The question of how much you have to spend until it sounds good enough varies per person and per equipment -- that and some people fall for scams rather easily.
Personally, I can hear a difference between a 160kb/s Ogg file and a 320kb/s Ogg file on speakers that cost around £170. I don't know if I could tell the difference betwen 320kpbs and something nearer to it in encoding around 224 or 256kb/s. I think I can with Classical music but I haven't done an actual test, whereas with 160 vs. 320 the difference is so obvious I don't need to test. Likewise, I don't know if I hear a difference between my existing speakers and something more expensive. I also have a Xonar D2X sound card and I can hear the difference between the output on that and my onboard S/PDIF. So in my case, a cost of around £250 gives me a very appreciable difference over onboard sound and my previous speakers (which were around £40 and stereo but extremely good for the money).
I don't know how much more benefit I could get from spending higher
That context doesn't really make a difference. It's obviously pretty damn difficult to enforce copyright law in the rest of the world too, and his sentiments about the US and UK would be the same. Obviously he'd prefer if everyone paid, but if anyone is going to be installing an OS for free, he'd still prefer it was Windows.
And obviously if someone hit me I would rather it was with a fist than with a knife, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about being punched and the original statement was that Microsoft are "happy" for people to pirate their software. Your article most certainly does not show that. When someone says: "context doesn't really make a difference", I get very wary.
I really like the free version for browsing for new music but I don't see why anyone pays for the subscription service. I rarely find more than 2 or 3 new albums that are worth keeping per year and I can buy the MP3s for a couple of months worth of fees. Not to mention that when you stop paying it all goes poof.
I pay for their Premium service because it's cheap (to me), provides even higher quality encodings (if you're just using headphones or desktop speakers don't bother, but on my set up the difference is audible), and I'm not bugged by stupid ads. I can also set my mobile and laptop to offline mode which is occasionally useful. May or may not apply to me, but it's worth the fiver a month for the service without ads and for it to be completely unlimited. Spotify is excellent for parties because you can just leave it there and people can queue up whatever they want.
A quote that was specifically talking about the unenforcability of copyright law in China and explicitly looked forward to the day when it would be and people would have to pay for their software.
But it's no longer possible to say that you can't get quality digital music at a reasonable price anymore without most people thinking you're (a) dirt poor or (b) deluded.
(c) Geographically restricted...
Well perhaps, but the big majority of posters on Slashdot are in the USA or Europe.
I thought I was brave taking an anti-piracy stance on Slashdot. But daring to say that modern music isn't crap? You're going to really upset people now!
But apparently Spotify gives you better control over your music - you can actually pick songs! Instead of just waiting for them to come up on your radio station.
Pick songs, build lots of playlists, share those playlists with others, excellent search tools (including the useful sorting of search results by popularity), pretty decent bit-rate with the premium service (320kb/s Ogg Vorbis), artist information, related artist links. Really impressive catalogue. It's a very good service.
Also, we must lock all music behind DRM which, incidentally, is patented by us, the recording companies, so that anyone who wants to distribute music has to license it and therefore have our permission.
But they can't just go to Congress and say that, can they? So it's all about piracy.
WTF? That's already what existing copyright law says: you can't legally re-distribute copies of the songs we own copyright on. There's no concealing that from Congress. It's already law and has been for a long, long time.
Only downside is that Spotify isn't available in the US. Yes, you can proxy, but it takes gymnastics to get it working on your Android or iPhone, especially if you want a subscription.
You guys can't get Spotify? Wow - that really sucks. I've just checked their site and it seems the currently listed countries are Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Norway, Spain and the UK. Hopefully you'll get Spotify soon over there. It's really good.
All true, but it still could work. You could use watermarking to simplify checking who an audio file was licensed to. Watermarking can be stripped out, but guess what? That just makes it an unlicensed file! You could also licence differently at different bit rates. I like to buy my MP3s from places that sell at 320kbps because I can hear the difference from that and say 256kbps. But most people even if they want to buy at a higher bit-rate for enjoyment, would be happy to use a 256kbps encode for a YouTube movie or similar.
Services such as YouTube could also work with the labels to streamline the process. So for example you could click to associate your registered YouTube name with your licence. You couldn't just have things associated with YouTube, but it illustrates the sort of things that could be possible.
If the music industry had a simple way to buy rights to songs, etc., people would probably even pay to use that in youtube videos they make, etc
Oooh, nice idea. Magnatune used to have such a system where you just clicked on the appropriate licence type and purchased. Of course Magnatune was obscure (though sometimes talented) bands. I don't know if they still have it because Magnatune switched to a Spotify style streaming service instead of sales, so I stopped using them, but the precedent is there.
