Yes yes yes, thank GOD there is somebody else out there who feels this way. I'm going on probably 2 TV-free years (with an occassional peak at friends' houses of course, plus the SuperBowl). It's about $70USD/month for digital cable, and I think most morons are willing to pay because they are so happy they can fool with the cool onscreen TV Guide menu; they don't even realize that all that's out there is crap.
Well, almost everything. When I hear about a good show, I watch it on DVD. Like the Sopranos. I can watch the whole season in a few nights. Netflix. $20/month. Only stuff I want. No commercials. There is zero reason to buy into TV anymore.
Why do i feel so guilty?
on
See Spot Surf
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· Score: 1
Why do I feel so guilty for thinking this is so pathetic? I just can't help it. I guess I've bumped into way too many people who are way too into their dogs, and who talk about them as if they are children. And all I keep thinking about are all of those little dogs dressed in sweaters that I see walking through the park on my way to the train every day. Must... resist... urge... to puke.
The way I understand it (as an artist who has had a tiny stint of regular airplay on a couple of local stations) is that BMI and ASCAP collect station playlists in a relatively random manner. From there, they determine who gets royalties for airplay. So, for a little guy like me, there were NO royalties paid because we didn't get enough airplay to secure ourselves a spot on the playlist for the time period BMI or ASCAP collected lists for. A P2P environment can ensure much more exact tracking under this scheme.
So, how do we do that? The CDDB is an excellent start. But what kind of tracking scheme makes sense for Joe Schmo musician who is producing his own singles and self-publishing? Some kind of registration database? Product code assignment for each track? There are millions of possibilities that I won't list here.
The biggest obstacle would be the standardization of meta data that would be necessary to say that X people downloaded Y song. I look at mp3s that i download and even original ones I create and see that there is zero consistency to the way the files are tagged. Song titles are misspelled, artist names may be misspelled or even inaccurate, no year data, no genre data.
Anyway, the end result would be, "Here you go BMI/ASCAP/[Insert new rights management company here], an accurate listing of downloaded songs." They plug it into their database and update their clients' accounts. If the artist makes more than $5.00 in a given month, mail 'em a check.
This would equalize things a bit more between high-budget and low-budget artists; a good song is a good song, big label/RIAA or not.
Dude, that's a perfect valentine's day card: First the big long "I didn't used to believe in love" on the cover, in gold-leaf cursive. Then the inside "Yup. Sounds like crack to me," in some crappy cartoon font.
Yes we need it. Yes we can afford it, because it is free. The ultimate privacy is having thoughts. Since nobody can read your mind, the only clues that people have about your mental state is your lifestyle. Under a system with zero privacy, if the lifestyle you lead is not "normal," for which there is no definition, you will be construed as insane. If you say things that aren't "normal" you will be considered a sociopath. If you go to undesirable places during off hours, you will be considered unfit for employment.
Hey, didn't many of us as "nerds" get labeled and persecuted because we were different? Because we cared about stuff outside the mainstream? With no privacy/100% societal transparency, this definition of "normal behavior" could be conveniently modified at any time to harass/persecute/prosecute any person for any reason.
Aaaaah, you have anarchist-leaning writings on Slashdot. Freedom of Speech baby. So, you won't be arrested, but person-in-power X shares this info with person Y and says, "Shit man, this guy's a loon, don't hire him." Sounds paranoid, but it is only the logical extreme of this theory that you can do without privacy.
If someone could just give a clinical definition of NORMAL, I would at least feel a little better about losing my privacy. Maybe we could color code our closeness to normality. Like, I'm yellow so I'm kind of wacky, but i'm still not quite as bad as RED; be on high alert around him. Hmmm.
This is a different way of giving someone else control over what you listen to, because a gatekeeper will have to select the music being streamed. I do not think that's a *bad* thing. The role of critics and music experts will become the crux of this type of music distribution system, where the exposure of an overabundance of music might be overwhelming to people.
There might be 3 types of set-ups to allow you to choose your music: P2P, where you trust your network of peers as critics; local critics, who would showcase the best locally produced music; and national critics, ones who would be genre experts with a national pool of music to pick and choose from.
