I agree with you 100% and recently discussed this whole debate here. It's not just Steve who spoke out though, both Dave Goldberg (Yahoo Music) and Michael Robertson (Mp3.com) have echoed these feelings as well as many other high profile execs. This is the push the RIAA needs. We already know they don't care about the consumer, but I'll be dammed if they start suing their own share holders!
What makes no sense about this is that Drama and Cannon are signed as recording artists, work regularly in the industry as record producers, they're both well-known and respected DJs and are a part of Eminem's satellite Radio program Shade 45.
They represent all aspects of the music industry. The Artist, the Promoter and the Producer.
What a dumb, short-sighted move on the part of an industry that's already in enough trouble.
These two guys are friends of mine here in Atlanta and they run a perfectly legitimate business. They're freakin signed to a record label! They aren't eating lobster with the Trumps but both of them have made a fair amount of money off music for their age. I'm surprised their label would even let this happen, much less let it blow up in the public like this. Although, I know Cannon and Drama can see the benefit in selling their own music outside of a record label (more money), I doubt they would need to continue to do so.
These are not criminals, they're good dudes who spin records and promote the crap that the RIAA feeds your dumb little sister and her Federline-like boyfriend. These guys are street DJs and satellite RADIOHOSTS....arguably among the Top Ten most popular hip-hop DJs in the US. This is such a bad move.
The stupidity of this whole situation boggles my mind. A move like this by the RIAA is like cutting off their own feet to spite their legs.
Yup. This is nothing new, though. For the most part, people on the administrative side of the record industry have no clue as to what's going on. All they know is they have lifestyles they want to maintain, clients they want to be able to profit off of and tales of what it was like to work in the industry in the 60's, 70's and 80's.
We should applaud this, though. They're collectively too dumb to realize that every move they make against a cultural trend only lends to cement their failure in the long run.
Learn from Microsoft, one of the best way to destroy a threat is to embrace it (*ahem* Novell). Rather than sue Napster (when it was actually worth a sh*t) someone at Universal or Sony should have bought into it. That would have given them a ton of control over where file sharing was headed. Instead they sat on the side-lines and heckled while Apple and others picked up the dropped ball.
From day one (way before Napster, even) the record industry had every opportunity to take advantage of these new technologies but rather than do so, they fought it tooth and nail until they saw other companies make it work as a business model. Then what did they do? They fought file-sharing, tooth and nail because they saw that it threatened the same business models they were afraid of and now second-in line to benefit from.
DRM is Rosie O'Donnell to Donald Trump...a fat joke. Not even a deterrent to the people it's supposed to stop. It's only a matter of time before it's a thing of the past.
Do we assume the same thing for aliens?
Reasonable thinking, and it may be entirely accurate if ever put to test but I choose to think differently. To assume so would be to assume that alien lifeforms will display the same characteristics of life right here at home. Furthermore, who's to say we even really understand 'life' enough to detect it when we do find it? Maybe we aren't advanced enough to receive messages being sent to us. The fact of the matter is whatever we find (or have found) in space could display none of the characteristics of life as we know it....therefore it would be discounted and the search would continue unabated.
Someoneelse in this thread likened this situation to a man searching for lost keys under a streetlamp because that's where he can see. Meanwhile the man's keys are really obscured by darkness not very far outside his field of vision... This person has some chance of stumbling upon his keys, but his chances are greatly diminished by the fact that he's searching in the entirely wrong place.
If we only look for one specific TYPE of life that we can compare to life on earth (cellular and carbon based), we are effectively turning towards that street lamp, while the darkness may really hold the key.
That said, there's the argument that we can only search for what we understand...or to understand things we find that make us question what we thought we understood.
This is what we call science.
Yeah, but we're talking an entry level at $1500, not $3K. I have a Sony HDR-HC1 HDV camcorder and along with a bit of tweaking Final cut it really kicks and you can't tell the difference between any other prosumer cam until you get in the $10K range and even then it's close.
To expand on that, I work at a multi-million dollar film studio. We use two $80,000 Sony HD cameras for some of our work, and two $4,000 Sony HVR-Z1U's for the rest (there are other cameras but I'm using these as an example). It really takes a good eye to tell the difference and some professionals have been surprised at the quality of the Z1U. It can't replace the big cams, but it's not completely out of it's league and works as a great portable supplement.
Just like in audio, if the end user (the general audience of viewers) can't tell the difference in quality of true HD and HDV or Film and Digital (to use a different example) standards drop overtime. Meanwhile production costs drop as technology improves.
