I've heard similar stories, and they're probably all true. I don't know if you remember the "Chains of Gold" era, but he did an entire press tour where he wore a hat with chains dangling from the visor that obscured his face. Kirstie Allie, who was friends with him at the time, sat next to him and answered questions for him. Not relaying whispered answers or anything, he sat there silently and she just answered the questions. Strangest episode of Arsenio Hall's show I ever saw.* None of his quirks ever struck me as being for the sake of publicity, I think the guy had (has?) some really serious privacy issues. He's really loosened up over the past few years, though. Marriage seems to have treated him well.
*The tying candidate for strangest Arsenio ever would be the one where Andrew Dice Clay came on and during a discussion over whether or not he was really as big an asshole as he seemed, he broke character and actually shed a couple of tears before regaining his composure. It was really weird to realise that he was playing a part the whole time.
Re:The Artist Formerly Known as Independent ?
on
The Way the Music Died
·
· Score: 5, Informative
> Not unless he bought Sony records. They released "Musicology" by "Prince" on April 20, 2004.
Yeah, they *released* it. They didn't produce it, they don't own the masters, they had no hand in any of it. They pressed and distributed the cd's on his terms, and that's all.
> Looks like the temporary independence was just another PR stunt, like the temporary name change.
The whole "symbol" era, while bizarre, was hardly a PR stunt. The whole thing started when Warner (his label at the time) wanted to put out more albums and he balked at it because a) he was getting increasingly frustrated with Warner's focus on "product" rather than music, and b) he's one of those guys who won't put out an album until everything's perfect. (This is the guy who, weeks away from releasing "The Black Album" suddenly decided that he didn't like it, scrapped the whole project) Warner knew that he had *tons* of stuff in the vaults and since they owned not only the masters of all of his unreleased material but the *rights to the man's name*, they started releasing Prince albums that weren't really Prince albums. It was his music, but it was just songs they threw together from whatever he had on tape. Basically, they were bootlegging his stuff. He got sick of it, released the Black Album, and ended his Warner contract. Warner threatened to (and may have, I'm fuzzy on the timeline) keep releasing more "Prince" records, so his only real choice was to change his name - which he did, in classic Prince style. Admittedly he could have said "This is why I'm doing this, people!", but he's always been more than willing to let the public speculate if it'll keep him from having to do an interview.
> Ummm, copy protected CD's. WTF are you talking about?
I'm talking about the exact same thing I was talking about in my original reply to the question...
> Why should movies or cds be different?...which is that either we own these discs and can protect our investment through backups, or we bought licenses to the content independent of what it's stored on and the companies should replace the content if the media's damaged (or allow us to do it ourselves.)
> That failed miserary and the RIAA is not tryign to do it any longer.
Not yet. But they're certainly trying to find new ways to do it, either legally or through new technology.
> Try to answer ym original reply instead of changing the subject please.
I honestly have no idea what you're saying there.
> So , you are a thief. that is fine.
Sometimes, yes. But I've also bought around 800 cd's and 200 dvd's. I pirate things that I want to listen to but know that I will find disposable. The stuff that I like enough to keep, I buy.
> I admit I am a thief and will never buy a CD again for as long as I live thanks to P2P.
Remember that when your favorite band goes broke and breaks up.
> Ummm, that is not what anyone is saying. If YOU own it and YOU make a copy in case YOUR existing one gets scratched then that is YOUR right.
Really? So when record companies put copy protection on MY cd's which I bought so that I can't use MY computer to make a copy for ME and not my FRIEND, then those companies aren't very, very explicitly saying that THEY want ME to have no control over MY paid-for music?
Because the industry insists on having it both ways. If we say "I paid for that CD and I'm making a copy in case it gets scratched," then they say "You don't have that right! You only bought the rights to listen to it, not to make copies!" But when we say "I paid for the rights to listen to that music and the CD's scratched, so I'm going to burn/download a new copy!" they say "Screw you! Buy a new CD!" The media companies have stopped going after anything even remotely resembling fair revenue in return for fair use and now they're attempting (and succeeding) to have laws custom-written for them that will precisely spell out and make enforceable what they want, which is for their absolute control over their revenue streams by eliminating the possibility of you ever owning and having control over media they produced. By the time Hatch and the other corporate-owned politicians are done, all media will be pay-per-listen, copy-flagged, encrypted, and non-portable... and I don't think I'm being a slight bit paranoid when I say that. Our only hope is for the non-geek world to wake up one day, realise that they can't take their music to the beach with them, and start paying attention to what's been happening.