The trick is the not allow critics and music experts slip into this mode of expecting million-dollar salaries (like record company execs), losing their objectivity as they sell out.
I think this theme--distinguishing between songs and this website--that exists throughout many posts is being pulled out of thin air. I can't come up with a simpler argument than the definition of parody, which can be found on the Booble site and m-w.com:
a literary or musical work in which the style of an author is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule
The only thing in contention is whether or not you can define a web site as a work of art (I think you can at least agree that "literary or musical work" is narrow and can easily be defined as a "creative work" or some such). Utility has nothing to do with it. In fact, from what I read, the booble.com search engine doesn't even work.
On m-w.com, the second definition is:
a feeble or ridiculous imitation
I would say this definition is pretty accurate: Booble.com is a ridiculous imitation.
Very much agreed. But the loophole of course is the word "reasonable." Of course the feds can say what they're doing is "reasonable" because it is in the name of national security. Place to be searched = potential terrorist's house. Things to be seized = tools that can be used to perform terrorism.
That's what I mean about an EXPLICIT right to privacy. Which opens up a HUGE can of worms as far as what "privacy" means. The 4th Amendment pokes and prods at some kind of unclear definition of privacy, but leaves that "reasonable" loophole in there. This is a gray area where privacy is going head to head with "national security," and the scales are definitely tipping in favor of national security right now.
On a parallel note to my original post, there is a gray area when it comes to public figures and what you can report about them, too. For example, although medical records about public figures were once considered a no-no to report, you can now access all kinds of gossip about celebrities' boob jobs and cancer and drug addiction.
Privacy is not a right granted by the Constitution.
I have a communications degree, and one of the first things we learned when studying communications case law that was drilled into our heads time and time again was that there is no "right to privacy" or "freedom of privacy" anywhere in the constitution or in any law. While this was mainly in the context of defining freedom of the press and public vs. private citizens, it is worth mentioning here.
You have to wonder how differently we'd react to these anti-terror anti-privacy measures if there _were_ an explicit right to privacy ammendment to the Constitution? What kind of effects would the existence of such an ammendment have on any of these emerging privacy issues?
I wonder if anyone else has realized that IT workers are basically the newest members of the Blue Collar community? We've been way overpaid in the past, but now it's just time to accept the fact that the bottom line is what matters in business. Right or wrong, money dictates everything. That's why people shop and Walmart, and that's why companies move IT jobs offshore.
These formerly grossly overpaid IT jobs, despite using "brain" power instead of "physical" power, are slowly sliding onto the blue-collar scale of pay. It's a bitter pill for many "intellectuals" or "nerds" to swallow since their mental superiority should make them special and worth more. But--our IT jobs all fit into a larger puzzle of employment and society, and really are just common labor like anything else.
IMHO, the only thing stopping IT workers from EFFECTIVELY unionizing is the mere stigma that unionizing is "bad," "lower class," "blue collar." Time for IT to grow a set of balls and leverage the power of numbers and unionize.
It's funny, because my very first impression of Windows XP when I "upgraded" from 98 was "What the fuck are these fucking pop-ups?" I mean they were present literally the instant I got online.
Whaaaaaaat?? Isn't this the pop bullshit mentality that mass media wants you to believe that has led to the degradation of music in the first place? That just feeds back into the 'beautiful people" running show business, where talent takes a back seat to image. There is still such thing as good music, and radio is as much a necessity for music as it is for talk, etc.
We all take for granted that we can burn CDs, listen to our digital cable music channels, watch MTV, blah blah. Not everyone can afford that kind of stuff.
And on the radio, you can still count on a few surprise discoveries of new artists (if you listen to the right station). The threshold for entry into radio (read cost) is still much lower than it is for television, so it will always be the more "adventurous" medium for exploring new material.
The supply of content is infinite and so the value of the commodity is zero.
I could not possibly put into words how mistaken this notion is, not only about music but about anything.
Let's examine this: We're talking about how great Google is because it helps sort through (for all intents and purposes) INFINITE content. That is, there is too much of it for you or I or anybody to read all of it. Although as an end user you don't directly PAY Google, you may support them by shopping at one of their sponsors. Would Google exist with *zero* income??
