A "revolution" in the civil, political sense would be simply to vote against the incumbent in every race.
I'm holding my ballot (we have mail-in ballots in Arizona) and the choices for Senator are: clown, clown, wacko. For US Representative: clown, clown, wacko. Each candidate has spent more on nasty, negative publicity than they will earn in their entire term of office if elected. Not one of them appears to represent me.
I've been voting since 1972. The choices are always the same -- clown, clown, wacko.
There is no intelligent vote. You can vote one clown out of office, but then your choice is between another clown and a wacko. It's an exercise in trying to predict which clown would do the least damage. We are usually wrong in determining the clown's true nature from the face they are wearing.
You are assuming an action which I have neither indicated nor engaged in, an assumption reached based on no evidence whatsoever, except for your misinterpretation of what I did say.
So what other products do you feel have an inequitable breakdown? Do you find a way to get those for free too...?
I try to avoid clothing manufactured in sweatshops, everything Microsoft creates, haven't been in a WalMart in three years, and the last CD I bought was Santana's "Supernatural". It's not about the breakdown of cost. It's not even about the price, although I did think $40 was a little too much to pay for lawn seats to see Roger Waters earlier this month (especially after it turned out that nothing even resembling Pink Floyd came with him).
It's about the fact that I don't want to finance things I don't believe in -- like suing children.
I don't even want their stuff for free. Don't use P2P, don't download RIAA music. Don't even listen to it. I encourage others to do the same. There's nothing illegal about that.
Saying that you admire a musician and are willing to buy their music, but that you don't admire their business decisions and thus you're going rip them off to help them...
That's not what I said at all. In fact, it is so not what I said that now I have to go deeper.
First of all, I've met too many rock stars to "admire" any of them. "Appreciate" or "find entertaining", maybe.
I'm not willing to buy any music of any artist that is signed to a major label. However, if I find them entertaining, I may purchase tickets to a concert to see them perform. With the current price of concert tickets, more money goes directly to the artist than if I had bought several copies of their current CD. The record label gets nothing.
I limit my purchases of music to artists which are not signed to the RIAA member labels. I'm not going to pay a buck a song at iTunes when I know the artist gets 16 cents to divide between a four- or five-piece band.
I believe if an artist doesn't want you to hear their music, those wishes should be respected. This keeps me off of p2p (not to mention the fact that I have a Mac, which has always pretty much kept me away) and I'll go so far as to change the station/channel whenever one of them appears on radio/TV.
As a result, I'm not hearing much of anything released on a major label since 2000. It's "illegal" music, doncha know? I'm not letting any of that stuff on my computer or into my ears.
I'm not ripping off anyone, but I'm ignoring a whole generation of music because it's what the artist has asked. I'm following the RIAA rules, to the letter. In fact, I've been preaching for several years that the best way to solve this entire file-sharing "problem" is to do exactly what the RIAA asks -- erase them from P2P and the Internet permanently.
Don't forget that you're in the middle of an entire thread that's focused on the art and science of being too cheap to pay an artist a buck for a song.
If we could pay the artist a buck a song, that would be honorable. If we could pay the artist $5 for a CD, that would be even more honorable.
But I'm not going to pay a buck a song while the artist only gets 16 cents. I'm not going to buy another major label record until the RIAA stops suing people and makes a public apology for being such assholes. I'll support the artists I like by buying tickets to their show when and if they come to town.
In other related news, even when the RIAA collects digital royalties, they then proceed to "lose track" of the artist long enough to avoid paying them.
I highly doubt that the RIAA is paying companies to distribute junk files.
Then you haven't been paying attention.
Sept. 26, 2002, in a House subcommittee discussion about peer-to-peer, Hilary Rosen told Congress the following:
"We have to look at things like spoofing. The New York Times yesterday gave credit to spoofing for spurring the development of the legitimate marketplace, exactly what this Committee and what everybody should want to achieve.