...be sure to drop a note to Rep. Rick Boucher! He has consistently been one of the few (and by few, I mean only) politicians who isn't totally in the pocket of the RIAA and their ilk. (cough cough... Orrin Hatch... cough cough) He recognizes the rights of copyright holders to make a fair buck off their work, but he also draws a damned firm line on the rights of citizens to control the things they've paid for. And if you're not in Virginia, he'll still listen to your opinions. It's about time we started paying attention to the pols who *haven't* been bought and paid for yet.
http://www.house.gov/boucher/
(Having been raised Mormon, I also have a lot of other reasons to bitch about Hatch, but I'll save that for later. That whole state is run by asshats.)
> I'm still paying the same as would cost for a CD, and not getting any of the value of a CD.
So let me get this straight - you don't want to pay for a whole CD just to get one song you like. You don't want to pay iTunes for 14 songs that you *do* want, because even though you picked out 14 songs that you *are* willing to pay for, you don't get them on a CD.
Lemme ask you this.
If you walk into a store and see those same 14 songs you want on a CD and there's a $14 price tag on it, are the next words out of your mouth "$14? Bullshit! The artist won't see any of the money, and it's just $.50 worth of CD and packaging!"
>...buy from independant artists instead. It's generally better music
Horseshit.
90% of the indie music out there is indie because nobody out there can be bothered to pay for it except for the pretentious hipsters who immediately turn against their favorite band the moment someone on the pep squad says they like it. Now that Dashboard Confessional is doing car ads, an entire generation of disaffected teenagers is now scurrying around trying to find out what their new favorite kind of music is by making sure that it's never been played over the sound system at Abercrombie & Fitch.
"Dude! What the fuck are you listening to? It sounds like an old man shitting into a tin bucket!"
"Yep. He has dysentery. This is *so* cool! Listen, listen... the vomit solo comes in at *just* the right time!"
"And you *like* listening to this?!"
"N... um, *yeah*! It's awesome! And best of all, he's not a total sellout like that Carrabas asshole! Ooh... listen for the 'plop'!"
The day that I realized that I can like Ani DiFranco *and* Britney Spears without self-loathing is the day that I discovered the *true* meaning of "open-minded." That, and it's fun to watch people see Merzbow next to Madonna in my CD's and not know whether or not to hate me.
"I what? I was sharing songs? From my computer? But that's illegal! Wait, you mean the songs were in my 'My Music' folder? But it says they're *mine*! What? Kazaa? I installed that to download pictures of Lizzie McGuire. What? It keeps running in the background even though I clicked 'close'? I never pushed an 'upload my music' button!
Because the top -5- spammers are responsible for probably 90% of the spam. By nailing the top 50, we'll be left not only a tiny fraction of the spam that used to be flowing, but just the tiny operators who don't have a) vast amounts of cash to mount legal defenses, or b) the technical resources to keep changing their tactics to get around filters. And hopefully, once the littler fish see what's happening to the big operators like Ralsky and Richter, they'll get out of the game entirely and go back to dealing meth and whoring out their daughters for nickels.
What I want to know is who's controlling them?Fifty bucks says that if you hack the Michigan public library servers, there are a *lot* of books on Chinese being checked out by Alan Ralsky.
Oh hell, who am I kidding. Everybody knows that's who's controlling the majority of them. I'm just hoping that Ralsky's two Chinese friends who got busted roll over on him and he gets nailed once and for all.
w00ps... channeling a little Sipowicz there. I'm surprised I didn't say "perp."
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard similar stories, and they're probably all true. I don't know if you remember the "Chains of Gold" era, but he did an entire press tour where he wore a hat with chains dangling from the visor that obscured his face. Kirstie Allie, who was friends with him at the time, sat next to him and answered questions for him. Not relaying whispered answers or anything, he sat there silently and she just answered the questions. Strangest episode of Arsenio Hall's show I ever saw.* None of his quirks ever struck me as being for the sake of publicity, I think the guy had (has?) some really serious privacy issues. He's really loosened up over the past few years, though. Marriage seems to have treated him well.
