It was funny the first few times around but now it just seems cliche and stupid.
It's not meant to be funny. The BOFH writings remain one of the most useful sources for System Administration Best Practices today. Its lessons are relevant for anyone in the field.
I find it incredible that people seriously believe that getting an actor who's made it in movies (a medium within which an actor is better paid, less worked and more able to cherry pick his roles) would tie himself down to a TV show for one or more years. Sorry, but the real world just doesn't work that way.
James Spader (The Practice), Rob Lowe (The West Wing), Martin Sheen (The West Wing), Keifer Sutherland (24), Michael J. Fox (Spin City), Charlie Sheen (Spin City and that other show), to name but a few.
ClearCase is another one of those products where the behaviour is not safe. For example, if you find that another person has checked out a file, then you can check it out "unreserved". When you go to check back in a large batch of files, it checks them all back in except for the code that was unreserved (it's that remembering state thing again). So the net effect is that the code under source code control can't compile. CVS is free and has this facility: why should we pay a premium to make our code base unstable?
ClearCase defaults all checkouts to reserved, unless someone else has a checkout reserved, in which case you check it out unreserved automatically (though this, like most things in ClearCase, is configurable). The point of this is so that you can do this:
1. Developer A checks out version 3 of a file (Reserved).
2. Developer B checks out version 3 of a file (Unreserved).
3. Developer A checks in his work, making version 4.
4. Developer B tries to check in his work, but ClearCase, knowing his checkout is unreserved, makes sure that he merges his work with version 4 (from above), so he doesn't mistakenly blow away Developer A's work.
Simple, eh? Yes it is. Hire a good administrator who provides good support and training and you'll be all set.:D
Most people he knows watch three to four hours of TV per night? Sheesh! Get a social group!
Not to mention that 3-4 hours of TV a night equals 21-28 hours of TV a week, which is still significantly less than the 41+ hours a week the researcher quotes of people playing EverQuest.
In my not humble opinion, of course, either example is probably too much.
Agentkhaki - another note I'd add on your comment on UI design: The other thing Apple & Microsoft have that's important is the ability to mandate UI design. A part of the article points out how the X button used to close a window is often in different areas of a window or not present at all, how the method for "minimize window" varies, and how there are cases of icons being too similar to tell which one is which.
Being able to enforce consistency to avoid these pitfalls is something both Apple & Microsoft (as well as all the car companies, for that matter) have learned all about. The community developing software for Linux would do well to heed this experience.
I suppose, multi-player is preferable over single-layer, but nobody can say Counter-Strike involves social interactions...
If you're talking about social interactions while the game is going on, you might have a point. There is, however, a fair amount of social interaction that happens outside the game, mostly as part of Leagues & Clans, but also as the result of LANs and even communities that grow up around a particular server.
And for the anecdotal proof necessary: A week ago my wife & I went to Vancouver for a week to, amongst other things, spend time visiting a couple of friends and their girlfriends who I met on-line playing Counter-Strike.
So don't knock it totally, OK?
We've had this in Chicago for some time, and it works quite well.
http://www.ai.eecs.uic.edu/GCM/chicagoland.html
It's a good place to do a quick check before you head out, just to be sure. However, once you're already in your car, I still think nothing beats the radio stations' traffic people telling you how it is.
The person initially described by the article isn't a techie. She's a product manager, a part of marketing. She's a great example of the kind of person with "soft" skills who made obscene money in the "heyday" and were laid off in droves.
Remember the person who called you 3 times a day to wholly change the design of the product you and your team were developing?
Remember the person who came to work at 10 and whose job seemed to consist largely of kibbutzing?
Remember the person who promised the client the world and told you it needed to be done in 2 weeks, without being able to understand the architecture overhaul that would be necessary to implement the changes?
Remember the person who asked you, the Sr. Developer, why their email wasn't working (assuming you could and would fix it as a top priority)?
I'm sure there are lots of real techies struggling to get by these days. In fact, I know some of them. Let's hear more about these people. That would be more relevant.
