Everything you know about the music business is wrong... AOL gives its 30-hour employees better benefits than Warner Music gives Don Henley.
Because Don doesn't own his songs, either.
There are lots of little inaccuracies in this "article" that, together, make it classify only, at best, as "a fairly well constructed rant." The above is only one of these inaccuracies.
"The song" is not simply the words and notes. It's highly unlikely Don's old labels could prevent him from releasing live recordings of his greatest hits under any label he now chose - including just giving the damn things away over the internet, if that were what he wanted to do.
What the old labels own are the recordings they contracted him to perform. This is the deal most artists have, in fact. When Avril Lavigne signed away her rights to "Complicated" it's highly unlikely she signed away all rights to the song; what she signed to the label was the recordings the labels paid for in the contract. There may be a barrier to her recording those songs for any other label for a period of X months, but that does NOT mean the label "owns the songs." Songwriters own "the words" and or "the music." Artists own whatever performance rights their contract allows them to keep; labels own their recordings. That's it.
For a fantastic example of this follow the recordings of "Ol' Blue Eyes." Sinatra was with Capitol for a large part of his career (The Capitol records tower in Hollywood was draped in black when he died.), but with every comeback he would renegotiate his deal; if that meant moving to a new label, he was always ready to do so (and did, several times). And each time he moved he'd re-record all those "classics" (most of which were written by someone else) for the new label, taking his (now greatly improved) cut of the sales.
For another example look at Prince (or whatever he calls himself now). He vowed long ago to re-record his entire catalog for his NPG label; last I looked he was too busy with new stuff, but he has, in fact, re-recorded many of them. And there's little anyone can do to stop him. They are, after all, his songs.
The airwaves are anything BUT "crowded." Even in LA there are far, far more empty "channels" than occupied channels - dozens of them. I haven't lived there but I suspect the same would be true of NYC and Chicago and most other metro areas. The VHF band may be full, but the UHF band seems to go on and on forever with very few occupied slots. And because of the lesser propogation in that band the chances of some distant station filling a slot by accident are pretty slim.
What we should do is lobby for allocating a ten channel slot of the UHF band for LPTV broadcasts. Where I live there are three stations to be had - five if you're lucky enough to live in a high spot and want to invest in a giant rotatable rooftop array. That's PBS, CBS and NBC - no ABC within 60 miles of here and no FOX within 60 miles. Pretty slim pickin's, although it's not like you're going to get that much more diversity even with the other networks.
That's what the FCC should be embracing: low power local TV. Let communities establish voices through existing, well supported infrastructure. Leave ten channels of analog UHF TV until those existing receivers are all used up and we have better made the transition to "digital."
The same technologiees that enable robust DRM can also afford robust, anonymous trust mechanisms. In short, we NEED development in this area, and we need to let the market sort it out. Much as you may like to think otherwise, people aren't THAT stupid when it comes to their privacy; satellite TV ("country cable") has lowered the threshold somewhat, but when it comes down to it a divx like format would fall just as hard the second time around. DVD is laden with (now broken) DRM and you can buy a damn player now at walmart for like $50. The technology didn't get that cheap because no one wanted it.
There are scads of issues peripheral to this one. The parts of the law that mandate scrutiny and discussion are great - the parts that dictate specific use of technology, however, are not. This area of technology is far too young to have development stifled by government regulations borne of FUD.
If you can "ban the nimrod" you don't agree with then you have the power to censor the speech of others. People with the least popular ideas would also (then) have the least ability to make arguments to convince others why they are right. Sounds fine and dandy if it means you can put down the KKK right? So what if "everyone" believes the government on an issue? Then it's OK to "ban" anyone who might speak badly about the government? No, I don't think so.
I don't trust MS as far as I could throw Bill gates into a strong headwind. But that doesn't stop me from using windows - I just wrap everything up in PGP and firewalls and hope for the best. And that's the bad part - "hoping for the best." We need something that assures more than a wing and a prayer but also allows for the separation of identity and trust. And while that still may sound a bit like PGP, it ain't; I can't lock away an app in PGP and run it without also making it vulnerable to attack. That means everything else is vulnerable to attack, too.
Whenever we get stars in our eyes and dream of an "augmented future" with pocket computers that allow us to recall in an instant significant volumes of historical information, both personal and public, then we've got to realize something like Palladium has to happen first - because, I dunno about you, but I am not gonna carry around an "augmented brain" that any script kiddie with a bad attitude can even read, much less attack. In such an "augmented reality" a system attack has the possibility of being as much as physical attack as knocking someone down and stealing their wallet, or even delivering a blow to the head.
Now, granted, there's nothing protecting me from just such an attack right now. I could take a stroll down Sunset one night and get mugged and that would be that. But the way things are we are all living in the highest crime neighborhood and we have about as much to fear from the police as we have the (ahem) "bad guys." At the very least, we are going to have to come up with a "personal armored car" before any of the really cool stuff can move forward.
Now, I don't trust Palladium to be that armored car. But I also don't think you can get away with the anti-DRM arguments. Because, when it comes down to it, we are talking about a personal DRM system. I want to be able to lock away my thoughts - my data - from you. And I think most of you are likely to feel the same way. We all want our privacy, but then pretend it's not within the rights of corporations to whisper secrets in our ears - even when we ask it of them.