"Unfortunately, this week, we saw this announcement, that Sharman Networks in their new KaZaA download has decided that they're going to hamper spoofing. They can get away with technical measures against us, but all of this public outcry about technical measures to support ourselves. So spoofing has been effective, but it is at risk. Because of this, we have to be able to keep up."
There was never a question of whether they are doing it or not.
you are pirating another human being's music and ensuring System of a Down doesn't get paid today.
System of a Down gets paid according to the terms of their contract, theoretically, minus whatever the record label decides to skim off the top or simply refuse to pay them. McCartney is currently suing EMI for $50 million in unpaid royalties. EMI laughed it off when the case was filed because 95 percent of the time, they get to keep 95 percent of the amount they skim, even if the band catches them at it and an audit proves that the claim was true.
A band from the 80s (Bay City Rollers) is owed £50 million (whatever that works out to in US dollars) by Sony because they lost the original contract. Sony isn't sure the proper way to divide it up, so they don't pay anyone.
Then you trot out the "artist contracts are bad" routine, ignoring that artists willingly sign their contracts and continue to do so to this day. Must not be so bad.
The DEA says heroin is bad, ignoring the fact that junkies willingly shoot up and continue to do so to this day. Must not be so bad.
You see, piracy is nothing more than freeloading so that you don't have to pay the human beings who wrote the music, slaved away in a studio, mixed it, and distributed it.
Ah! The Motown story. Or were you talking about people who listen to the radio?
What the music industry calls "piracy" this year is, for the most part, young people with no money who want to hear more music -- like kids going to college. Whether they hear it or not, they still don't have any money.
I do not download unauthorized music. I think if an artist is stupid enough to ask people not to listen to their music, those delusional wishes should be respected. Maybe that's why I've never heard a song by Tool or Type O Negative.
Before the RIAA lawsuits, I never considered what label an artist was on when making an album purchase, or who distributed them because it never had a damned thing to do with the music, except maybe for Atlantic but that was decades ago. Until the lawsuits end, there's not a single record label on the list of RIAA members that will get a dime from me and I will make a conscious effort to make sure that any music which has been branded as "illegal" or "unauthorized" does not gain access to my ears.
simply for the fact that there are more artists putting out stuff than there is available airtime to play their stuff!
Average radio station plays 10 songs an hour. That's 240 songs a day, which is almost the total number of RIAA artists, after all the roster cuts.
ClearChannel has 1200 stations, all playing the same paid-for song at the same time. In a year, those 1200 stations alone have a total of 105 million slots in which to play songs.
iTunes only has one and a half million songs. All the independents together have maybe 3 million songs.
There's plenty of room and time for everyone to at least get a chance at being heard.
To my knowledge, there has never been an "effective" copy-protection measure.
Also, the copyright office sees a distinct difference between a "copy-protection measure" and "access control," which could be as simple as a password.
It is legal for consumers to bypass copy-protection, but not to bypass access controls.
What is funnier than the basic article is the wide range of baseless pessimism.
Let's see, adults playing video games, everyone has their own monitor, with liquor and food served right on top of them, must have beautiful women who also want to play the games, maybe a band playing in the background, too.
Not in the U.S.? It'll never work? The public won't buy into it?
I went to school in the 60s in Toledo, Ohio. We had chips, Hostess cupcakes and fruit pies, LifeSavers, brownies, a wide variety of candy bars, sodas, all available from the school vending machines.
Our teachers were also allowed to spank us and some even seemed to derive a sadistic pleasure from it. We rode on bicycles, skateboards, played football and baseball, all without helmets, pads or parental supervision.
It was possible to fail, to be criticized, to be disciplined. Some children were left behind so that others could excel. Our parents drank beer and smoked cigarettes.
I don't understand how this is supposed to hurt Apple's iPod. By being incompatible? By being worthless? Are we supposed to throw away the iPods, get rid of our Macs, run right out and buy a Wintel box and invite the hackers, pop-ups, spyware and viruses so we can save 10 cents on a crappy mp3?
