Sorry, but I had to say something here. It's not the artist's permission 99% of the time - it's the permission of the record company that coerced ownership away from the artist.
Disclaimer - I dislike the business practices of the record companies/RIAA/etc as much if not more than everyone else.
That said, sorry, I call BS here. Who's name is it inked on the contract? It takes two to tango.
There are plenty of artists eschewing traditional methods of distribution, promotion and sales. The only difference is they will likely get moderate amounts of money and fame, and not be on every top-40 radio station (due to bribes, etc).
String Cheese Incident and Dispatch are two recent-memory examples of this, but even outside of the folk/jam rock catagory it's really not as hard as it sounds if you put the legwork in and have a fanbase.
I can't tell you how tired I am of hearing people justify something unethical by saying "well... they're corproate vultures, so we can do whatever we want", and explain that away by implying "the poor artists are being raped, RAPED I tell you, by contracts that are nasty and evil and bad" when in reality they don't have to sign a damn thing.
Yes, but then you run into cost problems. In short, less competency = more short term profits due to lower pay.
They can also treat lower skilled workers like utter garbage as they're replaceable.
Why not produce those games? For example, a lawyer training game based upon something like Resident Evil or BloodRayne - they're already disease-infested vampires, it should require virtually -no- changes!
Microsoft has simply discovered that bloat != functionality (and that marketing correctly is important). XP works great, handles all current software that businesses need, and the improvements in the OS are things that are available as freeware add-ons today (and probably work better, at least in the public opinion). The other "under the hood" changes don't mean much to the average Joe User or PHB, and anyone who values "cool desktop graphics" over functionality has already bought a Mac.
Try selling a business on spending a ton of money on conversion costs to an OS that requires faster hardware (upgrades) and provides little benefit in the current business marketplace over existing solutions and see how far YOU get.
But they are -planning- to do so. Admittedly that's no indication of what will actually happen, but their plan has never been to make money off the bat.
I'm not saying they'll succeed, but rather that this isn't a major change to what was already going to happen. Implying that this is the one thing that might put the XBox under is somewhat misleading.
I'm not a Microsoft fanboy.... and I likely wouldn't buy an XBOX on principle.... but isn't this headline a bit inflammatory?
So Microsoft's sales projections are off 400,000 units on 12 million, suddenly the world seems less bright? They've made bucketloads of money (although the warranty extension might cause some trouble). The negative editorial linked in the article seems light on reasoning and heavy on opinion, but does all of this really warrant grim questions? It's not like the console or Microsoft is going to go under because they had to extend the warranty on the hardware. It's not like this thing is the Phantom or NeoGeo or something.
Hmm.... I don't think he's that off-base in those two choices...but it could have been better said. He's saying "Either the guy is competent at his job, or he is not" in a creative way - in short, either the guy did his job and they're trying to nail him for it, or he didn't do his job and pitched panic over a useless satellite.
The option he missed was that it might be that the guy's job was to pitch useless junk, and they decided that they didn't like it;)
FTA: "DiMA would agree to a $2,500 per-service cap for the entire term of the CRB ruling (through 2010), but not the partial-offer presented to us in writing, which would terminate in 2008.
Why not longer, DiMA? If I were SoundExchange, I'd be amused with this - the longer they can make 2,500 the maximum, the more erosion of actual costs (inflation) will happen. $2,500 isn't what it used to be.
Ok... the problem with that there is a huge difference (not legal, at least at present) between the following (from top to bottom, and I realize it's not comprehensive):
1) Grandma bought a computer... she thinks her granddaughter might have done something funny to it, as it runs slow, but she's still happy with just being able to see photos of her grandson posted to her son's blog. Oh, she's deaf, by the way.
2) Bob-working-guy pays for all of his music on Itunes, as he firmly believes in supporting artists. He tried one of those "torrent things", but they were lower quality, and he really doesn't want the legal trouble. The stupid thing wouldn't uninstall, but since he never runs the program from the menu-start "thing", it's no big deal, right?
3) Jane-college-student who downloads a P2P client, or Bittorrent that by default uploads to the stream each file you're downloading. Jane doesn't understand this technology, just thinks it's cool that she can share music with her friends. Jane also isn't a technophile, and isn't totally clear on everything that the law says, although she's heard that downloading can sometimes get you in trouble. She's not even sure if all of the songs she downloads are protected.
4) John-slashdot-user has roughly 200 GB of.ogg and high bitrate mp3s stored on a fileserver with redundant filesystems. He knows that if he downloads music only, without actually sharing it back he's -much- safer from lawsuits.
5) M4rk-hacker-kiddie decides to 'stick it to the man' and upload files to the torrent networks. He may or may not do this in a sophisticated fashion, but he spreads any music he can find on his torrent. They'll never get him! Besides, his server is hosted in Upper Elbonia!
I see a big difference on this scale (in terms of violators), don't you? My issue with the RIAA is that their lawsuits are blind, and not seeking justice, so much as fear of the law. Ruining #1 and #2 in order to attempt to scare #4 and #5 is reprehensible.