If you don't want to use DRM you shouldn't have to. But if I want to send you a "secret" - and you are willing to accept that secret - I should be able to. And if I want to know where that "secret" came from in case you tell it to someone else, what's to stop me from "coloring" it a bit? If you tell a slightly different story to every person you meet then you can be reasonably assured of knowing where the "leak" came from when that someone breaks your trust. Basically you are arguing that publishers don't have the right to tell you a secret - even when you ask them to - and expect you to keep that "secret."
Trite as it is, it comes down to "no one is forcing you to buy from Disney." And no one can reasonably expect Disney (any more than they could expect an individual - your neighbor, for example) to continue trusting you even after you have proven you would break their trust.
DRM is about being able to forge trustworthy electronic relationships. I do believe it should not sacrifice anonymity unless there is an absolute need for both parties to do so (and this absolutely does not include commerce exchanges unless it is for physical goods) but I also cannot see our technological future continuing to grow as it has without something better than we have now. And not just a little better, e
I don't have the patience to "earn" a degree, but when I was attending university I have to say I never really found any "value" in those meatsacks called professors. Sure, one became a great friend - but by the same token, one (much younger than me) was so threatened by my presence he went so far as to accuse me of cheating on the semester final exam. Of course the dean dismissed it when presented with the evidence, but the episode really drove home to me the politics of dancing (as it were). The rest of the professors I considered little more than talking mannequins thrown into my world to bore me to tears at a twice weekly lecture. Which isn't to say I didn't learn. I did, and even helped create lab materials for one class.
What I'm saying is, speaking as someone who never had the discipline to do well in "school" but whose thirst for knowledge has never dried up, is that "university" is all about you, anyway. About your desire to learn, and about your discipline to adhere to direction and play the political game. I really don't see how an online "college" can provide one the political insights of bricks and mortar, but I do think parent is overestimating the role of all but a few professors in the educational lives of their students. And there's nothing stopping you from honing your "political" skills by participating in local clubs, taking a few courses at the local university, meeting with other (real life) students in the area, and even befriending a (quality) prof or two from the local school.
Take me back to my little mountain shack...
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Never been to South Carolina in my life.
Obviously you haven't been much of anywhere.
And if you don't learn to play well with others you never will get that parole.
Re:why aren't their any useful geekPACs
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"People like me?" You mean people who let "people like you" put words in their mouth and go around flaming strawmen?
Since you are obviously (warning: heavy sarcasm) from South carolina AND a supporter of Hollings, why don't you tell us why YOU voted for him?
Politicians generally vote in accordance to what the public supports.
THE VOTES ARE COUNTED IN DOLLARS.
From Open Secrets [opensecrets.org]
2 TV/Movies/Music $330,317
That gives Hollings 330,317 reasons to introduce and work for any bills the record / movie industries want.
And if the people "represented" by Hollings would turn out at the goddamn polls and elect someone else who better represented their interests, Hollings would be taking that $330K in pension and trying to figure out how he's gonna live out the rest of his days on such a "fixed income."
Piss and moan all you like about a lack of representation, but in the end it's your own damn fault. If you don't vote and don't take an active role in encouraging others, you deserve whatever "representation" the corporations purchase for you.
Stop thinking like a dinosaur. Artists make money from making music not making records. If I were an up-and-comer I'd be foaming at the mouth to get a contract with a popular distributor - and if iTunes were that popular distributor, where I could showcase my work alongside big artists like Pink and No Doubt I'd give apple the goddamn tracks - at least for a year - and hope to catch a coattail.
You can piss and moan about not getting paid for every track downloaded, but 100% of nothing still ain't gonna pay the bills. Ten percent of ten thousand downloaded tracks is still a decent chunk of change, especially when it opens the door to gigs at The Palace.
That's elitism at work. The fact is Smashing Pumpkins were an "indie" band. Elvis Costello was an "indie." Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox were "indies" both before and after their rise to the top of the charts. Hell, even Van Halen was a local "party band" before they signed to a big label and wrecked "Diamond Dave's" life.
Some bands may choose to cater to that core audience and "stay small" - but I doubt many would turn down the chance at a major tour if one of their "indie releases" suddenly turned into a popular download.
I personally have zero use for iTunes - I don't have a Mac and even if i did I'm not gonna pay a dollar a goddamn track for RIAA label downloads locked into a DRM'd format. But if Apple can sign a bunch of bands and release them in a more consumer friendly format (ie >256kbps MP3) then I'd be all over that. What would really rock is if they'd sign some of the international artists and DJs I've grown attached to but who get little to no respect in the US - like Garmarna, Linda, NOME, Oceania, Juno Reactor, Natacha Atlas, Digiweed, etc. If I could pay a buck a track to download HQ tracks from artists I like and I knew with some certainty the artists were getting a significant benefit from my purchase, my opinion of iTunes would change dramatically - and likely would for many, many others as well.
