Exactly... This is really less of an interuption to the user-experience than people are thinking. I too panicked when i started reading this stuff yesterday. I have a widely deployed intranet web app with multiple supported versions and streams out there and was afraid i'd be shipping tons of emergency patches. I installed the "upgrade" and the change to the experience is subtle and intuitive enough not to be disruptive in most cases. Basically just a little tooltip shows up when you hover over embedded content (no alert, no popup, no ok button...). One click enables it. This means that for certain controls, an extra click is required... As it turned out in my case, all of my embedded stuff is already scripted so there is actually no behavior change triggered.
Tip: if you enable script debugging in IE, you'll see the new behavior regardles of whether or not the embedding is scripted... go figure.
Can anyone be bothered to explain to me why eola's patent is infringed if a browser enables an embedded in html, but not if i embed using js onLoad?? what da! s.
What is all this talk about "server-push"? It is still HTTP underneath... everything is still client-driven... or am i missing something? Yes, the client can poll the server for updates... is that what people mean by push?
Ho-hum, i've missed the boat on this thread and would love to discuss ajax, but i'm afraid my comments will just get buried in yesterday's news so i'm not going to waste my time;)... except to say:
I like ajax. In my app it is a really nice and efficient way to do in-page tree expansions, retrieve forms/dialogs, and to send complex validations and evaluations of user-entered data in order to tailor (especially where multiple form fields have dependency links).
What i don't like: i am the proud owner of many thousands of lines of javascript renderers (the whole ui (menus, trees, dialogs, etc) are all rendered from xml in js. Now that ajax is finally catching on, i expect we'll see more and more standard rendering components. Before long, they'll be built in to the browsers. Cross-browser js is painful.
An intersting discussion: why now? Ajax has been around for 5 yrs, why is it suddenly gettin buzz? My app went this route with IE5.0 and a couple years ago, we felt we'd misread the crystal ball by going with this approach. Sure, it was working well, but it had no buzz. The IT deps of our customers didn't understand the model and we'd have to explain it over and over and they's always want to know why we weren't more buzz-word compliant with j2ee or.net or whatever.
The good news: i finally have a marketable skill to put on my resume:).
My answer: there is no easy answer. For me, it comes down to a logical weighing of the situation. The candidate who best represents my view is not a major party candidate and i'd prefer to vote for him/her; i also prefer major party candidate B over major party candidate A. Until we achieve the electoral reform necessary that allows me to express a more nuanced view-point (IRV, etc), i must weigh these competing interests and decide which is more important given the situation (like how close the polls are in your state). I consider myself to be somewhat idealistic and historically giving my vote to the candidate who best represents my views has generally won out. This year is different for me because i prefer candidate B significantly more than A and because i live in a "battleground". happy voting! stu.
Glyndwr quoth "I listen to music on shuffle a lot. What I would like to do is browse through my full mp3 list and add the next half-dozen or so tracks to the playlist, taking it out of shuffle... but only until those half-dozen tracks are played. After than I want it to go back to shuffle."
I do this by pre-shuffling. Many players can randomize a list then play it in order (e.g., winamp). That way you can make minor tweaks to the order or pre-pend other tracks to the top. The bonus for me is that if i stop the player for 20 minutes and come back, my crappy randomizing algorithm won't serve me up the same tracks i heard 20 minutes ago. It's like shuffle with a persistent notion of what it's already played...