Okay, let's move this analogy to music. There isn't REALLY infinite content, but there is too much for anyone to listen to all of it. It is necessary to have a mechanism in place so that the best music gets put in front of people. It's deciding what's the best that's the tricky part. If making or finding good music had *zero value*, when would musicians have the time to make music when they have to do some other job in order to make money to live???
As technical people, many Slashdot readers are lucky enough to delve into the core of what they love and make a living at it, be it coding or physics or biology. There is the usual political b.s. that is inherant in any job, but for the most part Slashdot readers are luckier than other people who just 'end up' somewhere, flipping burgers or dumping trash.
But imagine having to dump trash every day from 7 am to 3 pm, and only after you're done can you dive into your code, or pick up your future Nobel Prize work where you left off. Because that's how musicians live. Turning pro involves making that tricky transition where you all of a sudden make enough money to live by doing something with music. If nobody could ever "quit their day job" because there is *zero value* in what they love to do, you'd have an infinite amount of mediocre music from people who are too tired and don't have enough time to perfect their craft.
Just don't confuse the music *industry* and the evils of the RIAA with the artists, who have families and financial needs like the rest of the world, plus the burden of loving something that traditionally requires you to live a double life of doing x work during the day and music at night. Wall to wall work. *Nothing* has "zero value."
It's scary to thing of the sense of reality that seems to be crumbling beneath kids. I mean, regardless of what your stance is on letting kids play violent video games, or even watching movies with guns or fistfighting, the fundamental idea of not being able to distinguish the *TV SCREEN* from real life is very disturbing.
Just throwing this out there: How many parents actually nurture their children to be curious and to learn versus raising them to be as little inconvenience as possible to their own lives?? The results of such are kids that are desperate for attention and who have no foundation of being able to learn or ask questions. Detached human beings.
As an independent musician, I've been wondering lately if it makes sense to require "public access" space for such proposed internet music/jukebox services. A significant public medium is offered to a large audience much like cable tv, which is required by law to offer public access.
It'd be cool to rent a spot on the jukebox network for $20/month or something, without having a crappy middle man like a record label!
The answer to this is simple. You can argue all you want about the word 'spam' being used as a generic term, but you cannot commercially use it for *anything*.
IANAL, but this is communications law 101. Think about "Jeep" and you can see cases for both a generic slang term AND a trademarked term. In general terms you can argue that it refers to an all-terrain vehicle shaped in a certain way. This came from the military's "General Purpose" vehicles, for which the shortened term was "GP" or "jeep." This was a slang generic term for that type of vehicle.
General Motors (or is it Daimler-Chrysler) began manufacturing cars under a trademarked brand name "Jeep." Now vehicles like that are a dime a dozen from several different manufacturers. But, they are "SUVs," not Jeeps, because "Jeep" is a registered trademark.
I would go one step further and say that this is the *goal* of the human species. Otherwise, what good is merely cooperating with each other and loving each other? The ultimate benefit of all human progress is the long-term survival of our species.
If we are "good" enough, whether from a sociological, religious, or whatever other point of view, we will be able to avoid destroying ourselves and progress to the point that our geography (and the fact that the sun will eventually die, etc.) is not nearly as important as our ability to sustain a working model of a society.
As an artist, I keep reaching the same conclusion about this issue of making money from my music: Being a musician is a blue collar job, one that if I'm lucky I can eek out a decent living: Own a modest house, pay the bills, drive a decent sedan, blah blah blah.
I can understand how current "superstars" are concerned: The era of high-dollar "superstars" is over, or at least coming to an end. Artists don't need the middleman anymore, which allows them to get their proper compensation for the art they create. The compromise is that they can only succeed on their own merits of their material, and their own personal salesmanship.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes yes yes, thank GOD there is somebody else out there who feels this way. I'm going on probably 2 TV-free years (with an occassional peak at friends' houses of course, plus the SuperBowl). It's about $70USD/month for digital cable, and I think most morons are willing to pay because they are so happy they can fool with the cool onscreen TV Guide menu; they don't even realize that all that's out there is crap.
