The only criticism I can think of for those who want to retain VHF for rural viewers is the fact that I can't remember a time in our pre-cable television viewing experienced when all 13 channels had content on them. I believe we had CBS on 2, NBC on 4, Local on 5, ABC on 7, Local on 9, Local on 11, and PBS on 13.
So we weren't using 3, 6, 8, 10, or 12. That's 5 channels that could be used.
How you want to reallocate them is up to you, but it's not like rural residents would be left out on the cold if there was as much as a 33% reduction in available broadcast wavelengths.
They're legit.
I spent $25 on Apple stuff - I intended to spend $1 or $2, just as educational knowledge. And I'm boycotting the RIAA. (I know, I'm shamed, shamed.)
When Indie Music gets there though, I'm going to end up in so much debt that it won't be funny. I'd love to hear some ilyAIMY on my iPod. Right now, I'm trying to get a copy of their latest album - I've been waiting weeks... if I could get it via iTunes, I'd download the entire collection (and they have like 11 albums.)
My god, it's like crack that goes in your ear...
DJ Rap, Paul Oakenfold, Brian Transeau are all electronic musicians.
They're also some of the biggest live acts in all of Ibiza. And yeah, they use pro-tools on stage. It's more of an improvized jam session that keeps them coming to the shows...
So, to answer your questions - even someone who's only instrument is his computer will still make money from live shows.
I've bought Apple Store music, I"ve bought Half.com music.
Apple Store is great for when you want 1, 2, even 5 or 6 songs from an artist. I've got about 6 Bad Religion songs right now from the Apple Store - if I wanted those songs seperately, I would have had to buy 4 different albums. Ouch!
On the other hand, Apple Store's $10/album is only good when you can't find it cheaper on Half.com
I've ordered several albums on half.com - including DJ Rap's Learning Curve for $6. Now, I was gyped on that - Learning Curve had so many skips that it was practically unplayable.:(
It's a good deal, and while I wish it was a better bargain, it's still one that I at least would occasionally use.
That's factually accurate, except for the assertation that signing with a big label (and giving up copyright but gaining fame and exposure) is better than indie publishing.
You end up having a "diseconomy of scale" in most cases, where the artist will generally earn more money selling 1000 CDs at $5/CD than a label will offer for 100000 CDs. After all the deductions, the artist typically will end up owing money - not making it - on an album that sells that "poorly" - as if 100000 CDs was "poorly."
I'm lucky - my high school didn't "gloss over" history, and I loved it so much I got a B.A. in History from Rutgers.
I mean, this is all nothing new. I mean, I can cite some examples that predate Thomas Edison - the Industrial Revolution in America was pretty much kicked off by Samuel Slater - who, risking being killed by the British as a spy, memorized the specifications for building a factory, traveled to America, and recreated the British factory in America. Yeah. That's right. He was a "pirate."
And what happened? America became the industrial superpower of the world. The Telephone, the world's first mass-produced car... America went from a backwoods hick state to *the* superpower.
And it's happening again.
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, those who do study history are doomed to be dismissed as doomsaying Cassandras.
-- Funksaw
That's not much better, though, since no one listens to the history majors anyway.
Well, in that case you "own" the right to listen to the music when you want, where you want, and however you want.
Compared to a service like Pressplay or Real Rhapsody, in which you "rent" music. I'd say that's a significant difference.
Or, better still, you could just not purchase the songs from Apple. If you don't have a CD burner and you need it in MP3, then don't buy the files if they're not going to be what you want them to be.
Remember, you can also authorize other computers for your.m4ps. So, worst case scenario, you copy them over to a friend's computer with a CD burner, you burn to CD, then you get your mp3.
As for lossy compression, I've yet to hear the difference between a CD and a 128kbps AAC. I encode at 192kbps MP3 or 128kbps AAC, myself. I might hear a slight difference at 128kbps MP3, but not enough to deter my enjoyment or utility of the file.
I'm genuinely tempted to conduct a "blind hearing test" to see who can tell the difference between an AAC file, an MP3 file, and an uncompressed AIFF.
*shrug* And if you have an MP3 player, either burn & re-rip, or buy from CD, or buy from another music service. It's not rocket science to convert from.m4p to.mp3, if that's what you want. That's what I did with my files at first before I got the iPod and I was running a MP3/CD player that didn't play AAC.
MP3 is just as proprietary as AAC, by the way. It's the de-facto standard, yes, but no less proprietary.
I don't know if I'd say that the above poster is a troll... I've had some pretty crummy experiences with Real. Each version has gotten more bloated, more intrusive... RealOne was when I finally gave up on the platform.
I'm not sure if this will take off. I'm betting on "no" because of two factors:
I doubt they would mess with the "You own your songs" model which makes iTMS a success and stuff like Pressplay a failure.
