How about if, after a song has been sold X number of times, or licensed for Y radio/TV commercials, gotten Z amount of paid radio play or been in Q movies or television shows, the record company cuts its sale/licensing fees and cuts the price of the song accordingly.
Example: Jewel's new song, "Intuition" is in a commercial for a Gilette razor. I'm sure Gilette paid huge duckets for that. Now if I want to buy the song from ITMS, for example, Jewel's cut should be the same (approx $0.10), and Apple's, for serving it (approx $0.35), but the record company has made enough money on it, so maybe if they cut $0.50 out of the remaining cut for the record company and just took $0.04, making the price $0.49, I think that would be reasonable.
Come to think of it, I'm sure that Jewel made a bunch of money herself from the Gilette promotion, so maybe she should cut her take to $0.02 or so, just on that song, making the total cost $0.41.
Actually, not hiring someone based on their weight might be illegal under ADA. IANAL, BMGI (but my girlfriend is), and she has described cases about "regarded as" disabilities. There is currently a case pending against Macdonald's because someone was not hired due to their weight being regarded as a disability.
Additionally, I do not believe it is law that you have to keep all resumes for one year; it is just a good idea so that if you have to prove why you did not hire someone (i.e. if they sue you for discrimination), you have some documentation as to the things you did consider at the time. Again, IANAL, but I have worked closely with one HR department in the last few years. In case their interpretation of the keeping-the-resumes policy was incorrect, I'll not mention the company name...
...you'd have to picture auto theft as someone simply replicating a car, taking the working copy, and running off with it. In this case, the original owner still has his/her car and is not going to buy a new one, hence no profit for the industry.
Not that I think the RIAA's stance is a good one, but I'll take a questionable RIAA over a bad metaphor any day.
This ammendment only applies to CRIMINAL cases. I don't think there are any such limitations on civil cases, as that might be inviolation of the first ammendment.
Make it a policy that any songs on an album which has gone platinum are open for free file trading. Likewise any song which has been licensed for enough commercials, TV shows or movies such that it has brought in over $1,000,000 in revenues. Likewise, any song that has achieved over $1,000,000 in radio-play revenues.
You can still charge your licensing fees for commercial use, but at this point, you'll do more for your popularity by letting go, Luke, and letting your fans trade and build up their fan bases.
For example: I have bought Dark Side of the Moon in three different formats, and multiple copies of the CD (gifts, etc). That album has generated so much revenue for Pink Floyd, Inc. that it would not hurt them or their families one bit to give it away for free. Same thing goes for Jewel's "Intuition", which is on a Shick razor commercial. And any Metallica song. And the list goes on...
Even if your numbers are correct, 20% of over 1 billion people is a lot of leer jets and golf trips for some lucky CEO. Just get a penny of profit per year from 20% of China's population and you're doing OK.
It certainly might be possible to do anonymous payments, maybe with a sort of swiss-bank-like system where you have an account that can be accessed with a certain authorization code. And maybe the bank could issue you meta-account numbers for different transactions, so that every vendor you work with would see your anonymous account as being independent.
I wonder how many e-mail messages are sent per day/month/year? I've been trying to pitch this idea for about six months, and nobody has been interested enough to give me money for it, so I'm putting it out here in the public domain.
Just like MIT is talking about putting a unique ID on every consumer product, what if there were a way to, using a central clearinghouse, put a unique ID on every e-mail that is sent across the Internet?
The way to pay for this would be to make people pay per recipient on their messages. Even a small amount would be fine--$0.001 (1/10 cent) per recipient gets you 10,000 messages for $10.00--because it would be significant enough incentive to keep spammers from sending out messages to EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. The nice thing is that this still allows for commercial e-mail, because businesses would have an incentive to create MEANINGFUL mailing lists, and I don't think most people mind if they receive an occasional e-mail ad for something they are truly interested in.
The central clearing house is key here, because then you've got someone who can verify that the sender has paid the fare for the message that is being received.
I've got a couple of ideas for business models for this, including profit incentives for ISPs to adopt this "AMTP" (Audited Mail Transfer Protocol) system, such as franchising the clearing-house aspect of it and much more. If anyone is interesting in working on this sort of thing, I'd love to work with you!
How is this connected to the main topic? Well, I don't think the world is ready for individual codes per consumer item, but I know for a fact that the world is ready for a disincentive for SPAM (and unfettered distribution of worms, for that matter), and I think this sort of centralized serialization is the key to doing so.
Wow. Well put. Huzzah! I hope you don't mind, but I am going to look for any opportunity I can to use your quote, Magic is still magic when you understand magic. I may even say, "Daniel Staal once said..." as if my listener should know who you are. Of course, if it should be attributed elsewhere, please let me know.
...something like, "Any science sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic."
Thus, I feel that films about the realms of magic fall into the same catagory. There are so many inconsistencies in the Harry Potter stories, for example, they make me wince. My girlfriend laughs and reminds me that it's just a story, but it's often not about the magic or science (as the case may be). It's often just an issue of consistency. I mean, if those kids can cast a spell to keep their faces dry in the rain, why can't they cast it on their whole bodies?