This would genuinely be a great service and I've no doubt that it could make money if properly done. You should probably actually just write a letter to a few big labels marketing departments with a request saying how you would like it to work. The letter might actually get to someone who can propose it somewhere.
Actually, I reckon it might be. In the last few years, we've seen the rise of legal and cheap streaming music services such as Spotify as well as reasonably priced, high quality MP3s available for purchase from services like Amazon. Back a few years, I was sceptical of the claims on Slashdot that if there were cheaper music available for purchase at a decent quality, that people would stop pirating. But it may be turning out that this is at least partially true. I think most people are basically honest and willing to pay for music and movies. Sure there are plenty who do see the opportunity to take stuff for free instead of paying for it and take advantage of that, but maybe a lot of people who were pirating have decided to pay - whether because they've changed their stance of piracy or because they like the reliability and convenience of the legitimate services. But it's no longer possible to say that you can't get quality digital music at a reasonable price anymore without most people thinking you're (a) dirt poor or (b) deluded. It may be that we're seeing an effect from that. Or it may be that the general social shift is to disapprove of "freetards" who take but don't give back. In any case, there are possible reasons why we could have seen piracy drop.
It's not anyone's business to tell a gay man that he can't enjoy musicals or interior decorating or antiques
Did anyone propose doing that?
Yes - the post I was replying to and quoted. It said that if I should go and tell gay people not to do things that conformed to a stereotype. Kind of ignores that different gay people are - you know - different because it says that the correct way to stop some being judged by what others do, is for those others to change their behaviour. Or instead, you know, people could just treat someone as an individual and not expect them to conform to some odd stereotype. I don't think any of the gay men that I know are unusually obsessed with interior design. It's not my business to seek out any that are and tell them they're not allowed their hobby because it reinforces someone else's stereotypes. They can do what they like. The problem is people who stereotype, not any member of the stereotyped group.
Stereotypes are bad things
You and every other human being use them every day. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to survive and thrive very long. Generalizations based on experience are part of the human condition. You look at someone with a frown on their face. You generalize that they are unhappy. You're using the stereotype than an unhappy person is characterized by a frown. Now, it's possible they are not unhappy. Maybe they just ate something sour, maybe they're in momentary physical pain. But you don't just automatically assume that there is an equal chance that they're happy. You make a generalization based on experience with unhappy people.
I don't think you understand what a stereotype is. Whilst all stereotypes are generalisations (often false ones), not all generalisations are stereotypes. You have committed a set-error. Associating a frown with unhappiness is not stereotyping, saying 'gay people love antiques' is stereotyping. I don't believe that you are incapable of distinguishing the two and if you claim that you are then you'll only look like an idiot because the rest of us manage it fine.
You can't live life pretending that we're all the same.
And where did I say that everyone is all the same or make an argument based on that absurd notion. You were the one that made an argument based on this idea when you categorised gay people as being into antiques and interior design. You criticise me for pretending that we're all the same when I've not done anything like that whilst ignore that you make arguments about individuals based on stereotypes.
I'll say this, you've convinced me that you're not just trolling, but actually do have very muddled thinking processes.
Stereotypes exist for a reason. If you want that stereotype to disappear, talk to some of your more flamboyant compatriots.
It's not anyone's business to tell a gay man that he can't enjoy musicals or interior decorating or antiques (and when did antiques become a gay stereotype?) . The error is in stereotyping gay men that these are elements of being gay. Stereotypes are bad things - as is pretty much anything that blinds one to seeing what actually is in favour of what one expects. You might also want to look into some of the research showing how little it takes statistically for the human mind to start generalising.
Actually NO, the post is not offensive. You simply want to be offended so you choose to be offended and act indignant. Grow up already and quit being so hypersensitive.
I think it makes more sense for me to be offended by someone stereotyping homosexuals than for you to be offended by others disliking such stereotyping. Quit being so hypersensitive, perhaps?
As I indicated to another poster below, I'll be sure and let him know when I see him again that you think he's being a stereotype, and that you disapprove. If you could provide a list of acceptable behaviors for a (former) gay man I could pass that along too, if you like.
It is perfectly clear from my post that I wasn't disapproving of his behaviour. I think you could only read it that way if you were trying to.
Actually, yes, the post is offensive because it promulgates a stereotype of homosexuality - that it is all about being feminine and obsessing about interior design, or that liking musicals is a sign of being gay. I don't care about the app. If someone isn't comfortable with their sexuality and wants to try and shift it around a bit, that's their business. But re-enforcing stereotypes and caricatures of homosexuality affects actual homosexuals.