There are no excuses for our apathy but I do have some ideas about why and where it comes from.
For me the space race was very much a nationalistic motivator that occurred when people had a lot more hope for everything in general . Forgeigners still had the hope that coming to America meant a bright and better future. People in America still had the sense of the American dream. The world's political landscape was in a very fluid state after the many historic events that would take place in the 50's 60's and 70's. Communism was targeted, attacked and effectively vanquished from many parts of the globe. I get the sense that the world was a very exciting interesting place, add to it the mystery of not knowing what was out there, constant breakthroughs in science and the exciting realities that the developing world of computers brought forth.
For people of the iPod generation around the world, there seems to be a growing feeling of America as an opressor versus a liberator. People in Europe are comfortable where they are now, why should they care about this big loud country that their parents made such a fuss about? For them their countries are equally as important and they want their say in a world that has been undeniably shaped in recent years by America. Why should the youth of their countries, remain excited for or even about a country that constantly shows up in the news in a negative light?
Many of the things that excited the world in the 60's have lost much of their appeal. Hollywood, though it still dominates the entertainment landscape, is not the glamorous exciting place it was from the 30's to the 60's. We have so much information about celebrities and atheletes that the mystery of fame is gone and it all seems just a little bit seedy (at least to me). Science, for me, has become scary. The realities of global warming and over-population make the future look far less appealing than it may have looked 40 years ago when people where unaware of those things, or when they were under the impression that by now those problems would be solved. I don't need to mention the problems of politics. As an American youth, I see my peers starting to realize it's not okay to be apethetic about who runs this country. Unfortunately, it's coming a bit too late. Hopefully the interest in voting created by the mistakes of the current regime have spurred a lasting interest in voting for people my age.
Also in your day people invested a lot in the companies they worked for. For me it all seems like a sham. If the social security system could go bankrupt, if situations like Enron can happen and take my parents lifes work and throw it all away, why should I feel anything but apathetic about working for large corporations? Thus, the entrepenurial spirit in people my age is strong. My parents think I'm lazy for not seeking out a 'real job' but I have simply lost faith in the systems. I'd rather work for myself than some corporate entity that could shit on my future. To put it simple, the youth of this generation can only directly respond to the actions of the generation that came before us.
Furthermore, I understand that the youth of all cultures are seeing what difficulties lie ahead for us all. For American youth, the fact that our country is in horrible debt with dimenishing financial influence over the world is a bit eye-opening. The fact that our military is so "strong" yet so ineffective and damaging when mismanaged, is also disheartening. For youth around the world, there is a lot of promise but many of them don't want a future dictated by corrupt politics from another land. Even in science, with the current state of the American education system, many future innovations will come from other countries who may fairly take on the role as leaders in that field as well (ex. China, India).
All that said, I have a great hope for the future. I think the internet is an exciting place right now and for me, it spurs the kind of euphoric wonder that space e
I agree, it's absurd, but If they wanted to make it their burden to appease parents they could certainly try. That won't happen and it shouldn't in my opinion, as I explained to the parent.
Both you and I are aware of this, and we will protect ourselves accordingly. Anyone who isn't aware of the potential flaws in the tools they use is simply not protecting themselves by staying informed. Unless Google and MS deliberately mislead people into thinking this isn't going on (which I don't believe they do), I don't consider them to be at fault.
Your child's actions are his own, and if he's under a certain age, they may also be considered your responsibility by some parties. MySpace is simply providing a service that your child (in your mind) has abused. Hopefully he will not be abused by someone looking to take advantage of such naivety but please tell me where and how policing your child's actions becomes MySpace's responsibility instead of yours or your son's?
The owners of MySpace *could* take it upon themselves to police the actions of children, if they so desired, but they should not be forced to.
I too thought 4'3" was BS too when I first heard about it but the more I learned about John Cage and his work, the more it made sense. 4'3" is more about questions than the piece itself. As an experimental artist, it's only his nature to question the rules that define the genre. What makes a composition a composition? What defines performance?
The fact that people think it's stupid doesn't make it any less relevant than the work of Bach or Mozart. His previous and subsequent work, all prove he's more than competent as a composer. This was just a statement about the pretentiousness of the esteemed art community. IMHO it took balls to do it and risk credibility as a serious composer.