The way I view.m4p's protection is this: This isn't going to stop the hardcore pirates. Nothing's going to stop the hardcore pirates. It's easy to circumvent, obviously. We're not dealing with the hardcore pirates - they can circumvent anything. If anything, they could always put up a microphone and tape deck to the speaker.
So let's not deal with them. Instead, let's deal with Joe User. We'll give him a file format that lets him do everything he did with MP3s, including burning them to CDs, but we'll make it inconvienent to share the files, to appease our business partners. Everything that's covered under Fair Use, let's let him do. Is he giving up control? Well, perhaps - the DRM, however, is very weak, and is basically there to keep honest people honest.
I can burn m4p to CD, and reimport to mp3 or m4a, and have, when I was using an MP3 CD player. That's fair use, I own the file. If I *didn't* own the file, or if I couldn't use it for fair use purchases, I wouldn't have bought it.
The reason why this DRM is accepted is because this DRM is reasonable, unlike most DRM on the market. Much of DRM infringes on fair-use, this one doesn't. It's not that we're against DRM, it's that we're pro-Fair Use.
Right now, the best we can hope for is that Apple allows indie bands to sell songs via iTunes. The 30 second preview might qualify for "airplay" and the distribution model does not require one to make deals with record companies. Why enter into a restrictive contract to get your songs into Tower when you can do it yourself and get your songs directly into the living room.
Right now, Apple & iTunes is our best hope for doing this. If they have to play by the RIAA's rules *for now* then I'd say to go for it.
My experiences with streaming (I didn't realize that it wasn't meant for sharing with strangers) is that unless you were the only user on the stream, even if you have broadband, the music gets choppy. Still, it was a great feature that had great potential. I'm sorry to see it go.
One, Puretunes is cheaper, although of dubious legality. (Of course, dubious legality does not nessesarily mean illegal.)
Two, I think this is a good idea. It won't stop students from filetrading, but it'll stop them from filetrading 50 cent, Usher, Creed...
Of course, when I was in college, I was "violating the IP rights" of Edward R. Murrow for research reports, and "FDR - Fireside Chat.mp3"... man, I dodged a bullet with that one! I'm still lucky they haven't caught me for "Martin Luther King - I have a dream.mp3"
I like the idea, but only if you avoid blocking the ports of what's ostensibly a damn good research tool...
Actually, this brings up a good point. "Crowded Streets" turned me off to CD buying completely until I got turned on to Napster. I had bought the CD on DMB's reputation, sound-unheard, and was really burned by the $20 I spent. To me, that makes P2P worth defending.
Okay, yeah, see... there's two groups of DMB fans. There's group A, like me, who like Under the Table and Dreaming, and thought that Crash was okay but not great, and that Crowded Streets was where DMB jumped the shark.
The oppisite number tended to get on board with Crash and like everything afterwards...
I liked Trippy, uptempo, slightly dark DMB with funky violin & sax, not downtempo, mainstream, rock-ballad DMB.
I got these numbers from the Blockbuster website:
DVDANALYZE THAT / (SUB)
$21.99
VHS ANALYZE THAT / (P&S DOL)
$16.99
CD
ANALYZE THAT / Original Sound Track
$17.98
That's right. The SOUNDTRACK costs more than the VHS version (and only slightly cheaper than the DVD)
Now, let's not go into the fact that the DVD costs nealy as much and gives you more value... let's also go into the fact that people aren't *Nearly* as resentful about movie prices as they are about CDs.
Why?
You can RENT DVDs. If you just want to see the movie, you can fork over $4 and see it... no problem.
The RIAA could have had the benifits of File Sharing before File Sharing... Like only the one song on the radio? Not sure about the other 9? Rent the album for $2. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Unfortunately, the RIAA isn't even keeping up with the business models of the late 1980s, let alone the business models of the 21st century.
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The only criticism I can think of for those who want to retain VHF for rural viewers is the fact that I can't remember a time in our pre-cable television viewing experienced when all 13 channels had content on them. I believe we had CBS on 2, NBC on 4, Local on 5, ABC on 7, Local on 9, Local on 11, and PBS on 13.
So we weren't using 3, 6, 8, 10, or 12. That's 5 channels that could be used.
How you want to reallocate them is up to you, but it's not like rural residents would be left out on the cold if there was as much as a 33% reduction in available broadcast wavelengths.
I know. I'm getting one if I can sell my current Windows laptop for >$800, or close to it.
Ebay's only going up to $400, though, and I JUST got it 6 months ago.
I made a boneheaded mistake.
They're legit. I spent $25 on Apple stuff - I intended to spend $1 or $2, just as educational knowledge. And I'm boycotting the RIAA. (I know, I'm shamed, shamed.) When Indie Music gets there though, I'm going to end up in so much debt that it won't be funny. I'd love to hear some ilyAIMY on my iPod. Right now, I'm trying to get a copy of their latest album - I've been waiting weeks... if I could get it via iTunes, I'd download the entire collection (and they have like 11 albums.) My god, it's like crack that goes in your ear...