But I'm tired of hearing the sob stories of non-technical "soft-skilled" people who fanned the flames of the nascent Internet boom by helping to hype products and ideas that weren't tangible, pulling down 6-figure salaries for spouting off ideas with no grounding in technical realities, and then blaming the technical folks when things didn't materialize (because they couldn't).
Pretty soon they'll be reading [H]ardOCP and the Case & Cooling section of Ars Technica, experimenting with peltiers and putting their computers in refrigerators.
Patent law tends to be highly compartmentalized between nation-states and as such the Canadian ruling will probably have little direct effect on the patents held in other countries.
The most it may do would be to keep alive the debate over whether higher life forms can actually be patented. And then, of course, there's the possibility of companies moving research in this area to Canada to avoid licensing costs.
RIAA: Oh Yeah, Meet Vivendi-Universal's lawyers, when they're through with you, your corporation will be worth -$100 million.
A good point. But, again, using the McCarthy precedent, the "intimidation" will only work until people (or in this case, corporations) realize that any of them can be targets, and that's where it'll stop.
Basically, I don't think Corporate America can or will stand for any group telling them how to run their business. After all, they hardly stand for it now! Look at the amount of money they spend making sure Congress doesn't pass laws that are unfavorable to them.
If the RIAA play too heavy-handed with these corporations, and the big ones eventually see the RIAA as a threat, they'll use their clout to get it stopped. You might argue that the RIAA has large corporations (& their expensive lawyers) at their disposal, and they do, but they're really only a subset of the much larger Fortune 500.
Frankly, it would be fun to see an epic battle of these proportions, and one would hope that such a battle would end the RIAA's snooping tactics for good. But even I don't think the RIAA would be stupid enough to pick that fight.
That's exactly what happened to Senator Joe McCarthy.
As you may/may not remember, McCarthy was the Senator from Wisconsin who, in the 50s, tried to root out Communists in the government and elsewhere. He never had any real proof that people were Communists (in fact, his initial "list" was, IIRC, his grocery list), but he went on anyway.
Eventually, however, he started accusing people in the military of being Communist. And relatively important people. The military had good lawyers, and that was the beginning of the end for old Joe.
So yeah, that's the precedent I'm using in my example.:D
Imagine if the world's airports could simply install GNU-AirTrafficControl 2.7, and have a complete, working, bug-free and cost-free air traffic control system.
True, but... I assume in this model anyone, anywhere could see the source codebase... with any of its bugs and exploits.... Do we want this for these kinds of software implementations (of which there are many done by/for the U.S. government)?
From what I can tell from the various sources (some good, some bad), the crux of the argument here is to avoid Smith et. al., making GPL or BSD licenses for government-produced/contracted code illegal. And that's only right. However, as far as I'm concerned, this simply starts the sticky discussion on what kinds of licenses/protection should be applied to what kind of projects. That's likely to be a lot more work.
...and we know what Congress feels about doing a lot of work....
Anyway, one can only hope that this news gets replayed as "X tries to restrict freedom", and these guys don't get re-elected.
RIAA: We have evidence that your employees are trading files on your network.
CIO: What kind of evidence?
RIAA: Well... uh... anonymous accounts?
CIO: Stop wasting my time.
Scenario 2:
RIAA: We have documented proof that your employees are using your network to trade files.
CIO: What, like server logs, network traffic analysis and examples of P2P installs on client computers?
RIAA: Yes.
CIO: All supposedly confidential company documents?
RIAA: Yes, so?
CIO: Meet our team of high-priced lawyers. Oh, and here's a picture of the last person who stole confidential information from our company. His current net worth is -$10 million.
As the article states, they're entering the market niche already occupied by Alienware and Falcon Northwest. While I wish them the best of luck, I can't help but wonder if there's enough business to go around.
After all, gamers (those who play more than solitaire on the computer) are a subset of computer users. Gamers who need great performance (fps++) are a subset of that group (since many of the most popular games don't need ninja machines).
Of that group, Gamers who can't already build their own ninja machine are a further subset. And, there again, you're looking at a further subset who want a machine tricked out with lights and suchlike.
So basically you're marketing to Gamers who aren't technically saavy enough to build their own computer, but who play the most resource-intensive games, have a lot of money to buy these computers and also want lights and transparent panels, etc....