Well, almost everything. When I hear about a good show, I watch it on DVD. Like the Sopranos. I can watch the whole season in a few nights. Netflix. $20/month. Only stuff I want. No commercials. There is zero reason to buy into TV anymore.
Why do I feel so guilty for thinking this is so pathetic? I just can't help it. I guess I've bumped into way too many people who are way too into their dogs, and who talk about them as if they are children. And all I keep thinking about are all of those little dogs dressed in sweaters that I see walking through the park on my way to the train every day. Must... resist... urge... to puke.
Hmm. Maybe i'll start a site for cats.
The way I understand it (as an artist who has had a tiny stint of regular airplay on a couple of local stations) is that BMI and ASCAP collect station playlists in a relatively random manner. From there, they determine who gets royalties for airplay. So, for a little guy like me, there were NO royalties paid because we didn't get enough airplay to secure ourselves a spot on the playlist for the time period BMI or ASCAP collected lists for. A P2P environment can ensure much more exact tracking under this scheme.
So, how do we do that? The CDDB is an excellent start. But what kind of tracking scheme makes sense for Joe Schmo musician who is producing his own singles and self-publishing? Some kind of registration database? Product code assignment for each track? There are millions of possibilities that I won't list here.
The biggest obstacle would be the standardization of meta data that would be necessary to say that X people downloaded Y song. I look at mp3s that i download and even original ones I create and see that there is zero consistency to the way the files are tagged. Song titles are misspelled, artist names may be misspelled or even inaccurate, no year data, no genre data.
Anyway, the end result would be, "Here you go BMI/ASCAP/[Insert new rights management company here], an accurate listing of downloaded songs." They plug it into their database and update their clients' accounts. If the artist makes more than $5.00 in a given month, mail 'em a check.
This would equalize things a bit more between high-budget and low-budget artists; a good song is a good song, big label/RIAA or not.
Dude, that's a perfect valentine's day card: First the big long "I didn't used to believe in love" on the cover, in gold-leaf cursive. Then the inside "Yup. Sounds like crack to me," in some crappy cartoon font.
I dated girls in college that could wear that in a ring and still make it look small. ;)
Yes we need it. Yes we can afford it, because it is free. The ultimate privacy is having thoughts. Since nobody can read your mind, the only clues that people have about your mental state is your lifestyle. Under a system with zero privacy, if the lifestyle you lead is not "normal," for which there is no definition, you will be construed as insane. If you say things that aren't "normal" you will be considered a sociopath. If you go to undesirable places during off hours, you will be considered unfit for employment.
Hey, didn't many of us as "nerds" get labeled and persecuted because we were different? Because we cared about stuff outside the mainstream? With no privacy/100% societal transparency, this definition of "normal behavior" could be conveniently modified at any time to harass/persecute/prosecute any person for any reason.
Aaaaah, you have anarchist-leaning writings on Slashdot. Freedom of Speech baby. So, you won't be arrested, but person-in-power X shares this info with person Y and says, "Shit man, this guy's a loon, don't hire him." Sounds paranoid, but it is only the logical extreme of this theory that you can do without privacy.
If someone could just give a clinical definition of NORMAL, I would at least feel a little better about losing my privacy. Maybe we could color code our closeness to normality. Like, I'm yellow so I'm kind of wacky, but i'm still not quite as bad as RED; be on high alert around him. Hmmm.
This is a different way of giving someone else control over what you listen to, because a gatekeeper will have to select the music being streamed. I do not think that's a *bad* thing. The role of critics and music experts will become the crux of this type of music distribution system, where the exposure of an overabundance of music might be overwhelming to people.
There might be 3 types of set-ups to allow you to choose your music: P2P, where you trust your network of peers as critics; local critics, who would showcase the best locally produced music; and national critics, ones who would be genre experts with a national pool of music to pick and choose from.
The trick is the not allow critics and music experts slip into this mode of expecting million-dollar salaries (like record company execs), losing their objectivity as they sell out.