DJ Rap, Paul Oakenfold, Brian Transeau are all electronic musicians.
They're also some of the biggest live acts in all of Ibiza. And yeah, they use pro-tools on stage. It's more of an improvized jam session that keeps them coming to the shows...
So, to answer your questions - even someone who's only instrument is his computer will still make money from live shows.
-- Funksaw.
Right now, apple gets a 33% split.
That's not that bad, if they cut the same deal with the indies.
I suppose we'll find out tomorrow.
*nods*
:(
I've bought Apple Store music, I"ve bought Half.com music.
Apple Store is great for when you want 1, 2, even 5 or 6 songs from an artist. I've got about 6 Bad Religion songs right now from the Apple Store - if I wanted those songs seperately, I would have had to buy 4 different albums. Ouch!
On the other hand, Apple Store's $10/album is only good when you can't find it cheaper on Half.com
I've ordered several albums on half.com - including DJ Rap's Learning Curve for $6. Now, I was gyped on that - Learning Curve had so many skips that it was practically unplayable.
It's a good deal, and while I wish it was a better bargain, it's still one that I at least would occasionally use.
That's factually accurate, except for the assertation that signing with a big label (and giving up copyright but gaining fame and exposure) is better than indie publishing.
You end up having a "diseconomy of scale" in most cases, where the artist will generally earn more money selling 1000 CDs at $5/CD than a label will offer for 100000 CDs. After all the deductions, the artist typically will end up owing money - not making it - on an album that sells that "poorly" - as if 100000 CDs was "poorly."
I'm lucky - my high school didn't "gloss over" history, and I loved it so much I got a B.A. in History from Rutgers.
I mean, this is all nothing new. I mean, I can cite some examples that predate Thomas Edison - the Industrial Revolution in America was pretty much kicked off by Samuel Slater - who, risking being killed by the British as a spy, memorized the specifications for building a factory, traveled to America, and recreated the British factory in America. Yeah. That's right. He was a "pirate."
And what happened? America became the industrial superpower of the world. The Telephone, the world's first mass-produced car... America went from a backwoods hick state to *the* superpower.
And it's happening again.
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, those who do study history are doomed to be dismissed as doomsaying Cassandras.
-- Funksaw
That's not much better, though, since no one listens to the history majors anyway.
Actually, it's not illegal to hack American satellite TV in Canada, while it IS illegal to pay for it.
So even if police monitor the site, they've got nothing to worry about. In fact, the entire site deals with how one can better obey Canadian law.
I love Canada. I plan to move there in a few years.
Here's the thing.
I wouldn't mind (in the least) de-regulation, if it was *easier* for people to get broadcast licences.
I mean, think about it. They have to be licenced by the FCC to broadcast, right?
I wouldn't mind a person having a monopoly on all the broadcasts in an area, if anyone could start one.
So it's not really de-regulation that we fear, but consolidation.
Ford didn't invent the car. Ford popularlized the mass assembly line, but he didn't invent the car. -- Funksaw.
Well, in that case you "own" the right to listen to the music when you want, where you want, and however you want. Compared to a service like Pressplay or Real Rhapsody, in which you "rent" music. I'd say that's a significant difference.
You could also use the Toast workaround.
.m4ps. So, worst case scenario, you copy them over to a friend's computer with a CD burner, you burn to CD, then you get your mp3.
Or, better still, you could just not purchase the songs from Apple. If you don't have a CD burner and you need it in MP3, then don't buy the files if they're not going to be what you want them to be.
Remember, you can also authorize other computers for your
As for lossy compression, I've yet to hear the difference between a CD and a 128kbps AAC. I encode at 192kbps MP3 or 128kbps AAC, myself. I might hear a slight difference at 128kbps MP3, but not enough to deter my enjoyment or utility of the file.
I'm genuinely tempted to conduct a "blind hearing test" to see who can tell the difference between an AAC file, an MP3 file, and an uncompressed AIFF.
*shrug* And if you have an MP3 player, either burn & re-rip, or buy from CD, or buy from another music service. It's not rocket science to convert from .m4p to .mp3, if that's what you want. That's what I did with my files at first before I got the iPod and I was running a MP3/CD player that didn't play AAC.
MP3 is just as proprietary as AAC, by the way. It's the de-facto standard, yes, but no less proprietary.
I'm almost tempted to ask "mod parent down" but it's not really worth it.
AACs can be burnt to CD, instead of MP3. If you NEED MP3, you can always reimport from that CD you just burned.
DRM's part of the reason why it's not MP3, sure.
Another BIG part of it is that AAC take up less bandwidth than similar quality MP3 files.