We can't beat the bad guys in the long run, without at minimum, having our own top-bracket lobbyists working congressionsal offices, matching them dollar for dollar, having full-time legislative analysts checking EVERY bill and relevant agency regulation for booby-traps, and full-time staff answering phones and opening mail (like the snailmail with our $5 and $20 and $100 contributions) and e-mail and running mailing lists to let us know when it's time to send a message through Congress via their fax gateway.
"We" have ALL these things - in spades, in fact. "We" have countless Yale and Harvard law professors making comment; "we" have Lawrence Lessig and cohorts; "we" have WIRED and/. and dozens of websites and thousands of bloggers, all participating in an open debate, fighting cases (remember Eldred vs. Ashcroft? It didn't end in "hurray for our side" but it was still a relatively high profile SCOTUS case).
What's missing is organization... not just online, but at the polls come election day.
Now, just wait and see how many seconds go by before someone chimes in with excuses about why they don't vote... and don't count.
That is the only problem. So long as you make excuses about why you're helpless, guess what? You're doomed to remain that way.
As others have already pointed out, you needn't look to the courtrooms and the senate for "victories." I'm nearly 41 years old and if you'd told me twenty years ago I'd soon be able to have just about any music I wanted at my fingertips I probably wouldn't have believed it. If you'd told me I'd be able to collaborate with people all over the world toward a project goal I would have balked at the thought of paying such a huge long distance bill - and remember, I'm still talking about a time after the PC had hit the market - but when we were still using a "network" (RS422) of TRS80 model 4's in our Z80 development lab and a PC was still only marginally cheaper than, say, a used microvax. Even then this future wasn't widely imagined, and even among those who tried I don't recall anyone seriously thinking it would be this pervasive, this fast.
The victories are everywhere, but no matter how good it gets most folks seem to be focused on what they want. Well, if you know how to get everything you want, right now in real life then do clue us in so we can get on with the rest of it. In the meantime we've got to look at what we got and where we got it.
Example: my father is in his 80's; my 20+ aunts and uncles are nearly all dead. And all through those Nixon years and the Carter years and even the Reagan years I remember many an afternoon having to listen to them sit around and bitch about corrupt politicians and (get ready) an out of control press that had way too much freedom and power. Two decades later and this nation of sheeple elects a candidate who told us during his campaign he thought "maybe we have too much freedom."
This is the generation that forged the corporate nonsense we are living with now; this is the generation that put most of these corrupt fuckers in office, that passed most of these corrupt laws. And yet, in spite of their best efforts we now have a nearly unlimited, worldwide press, the ability to exchange copyrighted media and culture in the blink of an eye, and (believe it or not) more voice than ever - but we need to learn to use it on real shit instead of squandering it on essentially meaningless yellow press nonsense like "who gave the president a blowjob." Trent Lott was a good example of a move in the right direction - and I don't know how many of you noticed, but even CBS (er, viacom) and ABC (I mean Disney) were, in the end, forced to give some face time to chairman Mike's idiocy.
Most of these laws you all wring your hands over have become essentially meaningless for private individuals (and especially for indivduals who have an iota of technical knowledge). The victories are all around us, every day.
And speaking of which: I gotta run now; Dog Eat Dog is on...
In 50 years the present notion of copyright will be completely antiquated. There is nothing at all to prevent someone RIGHT NOW from making a "project gutenberg" type online publication. The only barrier is to PROFITING from such a project; if I were of the mind I could transcribe my favorite novels, technical works and poetry collections into PDF files, zip them up with an electronic "signature" just so others who found them could be sure of their completeness (at least according to me), and make them available to the entire world. I, you, or anyone can do this right fucking now - copyright laws cannot stop it, governments cannot prevent it. If we actually care about this we should be practicing what we preach and doing exactly this - right now.
Moreover, commercial entities in other countries (where saner - or even insanely limited - copyright laws exist) could then take those documents and make them available 24/7 in a convenient, indexed format that others could then use for research, teaching, or even pleasure. Anyone would be free to open up their own librarius to the world via p2p communities, usenet groups, and even low cost webhosting services in countries like Russia, Taiwan and Poland. This would force other nations (like ours) to compete by either changing their stupid laws (and thereby allowing US based businesses to compete with these foreign entities) or by shifting the mindshare away from intellectually oppressive regimes and toward nations that better support a creative and free exchange of information.
Elvis Costello "Watchin' The Detectives" on LP vs. the same track (hell, that whole album) on CD.
There simply ain't no comparison; the album was recorded on an old 8 track in his garage before the record company made him "clean it up a bit for release." Then, when they made the CD, they "cleaned it up" even more (this time without any input at all from Elvis). It ain't even a close race - vinyl wins start to finish. In comparison to the album, listening to the CD is like trying to view the mona lisa through a shower door.
Not saying it's ALWAYS best (hell, I don't even buy CDs anymore - most of my collecion is HBR MP3 with a few APEs thrown in) but sometimes there's no other avenue. I rotate what few LPs I have left as wall art; try finding impLOG's "Holland Tunnel Dive" (Ooooh, what a ride...) on CD. Or Tex and the Horseheads. Or...