Wasn't Napster the Windows alternative, here to save the universe from those nasty pirates? Didn't they just lose something like $23 million? Everyone must have been too busy installing patches to listen to music.
And there's this thing called radio. I don't have all the specs, but I've been listening to it for 50 years and never had to pay for it yet.
So, with all that contempt for stupid artists, why would you want to listen to their music?
Some of us have stopped listening to major label artists altogether, especially since Clear Channel came along.
I only download non-RIAA music, I only share indie music, and then only with the artist's permission.
Why would you want to watch their stupid movies?
The day the MPAA started suing people, I cancelled HBO, Showtime, tore up my Blockbuster card and have not been to the theatre since.
I actually like movies. I'm a musician, so I kind of enjoy music, too. I just don't believe in supporting lying vultures.
"If they're so dumb, surely you don't have any interest in what they produce, and neither does anyone else... so how come millions of files containing their work are continually being ripped?"
Mystery to me. Haven't heard any major label music since Santana's "Supernatural."
Because it's cheaper than buying airplay on Clear Channel? Because half the country is stupid?...you're just going to have to keep ripping off the creative people you like.
That's what happens when you buy a CD. By the time it gets released, that recording has already been stolen from the artist and they are NEVER going to get it back, even if a miracle happens and they recoup their advance. If you're Fiona Apple, your work gets tossed into the trash and you don't even get a chance to recoup.
If you want to support creative people, pay to see them live. They are much more likely to actually see some of your money.
If you buy a CD from a major label, you're just supporting the life-support system of a dying toxic beast that has already become a poisonous environmental hazard.
If you want to stiff a chef, you wave to him as you cross the street to dine at his competitor's place, where the help is better appreciated.
Bootlegging involves making your own recording of a live show, with or without permission from the artist. Many artists actually have provisions in their contract riders to accommodate and encourage this behavior.
The RIAA keeps saying that downloading is illegal. Now that they've got half of the country foolishly convinced this is an actual fact, they're going to ask everyone to run to Napster and iTunes to download music.
They're both trying RIAA music and you guys are arguing which one is the best deal.
Try DMusic instead. 60,000 songs. All free. No DRM. You can keep them forever. Erase the RIAA.
This also shows the inherent danger of letting one company's product dominate so heavily, despite the obvious and ongoing (20 years, at least) record of being written so poorly that it can be hacked so quickly.
What's Microsoft got for market share these days? 85%? 90%? All vulnerable by a single piece of code from a disturbed teenager, who has "shaken the foundation of the system."
Ought to make you wonder what a college graduate could do. Doesn't say a lot for the system or its designers, either.
Of course, I use a Mac, so we laughed at Blaster. And Y2k and Melissa and DaVinci and Michaelangelo, the Love Bug, and the other two million annoyances that Windows users fight daily.
Y2K was absolutely the best sales con I have ever seen. Mysteriously, Microsoft fixed every computer in the world, just in time, mostly by selling new ones. Oh wait, you need new software, too! A new operating system!
Whew! That was a close one.
Attacking Microsoft, the MPAA and the RIAA is the greatest community service one can strive for. The hacker at least got their attention but they have still failed to wake up, otherwise Microsoft would have a secure operating system instead of one that involves the Patch of the Week.
But if they do that, then your machine won't be reporting back to them, either. Can't let that happen.
End of obligatory Microsoft bashing in response to subject line
Slashdot Mirror
"the $750 is actually the _minimum_ statutory amount they can ask for"
If they are unable or unwilling to produce a timely copyright registration, $750 per song is the maximum.
A "revolution" in the civil, political sense would be simply to vote against the incumbent in every race.
I'm holding my ballot (we have mail-in ballots in Arizona) and the choices for Senator are: clown, clown, wacko. For US Representative: clown, clown, wacko. Each candidate has spent more on nasty, negative publicity than they will earn in their entire term of office if elected. Not one of them appears to represent me.
I've been voting since 1972. The choices are always the same -- clown, clown, wacko.