They're also targeting "high-performance enthusiasts", but I think, really, that this is even a smaller group. Most people who are really into high-performance can, and already do, build their own computers. Most, not all, but most. In my opinion.
Then there's the whole RAID 0 thing. RAID 0 stripes data across the 2 drives, and is very useful for tasks that require the movement of large amounts of data quickly, like video editing. In my opinion, no game gets any useful benefit whatsoever from RAID 0. Sure, on map change your Counter-Strike level may load a half a second faster than anyone else, but my Western Digital Special Edition (with the 8Mb cache) loads them within a couple of seconds, so I don't see what's to be gained here. A red herring, if you will.
Why? Because there's a major drawback to RAID 0. If one of the drives fail, the data is lost for both, since it's "striped" across both, with no parity bit to tell the array how to rebuild the lost data. Double your risk for a speed gain you're unlikely to see unless you do lots of video editing.
I hope their support line is ready for angry calls....
Still, it's a neat rig. But, it's a niche market. Very niche.
I don't want new-fangled surround-sound. The wrap-around screen is neat, but I don't want that either.
I'd just like an office, with a door. That I can close. So I can get work done. I promise to still talk to people who need to talk to me. Heck, I'll even have "office hours" so people can get face-time.
I just want an office.
Today I got interrupted 42 times (yeah, I counted, kinda sad) at my cube. All variations of "I have a quick question." I don't think I got much work done today. Well, I answered some emails.
Please stop talking about the bright lights of the future and give me a door.
is your title. The BBC article (which, let's face it, is a fluff piece or a very quick brief at best) simply states that Microsoft's implemented in XP SP1 the "ability" for end users (and resellers, no doubt) to "hide" any program's icons and existence.
Whoopty. Maybe the BBC will run a bigger article later.
After reading the CNet article, I still couldn't figure out why this was necessarily a great thing. So I went over to SNIA's website and read the white paper.
Anyway, it makes more sense now, and I can definitely see benefits. What we're talking about here is network-accessible storage with a very low barrier to entry, both in cost and in expertise to set up. In a way it reminds me of the Filer (1Tb filespace machine that we used via mounting NFS shares onto it) I had at my last job, but much, much less expensive and much, much easier to run.
1. The RIAA have a technology firm (or firms) in the space create a way that people can sign up on-line for a unique, encrypted "MP3/WMA-buying ID".
2. When people sign up on-line (and places like Amazon, buy.com, cdnow.com, etc... will have a part of their site where you can do this), you get a small downloadable program (MusicIdentifier.exe, MI.exe for short), which you download and install. This program is Open-Source, so it can be more easily ported to Linux, MacOS, etc..., and very simple - all it exists to do is identify and match your encrypted string to MP3s on your system that you're attempting to play. It is also open to allow easy integration into WINamp, MusicMatch, etc....
3. RIAA allows places like Amazon, buy.com, cdnow.com, etc... to sell MP3/WMA singles for $1, albums for $5, all downloadable. When you buy them, software on the server side slaps your unique ID onto the MP3/WMA.
4. Integrations into "ripping" software allow you to likewise slap the unique ID on your rips.
Advantages:
-Can be made very easy to use for the average consumer, possibly even transparent.
-The consumer will be able to play their music files on several different machines (if they own several different machines), without much hassle at all.
-The price-setting matches (or can be made to match) a price that people are actually willing to play, and the RIAA members save money on physical stock (which, everything considered, gets expensive).
-While it will be reverse-engineered (cracked), the impetus for most users to find and use such a crack is lessened by 1) ease of use and 2) the correct price-point setting.
-While some users may post their unique ID along with their music files, the prospect of having your MI.exe juggle multiple identifiers lessens this practice.
The key here is work vs. payoff.
At the moment the work involved in getting Kazaa (or whatever) up-and-running, finding that MP3 and downloading it is worth the payoff of not spending $15+ on a CD. Even here, people have pointed out that simply charging $5 for a downloadable album would get more people simply buying the album instead of downloading it for free (i.e., the average user doesn't want the hassle of using Kazaa).
