It's more about quality will spread by word-of-mouth. This is why a lot of true artists in the music world don't fear it.
What I think a lot of bands understand is that if the music is good enough quality, P2P is a viable marketing tool. You can either spend millions on promotion or spend considerably less and get it out on P2P. Now, a lot of people are going to just leech it, but a lot will convert it to a CD sale.
If Britney Spears didn't have video and image and had to just sell on the strength of an album, do you think that people (even kids) would be buying her?
I could care less about recognizable voices, though the one who has 'appeared' in all Pixar movies is John Ratzenburger. A good fit is all that's really necessary, recognition is distracting.
That was basically my point. Pixar pick voices that work for the characters, including using Pixar people to do the voices. They no longer need to tell people that they've got some big star doing the voice - the movie sells itself.
You know what though? I'm not too sure about Dreamworks either. I've got huge respect for Jeffrey Katzenberg. All evidence suggests that his work at Disney in the 80s helped get them making decent movies again.
The thing is, I'm seeing them falling into the CGI/celeb voices trap. That's what they talk about quite a lot in the trailers.
On The Incredibles, I've barely heard a mention of who's doing the voices. Finding Nemo I recognised 2 as household names.
As for Disney, one problem with the theme parks is what happens as the characters run dry. What happens when the last characters they've got are Belle, Woody and Buzz, and Pixar launch a park where the kids can see their characters?
I buy most of my CDs for small amounts off Ebay (like £3-4), unless they are fairly new, in which case the difference is too small. Ebay has really done it for me. In the past, I'd go into second hand record shops and pick things up. With Ebay, you can search for what you want, and there's a very good chance you'll find a seller.
I still haven't bought a download, because in the main, it's a crappy deal. Something like 79p/track when a whole album including media, case and materials AND in CD quality costs about £9.
Make it something like 40p, and I'll start considering it.
Try and get your story published in a newspaper. If no-one will take it and no TV stations will touch it, how does anyone see it?
Publish it on the web, and it might just spread by word-of-mouth.
Stores are the same. At one time, to get people to your store, location was very important. People bought holidays from a travel agent, and the way to hear about a travel agent was via a physical presence, and location was important.
Like if you said "SCO are on crack", you don't have to prove that they are actually taking crack, because no-one believes that you literally meant they are taking crack.
I don't agree, and all the evidence I see is that communism is already on it's knees if not dead already.
Even those countries that were once communist states are now doing capitalism. I can't think of any real communist countries that are left.
IP is a different matter. It's the equivalent of centuries ago when certain lords were granted licenses to do things that others couldn't. People always find a way around such things eventually.
That doesn't mean that corporate culture doesn't mean that people don't operate in different ways.
Some companies believe that being "good" is not only a nice thing, but actually a much lower risk strategy than being "evil". There are companies with transparent pricing policies, and those that try and screw everyone in every way.
Also, you have to remember models. Some companies are backing OSS because they perceive there to be other ways to make money than from selling off-the-shelf software, and in fact, perceive the growth of OSS as beneficial to other parts of their business.
There was a time that I upgraded quite frequently, because the jump from a P75 to a P233 to a P2 350 made a significant difference in speed.
My last jump was to an Athlon 1800 nearly 3 years ago, and apart from the whole "wouldn't it be cool", I just don't feel the need to upgrade. Want a DVD writer? It will work with what I've got. 5.1 sound? That too.
I'm not deeply involved at the moment in any of the projects, so I didn't know these, but I'm more and more involved.
Some businesses will get scared of it, but there's some businessmen coming up who are embracing it. 20 years ago, a lot of businesses didn't switch to computers but thought that they could stay manual - the productivity gain saw them take the edge. Open Source could be very similar. That people can get the support they need to improve productivity, that they can innovate as they want, that the freedom will allow for greater interoperability and innovation for those businesses.
Don't waste your energy on them. They're the idiots of the programming profession, often with no idea of the fundamentals of computer science.
I'm not anti-Microsoft products, but a lot of the cheerleaders don't have a clue about the alternatives and keep following them.
I remember people telling me about how great the Windows registry was, and they plainly hadn't considered it. I never stored config details in there, because.ini files just made a ton more sense to me, and I could justify why in a way that the idiots couldn't (except "this is the direction Microsoft is going").
I've spoken to some really blind Microsoft zealots. Part of the issue is they've invested so much of their past in learning how it works, and really don't want to have to move. Often, they just buy into the ways that Microsoft tell them to do things in quite an unthinking fashion - they don't analyse the pros and cons of a method.
Work at the point of least resistance - end users who are amenable and business managers. Talk their language (saying "it's got XUL!" will give blank stares). Get them converted and the sands will shift under the idiots.
And there's no replacement because there's no Evolution for Windows.
Outlook for XUL? Well, there's already Thunderbird giving the mail/address book part of it. Mozilla Calendar can be plugged into Thunderbird too. What's left? Notes?
The only other thing is making it work together better (like being able to send appointments to contacts - don't know if you can do all that).
Also, you'd need some linking to things like WEBDAV.
I'd also like to see a web-based project management piece of software that fully integrated with it as well (like "synchronise my tasks with the project plan for all the projects I work on").
I'll tell you why - because 3 strikes is a political soundbite based on baseball, pandering to the mob. People should be sentenced based on the merits of the case and things like previous conduct, not on the rules of baseball.
Your first comment is a problem, I agree. In the end, a fool and his money were lucky enough to get together in the first place. But a few people might just go "hold on a minute".
Maybe I should just get on and find out about XUL and write a pre-alpha experimental version of my idea.
