v. gammed, gamming, gams v. intr. To hold a visit, especially while at sea.
gaming ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gmng) n. Gambling, especially casino gambling. The playing of games, especially video games.
How old are you, nephew? Big boys use a spell checker before going on a rant. And notice, once again, a pro-Nintendo post ENTIRELY devoid of actual data and full of personal assertions without evidence.
Atari is irrelevant. It's like taking a bucket of water out of the ocean and then checking to see how much the sea level has dropped. I am not trying to disrespect Atari I am just pointing out that as far as Nintendo's market viability goes Atari is meaningless.
Only in Nintendo threads do the posters try to rationalize less games as a good thing. And we're supposed to buy the rest of your "logic"?
If Microsoft, by far and away the one closest to becoming a "niche" market given sales in Japan, is still working on rectifying that manner, why are you so sure that the trend will not only continue but accelerate? In short, why are you so sure it wont? American third party publishers are dropping the 'Cube and Japanese third parties were never fully on board with the XBOX. Noone can predict the future, but I see what's happening and the trend is pretty clear. You can fight the trend, but I don't think this fight can be won.
If your claim was true, we would be seeing less and less games get ported from Japan to the US and vice versa. Instead what we're seeing is _more_ games getting ported. Link? Proof? Sure Microsoft is trying to send more American games down Asia way, but its just not going to work. What Japanese games are getting localized in English that weren't in years past? You gotta have numbers to back up a wild claim like that.
All in all it sound like you just want an excuse to bash Nintendo, as usual. Could you point out the bash? All I said was that times are changing. Nintendo will continue to be successful in Japan and Microsoft will gain more and more here (should they choose to stay in the market, of course). Where is the bash? Remember, just because you don't like something doesn't make it a "bash".
The market is finally going to mature and splinter. Microsoft will be the "other" console in the US and Europe and Nintendo will be the "other" console in Japan. This will allow the companies to taylor their products to the different audiences, which continue to grow more and more different everyday. The niche fanboy crowd can always import of course.
This is good news for third party publishers too. With only two consoles to worry about in either market, their development efforts can be more focused on making the best possible end product. So farewell, Big N. I'll always remember the good times we had. IMHO, though, this is a good thing.
Two things immediately pop into my mind with this news...
#1 I remember someone at Nintendo taunting Microsoft for their Sega GT/JSRF bundle deal saying that bundles and price drops are an insult to early adopters. Well, insult on then.
#2 I think of the fast food industry. They also did the price war thing. Then prices hit like $0.49 and customers realized that if they can sell it for so cheap it must be a piece of crap. The consoles might run into that soon. Hmmm, these consoles are $149 and this one is only $99. Whats wrong with this one that it is so cheap?
Good luck enforcing this law. Last week it was mandatory health insurance. According to a Long Beach Press-Telegram article, Boeing pays $1 million in worker's compensation insurance (not claims, just the insurance payment) per plane. Thats quite a few $45,000 jobs right out the window. I think tonight I am going to buy myself a 40, go down to Long Beach, sit on the sand and watch the jobs sail right out of the port. At least I'll be there to wave good-bye.
See, I used to go to the mall twice a week to "buy" new underwear. I originally bought a three-pack of cotton briefs. Well, I took them home and wore them and even left some small stains. I wasn't happy with the product so naturally I returned it. I did this again and again. The store had a liberal return policy and I got away with it for a while. Then one day they changed their policy. This made me furious. I am obviously entitled to return any product no matter the basis for my "disatisfaction" and even if I used it, right? Well, they changed their policy anyway. I didn't buy any new underwear for a while out of protest, even using underwear my friend had purchased and was no longer using. Soon, however, I realized that I actually liked having own new underwear and that I myself was to blame for the change in policy.
The lesson I learned was about misdirected hostility. It wasn't the stores fault they had to change their policy, it was mine for crapping in their product and demanding my money back. Maybe we should be mad at the people who abused the generous policy instead of the stores who are just trying to run a business. This would entail looking around and in the mirror though, which is much less pleasent than shouting bad words at the sky cursing "them."
According to Comcast, just 6 percent of subscribers use about 78 percent of the company's bandwidth. If thats true, I'm seriously impressed. Nice work.
The AC is right. I decided I would not finish that battle, or buy another Konami game, after that little gimmick. Put your controller on the floor snake? Buh-bye immersion. And how was one supposed to guess to do that? There wasn't even the smallest clue. Those developers were sure full of themselves.