You conveniently ignore other more reliable sources - private IRC trades, IRC "media rooms" where the groups take pride in their "work," and the grandaddy of all p2p, usenet - where many of those same IRC-ers hang and exchange and many more individuals also take care in what they share because it's THEIR music and they don't have 15 year old tin ears.
And it may take a damn WEEK to download a movie over a modem, but that doesn't mean the user is sitting there at the PC pulling the bits in with a teaspoon. In all I find it takes longer to organize the files on my PC than it takes me to initiate a download, edit the tags and change the filenames to the format I use in my database. And I may spend a few hours finding stuff I want, but so what? That's what hobbies are for - and at least I actually FIND stuff I want whereas visiting the local wal-mart is going to present me with a whole lotta nothing when it comes to choice (and forget about the CD stores - they're all but gone now and the only one within 100 miles that would allow "previews" of music went away years ago).
Four bucks? I download stuff a CDR at a time - that is, everything I pull in goes into a single encrypted volume sorted by date; when it gets filled (usually every 4-5 days) I burn the PGD file to a CDR and create another - thus, I have a dated archive in the unlikely even I even need to access it again. In the meantime I set the ID3s and filenames to my choosing and move them to the filesystem on my "media drive." The whole process takes very little time and a blank CD sure don't cost two bucks! Sheesh, even at wallyworld a pack of 50 CDRs is less than $25. Out of a stack I may burn five coasters, which bumps the incremental cost to something like 60 cents per unit (i.e. about a buck a week to backup all my data). And at the rate things are going with hard drives, it'll soon be even cheaper than that to keep it all on a portable magnetic drive.
Ironically, it takes more of my time (and can be considerably more of a nusiance) to rip a "real" CD than it takes me to download the damn thing from someone who has already done it for me.
And I agree that hardly anyone will begrudge the content creators for wanting to earn money, but right now you can't hurt the RIAA without also hurting the artists.
Sorry, but dem's da breaks. The artists need "encouragement" to abandon the RIAA as well. No one forces them to sign contracts. "Think of the artists" has replaced "think of the children" - and it's still just as trite.
In any event, this seems fair to me... After all you can't use a corporate image w/o getting copyright permission (else you're subject to infringement)... So why should it be any different for us...
I can't use the (trademark) Disney logo when posting a story of factual information about walt disney and I can't use a (trademark) picture of elvis when posting a story about elvis - but that doesn't stop me from posting a story about elvis or Disney. Prior restraint goes 100% against a free society. If you cannot understand this I invite you to visit cuba, china, korea or iran and see how far you get on the street when openly criticizing the government.
Wow, I didn't realize the FCC just banned anyone from owning a radio station except those five evil corporations.
Obviously you never had to get a license from the FCC. As an exercise in your personal education, why don't you try getting one of those LPFM licenses so touted by Powell as an "answer" to market consolidation and diversity?
Maybe/. will still be around when you finally get that license so you can come back here and tell us all about it...
A company is concerned with profit. Profit comes from customers. Customers come from people that are pleased with what you provide.
If you play to the lowest common denominator you sacrifice diversity and (because this is communications) sacrifice choice and freedom. If you don't play to the lowest common denominator then you risk pissing people off, which causes those "people" to crack the whip and complain. So, the larger a company gets the more likely it is to AVOID taking on challenging issues, AVOID pissing people off, and thus AVOID providing a diverse outlook on the issues.
If you are the ONLY market in a town (as CC has all but become in many towns) then you existence has nothing at all to do with "keeping the people happy" and EVERYTHING to do with "not pissing anyone off" - especially when a portion of that "someone" may represent regulatory agencies. the important issues get ignored out of self interest (just as they were in this case) and, with no competing viewpoint in the market debate is utterly stifled and the back room politics gets deeper still - just as in the FSU, just as it does in China.
The people of minot need to get together and write the FCC about this, then. Every station comes up for regular review and the refusal to act in the public interest is grounds for denial of license.
Of course, with Michael Powell's new FCC it probably won't matter - but having those petition as a matter of public record will give great ammunition when the FCC itself finally gets called onto the congressional carpet.
The town where I grew up, Belleville, had a lake named for it that, despite its problems over the years, had one fairly uniquely redeeming feature: a community hydro plant. The lake is apparently quite long and flooded lots of farmland, but it also brought lots of tourism dollars to the town and even provided power. The head at the dam doesn't appear to be more than 15 feet or so, and if you didn't know to look for it you'd likely never even notice the dam when you drove right by it. But Detroit Edison and the community leaders considered it worthwhile enough to flood 7 miles of farmland, and it powers quite a large part of the area.
If OK is littered with small lakes then you shouldn't be looking to dam up all that productive land just for hydro power. Community projects are the antithesis of the ideals of modern day government/corporate business models, but they can and do work.
Ah, but the licensee's rights have still been infringed. Their plagiarism may have cost me nothing monetarily because there were no allowances in my existing exclusive contract for redistribution or sublicensing - but if Miramax held those exlcusive rights to that film then it's absolutely certain their rights would have been infringed and that infringement cost them actual damages (since it was their right to demand payment for use of the work). Since they're the ones losing money then it's their battle to fight.