I suspect Grandparent was making reference to several infamous incidences of the CCP folks (specifically GMs) 'cheating' in EvE Online. The GM/dev incidents and the way CCP mods handled it are one of many reasons I canceled my subscriptions(and no you can't have my stuff, someone else does), and is the prime reason I'm not sure I can invest any time or money in a new effort on their part.
I sincerely hope that they do make a great product and maintain the game world integrity - as far as MMOGs go, EvE is the most conceptually interesting game out there.
...ok, if they decide to start charging sales tax on US purchases, what precisely is going to stop people from simply buying overseas?
If they tax business imports, what will stop those stores from going to global commerce sites like e-bay?
The 522 (dual tuner standard) was awesome. My only reason for leaving Dish was that they wanted an 18 month commitment to upgrade me to their HD dual-tuner DVR, and with comcast only costing 10$ more (after promotion) for the channel package we get with NO commitment.... well I made a deal with the devil.
In anycase, I was -very- happy with the Dish DVR, and Dish as a whole... my biggest piece of advice is get your dish mounted where you can reach it to brush off snow (don't let the installers put it on the roof.....) and you'll be happy.
1) Start of commercial - hit fast forward
2) Skip back if/when I see something I'm looking for, or a funny looking add
3) Miss the start of the show, curse comcast for not having "skip ahead 30seconds" (I miss my Dish DVR:( )
4) rewind
5) start watching show (with 5 seconds of last add)
In many ways, DVRs are doing to TV what the internet has done to "print" adds. In most papers there are sidebar adds that you can click on if interested, but ignorable otherwise.
I think that advertisers are going to have to go back to "selling" more and relying on obnoxious/flashy adds less. In the end, people want to know about truly good deals or truly interesting products and will listen to a sales pitch on something they care about, and ignore the stuff they aren't interested in.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but I had to say something here. It's not the artist's permission 99% of the time - it's the permission of the record company that coerced ownership away from the artist. Disclaimer - I dislike the business practices of the record companies/RIAA/etc as much if not more than everyone else. That said, sorry, I call BS here. Who's name is it inked on the contract? It takes two to tango. There are plenty of artists eschewing traditional methods of distribution, promotion and sales. The only difference is they will likely get moderate amounts of money and fame, and not be on every top-40 radio station (due to bribes, etc). String Cheese Incident and Dispatch are two recent-memory examples of this, but even outside of the folk/jam rock catagory it's really not as hard as it sounds if you put the legwork in and have a fanbase. I can't tell you how tired I am of hearing people justify something unethical by saying "well... they're corproate vultures, so we can do whatever we want", and explain that away by implying "the poor artists are being raped, RAPED I tell you, by contracts that are nasty and evil and bad" when in reality they don't have to sign a damn thing.
Cool.... now we can all shelter whenever there is a SEVERE LINUS WARNING.
Yes, but then you run into cost problems. In short, less competency = more short term profits due to lower pay. They can also treat lower skilled workers like utter garbage as they're replaceable.
It's like the saying goes: None of us is as dumb as all of us....
Why not produce those games? For example, a lawyer training game based upon something like Resident Evil or BloodRayne - they're already disease-infested vampires, it should require virtually -no- changes!
.... I became so excited I nearly had a buffer overflow!
Microsoft has simply discovered that bloat != functionality (and that marketing correctly is important). XP works great, handles all current software that businesses need, and the improvements in the OS are things that are available as freeware add-ons today (and probably work better, at least in the public opinion). The other "under the hood" changes don't mean much to the average Joe User or PHB, and anyone who values "cool desktop graphics" over functionality has already bought a Mac. Try selling a business on spending a ton of money on conversion costs to an OS that requires faster hardware (upgrades) and provides little benefit in the current business marketplace over existing solutions and see how far YOU get.
Half...life....2.... has massive HW requirements? You mean when it was released, right?
Well.... he would be successful with his "spooky action", if not for those meddlesome kids!
Ok, so if the 2nd movie will be staying away from the "tortured mythology" of the series and the first movie.... how is it an X-Files movie?
God help us if this turns into some John Cusak-esque romantic comedy (with a dash of aliens).
But they are -planning- to do so. Admittedly that's no indication of what will actually happen, but their plan has never been to make money off the bat. I'm not saying they'll succeed, but rather that this isn't a major change to what was already going to happen. Implying that this is the one thing that might put the XBox under is somewhat misleading.
I'm not a Microsoft fanboy.... and I likely wouldn't buy an XBOX on principle.... but isn't this headline a bit inflammatory?
So Microsoft's sales projections are off 400,000 units on 12 million, suddenly the world seems less bright? They've made bucketloads of money (although the warranty extension might cause some trouble). The negative editorial linked in the article seems light on reasoning and heavy on opinion, but does all of this really warrant grim questions? It's not like the console or Microsoft is going to go under because they had to extend the warranty on the hardware. It's not like this thing is the Phantom or NeoGeo or something.