Man, the just plain wrongness is staggering. Wait until I tell your boys at PlanetWolfenstein. Next thing you know you'll be claiming Splash Damage made Unreal Tournament. You think whoever let you in on the ET source would like to hear about you spreading this kind of slanderous false information about Nerve and Activision?
accomplice n : someone who helps another person commit a crime [syn: accessory, accessary]
crime n : Unlawful activity
And the "copyright infringement!=stealing" bot can stay out because, for today at least, copying without permission and outside of the scope of fair use is still unlawful. Don't fool yourself into thinking you are untouchable. Clear enough?
You post is actually about as untrue as they come. The constitution granted congress the power to create copyright laws. Copyright laws protect media/content creators.
Man I hate it when people mess up such simple constitutional concepts.
Article I.(Legislative powers) Section 8. Clause 8. To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
My point is, maybe it was labelled as a boat when sold. It's still a plane. Except in the legal sense, since you were sold a boat, anything that would happen if you tried to fly it would be at your own risk. Or course if you towed it to the lake and it didn't float you would have a valid complaint then.
Similarly, the XBox is labelled as a video game system. It's still a computer. Why? In the legal sense, I'm arguing you bought a "video game system". Its your own personal value judgement that you bought a computer based on nothing but what you have decided.
And if it's not programmable, precisely how the hell did those games happen? Someone pissed on a compact disc and suddenly it had the compiled executable and artwork for Project Gotham Racing magically inscribed on it? I'm sorry if the mysteries of hardware and software are so remarkable to you that you think bodliy fluids are central to the process. My challenge to you then, is to buy a new XBOX (its ok, you can return it when you fail the challenge) and using the contents of the box marked "video game system" write a program that runs on it. Go ahead, try to program your XBOX with what you are sold as a "video game system".
As I explained briefly in the Atari example, that is the difference as the COURTS (still US-centric here as I have now stated thrice) have held it. The Atari 400 Personal Computer shipped with a version of BASIC. The end-user could program it so it was a computer. This is history, not speculation. In fact, ruling that the XBOX (and therefore the PS2, Tivo, Gamecube, Dreamcast, et al) is a computer would likely cause the industry to crash again as it did in '83-'84. This is actual history that happened, not random value judgements.
Its pretty clear to me that your mind is closed to the facts as they exist outside your head. Please only post again if you have something other that potty jokes.
As per your example, if you fly at 30000 feet in something you call a 'boat', the civil aviation authority are still going to be rather interested in its aircraft-like qualities. You proved my point rather well. You can call it a boat, but its still a plane, and was labelled as such when you bought it. It doesn't matter now that you want to call it a boat, a computer, or a boogly-moogly. You bought a plane and it is subject to laws governing planes, but not boats or boogly-mooglies. Much like an XBOX says "video game system" on the outside. You can call it a computer, but thats not what the box says. That is for certain according to the US, which brings me to my next point:
it seems the UK legislaters
And thats why I clearly stated that my original post was US-centric and that YMMV in the UK. I do not know, nor claim to know, your laws. You might have me if I didn't so carefully, and thoughtfully (I thought), mention that in my original.
My wild guess? The XBOX will be considered a video game system and not a computer because it is more like a TiVo than a PC. The consequence of considering the XBOX and similar set-top box devices "computers"? 1. All of those companies will raise their prices for the hardware or 2. They will have the term computer defined more rigidly or 3. They will pull out of the market altogether.
Which are you pulling for?
And finally the most important point, and I'm glad you hit on it: programmable This is precisely why Activision was allowed to make games for the Atari, but then the NES had all sorts of new rules. The Atari personal computer was programmable by the end-user. The NES (Nintendo Entertainment System (not PC)) and all consoles up through the XBOX video game system are not programmable by the end-user out of the box. Its all about the term programmable. Now if MS sold a programming kit (like Atari did) you would have a more clear point.
Terms are important under the law. IANAL, but I think any lawyer would agree that terminology is huge. For example, I could sell you a dog. You could try to ride it like a horse, but it and you would probably be hurt. Now, did I sell you a dog or a horse?
Another example? A boat and a plane have lots of similar parts. Engine, seats, controls. But one floats and the other flies, thats why they have different names.
If the box says "video game system" (it does), you bought a "video game system". You can call it a hammer, and use it as such, but when it fails as a hammer and breaks in the process, don't expect them to honor the warranty or for you to have any protection. Its really your personal hang-up that you want to call it a computer. If you bought an xbox, thats not what you bought.
As far as Linux running on it...silly and irrelevent. See the hammer example. I could get it to hammer something, but its still not a hammer.
