short conversations).
Anyway, my on-topic point is that if there are enough memorable and interesting moments to talk about in a videogame match then, yes, it will attract a sport-like audience. I don't thnk that Deathmatches are good enough for that. But team games (like counter-strike) have more complex tactics and factors to maintain interest. Now, it just remains to show the public how to recognize the interesting moments.
Counter-Strike with HLTV and commentary would be neat, but one of the best parts of TV sports is that you can be shown the whole field at once or see stuff that you missed on the replay. User-controlled camera is neat in HLTV, but if you aren't familiar with the game, you won't know where to watch to see the action. Anyway, you can go to gotfrag.com and see that there are people who really pay attention to the competitive videogaming just like sports.
However, considering 90% of home broadband is flat rate, ( and a lot of dedicated business service is too ) since when is the bandwidth being 'stolen'?
Rogers has begun to suspend the accounts of high-bandwith users (while still charging them!). They advertise unlimited usage, but disguise this as a violation of the end-user agreement.
Article from the Toronto Star (Link'll probably be gone for non-subscribers by tomorrow.)
Canoe is the site for The Sun newspapers which are thought of by a good many people as not much better than the tabloids.
Or at least that's what I'm guessing. The Toronto Sun at least is right-wing, highly biased and somewhat sexist.
I had something like this happen. Our neighbours (who my folks don't get along with) had a problem with their water, and they shut it off. While we were away, they hooked up a hose to our outside tap and ran it to their house.
They had it on full blast the WHOLE day, and worse, the tap was slightly leaky and so we had some flooding in our backyard as well. Yes, we were damned pissed.
What would happen if several months after the incident with your wife, you called the guy and threatened him again? It would cast your response in a totally different light.
It is also different if this guy is continuing to bother you and your wife. They didn't stop sending him crap, remember?
But isn't the point for each of you to try each other's music? Unless of course, there will be 'threesomes' or 'foursomes'.
The backlash against "'Podmiscuity" will probably come when roving bands of jackers with headphones but not iPods attempt to insinuate themselves into every private iPod coupling.
What's the difference between buying a third-party garage door opener and buying a third-party ink cartrige?
Easy. A lot more judges use and are comfortable with garage door openers than with printers or anything computer-related.
Oh yeah, and people should be put into prison upon being born, because that is human genome piracy.
It's at least two counts of human genome piracy. One half from your mother and one half from your father, as well as whatever claims their fathers, mothers and further ancestors have on it.
If you're cloned, then you would be a lesser pirate, but all pirates of course deserve the same fate. Maybe you could argue that you are the same person as the person you were cloned from and pin some of the blame on them.
This is a very distinctive difference, because bad press and legal action are about equally harmful in the US.
I think that bad press is more harmful than most legal actions. Legal action is pretty much guaranteed for a company of any real size and most have their own lawyers ready to deal with it. Stuff can be delayed for years until it doesn't really matter to anyone any more, and there's so much legal stuff all the time that most people ignore it.
However, bad press can create immediate and lasting negative impressions of a company (even if the company isn't actually at fault). I think it's rare that bad press does no damage (hence the bad part). Of course, some legal actions can create bad press...
BAD LAWYER, no drugs! Between that, the 'near death experience' and 'literally ran for their lives' comments, this article paints a very amusing picture of coked out lawyers being chased and shot at by the Spam Mafia.
Hmmm... Grand Theft Online: Spam City
catchy...
I would like to submit the idea that anyone that defeats a spammer in court deserves some profit.
Well, Millenium Actress was subbed, although it was only in limited release to promote the DVD release.
Would it have done better in wide release? Probably not by much.
I really can't think of too many anime movies that would do really well over here in wide release and subtitled. If you can name some, I would be very interested to hear it.
I believe that Space: Above and Beyond also had China as a major power, with the broadcast that aliens were attacking having Chinese subtitles.
I'll bet that the AG office of Missouri has a sense of humour. Do you think moago.org sounds like a government site?
moago... hehehe...