That second one is not a bad idea. The only problem is that areas like best/worst retailers is fraught with "by whose measure?" and you start getting into questions of bias.
The phishing one is binary. Either they are legit, or they aren't (and that could include stores asking for credit cards too).
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What I think a lot of bands understand is that if the music is good enough quality, P2P is a viable marketing tool. You can either spend millions on promotion or spend considerably less and get it out on P2P. Now, a lot of people are going to just leech it, but a lot will convert it to a CD sale.
If Britney Spears didn't have video and image and had to just sell on the strength of an album, do you think that people (even kids) would be buying her?
This album which could be downloaded very easily and it sounds like was shared all over the P2P networks gave Wilco their highest ever chart position.
My impression was that touring was often a promotional tool and the big money is in the songwriting.
That was basically my point. Pixar pick voices that work for the characters, including using Pixar people to do the voices. They no longer need to tell people that they've got some big star doing the voice - the movie sells itself.
The thing is, I'm seeing them falling into the CGI/celeb voices trap. That's what they talk about quite a lot in the trailers.
On The Incredibles, I've barely heard a mention of who's doing the voices. Finding Nemo I recognised 2 as household names.
As for Disney, one problem with the theme parks is what happens as the characters run dry. What happens when the last characters they've got are Belle, Woody and Buzz, and Pixar launch a park where the kids can see their characters?
I don't think I'm allowed to tell you ;)
.... at least the terrorists can't come and get the few remaining freedoms that you have left.
Capitalism is not the same thing as IP laws.
OK, so what happens next? What's the thing that causes the end of free markets, ownership and property rights?
I still haven't bought a download, because in the main, it's a crappy deal. Something like 79p/track when a whole album including media, case and materials AND in CD quality costs about £9.
Make it something like 40p, and I'll start considering it.
There's also nothing out there to replace it with. Communism was a failed attempt to do something else, which largely failed spectacularly.
Try and get your story published in a newspaper. If no-one will take it and no TV stations will touch it, how does anyone see it?
Publish it on the web, and it might just spread by word-of-mouth.
Stores are the same. At one time, to get people to your store, location was very important. People bought holidays from a travel agent, and the way to hear about a travel agent was via a physical presence, and location was important.
Like if you said "SCO are on crack", you don't have to prove that they are actually taking crack, because no-one believes that you literally meant they are taking crack.
Even those countries that were once communist states are now doing capitalism. I can't think of any real communist countries that are left.
IP is a different matter. It's the equivalent of centuries ago when certain lords were granted licenses to do things that others couldn't. People always find a way around such things eventually.
That doesn't mean that corporate culture doesn't mean that people don't operate in different ways.
Some companies believe that being "good" is not only a nice thing, but actually a much lower risk strategy than being "evil". There are companies with transparent pricing policies, and those that try and screw everyone in every way.
Also, you have to remember models. Some companies are backing OSS because they perceive there to be other ways to make money than from selling off-the-shelf software, and in fact, perceive the growth of OSS as beneficial to other parts of their business.
How much can we buy the source code for from AOL?
My last jump was to an Athlon 1800 nearly 3 years ago, and apart from the whole "wouldn't it be cool", I just don't feel the need to upgrade. Want a DVD writer? It will work with what I've got. 5.1 sound? That too.
I've got better things to spend my money on.
Example - messengers. You can now put an image on that the guy you are talking to can see. And let's not forget clippy.
How about all that kind of useless rubbish in software and getting back to real productivity?
I used to run Word 6 on a P60 running Windows 3.1. It felt faster than Work 2003 on a machine with 30 times the CPU speed running XP.
I haven't bought anything that's state of the art for a very long time.
Some businesses will get scared of it, but there's some businessmen coming up who are embracing it. 20 years ago, a lot of businesses didn't switch to computers but thought that they could stay manual - the productivity gain saw them take the edge. Open Source could be very similar. That people can get the support they need to improve productivity, that they can innovate as they want, that the freedom will allow for greater interoperability and innovation for those businesses.
I'm not anti-Microsoft products, but a lot of the cheerleaders don't have a clue about the alternatives and keep following them.
I remember people telling me about how great the Windows registry was, and they plainly hadn't considered it. I never stored config details in there, because .ini files just made a ton more sense to me, and I could justify why in a way that the idiots couldn't (except "this is the direction Microsoft is going").
I've spoken to some really blind Microsoft zealots. Part of the issue is they've invested so much of their past in learning how it works, and really don't want to have to move. Often, they just buy into the ways that Microsoft tell them to do things in quite an unthinking fashion - they don't analyse the pros and cons of a method.
Work at the point of least resistance - end users who are amenable and business managers. Talk their language (saying "it's got XUL!" will give blank stares). Get them converted and the sands will shift under the idiots.
And there's no replacement because there's no Evolution for Windows.
Outlook for XUL? Well, there's already Thunderbird giving the mail/address book part of it. Mozilla Calendar can be plugged into Thunderbird too. What's left? Notes?
The only other thing is making it work together better (like being able to send appointments to contacts - don't know if you can do all that).
Also, you'd need some linking to things like WEBDAV.
I'd also like to see a web-based project management piece of software that fully integrated with it as well (like "synchronise my tasks with the project plan for all the projects I work on").
I'll tell you why - because 3 strikes is a political soundbite based on baseball, pandering to the mob. People should be sentenced based on the merits of the case and things like previous conduct, not on the rules of baseball.
Maybe I should just get on and find out about XUL and write a pre-alpha experimental version of my idea.
The phishing one is binary. Either they are legit, or they aren't (and that could include stores asking for credit cards too).