No. All art would immediately become public domain as soon as created.
This would seem to be the major schizm, and the major schizm in general between people who just don't like the RIAA and those who don't like IP law.
I have other questions, but I'd like you to reconcile this inconsistency first: There would still be middlemen of a sort (websites for auctioning art, for example... All art would immediately become public domain as soon as created.
If art is public domain upon creation, why do you need a website to sell it? Technically, any buyer would be a fool since it already belongs to everyone. I could look at a photograph of the work, copy it exactly and undercut the original artist.
The median household income in Los Angeles was about 40k last year. Who is going to pay someone 40k to write a book (an undertaking that could take at least a year) when all individual copies have to be free?
That's why I'm looking for a way for the fans/patrons to subsidize the creation of art, rather than having it subsidized by a broker who is then free to screw both the artist and the fans. Is the studio the same as a patron? No. A patron subsidizes the art either for his own or the public's enjoyment. He does not resell the art for a profit. Then, #1 we seem to have the same goals in mind, but #2 how would anything you propose get rid of middlemen? You cited the case of a very wealthy person commissioning art, such as a painting. Well, that painting would obviously exist in only one place and could be kept behind closed doors for ever and ever. Among other things the patron could do, the patron could sell likeness of the painting for a nominal fee. This is exactly what happens in the music industry EXCEPT that the fee is no longer nominal.
Are the masses currently subsidizing the creation of art? No. The studios are re-selling art to the masses. Not the same at all.
Masses buy CD's -> studios collect money -> studios pay new artists to create new music. This is exactly the same as the case of the poor masses coming together to subsidize art, not in spirit perhaps, but in function. What you describe is more of a name change than a radical proposal.
An artist, today more than ever, has the ability to reach a tremedous audience for next to no cost via the Internet. This gives them tremendous power to set their own terms for publishing to their fans. Copyright protects them so they can do this. Why do we need some radical change?
IMHO should be present whenever one is not an authority on the subject and provides no evidence to support one's point yet presents a point as absolute.
Outside of that point, I think we mostly agree. The power is now with the artists. They can choose to sign with an RIAA label or they can choose to promote themselves. The Internet makes this more possible than ever.
If they would stop aigning this kind of deals, then we would come to some sort of compermise I know yesterday it was discovered the order of the letters in a word isn't important, but you messed up "signing" because it has to start with the correct letter. Now, why should I feel pity for an artist because they chose to try to make it huge? That was their choice as adults. If they make it, great for them. If they don't, that's what they signed up for. As for compromise, thats not up to you. The artist signed the deal so the terms are set.
But you are right, if the artists turn their collective backs on the RIAA thats when power will shift. Thanks to the Internet, that chance is now more available then ever. I again assert, that in my humble opinion, nothing really needs to change. The artists are already empowered to change things, on their own terms, THANKS to copyright.
It's time for a totally new system
You forgot "In my humble opinion,". Your system would support far fewer artists as your Clinton example illustrates. I mean, he only had to become President to become famous enough to have a speaking tour. Under your system there would be fewer, but even richer artists.
An artist should make money from both publishing and performance, in my humble opinion. This will support far more artists and allow for much more variety, allowing each artist to earn according to how many fans it has without requiring a significant base to begin with. An artist can do that today simply by turning their back on the RIAA and using the Internet for such publicity as you describe. They can negotiate directly with their fans for the price of their music that is published via the Internet. Copyright can protect the little guy too. No radical change needed.
Why would it be impossible for wealthy people or masses of poor people like me pooling their resources to again subsize the very creation of art?
What, pray-tell, do you think is happening under the current system if not this?
I am in the US so this is a US-centric response but may be the same in the UK. Here the XBOX is called (and only called) a "video game system". That what is being sold/purchased at the register. If you wanted a computer, maybe you should have checked out the PlayStation 2 Computer Entertainment System or an offering from Dell.co.uk.
Again, this is clearly how this would play out in the US, but YMMV if they are calling the XBOX something else there.
Slashdot Mirror
v. gammed, gamming, gams
v. intr.
To hold a visit, especially while at sea.
gaming ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gmng)
n.
Gambling, especially casino gambling.
The playing of games, especially video games.
How old are you, nephew? Big boys use a spell checker before going on a rant. And notice, once again, a pro-Nintendo post ENTIRELY devoid of actual data and full of personal assertions without evidence.