Offering the same music *twice* would be stupid when you're talking about a situation when you've got a bunch of bandwidth costs to consider.
I don't know if I'd say that the above poster is a troll... I've had some pretty crummy experiences with Real. Each version has gotten more bloated, more intrusive... RealOne was when I finally gave up on the platform.
I'm not sure if this will take off. I'm betting on "no" because of two factors:
Subscription Fees are bad.
People like to own, not rent, music.
-- Funky
Actually, at work, where I'm given a Windows machine, we're not allowed to install anything without permission.
Which means that we didn't have permission when we fixed the apparent "network slowdown" by going over to the client computers and running ad-aware.
If we were smart, the company would be using Mozilla.
-- Funky.
I doubt they would mess with the "You own your songs" model which makes iTMS a success and stuff like Pressplay a failure.
.m4p's protection is this: This isn't going to stop the hardcore pirates. Nothing's going to stop the hardcore pirates. It's easy to circumvent, obviously. We're not dealing with the hardcore pirates - they can circumvent anything. If anything, they could always put up a microphone and tape deck to the speaker.
The way I view
So let's not deal with them. Instead, let's deal with Joe User. We'll give him a file format that lets him do everything he did with MP3s, including burning them to CDs, but we'll make it inconvienent to share the files, to appease our business partners. Everything that's covered under Fair Use, let's let him do. Is he giving up control? Well, perhaps - the DRM, however, is very weak, and is basically there to keep honest people honest.
I can burn m4p to CD, and reimport to mp3 or m4a, and have, when I was using an MP3 CD player. That's fair use, I own the file. If I *didn't* own the file, or if I couldn't use it for fair use purchases, I wouldn't have bought it.
The reason why this DRM is accepted is because this DRM is reasonable, unlike most DRM on the market. Much of DRM infringes on fair-use, this one doesn't. It's not that we're against DRM, it's that we're pro-Fair Use.
-- Funky.
I hope that day comes... but...
Right now, the best we can hope for is that Apple allows indie bands to sell songs via iTunes. The 30 second preview might qualify for "airplay" and the distribution model does not require one to make deals with record companies. Why enter into a restrictive contract to get your songs into Tower when you can do it yourself and get your songs directly into the living room.
Right now, Apple & iTunes is our best hope for doing this. If they have to play by the RIAA's rules *for now* then I'd say to go for it.
My experiences with streaming (I didn't realize that it wasn't meant for sharing with strangers) is that unless you were the only user on the stream, even if you have broadband, the music gets choppy. Still, it was a great feature that had great potential. I'm sorry to see it go.
-- Funky.
And to some of us, Music is the way that sound stirs our souls.
Your point?
One, Puretunes is cheaper, although of dubious legality. (Of course, dubious legality does not nessesarily mean illegal.)
Two, I think this is a good idea. It won't stop students from filetrading, but it'll stop them from filetrading 50 cent, Usher, Creed...
Of course, when I was in college, I was "violating the IP rights" of Edward R. Murrow for research reports, and "FDR - Fireside Chat.mp3"... man, I dodged a bullet with that one! I'm still lucky they haven't caught me for "Martin Luther King - I have a dream.mp3"
I like the idea, but only if you avoid blocking the ports of what's ostensibly a damn good research tool...
-- Funky.
R2T was good.
Actually, this brings up a good point. "Crowded Streets" turned me off to CD buying completely until I got turned on to Napster. I had bought the CD on DMB's reputation, sound-unheard, and was really burned by the $20 I spent. To me, that makes P2P worth defending.
Okay, yeah, see... there's two groups of DMB fans. There's group A, like me, who like Under the Table and Dreaming, and thought that Crash was okay but not great, and that Crowded Streets was where DMB jumped the shark.
The oppisite number tended to get on board with Crash and like everything afterwards...
I liked Trippy, uptempo, slightly dark DMB with funky violin & sax, not downtempo, mainstream, rock-ballad DMB.
Here's a doozy.
I got these numbers from the Blockbuster website:
DVDANALYZE THAT / (SUB)
$21.99
VHS ANALYZE THAT / (P&S DOL)
$16.99
CD
ANALYZE THAT / Original Sound Track
$17.98
That's right. The SOUNDTRACK costs more than the VHS version (and only slightly cheaper than the DVD)
Now, let's not go into the fact that the DVD costs nealy as much and gives you more value... let's also go into the fact that people aren't *Nearly* as resentful about movie prices as they are about CDs.
Why?
You can RENT DVDs. If you just want to see the movie, you can fork over $4 and see it... no problem.
The RIAA could have had the benifits of File Sharing before File Sharing... Like only the one song on the radio? Not sure about the other 9? Rent the album for $2. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Unfortunately, the RIAA isn't even keeping up with the business models of the late 1980s, let alone the business models of the 21st century.