There is no intelligent vote. You can vote one clown out of office, but then your choice is between another clown and a wacko. It's an exercise in trying to predict which clown would do the least damage. We are usually wrong in determining the clown's true nature from the face they are wearing.
Clowns are funny that way.
...you're breaking the law.
You are assuming an action which I have neither indicated nor engaged in, an assumption reached based on no evidence whatsoever, except for your misinterpretation of what I did say.
So what other products do you feel have an inequitable breakdown? Do you find a way to get those for free too...?
I try to avoid clothing manufactured in sweatshops, everything Microsoft creates, haven't been in a WalMart in three years, and the last CD I bought was Santana's "Supernatural". It's not about the breakdown of cost. It's not even about the price, although I did think $40 was a little too much to pay for lawn seats to see Roger Waters earlier this month (especially after it turned out that nothing even resembling Pink Floyd came with him).
It's about the fact that I don't want to finance things I don't believe in -- like suing children.
I don't even want their stuff for free. Don't use P2P, don't download RIAA music. Don't even listen to it. I encourage others to do the same. There's nothing illegal about that.
Saying that you admire a musician and are willing to buy their music, but that you don't admire their business decisions and thus you're going rip them off to help them ...
That's not what I said at all. In fact, it is so not what I said that now I have to go deeper.
First of all, I've met too many rock stars to "admire" any of them. "Appreciate" or "find entertaining", maybe.
I'm not willing to buy any music of any artist that is signed to a major label. However, if I find them entertaining, I may purchase tickets to a concert to see them perform. With the current price of concert tickets, more money goes directly to the artist than if I had bought several copies of their current CD. The record label gets nothing.
I limit my purchases of music to artists which are not signed to the RIAA member labels. I'm not going to pay a buck a song at iTunes when I know the artist gets 16 cents to divide between a four- or five-piece band.
I believe if an artist doesn't want you to hear their music, those wishes should be respected. This keeps me off of p2p (not to mention the fact that I have a Mac, which has always pretty much kept me away) and I'll go so far as to change the station/channel whenever one of them appears on radio/TV.
As a result, I'm not hearing much of anything released on a major label since 2000. It's "illegal" music, doncha know? I'm not letting any of that stuff on my computer or into my ears.
I'm not ripping off anyone, but I'm ignoring a whole generation of music because it's what the artist has asked. I'm following the RIAA rules, to the letter. In fact, I've been preaching for several years that the best way to solve this entire file-sharing "problem" is to do exactly what the RIAA asks -- erase them from P2P and the Internet permanently.
It's the only honorable thing to do.
Don't forget that you're in the middle of an entire thread that's focused on the art and science of being too cheap to pay an artist a buck for a song.
If we could pay the artist a buck a song, that would be honorable. If we could pay the artist $5 for a CD, that would be even more honorable.
But I'm not going to pay a buck a song while the artist only gets 16 cents. I'm not going to buy another major label record until the RIAA stops suing people and makes a public apology for being such assholes. I'll support the artists I like by buying tickets to their show when and if they come to town.
In other related news, even when the RIAA collects digital royalties, they then proceed to "lose track" of the artist long enough to avoid paying them.
http://www.counterpunch.com/wilhelms09232006.html
I highly doubt that the RIAA is paying companies to distribute junk files.
Then you haven't been paying attention.
Sept. 26, 2002, in a House subcommittee discussion about peer-to-peer, Hilary Rosen told Congress the following:
"We have to look at things like spoofing. The New York Times yesterday gave credit to spoofing for spurring the development of the legitimate marketplace, exactly what this Committee and what everybody should want to achieve.
"Unfortunately, this week, we saw this announcement, that Sharman Networks in their new KaZaA download has decided that they're going to hamper spoofing. They can get away with technical measures against us, but all of this public outcry about technical measures to support ourselves. So spoofing has been effective, but it is at risk. Because of this, we have to be able to keep up."