In the future the work in finding and installing and configuring your copy-protection-breaker of choice may still well be worth the payoff of getting free MP3s. And it will definitely be worth the payoff of not only getting free MP3s, but also being able to rip and burn MP3s from CDs you actually own.
With this idea, on the other hand, it won't be, in general, worth the work to crack the system for a payoff of saving $1 on a single or $5 on an album, TO MOST USERS.
This is the simple economic lesson to be learned by the industry. This is the giant economic opportunity just waiting to be exploited.
...which is unfortunate, because I was hoping for more.:D
However, I'm glad he's gotten the chance to re-do it, yet again. Blade Runner is one of those movies which so truly thrives off of the director's vision, it has been unfortunate to have Scott's vision somewhat confounded by various industry restrictions.
On a related note: Vangelis, who did the music for Blade Runner (to me, a truly impressive score), was finally able to release his version of the soundtrack in 1994. If it is still available, try to pick up a copy if you love the movie. I'm not sure how CDs are catalogued, but the number on the disc is 4509-96574-2. Vangelis had this to say about this soundtrack (CD liner notes):
Most of the music contained in this album originates from recordings I made in London in 1982, whilst working on the score for the film BLADE RUNNER. Finding myself unable to release these recordings at the time, it is wih great pleasure that I am able to do so now. Some of the pieces contained will be known to you from the Original Soundtrack of the film, whilst others are appearing here for the first time. Looking back at RIDLEY SCOTT'S powerful and evocative pictures left me as stimulated as before, and made the recompiling of this music, today, an enjoyable experience. - Vangelis, Athens, April 1994.
Slashdot Mirror
The only snag? It looks like 'Enterprise' might be moved to Fridays next year, and Firefly fans can tell you what a great place that is..."
Doesn't every self-respecting 'Enterprise' fan just TIVO it anyway?
It was funny the first few times around but now it just seems cliche and stupid.
It's not meant to be funny. The BOFH writings remain one of the most useful sources for System Administration Best Practices today. Its lessons are relevant for anyone in the field.
I find it incredible that people seriously believe that getting an actor who's made it in movies (a medium within which an actor is better paid, less worked and more able to cherry pick his roles) would tie himself down to a TV show for one or more years. Sorry, but the real world just doesn't work that way.
James Spader (The Practice), Rob Lowe (The West Wing), Martin Sheen (The West Wing), Keifer Sutherland (24), Michael J. Fox (Spin City), Charlie Sheen (Spin City and that other show), to name but a few.
Maybe they do it for other reasons?
The parent may be modded as "Funny", but speaking as a veteran of the support wars, it's actually about as "Insightful" as you can get.
ClearCase is another one of those products where the behaviour is not safe. For example, if you find that another person has checked out a file, then you can check it out "unreserved". When you go to check back in a large batch of files, it checks them all back in except for the code that was unreserved (it's that remembering state thing again). So the net effect is that the code under source code control can't compile. CVS is free and has this facility: why should we pay a premium to make our code base unstable?
:D
ClearCase defaults all checkouts to reserved, unless someone else has a checkout reserved, in which case you check it out unreserved automatically (though this, like most things in ClearCase, is configurable). The point of this is so that you can do this:
1. Developer A checks out version 3 of a file (Reserved).
2. Developer B checks out version 3 of a file (Unreserved).
3. Developer A checks in his work, making version 4.
4. Developer B tries to check in his work, but ClearCase, knowing his checkout is unreserved, makes sure that he merges his work with version 4 (from above), so he doesn't mistakenly blow away Developer A's work.
Simple, eh? Yes it is. Hire a good administrator who provides good support and training and you'll be all set.
...also knows as "Old School Coasters", for those of us who remember a time before AOL CD-ROMs.
I did include weekends.
3-4 hours/day * 7 days = 21-28 hours/week.
Most people he knows watch three to four hours of TV per night? Sheesh! Get a social group!
Not to mention that 3-4 hours of TV a night equals 21-28 hours of TV a week, which is still significantly less than the 41+ hours a week the researcher quotes of people playing EverQuest.
In my not humble opinion, of course, either example is probably too much.