And i gotta agree, i'm also still seeking the perfect player. I'm trying this Synapse right now... I've played with moodLogic which was nice for cleaning up my some of my tags, but i never got a big enough percentage of my 8k tracks in to really decide if it was cutting it. Media Jukebox has the most advanced "smart playlists" i've seen. You can extend the music metadata with custom attributes then create queries that dynamicaly play tracks that match (like, play all tracks that are: mellow, sad, and great (all invented criteria)). Of course the issue is you have to go through and map your opinions into your criteria... So obviously something like mood logic that used a generic set of rating criteria and a collaboritive community to distribute the heavy-lifting would seem the next step. Using the same community to inteligently recommend new music to me would be sweet too. Integrating the player with other tools like allmusic.com and my file sharing app would help too. E.g., "based on the reams of information i've compiled about your exquisite musical tastes, i think you'd like to try some Palace Brothers; click here to search for some recommended sampler tracks". Till that comes along, i'll be stuck jumping back and forth between allmusic.com, my filesharer, and my player... which works pretty well... Btw, in my cursory reading of the Synapse FAQ, etc, i couldn't find much info on how it works. I'd be curious to see some of their "scary, scary math"... shaw! Does it really use a "collaboritive community"? What does it know about the tracks it hasn't played? I've only played 15 tracks in it so far, but i'm not getting any data on the "musicmap"... Hmmmm, i'll try it for a week and see... hasta! stu.
Re:You Americans are funny sometimes...
on
239 MPG Car
·
· Score: 1
Maybe someone can explain this to me...
Why is the U.S. EPA negative on diesel cars? The few available here consistently get poor emissions ratings but high mpg. See: fueleconomy.gov
Are diesel vehicles inherent smog-hogs?
When in the UK, i notice tons of diesel cars and an unfamiliar exhaust odor (*cough*).
So why are standard diesels generally considered to have poorer emissions? And further, what is the difference between diesel and unleaded fuel?
tia chaps!,
stu.
hmmmm, maybe 10 years ago this could have taken off. Now? Ferget about it! Sure there are alot of stations, but i want a station as unique as i am. I want a station that plays what i want to hear and when i don't know what i want to hear, it understands my tastes well enough to guess. I want to be introduced to new off-the-wall music based on complex interpolations of other people's tastes. I want my interactive jukebox in the sky! Let's face it, this IS the future and the internet will be the delivery mechanism. These things just arn't possible with a one-way data stream.
We can probably expect to see workable solutions to the "fast mile" problem in urban areas before too long. Rural driving might mean big seamless buffers for the short-term, but how long before the whole world is swathed in the data blanket? My own lifetime. In the meantime, it would be 10x better for me to be able to pick up shoutcast streams, real audio stations, myplay, and mp3.com (not to mention my 7,000 mp3s off my proxy server...) than to have satelite radio. A one-way non-interactive medium just doesn't seem to make sense for this purpose in the 21st century.
Not to say i wouldn't want one of these sat radios... but if i'm going to spend that kind of cash, i want something way cool.
Who's with me?!
stu.
I completely agree with the first observation that the big next gen format will have to offer something substantial that CDs don't. And i agree that mp3 and formats like it, offer some very substantial advantages. For me, the main advantage for me is having the "anything, everywhere, anytime, jukebox in the sky". Even just having 10G of mp3s on my harddrive is pretty rad. 150 hours of shuffling! Or even better, playlists galore, for every possible mood and situation!
Now, to take issue with the previous poster:
Mp3 sales exist? where?
Sound like crap? Did you use a decent ripper? at what bitrate? played on what hardware? with what speakers?
In my opinion a 128/44 mp3 sounds better than a tape and very near a cd in quality. If you disagree, rip at 256!
Regardless of whether or not the marketplace ends up with mp3, mp4, mp5 or some other format (or all of them), who needs the cd? Why buy the atoms when you want the bits? You won't you'll buy the bits.
stu.
yo anon,
time to bail... for reals!
if you really want to keep your fab tech team together, wander into the haze and make one final appeal to the crack heads at the top: give them straight dope. If they can't/won't fix what's wrong, why keep bailing shit? get on with your life and keep in touch with your co-workers. If they are even half-way talented, they will have no problem finding another job and they can thank you later for getting them out of that lame job.
stu.
funnily enough, even with the U.S. tax on blank tapes, U.K. blanks *still* cost more (along with practically everything else). Granted, your VAT supports decent healthcare for every single British citizen, etc., but the most shocking sticker i've seen in the UK has to be in the music stores... avg CD price seems to be about $23! Anyway, i'm not saying i wouldn't trade my U.S. corporate exploitation for your bulky beuracracy,....just making the point that neither of us approaches any kind of fair or well-regulated capitalism.
stu.