Besides, maybe I have no problem at all with the use of my film. Maybe they even asked me at some point about using it and I witheld comment because I liked the other project and was secretly hoping they would use it. Or maybe they never asked but after the plagiarised work made it big all the hype helped me land a big fat development deal of my own. Or maybe I just don't care. There are all sorts of reasons I (like Novell) might choose to sit out a litigation as long as possible - but companies generally don't concern themselves with personal ethical issues and it's therefore reasonable to expect them to defend their "rights" (real or imagined) as vigorously as possible. In some cases, in fact, the law demands they do so, lest they forfeit those rights for good.
IANAL but... let's put it into another frame that may help understanding:
I make a movie with my buds. We spend $100K of money hyped from friends and family and shoot a cool low budget western. Miramax sees it and likes it, they want to sign it. So, they contract a deal with me and my buds giving them exclusive license to our low budget western for the next twenty years.
Now, I still own the copyright. It's my movie: all Miramax bought were the US distribution rights. Does that mean I can't sell those rights to someone in Mexico? Maybe - maybe not; depends on the contract. But if they bought exclusive US rights then one thing is sure: I can't sell those exclusive rights to any other US distributor. And if Sony decides to stick it on DVDs and they haven't cleared it with Miramax, those will be the entities going to court; so long as I didn't break my end of the deal (by trying to sell the same rights twice) then it ain't my battle - it's up to Miramax and Sony.
SCO claimed at first they owned... Then, when put in their place by Novell they changed it to we own the rights... It's entirely possible they own (via licensing) exclusive rights to something that is actually owned by another entity.
That's the entire point of copyright and patent protection: to allow you to hold an exclusive property that can be traded and sold through contract. SCO may or may not have a case, but it's not a stretch to believe they (at least) honestly believe they own exclusive rights to a property owned by Novell.
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There are lots of little inaccuracies in this "article" that, together, make it classify only, at best, as "a fairly well constructed rant." The above is only one of these inaccuracies.
"The song" is not simply the words and notes. It's highly unlikely Don's old labels could prevent him from releasing live recordings of his greatest hits under any label he now chose - including just giving the damn things away over the internet, if that were what he wanted to do.
What the old labels own are the recordings they contracted him to perform. This is the deal most artists have, in fact. When Avril Lavigne signed away her rights to "Complicated" it's highly unlikely she signed away all rights to the song; what she signed to the label was the recordings the labels paid for in the contract. There may be a barrier to her recording those songs for any other label for a period of X months, but that does NOT mean the label "owns the songs." Songwriters own "the words" and or "the music." Artists own whatever performance rights their contract allows them to keep; labels own their recordings. That's it.
For a fantastic example of this follow the recordings of "Ol' Blue Eyes." Sinatra was with Capitol for a large part of his career (The Capitol records tower in Hollywood was draped in black when he died.), but with every comeback he would renegotiate his deal; if that meant moving to a new label, he was always ready to do so (and did, several times). And each time he moved he'd re-record all those "classics" (most of which were written by someone else) for the new label, taking his (now greatly improved) cut of the sales.
For another example look at Prince (or whatever he calls himself now). He vowed long ago to re-record his entire catalog for his NPG label; last I looked he was too busy with new stuff, but he has, in fact, re-recorded many of them. And there's little anyone can do to stop him. They are, after all, his songs.
What we should do is lobby for allocating a ten channel slot of the UHF band for LPTV broadcasts. Where I live there are three stations to be had - five if you're lucky enough to live in a high spot and want to invest in a giant rotatable rooftop array. That's PBS, CBS and NBC - no ABC within 60 miles of here and no FOX within 60 miles. Pretty slim pickin's, although it's not like you're going to get that much more diversity even with the other networks.
That's what the FCC should be embracing: low power local TV. Let communities establish voices through existing, well supported infrastructure. Leave ten channels of analog UHF TV until those existing receivers are all used up and we have better made the transition to "digital."
There are scads of issues peripheral to this one. The parts of the law that mandate scrutiny and discussion are great - the parts that dictate specific use of technology, however, are not. This area of technology is far too young to have development stifled by government regulations borne of FUD.
I don't trust MS as far as I could throw Bill gates into a strong headwind. But that doesn't stop me from using windows - I just wrap everything up in PGP and firewalls and hope for the best. And that's the bad part - "hoping for the best." We need something that assures more than a wing and a prayer but also allows for the separation of identity and trust. And while that still may sound a bit like PGP, it ain't; I can't lock away an app in PGP and run it without also making it vulnerable to attack. That means everything else is vulnerable to attack, too.
Whenever we get stars in our eyes and dream of an "augmented future" with pocket computers that allow us to recall in an instant significant volumes of historical information, both personal and public, then we've got to realize something like Palladium has to happen first - because, I dunno about you, but I am not gonna carry around an "augmented brain" that any script kiddie with a bad attitude can even read, much less attack. In such an "augmented reality" a system attack has the possibility of being as much as physical attack as knocking someone down and stealing their wallet, or even delivering a blow to the head.