Agentkhaki - another note I'd add on your comment on UI design: The other thing Apple & Microsoft have that's important is the ability to mandate UI design. A part of the article points out how the X button used to close a window is often in different areas of a window or not present at all, how the method for "minimize window" varies, and how there are cases of icons being too similar to tell which one is which.
Being able to enforce consistency to avoid these pitfalls is something both Apple & Microsoft (as well as all the car companies, for that matter) have learned all about. The community developing software for Linux would do well to heed this experience.
I suppose, multi-player is preferable over single-layer, but nobody can say Counter-Strike involves social interactions...
If you're talking about social interactions while the game is going on, you might have a point. There is, however, a fair amount of social interaction that happens outside the game, mostly as part of Leagues & Clans, but also as the result of LANs and even communities that grow up around a particular server.
And for the anecdotal proof necessary: A week ago my wife & I went to Vancouver for a week to, amongst other things, spend time visiting a couple of friends and their girlfriends who I met on-line playing Counter-Strike. So don't knock it totally, OK?
We've had this in Chicago for some time, and it works quite well.
http://www.ai.eecs.uic.edu/GCM/chicagoland.html
It's a good place to do a quick check before you head out, just to be sure. However, once you're already in your car, I still think nothing beats the radio stations' traffic people telling you how it is.
The person initially described by the article isn't a techie. She's a product manager, a part of marketing. She's a great example of the kind of person with "soft" skills who made obscene money in the "heyday" and were laid off in droves.
Remember the person who called you 3 times a day to wholly change the design of the product you and your team were developing?
Remember the person who came to work at 10 and whose job seemed to consist largely of kibbutzing?
Remember the person who promised the client the world and told you it needed to be done in 2 weeks, without being able to understand the architecture overhaul that would be necessary to implement the changes?
Remember the person who asked you, the Sr. Developer, why their email wasn't working (assuming you could and would fix it as a top priority)?
I'm sure there are lots of real techies struggling to get by these days. In fact, I know some of them. Let's hear more about these people. That would be more relevant.
But I'm tired of hearing the sob stories of non-technical "soft-skilled" people who fanned the flames of the nascent Internet boom by helping to hype products and ideas that weren't tangible, pulling down 6-figure salaries for spouting off ideas with no grounding in technical realities, and then blaming the technical folks when things didn't materialize (because they couldn't).
...to do book reviews. This is one of the best book reviews I've seen on any site for some time.
Pretty soon they'll be reading [H]ardOCP and the Case & Cooling section of Ars Technica, experimenting with peltiers and putting their computers in refrigerators.
:D
Then the government will truly be l33t.
Patent law tends to be highly compartmentalized between nation-states and as such the Canadian ruling will probably have little direct effect on the patents held in other countries.
:(
The most it may do would be to keep alive the debate over whether higher life forms can actually be patented. And then, of course, there's the possibility of companies moving research in this area to Canada to avoid licensing costs.
All of that said, I feel sorry for the mouse.
RIAA: Oh Yeah, Meet Vivendi-Universal's lawyers, when they're through with you, your corporation will be worth -$100 million.
A good point. But, again, using the McCarthy precedent, the "intimidation" will only work until people (or in this case, corporations) realize that any of them can be targets, and that's where it'll stop.
Basically, I don't think Corporate America can or will stand for any group telling them how to run their business. After all, they hardly stand for it now! Look at the amount of money they spend making sure Congress doesn't pass laws that are unfavorable to them.
If the RIAA play too heavy-handed with these corporations, and the big ones eventually see the RIAA as a threat, they'll use their clout to get it stopped. You might argue that the RIAA has large corporations (& their expensive lawyers) at their disposal, and they do, but they're really only a subset of the much larger Fortune 500.
Frankly, it would be fun to see an epic battle of these proportions, and one would hope that such a battle would end the RIAA's snooping tactics for good. But even I don't think the RIAA would be stupid enough to pick that fight.
That's exactly what happened to Senator Joe McCarthy.