Check your link. The prices are different. But as I said in my post, it's not relevant to the point I'm making. You've skipped over the whole thing in favour of just repeating your earlier post in its entirety which I've already answered.
A ridiculously over the top name for the fact that the Firefox address bar throws in bookmarks as part of it's autocomplete as well as doing some bizarre attempt at predicting what URL you are typing and putting what it thinks is most likely near the top. In my experience, it gets it all wrong and is irritating as Hell.
I used to when I was a subscriber. But I've lapsed subscriptions ever since they insisted on Paypal to pay for it. They should go back to credit cards. That said, there's something weird with viodlos. I don't think he's an MS shill simply because I can't believe they'd be so inept. He keeps grabbing first posts and adding in Microsoft references. I think he's just trying to troll or false-flag by pretending to be an MS shill. Though genuine obsessed independent is possible I suppose. It's counter-productive to MS, whatever the reason.
Actually, the paperback is cheaper, you've misquoted the prices. Though I suspect you're just setting things up for a chance to point out that the difference isn't enough. Anyway, I'm going to retract my earlier point about the prices being different. The Kindle ones I've bought have always been cheaper than the hardcopy, but in fact this is irrelevant. They are different formats with different advantages and disadvantages. For example I bought the D Programming Language book on Kindle because I preferred it that way. It's a big fat book and it's easier to have it on a lightweight device I can slip in a pocket or lie in bed reading, holding it with one hand. Buy whichever format is better for you. The point is that the cost of a book doesn't drop to nothing because it is easier to distribute. The book has an inherent cost because it took a lot of time and effort to write.
There is a huge difference. Buy any book published pre-2005 and find they did a bad OCR job that they didn't even spell check. Then pay the same price as the well formatted and edited paperback.
I mean really a spell check and find-replace on the same errors made by the OCR job they did would lower the mistakes from 2 per paragraph to 1 a page.
I could cut the spine, scan/OCR these books and have a better quality ebook version myself in an afternoon./endrage
I wish so many of my favorite books were not mangled junk at the same price.
I was talking about the time and effort in writing the book, not the conversion of existing ones to digital format.
Slashdot Mirror
The question of how much you have to spend until it sounds good enough varies per person and per equipment -- that and some people fall for scams rather easily.
Personally, I can hear a difference between a 160kb/s Ogg file and a 320kb/s Ogg file on speakers that cost around £170. I don't know if I could tell the difference betwen 320kpbs and something nearer to it in encoding around 224 or 256kb/s. I think I can with Classical music but I haven't done an actual test, whereas with 160 vs. 320 the difference is so obvious I don't need to test. Likewise, I don't know if I hear a difference between my existing speakers and something more expensive. I also have a Xonar D2X sound card and I can hear the difference between the output on that and my onboard S/PDIF. So in my case, a cost of around £250 gives me a very appreciable difference over onboard sound and my previous speakers (which were around £40 and stereo but extremely good for the money).
I don't know how much more benefit I could get from spending higher
That context doesn't really make a difference. It's obviously pretty damn difficult to enforce copyright law in the rest of the world too, and his sentiments about the US and UK would be the same. Obviously he'd prefer if everyone paid, but if anyone is going to be installing an OS for free, he'd still prefer it was Windows.
And obviously if someone hit me I would rather it was with a fist than with a knife, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about being punched and the original statement was that Microsoft are "happy" for people to pirate their software. Your article most certainly does not show that. When someone says: "context doesn't really make a difference", I get very wary.
I really like the free version for browsing for new music but I don't see why anyone pays for the subscription service. I rarely find more than 2 or 3 new albums that are worth keeping per year and I can buy the MP3s for a couple of months worth of fees. Not to mention that when you stop paying it all goes poof.
I pay for their Premium service because it's cheap (to me), provides even higher quality encodings (if you're just using headphones or desktop speakers don't bother, but on my set up the difference is audible), and I'm not bugged by stupid ads. I can also set my mobile and laptop to offline mode which is occasionally useful. May or may not apply to me, but it's worth the fiver a month for the service without ads and for it to be completely unlimited. Spotify is excellent for parties because you can just leave it there and people can queue up whatever they want.
A quote that was specifically talking about the unenforcability of copyright law in China and explicitly looked forward to the day when it would be and people would have to pay for their software.
(c) Geographically restricted...
Well perhaps, but the big majority of posters on Slashdot are in the USA or Europe.