The global library is a wonderful thing to work towards: every scientific and creative work at the finger tips of every person: way cool.
I don't think this particular idea has much to offer though, there are some major problems with it.
The idea seems to be an odd amalgamation of small-scale socialism on the consumer-side and highly-regulated capitalism on the producer-side. I believe small-scale socialism can be very effective within tight-knit communities - my isp does not qualify as such;). On the producer-side, only the most commodified mediums might be wiling to give up their freedom to set their own prices, etc.
The author insists that the only way to make this system affordable is to make it all you can eat. His assumption seems to be that every system is hackable and if an individual cannot profit directly by hacking, it won't happen on any substantial scale. Dubious. This is also the only argument he gives against constructing a similar system that charges based on individual usage - it will be hacked. Sorry, but if we can't figure out good ways to make data transactions, the future looks pretty bleak. What happens when low-income persons are priced off their ISP? Will they join low-bandwitdth ISPs that limit their intake? What's to prevent groups of content-providers from bilking the system by downloading tons of their own spurious content?
This all being said, i'd still prefer this system to what we have today; i just think we can find a better starting place.
If you take the current situation as static, sure your response is quite reasonable. Fortuantely our current state is hardly static, i assert that we are in the midst of a revolution. Several points influencing the entual outcome:
a. Consumers have fair-use rights that include "space-shifting"! (covers translating formats for personal convenience, CD->mp3, etc.).
b. Media is information: bits, not atoms. Physical media is a doomed commodity (music first, then the rest). Welcome to the network.
c. The intent of U.S. copyright law is and (imo) will continue to be valid and important. The letter of the law on the other hand, is archaic and in severe need of explicit re-interpretation.
Add it all up and what do you have?
Big media companies kicking, screaming, and tripping into the digital world. Those who take off their blinders and "get it right" will be rewarded; those who attempt to re-implement the old paradigms in the new world will suffer.
No one yet knows what models will prosper.
Mp3.com has paid out nearly 200 million in settlement bucks to the big 5 labels for their jukebox in the sky implementation (merely streams music back to those who can verify posession of the CD!). Well, actually, they were penalized for creating a database of music with the aforementioned intent... a real technicality based on an inflexible interpretation of CR law. I think that this in itself demonstrates that we have a long way to go and a fight on our hands just to retain our reasonable fair-use rights in the digital age. I can't imagine losing though, holding back this revolution is like holding back the ocean.
keep on rockin in the freak world,
stu.
imho, one of the most needed services is some kind of hardware middleman group between corporations and charitable organizations. Many companies have excess outdated hardware that they'd like to get a tax right-off for. Many charitable organizations and disadvantaged people are in need of ANY PC hardware regardless of its minimal crunching power. In my experience, there is a gap in the middle: soliciting the corporations for hardware, refurbing/reconfiguring said hardware, installing software (linux?!), identifying those in need, and delivering. A real ambitious group could grow to include training sessions/classes, etc. I'm sure groups like this exist, but when i volunteered to funnel my companies excess hardware to group homes (social service kids) in our county, i noticed a real need for this kind of service. I basically ended up re-learning about forgotten hardware, swapping components in and out trying to discover what was broken and what wasn't, re-installing software, etc. Needless to say, since this is not my area of interest/expertise, it was alot of time and frustration. A group with a directed goal like this could really make this process more effective and efficient! I'd love to join a group like this, but i've been too lazy to start one myself;).... just my thoughts. cheers ya'll! stu.