OK, I guess I've got better things to do than rant about Harry Potter... Or do I?
Just like any system, it's all about configuring it safely. My understanding is that much of the problem with Windows security is that the default settings are such that many of these doors are left open, whereas with MacOS X, one has to go in and manually turn on services in order to open one's self up to security issues, for the most part.
But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Even back in the "good old days" of OS 9 and previous, there were occasional problems. There was a great little utility called (I think) Mac Telnet from the folks at UIUC (the birthplace of a little app called Mosaic) which had the added functionality of a built-in FTP server. It was GREAT! Except for one thing:
The default setting was that the FTP server was turned ON, with anonymous logins ALLOWED. Basically, as soon as you ran the program, if you didn't know better, you were opening up your HD for anyone to log in, take whatever they wanted, install whatever they wanted in your startup directory, etc. Real fun, that. Just goes to show... something. I dunno what; it's late, I guess.
The moment that some crime which occurs in the virtual world of The Sims Online makes it onto the real world evening news, I'm throwing out my television.
Yeah, back then I couldn't get my boss to rubber-stamp that one.
spammers do seem to drink their own kool-aid
on
Spammer Ducks For Cover
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I've had SPAM-vertisers try to sign up the company I work for as a client, and I've had them try to convince me that it's OK to advertise that way. One guy got really aggrivated when I tried to explain that when it takes 20 minutes a day to delete all the viagra ads you get, 20 minutes for the mortgage ads, etc..., that very very very few people actually feel that they have been provided with a service when they receive SPAM e-mail.
I don't think, for the most part, that they are naive in the classical sense of the word; I think that they are closer to delusional. They have been given all the information they need, and they have chosen the interpretation which is going to let them do what they want to do.
However, I have seen a couple of occasions where a SPAM has been followed a couple of days later by an apology, where it truly does appear that someone has had a break-through experience and now understands that SPAM is a bad idea, where they truly did not understand that previously.
I'll tell you why having "standard" batteries like AA is a good thing: traveling.
I recently went traveling in Bolivia and Peru, and I stayed in a few places where power was not readily available at all times. However, even in the smallest towns, I could get myself a couple of AA batteries to keep me going for a while.
Those pictures were all taken with a Sony, though, which I bought partially because of its cool battery set-up. It had an option which would let me put in a proprietary info-lithium battery which had a nice long life, and an adaptor so that two AA batteries would fit in the same compartment. This way I can use the info-lithium 99% of the time, I have a back-up if I don't want to wait for the camera to charge back up. That, in my mind, is the best solution.
It has been said that organized crime is responsible for the sale and distribution of billions of dollars worth of pirated (i.e. hard copy) music CDs worldwide. This begs two questions:
1- Why is the music industry focusing prosecution efforts on poor individual college students who are (a) difficult to track down and (b) not making any money on their endeavors when there are large organizations which are (a) centralized, so stopping them might do some good, and (b) profiting from their activities?
2- If free file swapping is so damaging to music CD sales, then why aren't mafia types trying to stop this phenomenon as well, given they have so much to lose?
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Example: Jewel's new song, "Intuition" is in a commercial for a Gilette razor. I'm sure Gilette paid huge duckets for that. Now if I want to buy the song from ITMS, for example, Jewel's cut should be the same (approx $0.10), and Apple's, for serving it (approx $0.35), but the record company has made enough money on it, so maybe if they cut $0.50 out of the remaining cut for the record company and just took $0.04, making the price $0.49, I think that would be reasonable.
Come to think of it, I'm sure that Jewel made a bunch of money herself from the Gilette promotion, so maybe she should cut her take to $0.02 or so, just on that song, making the total cost $0.41.
Just a thought... my $0.02, if you will.
Yeah, but that would be actual work! Have you heard some of these musicians complain about touring? It's like they've never had 40 hour/week jobs!
Additionally, I do not believe it is law that you have to keep all resumes for one year; it is just a good idea so that if you have to prove why you did not hire someone (i.e. if they sue you for discrimination), you have some documentation as to the things you did consider at the time. Again, IANAL, but I have worked closely with one HR department in the last few years. In case their interpretation of the keeping-the-resumes policy was incorrect, I'll not mention the company name...
Not that I think the RIAA's stance is a good one, but I'll take a questionable RIAA over a bad metaphor any day.
Don't forget, these are classified as "damages", not punitive fines. IANAL, but I believe that this is why it's not covered by the constitution.
This ammendment only applies to CRIMINAL cases. I don't think there are any such limitations on civil cases, as that might be inviolation of the first ammendment.
Make it a policy that any songs on an album which has gone platinum are open for free file trading. Likewise any song which has been licensed for enough commercials, TV shows or movies such that it has brought in over $1,000,000 in revenues. Likewise, any song that has achieved over $1,000,000 in radio-play revenues.
You can still charge your licensing fees for commercial use, but at this point, you'll do more for your popularity by letting go, Luke, and letting your fans trade and build up their fan bases.