Now, granted, there's nothing protecting me from just such an attack right now. I could take a stroll down Sunset one night and get mugged and that would be that. But the way things are we are all living in the highest crime neighborhood and we have about as much to fear from the police as we have the (ahem) "bad guys." At the very least, we are going to have to come up with a "personal armored car" before any of the really cool stuff can move forward.
Now, I don't trust Palladium to be that armored car. But I also don't think you can get away with the anti-DRM arguments. Because, when it comes down to it, we are talking about a personal DRM system. I want to be able to lock away my thoughts - my data - from you. And I think most of you are likely to feel the same way. We all want our privacy, but then pretend it's not within the rights of corporations to whisper secrets in our ears - even when we ask it of them.
If you don't want to use DRM you shouldn't have to. But if I want to send you a "secret" - and you are willing to accept that secret - I should be able to. And if I want to know where that "secret" came from in case you tell it to someone else, what's to stop me from "coloring" it a bit? If you tell a slightly different story to every person you meet then you can be reasonably assured of knowing where the "leak" came from when that someone breaks your trust. Basically you are arguing that publishers don't have the right to tell you a secret - even when you ask them to - and expect you to keep that "secret."
Trite as it is, it comes down to "no one is forcing you to buy from Disney." And no one can reasonably expect Disney (any more than they could expect an individual - your neighbor, for example) to continue trusting you even after you have proven you would break their trust.
DRM is about being able to forge trustworthy electronic relationships. I do believe it should not sacrifice anonymity unless there is an absolute need for both parties to do so (and this absolutely does not include commerce exchanges unless it is for physical goods) but I also cannot see our technological future continuing to grow as it has without something better than we have now. And not just a little better, e
What I'm saying is, speaking as someone who never had the discipline to do well in "school" but whose thirst for knowledge has never dried up, is that "university" is all about you, anyway. About your desire to learn, and about your discipline to adhere to direction and play the political game. I really don't see how an online "college" can provide one the political insights of bricks and mortar, but I do think parent is overestimating the role of all but a few professors in the educational lives of their students. And there's nothing stopping you from honing your "political" skills by participating in local clubs, taking a few courses at the local university, meeting with other (real life) students in the area, and even befriending a (quality) prof or two from the local school.
Obviously you haven't been much of anywhere.
And if you don't learn to play well with others you never will get that parole.
Since you are obviously (warning: heavy sarcasm) from South carolina AND a supporter of Hollings, why don't you tell us why YOU voted for him?
And if the people "represented" by Hollings would turn out at the goddamn polls and elect someone else who better represented their interests, Hollings would be taking that $330K in pension and trying to figure out how he's gonna live out the rest of his days on such a "fixed income."
Piss and moan all you like about a lack of representation, but in the end it's your own damn fault. If you don't vote and don't take an active role in encouraging others, you deserve whatever "representation" the corporations purchase for you.
You can piss and moan about not getting paid for every track downloaded, but 100% of nothing still ain't gonna pay the bills. Ten percent of ten thousand downloaded tracks is still a decent chunk of change, especially when it opens the door to gigs at The Palace.
Some bands may choose to cater to that core audience and "stay small" - but I doubt many would turn down the chance at a major tour if one of their "indie releases" suddenly turned into a popular download.
I personally have zero use for iTunes - I don't have a Mac and even if i did I'm not gonna pay a dollar a goddamn track for RIAA label downloads locked into a DRM'd format. But if Apple can sign a bunch of bands and release them in a more consumer friendly format (ie >256kbps MP3) then I'd be all over that. What would really rock is if they'd sign some of the international artists and DJs I've grown attached to but who get little to no respect in the US - like Garmarna, Linda, NOME, Oceania, Juno Reactor, Natacha Atlas, Digiweed, etc. If I could pay a buck a track to download HQ tracks from artists I like and I knew with some certainty the artists were getting a significant benefit from my purchase, my opinion of iTunes would change dramatically - and likely would for many, many others as well.
Where do I sign up?
Oh yeah...
Maybe they can make their new motto "From one old hippie to another."
"We" have ALL these things - in spades, in fact. "We" have countless Yale and Harvard law professors making comment; "we" have Lawrence Lessig and cohorts; "we" have WIRED and /. and dozens of websites and thousands of bloggers, all participating in an open debate, fighting cases (remember Eldred vs. Ashcroft? It didn't end in "hurray for our side" but it was still a relatively high profile SCOTUS case).
What's missing is organization... not just online, but at the polls come election day.
Now, just wait and see how many seconds go by before someone chimes in with excuses about why they don't vote... and don't count.
That is the only problem. So long as you make excuses about why you're helpless, guess what? You're doomed to remain that way.
The victories are everywhere, but no matter how good it gets most folks seem to be focused on what they want. Well, if you know how to get everything you want, right now in real life then do clue us in so we can get on with the rest of it. In the meantime we've got to look at what we got and where we got it.
Example: my father is in his 80's; my 20+ aunts and uncles are nearly all dead. And all through those Nixon years and the Carter years and even the Reagan years I remember many an afternoon having to listen to them sit around and bitch about corrupt politicians and (get ready) an out of control press that had way too much freedom and power. Two decades later and this nation of sheeple elects a candidate who told us during his campaign he thought "maybe we have too much freedom."