Ok, half of this post is on track with my thoughts so i'm following it up here. FuriousG is right on. The article is misleading, not for what it says, but for what it doesn't say. If my knowledge of the mp3c court fiasco was based solely on reading Katz's column (normally a reasonably heathly proposition) i'd be under the impression that by signing up for my.mp3, i'd have access to their database of 80,000 CDs! Most of us, including Jon, know this is not the case. I understand that this article is about the digital music revolution in general and how stodgy monopolistic record companies are shooting themselves in the foot and encouraging piracy by not stepping into the 21st century, etc. (which i fully agree with), but, to make a long sentance longer, it seems that if you are going to spend so much space discussing mp3C's court case, you could atleast paint a clearer picture of what the violation in question actually is (well covered in Fridays thread on the court case). In the absense of this clear picture, it is implied that they are giving away copyrighted music.
Jon says: "A number of artists have bitterly complained that the downloading of music on sites like MP3.com is simply piracy."
Please give me one example of a major-label artist critizing mp3c in these terms.
Jon goes on: "Friday's ruling by a federal judge against MP3 was the clearest and most powerful blow yet struck against the by-now deeply ingrained tradition, especially among younger music lovers, of acquiring vast music libraries for free. MP3.com could face stunning penalties."
Does anyone else see how this is mis-leading?? No one is aquiring vast music libraries of RIAA copyrighted music via mp3.com! And although you don't say that they are, you are walking the line when instead you should make yourself clear. I'm not too surprised that the vast majority of the public doesn't understand this case or that the main-stream media portrays this case in vague, broad, and misleading terms, but i'm surprised to see it here. mermonkey.
find out if i have any taste in independent music: http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/3/underground_en tropy.html
Yep, this guy is on the money. I wish i had the IPO connections! Stocks like yahoo, amazon, and mp3 will probably do well for a few years, but once the market matures a bit, they are history! These ventures depend on being THE source to buy their product. In the internet future though, buying decisions will not be made based on "brand recognition" or whatever you want to call it. Decisions will be made based on other criteria. You design your criteria and share it with your shop-bot who queries the net and reports back. Or maybe your shop-bot "learns" your shopping preferences based on your behavior; it doesn't matter, the point is, it is unlikely that you will head to your favorite internet store to make a purchase. This is a leftover concept from the world of brick and mortar. It's just a matter of time until the headstart these trailblazing companies have will be extremely minimized. How much time? now that's the question! I own some of these stocks too! And i'm definately not selling right away! peace.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly...
This is really less of an interuption to the user-experience than people are thinking. I too panicked when i started reading this stuff yesterday. I have a widely deployed intranet web app with multiple supported versions and streams out there and was afraid i'd be shipping tons of emergency patches. I installed the "upgrade" and the change to the experience is subtle and intuitive enough not to be disruptive in most cases. Basically just a little tooltip shows up when you hover over embedded content (no alert, no popup, no ok button...). One click enables it. This means that for certain controls, an extra click is required... As it turned out in my case, all of my embedded stuff is already scripted so there is actually no behavior change triggered.
Tip: if you enable script debugging in IE, you'll see the new behavior regardles of whether or not the embedding is scripted... go figure.
Can anyone be bothered to explain to me why eola's patent is infringed if a browser enables an embedded in html, but not if i embed using js onLoad?? what da!
s.
What is all this talk about "server-push"?
;)... except to say:
.net or whatever.
:).
It is still HTTP underneath... everything is still client-driven... or am i missing something? Yes, the client can poll the server for updates... is that what people mean by push?
Ho-hum, i've missed the boat on this thread and would love to discuss ajax, but i'm afraid my comments will just get buried in yesterday's news so i'm not going to waste my time
I like ajax. In my app it is a really nice and efficient way to do in-page tree expansions, retrieve forms/dialogs, and to send complex validations and evaluations of user-entered data in order to tailor (especially where multiple form fields have dependency links).
What i don't like: i am the proud owner of many thousands of lines of javascript renderers (the whole ui (menus, trees, dialogs, etc) are all rendered from xml in js. Now that ajax is finally catching on, i expect we'll see more and more standard rendering components. Before long, they'll be built in to the browsers. Cross-browser js is painful.