There was never a question of whether they are doing it or not.
you are pirating another human being's music and ensuring System of a Down doesn't get paid today.
System of a Down gets paid according to the terms of their contract, theoretically, minus whatever the record label decides to skim off the top or simply refuse to pay them. McCartney is currently suing EMI for $50 million in unpaid royalties. EMI laughed it off when the case was filed because 95 percent of the time, they get to keep 95 percent of the amount they skim, even if the band catches them at it and an audit proves that the claim was true.
A band from the 80s (Bay City Rollers) is owed £50 million (whatever that works out to in US dollars) by Sony because they lost the original contract. Sony isn't sure the proper way to divide it up, so they don't pay anyone.
Then you trot out the "artist contracts are bad" routine, ignoring that artists willingly sign their contracts and continue to do so to this day. Must not be so bad.
The DEA says heroin is bad, ignoring the fact that junkies willingly shoot up and continue to do so to this day. Must not be so bad.
You see, piracy is nothing more than freeloading so that you don't have to pay the human beings who wrote the music, slaved away in a studio, mixed it, and distributed it.
Ah! The Motown story. Or were you talking about people who listen to the radio?
What the music industry calls "piracy" this year is, for the most part, young people with no money who want to hear more music -- like kids going to college. Whether they hear it or not, they still don't have any money.
I do not download unauthorized music. I think if an artist is stupid enough to ask people not to listen to their music, those delusional wishes should be respected. Maybe that's why I've never heard a song by Tool or Type O Negative.
Before the RIAA lawsuits, I never considered what label an artist was on when making an album purchase, or who distributed them because it never had a damned thing to do with the music, except maybe for Atlantic but that was decades ago. Until the lawsuits end, there's not a single record label on the list of RIAA members that will get a dime from me and I will make a conscious effort to make sure that any music which has been branded as "illegal" or "unauthorized" does not gain access to my ears.
Just following the rules.
When the balance reaches $3.3M production begins.
What if the balance only ever reaches $2.9M? What happens to the money?
simply for the fact that there are more artists putting out stuff than there is available airtime to play their stuff!
Average radio station plays 10 songs an hour. That's 240 songs a day, which is almost the total number of RIAA artists, after all the roster cuts.
ClearChannel has 1200 stations, all playing the same paid-for song at the same time. In a year, those 1200 stations alone have a total of 105 million slots in which to play songs.
iTunes only has one and a half million songs. All the independents together have maybe 3 million songs.
There's plenty of room and time for everyone to at least get a chance at being heard.
To my knowledge, there has never been an "effective" copy-protection measure.
Also, the copyright office sees a distinct difference between a "copy-protection measure" and "access control," which could be as simple as a password.
It is legal for consumers to bypass copy-protection, but not to bypass access controls.
Please cite one example of the RIAA using common sense.
What is funnier than the basic article is the wide range of baseless pessimism.
Let's see, adults playing video games, everyone has their own monitor, with liquor and food served right on top of them, must have beautiful women who also want to play the games, maybe a band playing in the background, too.
Not in the U.S.? It'll never work? The public won't buy into it?
It's called Las Vegas.
I went to school in the 60s in Toledo, Ohio. We had chips, Hostess cupcakes and fruit pies, LifeSavers, brownies, a wide variety of candy bars, sodas, all available from the school vending machines.
Our teachers were also allowed to spank us and some even seemed to derive a sadistic pleasure from it. We rode on bicycles, skateboards, played football and baseball, all without helmets, pads or parental supervision.
It was possible to fail, to be criticized, to be disciplined. Some children were left behind so that others could excel. Our parents drank beer and smoked cigarettes.
It's a wonder any of us survived.
I don't understand how this is supposed to hurt Apple's iPod. By being incompatible? By being worthless? Are we supposed to throw away the iPods, get rid of our Macs, run right out and buy a Wintel box and invite the hackers, pop-ups, spyware and viruses so we can save 10 cents on a crappy mp3?