This is the generation that forged the corporate nonsense we are living with now; this is the generation that put most of these corrupt fuckers in office, that passed most of these corrupt laws. And yet, in spite of their best efforts we now have a nearly unlimited, worldwide press, the ability to exchange copyrighted media and culture in the blink of an eye, and (believe it or not) more voice than ever - but we need to learn to use it on real shit instead of squandering it on essentially meaningless yellow press nonsense like "who gave the president a blowjob." Trent Lott was a good example of a move in the right direction - and I don't know how many of you noticed, but even CBS (er, viacom) and ABC (I mean Disney) were, in the end, forced to give some face time to chairman Mike's idiocy.
Most of these laws you all wring your hands over have become essentially meaningless for private individuals (and especially for indivduals who have an iota of technical knowledge). The victories are all around us, every day.
And speaking of which: I gotta run now; Dog Eat Dog is on...
Moreover, commercial entities in other countries (where saner - or even insanely limited - copyright laws exist) could then take those documents and make them available 24/7 in a convenient, indexed format that others could then use for research, teaching, or even pleasure. Anyone would be free to open up their own librarius to the world via p2p communities, usenet groups, and even low cost webhosting services in countries like Russia, Taiwan and Poland. This would force other nations (like ours) to compete by either changing their stupid laws (and thereby allowing US based businesses to compete with these foreign entities) or by shifting the mindshare away from intellectually oppressive regimes and toward nations that better support a creative and free exchange of information.
There simply ain't no comparison; the album was recorded on an old 8 track in his garage before the record company made him "clean it up a bit for release." Then, when they made the CD, they "cleaned it up" even more (this time without any input at all from Elvis). It ain't even a close race - vinyl wins start to finish. In comparison to the album, listening to the CD is like trying to view the mona lisa through a shower door.
Not saying it's ALWAYS best (hell, I don't even buy CDs anymore - most of my collecion is HBR MP3 with a few APEs thrown in) but sometimes there's no other avenue. I rotate what few LPs I have left as wall art; try finding impLOG's "Holland Tunnel Dive" (Ooooh, what a ride...) on CD. Or Tex and the Horseheads. Or...
And it may take a damn WEEK to download a movie over a modem, but that doesn't mean the user is sitting there at the PC pulling the bits in with a teaspoon. In all I find it takes longer to organize the files on my PC than it takes me to initiate a download, edit the tags and change the filenames to the format I use in my database. And I may spend a few hours finding stuff I want, but so what? That's what hobbies are for - and at least I actually FIND stuff I want whereas visiting the local wal-mart is going to present me with a whole lotta nothing when it comes to choice (and forget about the CD stores - they're all but gone now and the only one within 100 miles that would allow "previews" of music went away years ago).
Four bucks? I download stuff a CDR at a time - that is, everything I pull in goes into a single encrypted volume sorted by date; when it gets filled (usually every 4-5 days) I burn the PGD file to a CDR and create another - thus, I have a dated archive in the unlikely even I even need to access it again. In the meantime I set the ID3s and filenames to my choosing and move them to the filesystem on my "media drive." The whole process takes very little time and a blank CD sure don't cost two bucks! Sheesh, even at wallyworld a pack of 50 CDRs is less than $25. Out of a stack I may burn five coasters, which bumps the incremental cost to something like 60 cents per unit (i.e. about a buck a week to backup all my data). And at the rate things are going with hard drives, it'll soon be even cheaper than that to keep it all on a portable magnetic drive.
Ironically, it takes more of my time (and can be considerably more of a nusiance) to rip a "real" CD than it takes me to download the damn thing from someone who has already done it for me.
Since when is palladium needed for this? Seems like SSL and PGP are doing just fine...
:o) [1-3] - yEnc "1st.jpg.pgp" (0/1) 20-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 1.91k Roadrunner :o) [1-3] - yEnc "1st.jpg.pgp" (0/1) 20-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 2.17k Phoenix Risen :o) [1-3] - yEnc "1st.jpg.pgp" (0/1) 20-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 696 B Roadrunner@blackhole.riot.eu.org (Roadrunner a.k.a 'A Fast Bird') :o) [3-3] - yEnc "3rd.jpg.pgp" (1/1) 20-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 91.89k Roadrunner@blackhole.riot.eu.org (Roadrunner a.k.a 'A Fast Bird') :o) [1-3] - yEnc "1st.jpg.pgp" (1/1) 20-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 57.9k Roadrunner@blackhole.riot.eu.org (Roadrunner a.k.a 'A Fast Bird') :o) [2-3] - yEnc "2nd.jpg.pgp" (1/1) 20-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 83.88k Roadrunner@blackhole.riot.eu.org (Roadrunner a.k.a 'A Fast Bird')
Anyone wanna guess what's in most of these?