Atari is irrelevant. It's like taking a bucket of water out of the ocean and then checking to see how much the sea level has dropped. I am not trying to disrespect Atari I am just pointing out that as far as Nintendo's market viability goes Atari is meaningless.
Only in Nintendo threads do the posters try to rationalize less games as a good thing. And we're supposed to buy the rest of your "logic"?
If Microsoft, by far and away the one closest to becoming a "niche" market given sales in Japan, is still working on rectifying that manner, why are you so sure that the trend will not only continue but accelerate?
In short, why are you so sure it wont? American third party publishers are dropping the 'Cube and Japanese third parties were never fully on board with the XBOX. Noone can predict the future, but I see what's happening and the trend is pretty clear. You can fight the trend, but I don't think this fight can be won.
If your claim was true, we would be seeing less and less games get ported from Japan to the US and vice versa. Instead what we're seeing is _more_ games getting ported. Link? Proof? Sure Microsoft is trying to send more American games down Asia way, but its just not going to work. What Japanese games are getting localized in English that weren't in years past? You gotta have numbers to back up a wild claim like that.
All in all it sound like you just want an excuse to bash Nintendo, as usual.
Could you point out the bash? All I said was that times are changing. Nintendo will continue to be successful in Japan and Microsoft will gain more and more here (should they choose to stay in the market, of course). Where is the bash? Remember, just because you don't like something doesn't make it a "bash".
The market is finally going to mature and splinter. Microsoft will be the "other" console in the US and Europe and Nintendo will be the "other" console in Japan. This will allow the companies to taylor their products to the different audiences, which continue to grow more and more different everyday. The niche fanboy crowd can always import of course.
This is good news for third party publishers too. With only two consoles to worry about in either market, their development efforts can be more focused on making the best possible end product. So farewell, Big N. I'll always remember the good times we had. IMHO, though, this is a good thing.
At $99, its in the "mom wonders what is wrong with the system that it is so cheap" range.
Here's another game product under $100, but I don't think anyone expects it to compete with XBOX and PS2 because of its pricepoint.
The smell of desperation will be too much at any price now.
Replace Dreamcast with Gamecube.
Not that I like linking to IGN, but it was the first that came up from google.
Two things immediately pop into my mind with this news...
#1 I remember someone at Nintendo taunting Microsoft for their Sega GT/JSRF bundle deal saying that bundles and price drops are an insult to early adopters. Well, insult on then.
#2 I think of the fast food industry. They also did the price war thing. Then prices hit like $0.49 and customers realized that if they can sell it for so cheap it must be a piece of crap. The consoles might run into that soon. Hmmm, these consoles are $149 and this one is only $99. Whats wrong with this one that it is so cheap?
Good luck enforcing this law. Last week it was mandatory health insurance. According to a Long Beach Press-Telegram article, Boeing pays $1 million in worker's compensation insurance (not claims, just the insurance payment) per plane. Thats quite a few $45,000 jobs right out the window. I think tonight I am going to buy myself a 40, go down to Long Beach, sit on the sand and watch the jobs sail right out of the port. At least I'll be there to wave good-bye.
See, I used to go to the mall twice a week to "buy" new underwear. I originally bought a three-pack of cotton briefs. Well, I took them home and wore them and even left some small stains. I wasn't happy with the product so naturally I returned it. I did this again and again. The store had a liberal return policy and I got away with it for a while. Then one day they changed their policy. This made me furious. I am obviously entitled to return any product no matter the basis for my "disatisfaction" and even if I used it, right? Well, they changed their policy anyway. I didn't buy any new underwear for a while out of protest, even using underwear my friend had purchased and was no longer using. Soon, however, I realized that I actually liked having own new underwear and that I myself was to blame for the change in policy.
The lesson I learned was about misdirected hostility. It wasn't the stores fault they had to change their policy, it was mine for crapping in their product and demanding my money back. Maybe we should be mad at the people who abused the generous policy instead of the stores who are just trying to run a business. This would entail looking around and in the mirror though, which is much less pleasent than shouting bad words at the sky cursing "them."
According to Comcast, just 6 percent of subscribers use about 78 percent of the company's bandwidth.
If thats true, I'm seriously impressed. Nice work.
The AC is right. I decided I would not finish that battle, or buy another Konami game, after that little gimmick. Put your controller on the floor snake? Buh-bye immersion. And how was one supposed to guess to do that? There wasn't even the smallest clue. Those developers were sure full of themselves.
How's that free healthcare working out?I mean, the hospital I go to here in California has air conditioning...
Check. They should stand out how?
bani? The same bani thats trying to turn Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory back into Return to Castle Wolfenstein?