I like the modern music
I thought I was brave taking an anti-piracy stance on Slashdot. But daring to say that modern music isn't crap? You're going to really upset people now!
But apparently Spotify gives you better control over your music - you can actually pick songs! Instead of just waiting for them to come up on your radio station.
Pick songs, build lots of playlists, share those playlists with others, excellent search tools (including the useful sorting of search results by popularity), pretty decent bit-rate with the premium service (320kb/s Ogg Vorbis), artist information, related artist links. Really impressive catalogue. It's a very good service.
And since they charge 30 cents a cd in Canada, they have effectively legalized downloading.
YANAL
Also, we must lock all music behind DRM which, incidentally, is patented by us, the recording companies, so that anyone who wants to distribute music has to license it and therefore have our permission.
But they can't just go to Congress and say that, can they? So it's all about piracy.
WTF? That's already what existing copyright law says: you can't legally re-distribute copies of the songs we own copyright on. There's no concealing that from Congress. It's already law and has been for a long, long time.
Only downside is that Spotify isn't available in the US. Yes, you can proxy, but it takes gymnastics to get it working on your Android or iPhone, especially if you want a subscription.
You guys can't get Spotify? Wow - that really sucks. I've just checked their site and it seems the currently listed countries are Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Norway, Spain and the UK. Hopefully you'll get Spotify soon over there. It's really good.
All true, but it still could work. You could use watermarking to simplify checking who an audio file was licensed to. Watermarking can be stripped out, but guess what? That just makes it an unlicensed file! You could also licence differently at different bit rates. I like to buy my MP3s from places that sell at 320kbps because I can hear the difference from that and say 256kbps. But most people even if they want to buy at a higher bit-rate for enjoyment, would be happy to use a 256kbps encode for a YouTube movie or similar.
Services such as YouTube could also work with the labels to streamline the process. So for example you could click to associate your registered YouTube name with your licence. You couldn't just have things associated with YouTube, but it illustrates the sort of things that could be possible.
If the music industry had a simple way to buy rights to songs, etc., people would probably even pay to use that in youtube videos they make, etc
Oooh, nice idea. Magnatune used to have such a system where you just clicked on the appropriate licence type and purchased. Of course Magnatune was obscure (though sometimes talented) bands. I don't know if they still have it because Magnatune switched to a Spotify style streaming service instead of sales, so I stopped using them, but the precedent is there.
This would genuinely be a great service and I've no doubt that it could make money if properly done. You should probably actually just write a letter to a few big labels marketing departments with a request saying how you would like it to work. The letter might actually get to someone who can propose it somewhere.
Actually, I reckon it might be. In the last few years, we've seen the rise of legal and cheap streaming music services such as Spotify as well as reasonably priced, high quality MP3s available for purchase from services like Amazon. Back a few years, I was sceptical of the claims on Slashdot that if there were cheaper music available for purchase at a decent quality, that people would stop pirating. But it may be turning out that this is at least partially true. I think most people are basically honest and willing to pay for music and movies. Sure there are plenty who do see the opportunity to take stuff for free instead of paying for it and take advantage of that, but maybe a lot of people who were pirating have decided to pay - whether because they've changed their stance of piracy or because they like the reliability and convenience of the legitimate services. But it's no longer possible to say that you can't get quality digital music at a reasonable price anymore without most people thinking you're (a) dirt poor or (b) deluded. It may be that we're seeing an effect from that. Or it may be that the general social shift is to disapprove of "freetards" who take but don't give back. In any case, there are possible reasons why we could have seen piracy drop.
Maybe he caught it?
It's not anyone's business to tell a gay man that he can't enjoy musicals or interior decorating or antiques
Did anyone propose doing that?
Yes - the post I was replying to and quoted. It said that if I should go and tell gay people not to do things that conformed to a stereotype. Kind of ignores that different gay people are - you know - different because it says that the correct way to stop some being judged by what others do, is for those others to change their behaviour. Or instead, you know, people could just treat someone as an individual and not expect them to conform to some odd stereotype. I don't think any of the gay men that I know are unusually obsessed with interior design. It's not my business to seek out any that are and tell them they're not allowed their hobby because it reinforces someone else's stereotypes. They can do what they like. The problem is people who stereotype, not any member of the stereotyped group.
Stereotypes are bad things
You and every other human being use them every day. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to survive and thrive very long. Generalizations based on experience are part of the human condition. You look at someone with a frown on their face. You generalize that they are unhappy. You're using the stereotype than an unhappy person is characterized by a frown. Now, it's possible they are not unhappy. Maybe they just ate something sour, maybe they're in momentary physical pain. But you don't just automatically assume that there is an equal chance that they're happy. You make a generalization based on experience with unhappy people.