Wasn't Napster the Windows alternative, here to save the universe from those nasty pirates? Didn't they just lose something like $23 million? Everyone must have been too busy installing patches to listen to music.
And there's this thing called radio. I don't have all the specs, but I've been listening to it for 50 years and never had to pay for it yet.
This was informative? How about funny? Even funnier were those who questioned the math.
RTFA not the parent.
So, with all that contempt for stupid artists, why would you want to listen to their music?
...you're just going to have to keep ripping off the creative people you like.
Some of us have stopped listening to major label artists altogether, especially since Clear Channel came along.
I only download non-RIAA music, I only share indie music, and then only with the artist's permission.
Why would you want to watch their stupid movies?
The day the MPAA started suing people, I cancelled HBO, Showtime, tore up my Blockbuster card and have not been to the theatre since.
I actually like movies. I'm a musician, so I kind of enjoy music, too. I just don't believe in supporting lying vultures.
"If they're so dumb, surely you don't have any interest in what they produce, and neither does anyone else... so how come millions of files containing their work are continually being ripped?"
Mystery to me. Haven't heard any major label music since Santana's "Supernatural."
Because it's cheaper than buying airplay on Clear Channel?
Because half the country is stupid?
That's what happens when you buy a CD. By the time it gets released, that recording has already been stolen from the artist and they are NEVER going to get it back, even if a miracle happens and they recoup their advance. If you're Fiona Apple, your work gets tossed into the trash and you don't even get a chance to recoup.
If you want to support creative people, pay to see them live. They are much more likely to actually see some of your money.
If you buy a CD from a major label, you're just supporting the life-support system of a dying toxic beast that has already become a poisonous environmental hazard.
If you want to stiff a chef, you wave to him as you cross the street to dine at his competitor's place, where the help is better appreciated.
If it was hard to write, it should be just as hard to figure out.
Bootlegging involves making your own recording of a live show, with or without permission from the artist. Many artists actually have provisions in their contract riders to accommodate and encourage this behavior.
Mostly because their studio doesn't own it.
There is no law against downloading and if you can find one that even mentions the word, please let us all see it.
Distribution is another thing. That is what the sharers are doing.
To understand MGM's thinking, you must keep in mind that Sony now owns MGM.
As part of the Consumer Electronics Association, Sony has filed a brief in support of Grokster.
The RIAA keeps saying that downloading is illegal. Now that they've got half of the country foolishly convinced this is an actual fact, they're going to ask everyone to run to Napster and iTunes to download music.
They're both trying RIAA music and you guys are arguing which one is the best deal.
Try DMusic instead. 60,000 songs. All free. No DRM. You can keep them forever. Erase the RIAA.
No, they're going to give the monkeys a six-pack and see how fast their standards drop.
This also shows the inherent danger of letting one company's product dominate so heavily, despite the obvious and ongoing (20 years, at least) record of being written so poorly that it can be hacked so quickly.
What's Microsoft got for market share these days? 85%? 90%? All vulnerable by a single piece of code from a disturbed teenager, who has "shaken the foundation of the system."
Ought to make you wonder what a college graduate could do. Doesn't say a lot for the system or its designers, either.
Of course, I use a Mac, so we laughed at Blaster. And Y2k and Melissa and DaVinci and Michaelangelo, the Love Bug, and the other two million annoyances that Windows users fight daily.
Y2K was absolutely the best sales con I have ever seen. Mysteriously, Microsoft fixed every computer in the world, just in time, mostly by selling new ones. Oh wait, you need new software, too! A new operating system!
Whew! That was a close one.
Attacking Microsoft, the MPAA and the RIAA is the greatest community service one can strive for. The hacker at least got their attention but they have still failed to wake up, otherwise Microsoft would have a secure operating system instead of one that involves the Patch of the Week.
But if they do that, then your machine won't be reporting back to them, either. Can't let that happen.
End of obligatory Microsoft bashing in response to subject line
Ah, but they weren't called personal computers until IBM released one with that name in the 80s.