Wow, for such an influential guy you're kinda an idiot.
Gabe Newell = Valve = Half-Life
Nerve = Nerve = Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Man, the just plain wrongness is staggering. Wait until I tell your boys at PlanetWolfenstein. Next thing you know you'll be claiming Splash Damage made Unreal Tournament. You think whoever let you in on the ET source would like to hear about you spreading this kind of slanderous false information about Nerve and Activision?
+1 Inaccurate is more like it.
accomplice
n : someone who helps another person commit a crime [syn: accessory, accessary]
crime
n : Unlawful activity
And the "copyright infringement!=stealing" bot can stay out because, for today at least, copying without permission and outside of the scope of fair use is still unlawful. Don't fool yourself into thinking you are untouchable. Clear enough?
$20 for the Blue Man Group? Tickets for the Vegas show are like $90. Thats too good a bargain not to scalp them.
You post is actually about as untrue as they come. The constitution granted congress the power to create copyright laws. Copyright laws protect media/content creators.
Man I hate it when people mess up such simple constitutional concepts.
Article I.(Legislative powers)
Section 8.
Clause 8.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
My point is, maybe it was labelled as a boat when sold. It's still a plane.
Except in the legal sense, since you were sold a boat, anything that would happen if you tried to fly it would be at your own risk. Or course if you towed it to the lake and it didn't float you would have a valid complaint then.
Similarly, the XBox is labelled as a video game system. It's still a computer.
Why? In the legal sense, I'm arguing you bought a "video game system". Its your own personal value judgement that you bought a computer based on nothing but what you have decided.
And if it's not programmable, precisely how the hell did those games happen? Someone pissed on a compact disc and suddenly it had the compiled executable and artwork for Project Gotham Racing magically inscribed on it?
I'm sorry if the mysteries of hardware and software are so remarkable to you that you think bodliy fluids are central to the process. My challenge to you then, is to buy a new XBOX (its ok, you can return it when you fail the challenge) and using the contents of the box marked "video game system" write a program that runs on it. Go ahead, try to program your XBOX with what you are sold as a "video game system".
As I explained briefly in the Atari example, that is the difference as the COURTS (still US-centric here as I have now stated thrice) have held it. The Atari 400 Personal Computer shipped with a version of BASIC. The end-user could program it so it was a computer. This is history, not speculation. In fact, ruling that the XBOX (and therefore the PS2, Tivo, Gamecube, Dreamcast, et al) is a computer would likely cause the industry to crash again as it did in '83-'84. This is actual history that happened, not random value judgements.
Its pretty clear to me that your mind is closed to the facts as they exist outside your head. Please only post again if you have something other that potty jokes.
As per your example, if you fly at 30000 feet in something you call a 'boat', the civil aviation authority are still going to be rather interested in its aircraft-like qualities.
You proved my point rather well. You can call it a boat, but its still a plane, and was labelled as such when you bought it. It doesn't matter now that you want to call it a boat, a computer, or a boogly-moogly. You bought a plane and it is subject to laws governing planes, but not boats or boogly-mooglies. Much like an XBOX says "video game system" on the outside. You can call it a computer, but thats not what the box says. That is for certain according to the US, which brings me to my next point:
it seems the UK legislaters
And thats why I clearly stated that my original post was US-centric and that YMMV in the UK. I do not know, nor claim to know, your laws. You might have me if I didn't so carefully, and thoughtfully (I thought), mention that in my original.
My wild guess? The XBOX will be considered a video game system and not a computer because it is more like a TiVo than a PC. The consequence of considering the XBOX and similar set-top box devices "computers"? 1. All of those companies will raise their prices for the hardware or 2. They will have the term computer defined more rigidly or 3. They will pull out of the market altogether.
Which are you pulling for?
And finally the most important point, and I'm glad you hit on it:
programmable
This is precisely why Activision was allowed to make games for the Atari, but then the NES had all sorts of new rules. The Atari personal computer was programmable by the end-user. The NES (Nintendo Entertainment System (not PC)) and all consoles up through the XBOX video game system are not programmable by the end-user out of the box. Its all about the term programmable. Now if MS sold a programming kit (like Atari did) you would have a more clear point.
Terms are important under the law. IANAL, but I think any lawyer would agree that terminology is huge.
For example, I could sell you a dog. You could try to ride it like a horse, but it and you would probably be hurt. Now, did I sell you a dog or a horse?
Another example? A boat and a plane have lots of similar parts. Engine, seats, controls. But one floats and the other flies, thats why they have different names.