*The tying candidate for strangest Arsenio ever would be the one where Andrew Dice Clay came on and during a discussion over whether or not he was really as big an asshole as he seemed, he broke character and actually shed a couple of tears before regaining his composure. It was really weird to realise that he was playing a part the whole time.
DNF due in March.
> Not unless he bought Sony records. They released "Musicology" by "Prince" on April 20, 2004.
Yeah, they *released* it. They didn't produce it, they don't own the masters, they had no hand in any of it. They pressed and distributed the cd's on his terms, and that's all.
> Looks like the temporary independence was just another PR stunt, like the temporary name change.
The whole "symbol" era, while bizarre, was hardly a PR stunt. The whole thing started when Warner (his label at the time) wanted to put out more albums and he balked at it because a) he was getting increasingly frustrated with Warner's focus on "product" rather than music, and b) he's one of those guys who won't put out an album until everything's perfect. (This is the guy who, weeks away from releasing "The Black Album" suddenly decided that he didn't like it, scrapped the whole project) Warner knew that he had *tons* of stuff in the vaults and since they owned not only the masters of all of his unreleased material but the *rights to the man's name*, they started releasing Prince albums that weren't really Prince albums. It was his music, but it was just songs they threw together from whatever he had on tape. Basically, they were bootlegging his stuff. He got sick of it, released the Black Album, and ended his Warner contract. Warner threatened to (and may have, I'm fuzzy on the timeline) keep releasing more "Prince" records, so his only real choice was to change his name - which he did, in classic Prince style. Admittedly he could have said "This is why I'm doing this, people!", but he's always been more than willing to let the public speculate if it'll keep him from having to do an interview.
It doesn't do fake card numbers, but...
www.astrobastards.net/uc
"Okay class, if you'll click on the GTA3 icon on your desktop, we'll begin."
> Ummm, copy protected CD's. WTF are you talking about?
I'm talking about the exact same thing I was talking about in my original reply to the question...
> Why should movies or cds be different?
> That failed miserary and the RIAA is not tryign to do it any longer.
Not yet. But they're certainly trying to find new ways to do it, either legally or through new technology.
> Try to answer ym original reply instead of changing the subject please.
I honestly have no idea what you're saying there.
> So , you are a thief. that is fine.
Sometimes, yes. But I've also bought around 800 cd's and 200 dvd's. I pirate things that I want to listen to but know that I will find disposable. The stuff that I like enough to keep, I buy.
> I admit I am a thief and will never buy a CD again for as long as I live thanks to P2P.
Remember that when your favorite band goes broke and breaks up.
> Ummm, that is not what anyone is saying. If YOU own it and YOU make a copy in case YOUR existing one gets scratched then that is YOUR right.
Really? So when record companies put copy protection on MY cd's which I bought so that I can't use MY computer to make a copy for ME and not my FRIEND, then those companies aren't very, very explicitly saying that THEY want ME to have no control over MY paid-for music?
And you call me a dumbass?
Good thing they have that AC checkbox, eh?
> Why should movies or cds be different?
Because the industry insists on having it both ways. If we say "I paid for that CD and I'm making a copy in case it gets scratched," then they say "You don't have that right! You only bought the rights to listen to it, not to make copies!" But when we say "I paid for the rights to listen to that music and the CD's scratched, so I'm going to burn/download a new copy!" they say "Screw you! Buy a new CD!" The media companies have stopped going after anything even remotely resembling fair revenue in return for fair use and now they're attempting (and succeeding) to have laws custom-written for them that will precisely spell out and make enforceable what they want, which is for their absolute control over their revenue streams by eliminating the possibility of you ever owning and having control over media they produced. By the time Hatch and the other corporate-owned politicians are done, all media will be pay-per-listen, copy-flagged, encrypted, and non-portable... and I don't think I'm being a slight bit paranoid when I say that. Our only hope is for the non-geek world to wake up one day, realise that they can't take their music to the beach with them, and start paying attention to what's been happening.
It even *says* it's a quote and provides a link to the source. Apparently we got the short-bus mods today.
http://www.house.gov/boucher/
(Having been raised Mormon, I also have a lot of other reasons to bitch about Hatch, but I'll save that for later. That whole state is run by asshats.)