I think this theme--distinguishing between songs and this website--that exists throughout many posts is being pulled out of thin air. I can't come up with a simpler argument than the definition of parody, which can be found on the Booble site and m-w.com:
a literary or musical work in which the style of an author is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule
The only thing in contention is whether or not you can define a web site as a work of art (I think you can at least agree that "literary or musical work" is narrow and can easily be defined as a "creative work" or some such). Utility has nothing to do with it. In fact, from what I read, the booble.com search engine doesn't even work.
On m-w.com, the second definition is:
a feeble or ridiculous imitation
I would say this definition is pretty accurate: Booble.com is a ridiculous imitation.
It is kind of stupid but it is still parody.
Very much agreed. But the loophole of course is the word "reasonable." Of course the feds can say what they're doing is "reasonable" because it is in the name of national security. Place to be searched = potential terrorist's house. Things to be seized = tools that can be used to perform terrorism.
That's what I mean about an EXPLICIT right to privacy. Which opens up a HUGE can of worms as far as what "privacy" means. The 4th Amendment pokes and prods at some kind of unclear definition of privacy, but leaves that "reasonable" loophole in there. This is a gray area where privacy is going head to head with "national security," and the scales are definitely tipping in favor of national security right now.
On a parallel note to my original post, there is a gray area when it comes to public figures and what you can report about them, too. For example, although medical records about public figures were once considered a no-no to report, you can now access all kinds of gossip about celebrities' boob jobs and cancer and drug addiction.
Privacy is not a right granted by the Constitution.
I have a communications degree, and one of the first things we learned when studying communications case law that was drilled into our heads time and time again was that there is no "right to privacy" or "freedom of privacy" anywhere in the constitution or in any law. While this was mainly in the context of defining freedom of the press and public vs. private citizens, it is worth mentioning here.
You have to wonder how differently we'd react to these anti-terror anti-privacy measures if there _were_ an explicit right to privacy ammendment to the Constitution? What kind of effects would the existence of such an ammendment have on any of these emerging privacy issues?
I could swear that's directly from dialogue in a Stephen Soderbergh movie.
I wonder if anyone else has realized that IT workers are basically the newest members of the Blue Collar community? We've been way overpaid in the past, but now it's just time to accept the fact that the bottom line is what matters in business. Right or wrong, money dictates everything. That's why people shop and Walmart, and that's why companies move IT jobs offshore.
These formerly grossly overpaid IT jobs, despite using "brain" power instead of "physical" power, are slowly sliding onto the blue-collar scale of pay. It's a bitter pill for many "intellectuals" or "nerds" to swallow since their mental superiority should make them special and worth more. But--our IT jobs all fit into a larger puzzle of employment and society, and really are just common labor like anything else.
IMHO, the only thing stopping IT workers from EFFECTIVELY unionizing is the mere stigma that unionizing is "bad," "lower class," "blue collar." Time for IT to grow a set of balls and leverage the power of numbers and unionize.
Snoopy Snow Clone Machine
Man, you must be living in a cave.
food: McDonald's
art: McDonald's hamburger wrapper
music: McDonald's iTunes MP3 giveaway
fairy tales: McDonald's stories about Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, fry guys, that early bird thing...
social events: McDonald's birthday parties.
It's funny, because my very first impression of Windows XP when I "upgraded" from 98 was "What the fuck are these fucking pop-ups?" I mean they were present literally the instant I got online.
Whaaaaaaat?? Isn't this the pop bullshit mentality that mass media wants you to believe that has led to the degradation of music in the first place? That just feeds back into the 'beautiful people" running show business, where talent takes a back seat to image. There is still such thing as good music, and radio is as much a necessity for music as it is for talk, etc.
We all take for granted that we can burn CDs, listen to our digital cable music channels, watch MTV, blah blah. Not everyone can afford that kind of stuff.
And on the radio, you can still count on a few surprise discoveries of new artists (if you listen to the right station). The threshold for entry into radio (read cost) is still much lower than it is for television, so it will always be the more "adventurous" medium for exploring new material.
I could not possibly put into words how mistaken this notion is, not only about music but about anything.