Furthermore, I'll go so far as to say that the four minutes and thirty-three seconds of John Cage's composition is more listenable than half the for minute songs I hear making it to radio these days. But that's just me being pretentious in my own right!;)
'Exaggerated' yes but I wouldn't call any recent reported attacks 'fake'. The media is often paranoid and quick to sensationalize anything perceived as terrorism because they know it's of public interest and gets great ratings. Equally, politicians are quick to use it as a way to scare the public into submission.
I'm with you on all your other points though. What's up with all these contractors winning bids from the government officials they help to elect. Isn't that illegal? Favor for a favor?
The newscast about the Voice Recognition software is hilarious. I love how the two reporters take open shots at Microsoft who obviously tried to stop them from airing the clip.
Why wouldn't I just go back to before there was a law? Or go back (with th money you won from cheating the lottery) and bribe lawmakers into not making time travlel laws. Maybe someone from the future's already done this and that's why there are no laws now?
I was impartial as I don't currently own an iPod but this article (which I found to be completely unbiased) confirmed one thing for me: This Zune thing is a lumpy brown piece of crap.
Honestly, I'd rather buy a RocBox which was probably the most illconceived product ever -- and blatant atempt to "cash in" on the iPods success just like the Zune.
Microsoft didn't bother trying to put sprinkles on a turd, they just released the turd directly to the public!
I actually just got back from a three month European trip where I used the website CouchSurfing.com 50% and stayed at hostels the other 50%. I had been a member of Couchsurfing for only a few months and found the people I met through the website to be all extremely wonderful people. I couchsurfed approximately 13 different times with people in my travels to twenty different countries, including Eastern Europe where I ignorantly thought I was going experience the most problems. As a black male, I had a lot of unnecessary apprehension...I found most people (especially in Eastern Europe) more curious than anything else. In my experience, people around the world have been great, extremely helpful and wonderfully interesting. I look forward to doing a similar trip next year through the Asias.
I'm a member of Couchsurfing.com, Hospitalityclub.org and Globalfreeloaders.com, but I only actively participate in CS as they have a fairly thorough precautionary system. They offer a rating system where hosts or travelers base their experiences with you to warn or encourage other members. They verify a mailing address for members. The address remains secret from users but if you do not complete the process, all users are made aware. You can choose to only travel with people with high levels of verification and high scores from other users. It's a very cool system that favors people who have been members for a long time and who travel frequently.
The disappointing part is with more and more press, people simply looking to save money will undoubtedly flood the site. Nothing wrong with that, but hopefully they don't miss the point entirely. Cultural exchange.
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I agree with you 100% and recently discussed this whole debate here. It's not just Steve who spoke out though, both Dave Goldberg (Yahoo Music) and Michael Robertson (Mp3.com) have echoed these feelings as well as many other high profile execs. This is the push the RIAA needs. We already know they don't care about the consumer, but I'll be dammed if they start suing their own share holders!
Well, since he's a DJ...and he understands how beneficial promotion is, he'd probably love it.
What makes no sense about this is that Drama and Cannon are signed as recording artists, work regularly in the industry as record producers, they're both well-known and respected DJs and are a part of Eminem's satellite Radio program Shade 45.
They represent all aspects of the music industry. The Artist, the Promoter and the Producer.
What a dumb, short-sighted move on the part of an industry that's already in enough trouble.
These two guys are friends of mine here in Atlanta and they run a perfectly legitimate business. They're freakin signed to a record label! They aren't eating lobster with the Trumps but both of them have made a fair amount of money off music for their age. I'm surprised their label would even let this happen, much less let it blow up in the public like this. Although, I know Cannon and Drama can see the benefit in selling their own music outside of a record label (more money), I doubt they would need to continue to do so.
These are not criminals, they're good dudes who spin records and promote the crap that the RIAA feeds your dumb little sister and her Federline-like boyfriend. These guys are street DJs and satellite RADIOHOSTS....arguably among the Top Ten most popular hip-hop DJs in the US. This is such a bad move.
The stupidity of this whole situation boggles my mind. A move like this by the RIAA is like cutting off their own feet to spite their legs.
We should applaud this, though. They're collectively too dumb to realize that every move they make against a cultural trend only lends to cement their failure in the long run.
Learn from Microsoft, one of the best way to destroy a threat is to embrace it (*ahem* Novell). Rather than sue Napster (when it was actually worth a sh*t) someone at Universal or Sony should have bought into it. That would have given them a ton of control over where file sharing was headed. Instead they sat on the side-lines and heckled while Apple and others picked up the dropped ball.