An intersting discussion: why now? Ajax has been around for 5 yrs, why is it suddenly gettin buzz? My app went this route with IE5.0 and a couple years ago, we felt we'd misread the crystal ball by going with this approach. Sure, it was working well, but it had no buzz. The IT deps of our customers didn't understand the model and we'd have to explain it over and over and they's always want to know why we weren't more buzz-word compliant with j2ee or
The good news: i finally have a marketable skill to put on my resume
cheers!
stu.
My answer: there is no easy answer. For me, it comes down to a logical weighing of the situation. The candidate who best represents my view is not a major party candidate and i'd prefer to vote for him/her; i also prefer major party candidate B over major party candidate A. Until we achieve the electoral reform necessary that allows me to express a more nuanced view-point (IRV, etc), i must weigh these competing interests and decide which is more important given the situation (like how close the polls are in your state). I consider myself to be somewhat idealistic and historically giving my vote to the candidate who best represents my views has generally won out. This year is different for me because i prefer candidate B significantly more than A and because i live in a "battleground".
happy voting!
stu.
Glyndwr quoth "I listen to music on shuffle a lot. What I would like to do is browse through my full mp3 list and add the next half-dozen or so tracks to the playlist, taking it out of shuffle... but only until those half-dozen tracks are played. After than I want it to go back to shuffle."
I do this by pre-shuffling. Many players can randomize a list then play it in order (e.g., winamp). That way you can make minor tweaks to the order or pre-pend other tracks to the top. The bonus for me is that if i stop the player for 20 minutes and come back, my crappy randomizing algorithm won't serve me up the same tracks i heard 20 minutes ago. It's like shuffle with a persistent notion of what it's already played...
And i gotta agree, i'm also still seeking the perfect player. I'm trying this Synapse right now... I've played with moodLogic which was nice for cleaning up my some of my tags, but i never got a big enough percentage of my 8k tracks in to really decide if it was cutting it. Media Jukebox has the most advanced "smart playlists" i've seen. You can extend the music metadata with custom attributes then create queries that dynamicaly play tracks that match (like, play all tracks that are: mellow, sad, and great (all invented criteria)). Of course the issue is you have to go through and map your opinions into your criteria... So obviously something like mood logic that used a generic set of rating criteria and a collaboritive community to distribute the heavy-lifting would seem the next step. Using the same community to inteligently recommend new music to me would be sweet too. Integrating the player with other tools like allmusic.com and my file sharing app would help too. E.g., "based on the reams of information i've compiled about your exquisite musical tastes, i think you'd like to try some Palace Brothers; click here to search for some recommended sampler tracks".
Till that comes along, i'll be stuck jumping back and forth between allmusic.com, my filesharer, and my player... which works pretty well...
Btw, in my cursory reading of the Synapse FAQ, etc, i couldn't find much info on how it works. I'd be curious to see some of their "scary, scary math"... shaw! Does it really use a "collaboritive community"? What does it know about the tracks it hasn't played? I've only played 15 tracks in it so far, but i'm not getting any data on the "musicmap"... Hmmmm, i'll try it for a week and see...
hasta!
stu.
hmmmm, maybe 10 years ago this could have taken off. Now? Ferget about it! Sure there are alot of stations, but i want a station as unique as i am. I want a station that plays what i want to hear and when i don't know what i want to hear, it understands my tastes well enough to guess. I want to be introduced to new off-the-wall music based on complex interpolations of other people's tastes. I want my interactive jukebox in the sky! Let's face it, this IS the future and the internet will be the delivery mechanism. These things just arn't possible with a one-way data stream.
We can probably expect to see workable solutions to the "fast mile" problem in urban areas before too long. Rural driving might mean big seamless buffers for the short-term, but how long before the whole world is swathed in the data blanket? My own lifetime. In the meantime, it would be 10x better for me to be able to pick up shoutcast streams, real audio stations, myplay, and mp3.com (not to mention my 7,000 mp3s off my proxy server...) than to have satelite radio. A one-way non-interactive medium just doesn't seem to make sense for this purpose in the 21st century.