Let's examine this: We're talking about how great Google is because it helps sort through (for all intents and purposes) INFINITE content. That is, there is too much of it for you or I or anybody to read all of it. Although as an end user you don't directly PAY Google, you may support them by shopping at one of their sponsors. Would Google exist with *zero* income??
Okay, let's move this analogy to music. There isn't REALLY infinite content, but there is too much for anyone to listen to all of it. It is necessary to have a mechanism in place so that the best music gets put in front of people. It's deciding what's the best that's the tricky part. If making or finding good music had *zero value*, when would musicians have the time to make music when they have to do some other job in order to make money to live???
As technical people, many Slashdot readers are lucky enough to delve into the core of what they love and make a living at it, be it coding or physics or biology. There is the usual political b.s. that is inherant in any job, but for the most part Slashdot readers are luckier than other people who just 'end up' somewhere, flipping burgers or dumping trash.
But imagine having to dump trash every day from 7 am to 3 pm, and only after you're done can you dive into your code, or pick up your future Nobel Prize work where you left off. Because that's how musicians live. Turning pro involves making that tricky transition where you all of a sudden make enough money to live by doing something with music. If nobody could ever "quit their day job" because there is *zero value* in what they love to do, you'd have an infinite amount of mediocre music from people who are too tired and don't have enough time to perfect their craft.
Just don't confuse the music *industry* and the evils of the RIAA with the artists, who have families and financial needs like the rest of the world, plus the burden of loving something that traditionally requires you to live a double life of doing x work during the day and music at night. Wall to wall work. *Nothing* has "zero value."
It's scary to thing of the sense of reality that seems to be crumbling beneath kids. I mean, regardless of what your stance is on letting kids play violent video games, or even watching movies with guns or fistfighting, the fundamental idea of not being able to distinguish the *TV SCREEN* from real life is very disturbing. Just throwing this out there: How many parents actually nurture their children to be curious and to learn versus raising them to be as little inconvenience as possible to their own lives?? The results of such are kids that are desperate for attention and who have no foundation of being able to learn or ask questions. Detached human beings.
I hardly know 'er.
At first I thought "Hey cool, I'd like to write like Elvis." Must... have... more... coffee.
As an independent musician, I've been wondering lately if it makes sense to require "public access" space for such proposed internet music/jukebox services. A significant public medium is offered to a large audience much like cable tv, which is required by law to offer public access.
It'd be cool to rent a spot on the jukebox network for $20/month or something, without having a crappy middle man like a record label!
The answer to this is simple. You can argue all you want about the word 'spam' being used as a generic term, but you cannot commercially use it for *anything*.
IANAL, but this is communications law 101. Think about "Jeep" and you can see cases for both a generic slang term AND a trademarked term. In general terms you can argue that it refers to an all-terrain vehicle shaped in a certain way. This came from the military's "General Purpose" vehicles, for which the shortened term was "GP" or "jeep." This was a slang generic term for that type of vehicle.
General Motors (or is it Daimler-Chrysler) began manufacturing cars under a trademarked brand name "Jeep." Now vehicles like that are a dime a dozen from several different manufacturers. But, they are "SUVs," not Jeeps, because "Jeep" is a registered trademark.
I would go one step further and say that this is the *goal* of the human species. Otherwise, what good is merely cooperating with each other and loving each other? The ultimate benefit of all human progress is the long-term survival of our species.
If we are "good" enough, whether from a sociological, religious, or whatever other point of view, we will be able to avoid destroying ourselves and progress to the point that our geography (and the fact that the sun will eventually die, etc.) is not nearly as important as our ability to sustain a working model of a society.
Ha! The Coalition of F.U.C.K.!
As an artist, I keep reaching the same conclusion about this issue of making money from my music: Being a musician is a blue collar job, one that if I'm lucky I can eek out a decent living: Own a modest house, pay the bills, drive a decent sedan, blah blah blah.
I can understand how current "superstars" are concerned: The era of high-dollar "superstars" is over, or at least coming to an end. Artists don't need the middleman anymore, which allows them to get their proper compensation for the art they create. The compromise is that they can only succeed on their own merits of their material, and their own personal salesmanship.