From day one (way before Napster, even) the record industry had every opportunity to take advantage of these new technologies but rather than do so, they fought it tooth and nail until they saw other companies make it work as a business model. Then what did they do? They fought file-sharing, tooth and nail because they saw that it threatened the same business models they were afraid of and now second-in line to benefit from.
DRM is Rosie O'Donnell to Donald Trump...a fat joke. Not even a deterrent to the people it's supposed to stop. It's only a matter of time before it's a thing of the past.
Pardon the rant, I work in the music industry.
Do we assume the same thing for aliens? Reasonable thinking, and it may be entirely accurate if ever put to test but I choose to think differently. To assume so would be to assume that alien lifeforms will display the same characteristics of life right here at home. Furthermore, who's to say we even really understand 'life' enough to detect it when we do find it? Maybe we aren't advanced enough to receive messages being sent to us. The fact of the matter is whatever we find (or have found) in space could display none of the characteristics of life as we know it....therefore it would be discounted and the search would continue unabated. Someoneelse in this thread likened this situation to a man searching for lost keys under a streetlamp because that's where he can see. Meanwhile the man's keys are really obscured by darkness not very far outside his field of vision... This person has some chance of stumbling upon his keys, but his chances are greatly diminished by the fact that he's searching in the entirely wrong place. If we only look for one specific TYPE of life that we can compare to life on earth (cellular and carbon based), we are effectively turning towards that street lamp, while the darkness may really hold the key. That said, there's the argument that we can only search for what we understand...or to understand things we find that make us question what we thought we understood. This is what we call science.
Yeah, but we're talking an entry level at $1500, not $3K. I have a Sony HDR-HC1 HDV camcorder and along with a bit of tweaking Final cut it really kicks and you can't tell the difference between any other prosumer cam until you get in the $10K range and even then it's close.
To expand on that, I work at a multi-million dollar film studio. We use two $80,000 Sony HD cameras for some of our work, and two $4,000 Sony HVR-Z1U's for the rest (there are other cameras but I'm using these as an example). It really takes a good eye to tell the difference and some professionals have been surprised at the quality of the Z1U. It can't replace the big cams, but it's not completely out of it's league and works as a great portable supplement.
Just like in audio, if the end user (the general audience of viewers) can't tell the difference in quality of true HD and HDV or Film and Digital (to use a different example) standards drop overtime. Meanwhile production costs drop as technology improves.
There are no excuses for our apathy but I do have some ideas about why and where it comes from.
For me the space race was very much a nationalistic motivator that occurred when people had a lot more hope for everything in general . Forgeigners still had the hope that coming to America meant a bright and better future. People in America still had the sense of the American dream. The world's political landscape was in a very fluid state after the many historic events that would take place in the 50's 60's and 70's. Communism was targeted, attacked and effectively vanquished from many parts of the globe. I get the sense that the world was a very exciting interesting place, add to it the mystery of not knowing what was out there, constant breakthroughs in science and the exciting realities that the developing world of computers brought forth.
For people of the iPod generation around the world, there seems to be a growing feeling of America as an opressor versus a liberator. People in Europe are comfortable where they are now, why should they care about this big loud country that their parents made such a fuss about? For them their countries are equally as important and they want their say in a world that has been undeniably shaped in recent years by America. Why should the youth of their countries, remain excited for or even about a country that constantly shows up in the news in a negative light?
Many of the things that excited the world in the 60's have lost much of their appeal. Hollywood, though it still dominates the entertainment landscape, is not the glamorous exciting place it was from the 30's to the 60's. We have so much information about celebrities and atheletes that the mystery of fame is gone and it all seems just a little bit seedy (at least to me). Science, for me, has become scary. The realities of global warming and over-population make the future look far less appealing than it may have looked 40 years ago when people where unaware of those things, or when they were under the impression that by now those problems would be solved. I don't need to mention the problems of politics. As an American youth, I see my peers starting to realize it's not okay to be apethetic about who runs this country. Unfortunately, it's coming a bit too late. Hopefully the interest in voting created by the mistakes of the current regime have spurred a lasting interest in voting for people my age.
Also in your day people invested a lot in the companies they worked for. For me it all seems like a sham. If the social security system could go bankrupt, if situations like Enron can happen and take my parents lifes work and throw it all away, why should I feel anything but apathetic about working for large corporations? Thus, the entrepenurial spirit in people my age is strong. My parents think I'm lazy for not seeking out a 'real job' but I have simply lost faith in the systems. I'd rather work for myself than some corporate entity that could shit on my future. To put it simple, the youth of this generation can only directly respond to the actions of the generation that came before us.