For example: I have bought Dark Side of the Moon in three different formats, and multiple copies of the CD (gifts, etc). That album has generated so much revenue for Pink Floyd, Inc. that it would not hurt them or their families one bit to give it away for free. Same thing goes for Jewel's "Intuition", which is on a Shick razor commercial. And any Metallica song. And the list goes on...
That's my $0.02
Mine stood for "Audited Mail Transfer Protocol". I've got a little information on it in THIS POST
Even if your numbers are correct, 20% of over 1 billion people is a lot of leer jets and golf trips for some lucky CEO. Just get a penny of profit per year from 20% of China's population and you're doing OK.
I just can't wait until the Swedish Chef releases all his recipes to the public domain! Mort, mort, mort!
A lot of potential for development here.
Just like MIT is talking about putting a unique ID on every consumer product, what if there were a way to, using a central clearinghouse, put a unique ID on every e-mail that is sent across the Internet?
The way to pay for this would be to make people pay per recipient on their messages. Even a small amount would be fine--$0.001 (1/10 cent) per recipient gets you 10,000 messages for $10.00--because it would be significant enough incentive to keep spammers from sending out messages to EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. The nice thing is that this still allows for commercial e-mail, because businesses would have an incentive to create MEANINGFUL mailing lists, and I don't think most people mind if they receive an occasional e-mail ad for something they are truly interested in.
The central clearing house is key here, because then you've got someone who can verify that the sender has paid the fare for the message that is being received.
I've got a couple of ideas for business models for this, including profit incentives for ISPs to adopt this "AMTP" (Audited Mail Transfer Protocol) system, such as franchising the clearing-house aspect of it and much more. If anyone is interesting in working on this sort of thing, I'd love to work with you!
How is this connected to the main topic? Well, I don't think the world is ready for individual codes per consumer item, but I know for a fact that the world is ready for a disincentive for SPAM (and unfettered distribution of worms, for that matter), and I think this sort of centralized serialization is the key to doing so.
Maybe you've heard of Aerosmith?
Wow. Well put. Huzzah! I hope you don't mind, but I am going to look for any opportunity I can to use your quote, Magic is still magic when you understand magic. I may even say, "Daniel Staal once said..." as if my listener should know who you are. Of course, if it should be attributed elsewhere, please let me know.
Hell, I'm not even sure I believe in the deLorean!
Thus, I feel that films about the realms of magic fall into the same catagory. There are so many inconsistencies in the Harry Potter stories, for example, they make me wince. My girlfriend laughs and reminds me that it's just a story, but it's often not about the magic or science (as the case may be). It's often just an issue of consistency. I mean, if those kids can cast a spell to keep their faces dry in the rain, why can't they cast it on their whole bodies?
OK, I guess I've got better things to do than rant about Harry Potter... Or do I?
But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Even back in the "good old days" of OS 9 and previous, there were occasional problems. There was a great little utility called (I think) Mac Telnet from the folks at UIUC (the birthplace of a little app called Mosaic) which had the added functionality of a built-in FTP server. It was GREAT! Except for one thing:
The default setting was that the FTP server was turned ON, with anonymous logins ALLOWED. Basically, as soon as you ran the program, if you didn't know better, you were opening up your HD for anyone to log in, take whatever they wanted, install whatever they wanted in your startup directory, etc. Real fun, that. Just goes to show... something. I dunno what; it's late, I guess.
The moment that some crime which occurs in the virtual world of The Sims Online makes it onto the real world evening news, I'm throwing out my television.
And for a more /. oriented suggestion, how about Netrek? Has anyone made an OS X port of that game yet?
Thanks for the info on the Zork engine, BTW, I think I'm going to go back and re-live my mis-spent adolescence this weekend!
Yeah, back then I couldn't get my boss to rubber-stamp that one.
I don't think, for the most part, that they are naive in the classical sense of the word; I think that they are closer to delusional. They have been given all the information they need, and they have chosen the interpretation which is going to let them do what they want to do.
However, I have seen a couple of occasions where a SPAM has been followed a couple of days later by an apology, where it truly does appear that someone has had a break-through experience and now understands that SPAM is a bad idea, where they truly did not understand that previously.
Ah, but he showed them the handle, and gave them blueprints of the keys from which they could make copies...
I recently went traveling in Bolivia and Peru, and I stayed in a few places where power was not readily available at all times. However, even in the smallest towns, I could get myself a couple of AA batteries to keep me going for a while.
Those pictures were all taken with a Sony, though, which I bought partially because of its cool battery set-up. It had an option which would let me put in a proprietary info-lithium battery which had a nice long life, and an adaptor so that two AA batteries would fit in the same compartment. This way I can use the info-lithium 99% of the time, I have a back-up if I don't want to wait for the camera to charge back up. That, in my mind, is the best solution.
Funny, but hasn't been true since OS 8.5 or so.
1- Why is the music industry focusing prosecution efforts on poor individual college students who are (a) difficult to track down and (b) not making any money on their endeavors when there are large organizations which are (a) centralized, so stopping them might do some good, and (b) profiting from their activities?
2- If free file swapping is so damaging to music CD sales, then why aren't mafia types trying to stop this phenomenon as well, given they have so much to lose?