> I'm still paying the same as would cost for a CD, and not getting any of the value of a CD.
So let me get this straight - you don't want to pay for a whole CD just to get one song you like. You don't want to pay iTunes for 14 songs that you *do* want, because even though you picked out 14 songs that you *are* willing to pay for, you don't get them on a CD.
Lemme ask you this.
If you walk into a store and see those same 14 songs you want on a CD and there's a $14 price tag on it, are the next words out of your mouth "$14? Bullshit! The artist won't see any of the money, and it's just $.50 worth of CD and packaging!"
Come on... be honest.
> And everyone was given a MOON PONY!!!
Some day in the future I will have mod points, and when I do I will hunt you down and mod you up for this post alone.
He better be careful with that razor - those robot arms look pretty twitchy.
"Look out, Mary Jane! He's got a Gillette Mach 4 and he's about to cut off your dres... erm, never mind!"
>
Horseshit.
90% of the indie music out there is indie because nobody out there can be bothered to pay for it except for the pretentious hipsters who immediately turn against their favorite band the moment someone on the pep squad says they like it. Now that Dashboard Confessional is doing car ads, an entire generation of disaffected teenagers is now scurrying around trying to find out what their new favorite kind of music is by making sure that it's never been played over the sound system at Abercrombie & Fitch.
"Dude! What the fuck are you listening to? It sounds like an old man shitting into a tin bucket!"
"Yep. He has dysentery. This is *so* cool! Listen, listen... the vomit solo comes in at *just* the right time!"
"And you *like* listening to this?!"
"N... um, *yeah*! It's awesome! And best of all, he's not a total sellout like that Carrabas asshole! Ooh... listen for the 'plop'!"
The day that I realized that I can like Ani DiFranco *and* Britney Spears without self-loathing is the day that I discovered the *true* meaning of "open-minded." That, and it's fun to watch people see Merzbow next to Madonna in my CD's and not know whether or not to hate me.
> opt out and continue to use SMTP based mail servers.
I opted out once. Now all of my email comes from women I don't know who say things like "YUOR D1KKY I5 TEH 5MALL!! BUY UOR H3RBAL V!AGA RA!!"
...is a boilerplate defense.
"I what? I was sharing songs? From my computer? But that's illegal! Wait, you mean the songs were in my 'My Music' folder? But it says they're *mine*! What? Kazaa? I installed that to download pictures of Lizzie McGuire. What? It keeps running in the background even though I clicked 'close'? I never pushed an 'upload my music' button!
So all this happened automatically?
Fine. Sue my computer."
There's a new game we like to play, you see
An OS with added functionality
Won't treat you like a dog or give you BSOD's
We call it - we call it UNIX
(It's posts like this that explain why I sleep alone, dammit.)
> Snort up For Revamp, says Creator
> Does anyone here see a striking parallel to the international drug trade?
Sure there's a parallel in that they're both wildly profitable, but your comparison fails in one important way.
We want drugs.
We do not want spam.
Because the top -5- spammers are responsible for probably 90% of the spam. By nailing the top 50, we'll be left not only a tiny fraction of the spam that used to be flowing, but just the tiny operators who don't have a) vast amounts of cash to mount legal defenses, or b) the technical resources to keep changing their tactics to get around filters. And hopefully, once the littler fish see what's happening to the big operators like Ralsky and Richter, they'll get out of the game entirely and go back to dealing meth and whoring out their daughters for nickels.
What I want to know is who's controlling them?Fifty bucks says that if you hack the Michigan public library servers, there are a *lot* of books on Chinese being checked out by Alan Ralsky.
Oh hell, who am I kidding. Everybody knows that's who's controlling the majority of them. I'm just hoping that Ralsky's two Chinese friends who got busted roll over on him and he gets nailed once and for all.
w00ps... channeling a little Sipowicz there. I'm surprised I didn't say "perp."
And don't forget the subset of Ontology that only lets you join if you can prove that you have telekinetic or brain-scan ability.
I'm speaking, of course, of...
(wait for it)
PSI-Ontology.
I'm here all week - try the veal!
I don't know whether to mod that up for sheer brilliance or leave it alone out of respect for the subtlety.
Oh wait, I don't have mod points.
Never mind.
What are you, anti-Semantic?
Racist.