Hmm.... I don't think he's that off-base in those two choices...but it could have been better said. He's saying "Either the guy is competent at his job, or he is not" in a creative way - in short, either the guy did his job and they're trying to nail him for it, or he didn't do his job and pitched panic over a useless satellite.
;)
The option he missed was that it might be that the guy's job was to pitch useless junk, and they decided that they didn't like it
My patent's bigger than yours.
Yes, but it's how you use it that matters.
FTA: "DiMA would agree to a $2,500 per-service cap for the entire term of the CRB ruling (through 2010), but not the partial-offer presented to us in writing, which would terminate in 2008.
Why not longer, DiMA? If I were SoundExchange, I'd be amused with this - the longer they can make 2,500 the maximum, the more erosion of actual costs (inflation) will happen. $2,500 isn't what it used to be.
Perhaps we have more (not saying much) trust in our local governments than the Federal one?
Ok... the problem with that there is a huge difference (not legal, at least at present) between the following (from top to bottom, and I realize it's not comprehensive):
.ogg and high bitrate mp3s stored on a fileserver with redundant filesystems. He knows that if he downloads music only, without actually sharing it back he's -much- safer from lawsuits.
1) Grandma bought a computer... she thinks her granddaughter might have done something funny to it, as it runs slow, but she's still happy with just being able to see photos of her grandson posted to her son's blog. Oh, she's deaf, by the way.
2) Bob-working-guy pays for all of his music on Itunes, as he firmly believes in supporting artists. He tried one of those "torrent things", but they were lower quality, and he really doesn't want the legal trouble. The stupid thing wouldn't uninstall, but since he never runs the program from the menu-start "thing", it's no big deal, right?
3) Jane-college-student who downloads a P2P client, or Bittorrent that by default uploads to the stream each file you're downloading. Jane doesn't understand this technology, just thinks it's cool that she can share music with her friends. Jane also isn't a technophile, and isn't totally clear on everything that the law says, although she's heard that downloading can sometimes get you in trouble. She's not even sure if all of the songs she downloads are protected.
4) John-slashdot-user has roughly 200 GB of
5) M4rk-hacker-kiddie decides to 'stick it to the man' and upload files to the torrent networks. He may or may not do this in a sophisticated fashion, but he spreads any music he can find on his torrent. They'll never get him! Besides, his server is hosted in Upper Elbonia!
I see a big difference on this scale (in terms of violators), don't you? My issue with the RIAA is that their lawsuits are blind, and not seeking justice, so much as fear of the law. Ruining #1 and #2 in order to attempt to scare #4 and #5 is reprehensible.
There's this magical thing called "Plausable Deniability". Suuuureeeee Grandma is the only one using the computer, etc.
It's not really that hard to understand why so many people do anything they can to get out of the charges, is it?
Most low-end PCs have non-2.0 compliant USB? Where, precisely did you find -that- as a standard on any mainstream PC in that segment?
I'll also ignore that in general people looking to do email, banking and play on myspace probably could care less about having 4 USB 2.0 ports.
In Soviet Russia, pole positions you!
I suspect Grandparent was making reference to several infamous incidences of the CCP folks (specifically GMs) 'cheating' in EvE Online. The GM/dev incidents and the way CCP mods handled it are one of many reasons I canceled my subscriptions(and no you can't have my stuff, someone else does), and is the prime reason I'm not sure I can invest any time or money in a new effort on their part. I sincerely hope that they do make a great product and maintain the game world integrity - as far as MMOGs go, EvE is the most conceptually interesting game out there.
...ok, if they decide to start charging sales tax on US purchases, what precisely is going to stop people from simply buying overseas? If they tax business imports, what will stop those stores from going to global commerce sites like e-bay?
The 522 (dual tuner standard) was awesome. My only reason for leaving Dish was that they wanted an 18 month commitment to upgrade me to their HD dual-tuner DVR, and with comcast only costing 10$ more (after promotion) for the channel package we get with NO commitment.... well I made a deal with the devil. In anycase, I was -very- happy with the Dish DVR, and Dish as a whole... my biggest piece of advice is get your dish mounted where you can reach it to brush off snow (don't let the installers put it on the roof.....) and you'll be happy.
Being an avid DVR-er, my habits are as follows:
:( )
4) rewind
5) start watching show (with 5 seconds of last add)
1) Start of commercial - hit fast forward 2) Skip back if/when I see something I'm looking for, or a funny looking add 3) Miss the start of the show, curse comcast for not having "skip ahead 30seconds" (I miss my Dish DVR
In many ways, DVRs are doing to TV what the internet has done to "print" adds. In most papers there are sidebar adds that you can click on if interested, but ignorable otherwise.
I think that advertisers are going to have to go back to "selling" more and relying on obnoxious/flashy adds less. In the end, people want to know about truly good deals or truly interesting products and will listen to a sales pitch on something they care about, and ignore the stuff they aren't interested in.
"Adult Film Producer"? I'm interested in your take on pirate pr0n.......