Not to say i wouldn't want one of these sat radios... but if i'm going to spend that kind of cash, i want something way cool.
Who's with me?!
stu.
I completely agree with the first observation that the big next gen format will have to offer something substantial that CDs don't. And i agree that mp3 and formats like it, offer some very substantial advantages. For me, the main advantage for me is having the "anything, everywhere, anytime, jukebox in the sky". Even just having 10G of mp3s on my harddrive is pretty rad. 150 hours of shuffling! Or even better, playlists galore, for every possible mood and situation!
Now, to take issue with the previous poster:
Mp3 sales exist? where?
Sound like crap? Did you use a decent ripper? at what bitrate? played on what hardware? with what speakers?
In my opinion a 128/44 mp3 sounds better than a tape and very near a cd in quality. If you disagree, rip at 256!
Regardless of whether or not the marketplace ends up with mp3, mp4, mp5 or some other format (or all of them), who needs the cd? Why buy the atoms when you want the bits? You won't you'll buy the bits.
stu.
yo anon,
time to bail... for reals!
if you really want to keep your fab tech team together, wander into the haze and make one final appeal to the crack heads at the top: give them straight dope. If they can't/won't fix what's wrong, why keep bailing shit? get on with your life and keep in touch with your co-workers. If they are even half-way talented, they will have no problem finding another job and they can thank you later for getting them out of that lame job.
stu.
>
....just making the point that neither of us approaches any kind of fair or well-regulated capitalism.
funnily enough, even with the U.S. tax on blank tapes, U.K. blanks *still* cost more (along with practically everything else). Granted, your VAT supports decent healthcare for every single British citizen, etc., but the most shocking sticker i've seen in the UK has to be in the music stores... avg CD price seems to be about $23! Anyway, i'm not saying i wouldn't trade my U.S. corporate exploitation for your bulky beuracracy,
stu.
The global library is a wonderful thing to work towards: every scientific and creative work at the finger tips of every person: way cool. ;). On the producer-side, only the most commodified mediums might be wiling to give up their freedom to set their own prices, etc.
I don't think this particular idea has much to offer though, there are some major problems with it.
The idea seems to be an odd amalgamation of small-scale socialism on the consumer-side and highly-regulated capitalism on the producer-side. I believe small-scale socialism can be very effective within tight-knit communities - my isp does not qualify as such
The author insists that the only way to make this system affordable is to make it all you can eat. His assumption seems to be that every system is hackable and if an individual cannot profit directly by hacking, it won't happen on any substantial scale. Dubious. This is also the only argument he gives against constructing a similar system that charges based on individual usage - it will be hacked. Sorry, but if we can't figure out good ways to make data transactions, the future looks pretty bleak. What happens when low-income persons are priced off their ISP? Will they join low-bandwitdth ISPs that limit their intake? What's to prevent groups of content-providers from bilking the system by downloading tons of their own spurious content?
This all being said, i'd still prefer this system to what we have today; i just think we can find a better starting place.
"*accoustic* fingerprint"?? i don't think my metal rapCore collection has any of those.
If you take the current situation as static, sure your response is quite reasonable. Fortuantely our current state is hardly static, i assert that we are in the midst of a revolution. Several points influencing the entual outcome:
a. Consumers have fair-use rights that include "space-shifting"! (covers translating formats for personal convenience, CD->mp3, etc.).
b. Media is information: bits, not atoms. Physical media is a doomed commodity (music first, then the rest). Welcome to the network.
c. The intent of U.S. copyright law is and (imo) will continue to be valid and important. The letter of the law on the other hand, is archaic and in severe need of explicit re-interpretation.
Add it all up and what do you have?
Big media companies kicking, screaming, and tripping into the digital world. Those who take off their blinders and "get it right" will be rewarded; those who attempt to re-implement the old paradigms in the new world will suffer.
No one yet knows what models will prosper.