Search all usenet binaries groups for string "PGP"
Search results page 1 of 3,500 results per page. 1,171 files displayed. (0 files hidden by filter )
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Subject Date Group Size Poster
alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 16.26m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [01of18] - "FA-01.pgp" yEnc (01/10) 9064906 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 8.64m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [1of3] - "LPr-1.pgp" yEnc (1/7) 5823482 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 5.55m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [12of18] - "FA-12.pgp" yEnc (1/9) 8262559 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 7.88m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [11of18] - "FA-11.pgp" yEnc (01/11) 10227689 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 9.75m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [16of18] - "FA-16.pgp" yEnc (1/6) 5302264 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 5.06m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [15of18] - "FA-15.pgp" yEnc (1/8) 7091399 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 6.76m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [18of18] - "FA-18.pgp" yEnc (01/10) 8925679 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 8.51m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
!RP for Sharpie - [05of18] - "FA-05.pgp" yEnc (01/10) 9163291 bytes 22-MAY-03 alt.binaries.images.pgp.count-draculol 8.74m SecretSantaHornyBastard@jAckonJill.cum (The Horny Bastard)
Re: PING>Yard, YCL.....PGP 11-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 2.35k Yardbird
PING>Yard, YCL.....PGP 11-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 1.06k "unclesticky"
Pingy Yardy (PGP) 15-MAY-03 alt.fan.yardbird 18.01k Anonymous-Remailer@See.Comment.Header (FatShiney)
Re: For \/\/Mr Yardbird\/\/
Re: For \/\/Mr Yardbird\/\/
For \/\/Mr Yardbird\/\/
For \/\/Mr Yardbird\/\/
For \/\/Mr Yardbird\/\/
For \/\/Mr Yardbird\/\/
Sorry, but dem's da breaks. The artists need "encouragement" to abandon the RIAA as well. No one forces them to sign contracts. "Think of the artists" has replaced "think of the children" - and it's still just as trite.
I can't use the (trademark) Disney logo when posting a story of factual information about walt disney and I can't use a (trademark) picture of elvis when posting a story about elvis - but that doesn't stop me from posting a story about elvis or Disney. Prior restraint goes 100% against a free society. If you cannot understand this I invite you to visit cuba, china, korea or iran and see how far you get on the street when openly criticizing the government.
Obviously you never had to get a license from the FCC. As an exercise in your personal education, why don't you try getting one of those LPFM licenses so touted by Powell as an "answer" to market consolidation and diversity?
Maybe /. will still be around when you finally get that license so you can come back here and tell us all about it...
If you play to the lowest common denominator you sacrifice diversity and (because this is communications) sacrifice choice and freedom. If you don't play to the lowest common denominator then you risk pissing people off, which causes those "people" to crack the whip and complain. So, the larger a company gets the more likely it is to AVOID taking on challenging issues, AVOID pissing people off, and thus AVOID providing a diverse outlook on the issues.
If you are the ONLY market in a town (as CC has all but become in many towns) then you existence has nothing at all to do with "keeping the people happy" and EVERYTHING to do with "not pissing anyone off" - especially when a portion of that "someone" may represent regulatory agencies. the important issues get ignored out of self interest (just as they were in this case) and, with no competing viewpoint in the market debate is utterly stifled and the back room politics gets deeper still - just as in the FSU, just as it does in China.
Of course, with Michael Powell's new FCC it probably won't matter - but having those petition as a matter of public record will give great ammunition when the FCC itself finally gets called onto the congressional carpet.
If OK is littered with small lakes then you shouldn't be looking to dam up all that productive land just for hydro power. Community projects are the antithesis of the ideals of modern day government/corporate business models, but they can and do work.
Besides, maybe I have no problem at all with the use of my film. Maybe they even asked me at some point about using it and I witheld comment because I liked the other project and was secretly hoping they would use it. Or maybe they never asked but after the plagiarised work made it big all the hype helped me land a big fat development deal of my own. Or maybe I just don't care. There are all sorts of reasons I (like Novell) might choose to sit out a litigation as long as possible - but companies generally don't concern themselves with personal ethical issues and it's therefore reasonable to expect them to defend their "rights" (real or imagined) as vigorously as possible. In some cases, in fact, the law demands they do so, lest they forfeit those rights for good.
I make a movie with my buds. We spend $100K of money hyped from friends and family and shoot a cool low budget western. Miramax sees it and likes it, they want to sign it. So, they contract a deal with me and my buds giving them exclusive license to our low budget western for the next twenty years.
Now, I still own the copyright. It's my movie: all Miramax bought were the US distribution rights. Does that mean I can't sell those rights to someone in Mexico? Maybe - maybe not; depends on the contract. But if they bought exclusive US rights then one thing is sure: I can't sell those exclusive rights to any other US distributor. And if Sony decides to stick it on DVDs and they haven't cleared it with Miramax, those will be the entities going to court; so long as I didn't break my end of the deal (by trying to sell the same rights twice) then it ain't my battle - it's up to Miramax and Sony.
SCO claimed at first they owned... Then, when put in their place by Novell they changed it to we own the rights... It's entirely possible they own (via licensing) exclusive rights to something that is actually owned by another entity.
That's the entire point of copyright and patent protection: to allow you to hold an exclusive property that can be traded and sold through contract. SCO may or may not have a case, but it's not a stretch to believe they (at least) honestly believe they own exclusive rights to a property owned by Novell.