If the box says "video game system" (it does), you bought a "video game system". You can call it a hammer, and use it as such, but when it fails as a hammer and breaks in the process, don't expect them to honor the warranty or for you to have any protection. Its really your personal hang-up that you want to call it a computer. If you bought an xbox, thats not what you bought.
As far as Linux running on it...silly and irrelevent. See the hammer example. I could get it to hammer something, but its still not a hammer.
No. All art would immediately become public domain as soon as created.
This would seem to be the major schizm, and the major schizm in general between people who just don't like the RIAA and those who don't like IP law.
I have other questions, but I'd like you to reconcile this inconsistency first:
There would still be middlemen of a sort (websites for auctioning art, for example...
All art would immediately become public domain as soon as created.
If art is public domain upon creation, why do you need a website to sell it? Technically, any buyer would be a fool since it already belongs to everyone. I could look at a photograph of the work, copy it exactly and undercut the original artist.
The median household income in Los Angeles was about 40k last year. Who is going to pay someone 40k to write a book (an undertaking that could take at least a year) when all individual copies have to be free?
I almost wrote that but I feared the sure moderation. You are dead on though.
That's why I'm looking for a way for the fans/patrons to subsidize the creation of art, rather than having it subsidized by a broker who is then free to screw both the artist and the fans. Is the studio the same as a patron? No. A patron subsidizes the art either for his own or the public's enjoyment. He does not resell the art for a profit.
Then, #1 we seem to have the same goals in mind, but #2 how would anything you propose get rid of middlemen? You cited the case of a very wealthy person commissioning art, such as a painting. Well, that painting would obviously exist in only one place and could be kept behind closed doors for ever and ever. Among other things the patron could do, the patron could sell likeness of the painting for a nominal fee. This is exactly what happens in the music industry EXCEPT that the fee is no longer nominal.
Are the masses currently subsidizing the creation of art? No. The studios are re-selling art to the masses. Not the same at all.
Masses buy CD's -> studios collect money -> studios pay new artists to create new music. This is exactly the same as the case of the poor masses coming together to subsidize art, not in spirit perhaps, but in function. What you describe is more of a name change than a radical proposal.
An artist, today more than ever, has the ability to reach a tremedous audience for next to no cost via the Internet. This gives them tremendous power to set their own terms for publishing to their fans. Copyright protects them so they can do this. Why do we need some radical change?
IMHO should be present whenever one is not an authority on the subject and provides no evidence to support one's point yet presents a point as absolute.
Outside of that point, I think we mostly agree. The power is now with the artists. They can choose to sign with an RIAA label or they can choose to promote themselves. The Internet makes this more possible than ever.
If they would stop aigning this kind of deals, then we would come to some sort of compermise
I know yesterday it was discovered the order of the letters in a word isn't important, but you messed up "signing" because it has to start with the correct letter.
Now, why should I feel pity for an artist because they chose to try to make it huge? That was their choice as adults. If they make it, great for them. If they don't, that's what they signed up for. As for compromise, thats not up to you. The artist signed the deal so the terms are set.
But you are right, if the artists turn their collective backs on the RIAA thats when power will shift. Thanks to the Internet, that chance is now more available then ever. I again assert, that in my humble opinion, nothing really needs to change. The artists are already empowered to change things, on their own terms, THANKS to copyright.
It's time for a totally new system
You forgot "In my humble opinion,". Your system would support far fewer artists as your Clinton example illustrates. I mean, he only had to become President to become famous enough to have a speaking tour. Under your system there would be fewer, but even richer artists.
An artist should make money from both publishing and performance, in my humble opinion. This will support far more artists and allow for much more variety, allowing each artist to earn according to how many fans it has without requiring a significant base to begin with. An artist can do that today simply by turning their back on the RIAA and using the Internet for such publicity as you describe. They can negotiate directly with their fans for the price of their music that is published via the Internet. Copyright can protect the little guy too. No radical change needed.
Why would it be impossible for wealthy people or masses of poor people like me pooling their resources to again subsize the very creation of art?
What, pray-tell, do you think is happening under the current system if not this?
I am in the US so this is a US-centric response but may be the same in the UK. Here the XBOX is called (and only called) a "video game system". That what is being sold/purchased at the register. If you wanted a computer, maybe you should have checked out the PlayStation 2 Computer Entertainment System or an offering from Dell.co.uk.
Again, this is clearly how this would play out in the US, but YMMV if they are calling the XBOX something else there.