:D
As you may/may not remember, McCarthy was the Senator from Wisconsin who, in the 50s, tried to root out Communists in the government and elsewhere. He never had any real proof that people were Communists (in fact, his initial "list" was, IIRC, his grocery list), but he went on anyway.
Eventually, however, he started accusing people in the military of being Communist. And relatively important people. The military had good lawyers, and that was the beginning of the end for old Joe.
So yeah, that's the precedent I'm using in my example.
Imagine if the world's airports could simply install GNU-AirTrafficControl 2.7, and have a complete, working, bug-free and cost-free air traffic control system.
...and we know what Congress feels about doing a lot of work....
True, but... I assume in this model anyone, anywhere could see the source codebase... with any of its bugs and exploits.... Do we want this for these kinds of software implementations (of which there are many done by/for the U.S. government)?
From what I can tell from the various sources (some good, some bad), the crux of the argument here is to avoid Smith et. al., making GPL or BSD licenses for government-produced/contracted code illegal. And that's only right. However, as far as I'm concerned, this simply starts the sticky discussion on what kinds of licenses/protection should be applied to what kind of projects. That's likely to be a lot more work.
Anyway, one can only hope that this news gets replayed as "X tries to restrict freedom", and these guys don't get re-elected.
Scenario 1:
RIAA: We have evidence that your employees are trading files on your network.
CIO: What kind of evidence?
RIAA: Well... uh... anonymous accounts?
CIO: Stop wasting my time.
Scenario 2:
RIAA: We have documented proof that your employees are using your network to trade files.
CIO: What, like server logs, network traffic analysis and examples of P2P installs on client computers?
RIAA: Yes.
CIO: All supposedly confidential company documents?
RIAA: Yes, so?
CIO: Meet our team of high-priced lawyers. Oh, and here's a picture of the last person who stole confidential information from our company. His current net worth is -$10 million.
RIAA: Eurgh....
As the article states, they're entering the market niche already occupied by Alienware and Falcon Northwest. While I wish them the best of luck, I can't help but wonder if there's enough business to go around.
After all, gamers (those who play more than solitaire on the computer) are a subset of computer users. Gamers who need great performance (fps++) are a subset of that group (since many of the most popular games don't need ninja machines).
Of that group, Gamers who can't already build their own ninja machine are a further subset. And, there again, you're looking at a further subset who want a machine tricked out with lights and suchlike.
So basically you're marketing to Gamers who aren't technically saavy enough to build their own computer, but who play the most resource-intensive games, have a lot of money to buy these computers and also want lights and transparent panels, etc....
They're also targeting "high-performance enthusiasts", but I think, really, that this is even a smaller group. Most people who are really into high-performance can, and already do, build their own computers. Most, not all, but most. In my opinion.
Then there's the whole RAID 0 thing. RAID 0 stripes data across the 2 drives, and is very useful for tasks that require the movement of large amounts of data quickly, like video editing. In my opinion, no game gets any useful benefit whatsoever from RAID 0. Sure, on map change your Counter-Strike level may load a half a second faster than anyone else, but my Western Digital Special Edition (with the 8Mb cache) loads them within a couple of seconds, so I don't see what's to be gained here. A red herring, if you will.
Why? Because there's a major drawback to RAID 0. If one of the drives fail, the data is lost for both, since it's "striped" across both, with no parity bit to tell the array how to rebuild the lost data. Double your risk for a speed gain you're unlikely to see unless you do lots of video editing.
I hope their support line is ready for angry calls....
Still, it's a neat rig. But, it's a niche market. Very niche.
I don't want new-fangled surround-sound. The wrap-around screen is neat, but I don't want that either.
:(
I'd just like an office, with a door. That I can close. So I can get work done. I promise to still talk to people who need to talk to me. Heck, I'll even have "office hours" so people can get face-time.
I just want an office.
Today I got interrupted 42 times (yeah, I counted, kinda sad) at my cube. All variations of "I have a quick question." I don't think I got much work done today. Well, I answered some emails.
Please stop talking about the bright lights of the future and give me a door.
So I can work.
Thanks.
is your title. The BBC article (which, let's face it, is a fluff piece or a very quick brief at best) simply states that Microsoft's implemented in XP SP1 the "ability" for end users (and resellers, no doubt) to "hide" any program's icons and existence.