I don't think you understand what a stereotype is. Whilst all stereotypes are generalisations (often false ones), not all generalisations are stereotypes. You have committed a set-error. Associating a frown with unhappiness is not stereotyping, saying 'gay people love antiques' is stereotyping. I don't believe that you are incapable of distinguishing the two and if you claim that you are then you'll only look like an idiot because the rest of us manage it fine.
You can't live life pretending that we're all the same.
And where did I say that everyone is all the same or make an argument based on that absurd notion. You were the one that made an argument based on this idea when you categorised gay people as being into antiques and interior design. You criticise me for pretending that we're all the same when I've not done anything like that whilst ignore that you make arguments about individuals based on stereotypes.
I'll say this, you've convinced me that you're not just trolling, but actually do have very muddled thinking processes.
Stereotypes exist for a reason. If you want that stereotype to disappear, talk to some of your more flamboyant compatriots.
It's not anyone's business to tell a gay man that he can't enjoy musicals or interior decorating or antiques (and when did antiques become a gay stereotype?) . The error is in stereotyping gay men that these are elements of being gay. Stereotypes are bad things - as is pretty much anything that blinds one to seeing what actually is in favour of what one expects. You might also want to look into some of the research showing how little it takes statistically for the human mind to start generalising.
Actually NO, the post is not offensive. You simply want to be offended so you choose to be offended and act indignant. Grow up already and quit being so hypersensitive.
I think it makes more sense for me to be offended by someone stereotyping homosexuals than for you to be offended by others disliking such stereotyping. Quit being so hypersensitive, perhaps?
As I indicated to another poster below, I'll be sure and let him know when I see him again that you think he's being a stereotype, and that you disapprove. If you could provide a list of acceptable behaviors for a (former) gay man I could pass that along too, if you like.
It is perfectly clear from my post that I wasn't disapproving of his behaviour. I think you could only read it that way if you were trying to.
Actually, yes, the post is offensive because it promulgates a stereotype of homosexuality - that it is all about being feminine and obsessing about interior design, or that liking musicals is a sign of being gay. I don't care about the app. If someone isn't comfortable with their sexuality and wants to try and shift it around a bit, that's their business. But re-enforcing stereotypes and caricatures of homosexuality affects actual homosexuals.
Check your link. The prices are different. But as I said in my post, it's not relevant to the point I'm making. You've skipped over the whole thing in favour of just repeating your earlier post in its entirety which I've already answered.
What the hell is an awesome bar?
A ridiculously over the top name for the fact that the Firefox address bar throws in bookmarks as part of it's autocomplete as well as doing some bizarre attempt at predicting what URL you are typing and putting what it thinks is most likely near the top. In my experience, it gets it all wrong and is irritating as Hell.
I used to when I was a subscriber. But I've lapsed subscriptions ever since they insisted on Paypal to pay for it. They should go back to credit cards. That said, there's something weird with viodlos. I don't think he's an MS shill simply because I can't believe they'd be so inept. He keeps grabbing first posts and adding in Microsoft references. I think he's just trying to troll or false-flag by pretending to be an MS shill. Though genuine obsessed independent is possible I suppose. It's counter-productive to MS, whatever the reason.
Actually, the paperback is cheaper, you've misquoted the prices. Though I suspect you're just setting things up for a chance to point out that the difference isn't enough. Anyway, I'm going to retract my earlier point about the prices being different. The Kindle ones I've bought have always been cheaper than the hardcopy, but in fact this is irrelevant. They are different formats with different advantages and disadvantages. For example I bought the D Programming Language book on Kindle because I preferred it that way. It's a big fat book and it's easier to have it on a lightweight device I can slip in a pocket or lie in bed reading, holding it with one hand. Buy whichever format is better for you. The point is that the cost of a book doesn't drop to nothing because it is easier to distribute. The book has an inherent cost because it took a lot of time and effort to write.
There is a huge difference. Buy any book published pre-2005 and find they did a bad OCR job that they didn't even spell check. Then pay the same price as the well formatted and edited paperback.
I mean really a spell check and find-replace on the same errors made by the OCR job they did would lower the mistakes from 2 per paragraph to 1 a page.
I could cut the spine, scan/OCR these books and have a better quality ebook version myself in an afternoon. /endrage
I wish so many of my favorite books were not mangled junk at the same price.
I was talking about the time and effort in writing the book, not the conversion of existing ones to digital format.
So you're saying that piracy would be less common if people could share their files with people they didn't know on the Internet?