Mp3.com has paid out nearly 200 million in settlement bucks to the big 5 labels for their jukebox in the sky implementation (merely streams music back to those who can verify posession of the CD!). Well, actually, they were penalized for creating a database of music with the aforementioned intent... a real technicality based on an inflexible interpretation of CR law. I think that this in itself demonstrates that we have a long way to go and a fight on our hands just to retain our reasonable fair-use rights in the digital age. I can't imagine losing though, holding back this revolution is like holding back the ocean.
keep on rockin in the freak world,
stu.
imho, one of the most needed services is some kind of hardware middleman group between corporations and charitable organizations. Many companies have excess outdated hardware that they'd like to get a tax right-off for. Many charitable organizations and disadvantaged people are in need of ANY PC hardware regardless of its minimal crunching power. In my experience, there is a gap in the middle: soliciting the corporations for hardware, refurbing/reconfiguring said hardware, installing software (linux?!), identifying those in need, and delivering. A real ambitious group could grow to include training sessions/classes, etc. ;).... just my thoughts.
I'm sure groups like this exist, but when i volunteered to funnel my companies excess hardware to group homes (social service kids) in our county, i noticed a real need for this kind of service. I basically ended up re-learning about forgotten hardware, swapping components in and out trying to discover what was broken and what wasn't, re-installing software, etc. Needless to say, since this is not my area of interest/expertise, it was alot of time and frustration. A group with a directed goal like this could really make this process more effective and efficient! I'd love to join a group like this, but i've been too lazy to start one myself
cheers ya'll!
stu.
Ok, half of this post is on track with my thoughts so i'm following it up here.
n tropy.html
FuriousG is right on. The article is misleading, not for what it says, but for what it doesn't say. If my knowledge of the mp3c court fiasco was based solely on reading Katz's column (normally a reasonably heathly proposition) i'd be under the impression that by signing up for my.mp3, i'd have access to their database of 80,000 CDs! Most of us, including Jon, know this is not the case. I understand that this article is about the digital music revolution in general and how stodgy monopolistic record companies are shooting themselves in the foot and encouraging piracy by not stepping into the 21st century, etc. (which i fully agree with), but, to make a long sentance longer, it seems that if you are going to spend so much space discussing mp3C's court case, you could atleast paint a clearer picture of what the violation in question actually is (well covered in Fridays thread on the court case). In the absense of this clear picture, it is implied that they are giving away copyrighted music.
Jon says:
"A number of artists have bitterly complained that the downloading of music on sites like MP3.com is simply piracy."
Please give me one example of a major-label artist critizing mp3c in these terms.
Jon goes on:
"Friday's ruling by a federal judge against MP3 was the clearest and most powerful blow yet struck against the by-now deeply ingrained tradition, especially among younger music lovers, of acquiring vast music libraries for free. MP3.com could face stunning penalties."
Does anyone else see how this is mis-leading?? No one is aquiring vast music libraries of RIAA copyrighted music via mp3.com! And although you don't say that they are, you are walking the line when instead you should make yourself clear.
I'm not too surprised that the vast majority of the public doesn't understand this case or that the main-stream media portrays this case in vague, broad, and misleading terms, but i'm surprised to see it here.
mermonkey.
find out if i have any taste in independent music: http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/3/underground_e
they forced you to watch!?! Egad! i hope you alerted the autorities!
Yep, this guy is on the money. I wish i had the IPO connections! Stocks like yahoo, amazon, and mp3 will probably do well for a few years, but once the market matures a bit, they are history! These ventures depend on being THE source to buy their product. In the internet future though, buying decisions will not be made based on "brand recognition" or whatever you want to call it. Decisions will be made based on other criteria. You design your criteria and share it with your shop-bot who queries the net and reports back. Or maybe your shop-bot "learns" your shopping preferences based on your behavior; it doesn't matter, the point is, it is unlikely that you will head to your favorite internet store to make a purchase. This is a leftover concept from the world of brick and mortar. It's just a matter of time until the headstart these trailblazing companies have will be extremely minimized. How much time? now that's the question! I own some of these stocks too! And i'm definately not selling right away!
peace.