Whoopty. Maybe the BBC will run a bigger article later.
After reading the CNet article, I still couldn't figure out why this was necessarily a great thing. So I went over to SNIA's website and read the white paper.
Anyway, it makes more sense now, and I can definitely see benefits. What we're talking about here is network-accessible storage with a very low barrier to entry, both in cost and in expertise to set up. In a way it reminds me of the Filer (1Tb filespace machine that we used via mounting NFS shares onto it) I had at my last job, but much, much less expensive and much, much easier to run.
Interesting stuff, at any rate.
1. The RIAA have a technology firm (or firms) in the space create a way that people can sign up on-line for a unique, encrypted "MP3/WMA-buying ID".
2. When people sign up on-line (and places like Amazon, buy.com, cdnow.com, etc... will have a part of their site where you can do this), you get a small downloadable program (MusicIdentifier.exe, MI.exe for short), which you download and install. This program is Open-Source, so it can be more easily ported to Linux, MacOS, etc..., and very simple - all it exists to do is identify and match your encrypted string to MP3s on your system that you're attempting to play. It is also open to allow easy integration into WINamp, MusicMatch, etc....
3. RIAA allows places like Amazon, buy.com, cdnow.com, etc... to sell MP3/WMA singles for $1, albums for $5, all downloadable. When you buy them, software on the server side slaps your unique ID onto the MP3/WMA.
4. Integrations into "ripping" software allow you to likewise slap the unique ID on your rips.
Advantages:
-Can be made very easy to use for the average consumer, possibly even transparent.
-The consumer will be able to play their music files on several different machines (if they own several different machines), without much hassle at all.
-The price-setting matches (or can be made to match) a price that people are actually willing to play, and the RIAA members save money on physical stock (which, everything considered, gets expensive).
-While it will be reverse-engineered (cracked), the impetus for most users to find and use such a crack is lessened by 1) ease of use and 2) the correct price-point setting.
-While some users may post their unique ID along with their music files, the prospect of having your MI.exe juggle multiple identifiers lessens this practice.
The key here is work vs. payoff.
At the moment the work involved in getting Kazaa (or whatever) up-and-running, finding that MP3 and downloading it is worth the payoff of not spending $15+ on a CD. Even here, people have pointed out that simply charging $5 for a downloadable album would get more people simply buying the album instead of downloading it for free (i.e., the average user doesn't want the hassle of using Kazaa).
In the future the work in finding and installing and configuring your copy-protection-breaker of choice may still well be worth the payoff of getting free MP3s. And it will definitely be worth the payoff of not only getting free MP3s, but also being able to rip and burn MP3s from CDs you actually own.
With this idea, on the other hand, it won't be, in general, worth the work to crack the system for a payoff of saving $1 on a single or $5 on an album, TO MOST USERS.
This is the simple economic lesson to be learned by the industry. This is the giant economic opportunity just waiting to be exploited.
Such a simple idea - shame it won't happen.
...which is unfortunate, because I was hoping for more. :D
However, I'm glad he's gotten the chance to re-do it, yet again. Blade Runner is one of those movies which so truly thrives off of the director's vision, it has been unfortunate to have Scott's vision somewhat confounded by various industry restrictions.
On a related note: Vangelis, who did the music for Blade Runner (to me, a truly impressive score), was finally able to release his version of the soundtrack in 1994. If it is still available, try to pick up a copy if you love the movie. I'm not sure how CDs are catalogued, but the number on the disc is 4509-96574-2. Vangelis had this to say about this soundtrack (CD liner notes):
Most of the music contained in this album originates from recordings I made in London in 1982, whilst working on the score for the film BLADE RUNNER. Finding myself unable to release these recordings at the time, it is wih great pleasure that I am able to do so now. Some of the pieces contained will be known to you from the Original Soundtrack of the film, whilst others are appearing here for the first time. Looking back at RIDLEY SCOTT'S powerful and evocative pictures left me as stimulated as before, and made the recompiling of this music, today, an enjoyable experience. - Vangelis, Athens, April 1994.