Furthermore, I understand that the youth of all cultures are seeing what difficulties lie ahead for us all. For American youth, the fact that our country is in horrible debt with dimenishing financial influence over the world is a bit eye-opening. The fact that our military is so "strong" yet so ineffective and damaging when mismanaged, is also disheartening. For youth around the world, there is a lot of promise but many of them don't want a future dictated by corrupt politics from another land. Even in science, with the current state of the American education system, many future innovations will come from other countries who may fairly take on the role as leaders in that field as well (ex. China, India).
All that said, I have a great hope for the future. I think the internet is an exciting place right now and for me, it spurs the kind of euphoric wonder that space e
I agree, it's absurd, but If they wanted to make it their burden to appease parents they could certainly try. That won't happen and it shouldn't in my opinion, as I explained to the parent.
Sounds like a personal problem to me.
Both you and I are aware of this, and we will protect ourselves accordingly. Anyone who isn't aware of the potential flaws in the tools they use is simply not protecting themselves by staying informed. Unless Google and MS deliberately mislead people into thinking this isn't going on (which I don't believe they do), I don't consider them to be at fault.
Your child's actions are his own, and if he's under a certain age, they may also be considered your responsibility by some parties. MySpace is simply providing a service that your child (in your mind) has abused. Hopefully he will not be abused by someone looking to take advantage of such naivety but please tell me where and how policing your child's actions becomes MySpace's responsibility instead of yours or your son's?
The owners of MySpace *could* take it upon themselves to police the actions of children, if they so desired, but they should not be forced to.
I too thought 4'3" was BS too when I first heard about it but the more I learned about John Cage and his work, the more it made sense. 4'3" is more about questions than the piece itself. As an experimental artist, it's only his nature to question the rules that define the genre. What makes a composition a composition? What defines performance? The fact that people think it's stupid doesn't make it any less relevant than the work of Bach or Mozart. His previous and subsequent work, all prove he's more than competent as a composer. This was just a statement about the pretentiousness of the esteemed art community. IMHO it took balls to do it and risk credibility as a serious composer. Furthermore, I'll go so far as to say that the four minutes and thirty-three seconds of John Cage's composition is more listenable than half the for minute songs I hear making it to radio these days. But that's just me being pretentious in my own right! ;)
clever!
'Exaggerated' yes but I wouldn't call any recent reported attacks 'fake'. The media is often paranoid and quick to sensationalize anything perceived as terrorism because they know it's of public interest and gets great ratings. Equally, politicians are quick to use it as a way to scare the public into submission. I'm with you on all your other points though. What's up with all these contractors winning bids from the government officials they help to elect. Isn't that illegal? Favor for a favor?
The newscast about the Voice Recognition software is hilarious. I love how the two reporters take open shots at Microsoft who obviously tried to stop them from airing the clip.
If Episodes 1 - 3 had come out first (or if I had to watch them first) I would never have made it beyond Episode 1.
I prefer watching Star Wars the using the Fibonacci Sequence. 1, 2, 3, 5...
Did this so called "girl" have four flexible digits and an opposable thumb?
Why wouldn't I just go back to before there was a law? Or go back (with th money you won from cheating the lottery) and bribe lawmakers into not making time travlel laws. Maybe someone from the future's already done this and that's why there are no laws now?
Mod parent up! You just made me shoot coffee through my nose!
Honestly, I'd rather buy a RocBox which was probably the most illconceived product ever -- and blatant atempt to "cash in" on the iPods success just like the Zune.
Microsoft didn't bother trying to put sprinkles on a turd, they just released the turd directly to the public!
I'm a member of Couchsurfing.com, Hospitalityclub.org and Globalfreeloaders.com, but I only actively participate in CS as they have a fairly thorough precautionary system. They offer a rating system where hosts or travelers base their experiences with you to warn or encourage other members. They verify a mailing address for members. The address remains secret from users but if you do not complete the process, all users are made aware. You can choose to only travel with people with high levels of verification and high scores from other users. It's a very cool system that favors people who have been members for a long time and who travel frequently.
The disappointing part is with more and more press, people simply looking to save money will undoubtedly flood the site. Nothing wrong with that, but hopefully they don't miss the point entirely. Cultural exchange.
So I send my hard drive to Estonia and have my friends there do it for me. Great problem solved. =)
Does this mean that by going to see this movie, we will all transcend to the next stage of human enlightenment? "Snakes on a Higher Plane"
Hey, Apple, didn't we tell you that pulling out is not an effective form of birth control? Use a condom!