Like with all ideas like this. It's starts out sensably:
"It's for a good reason"
and
"it's only for a few feet"
Well that's with *todays* technology. Pan out a few more years (say 20) when RFID is common place. Well, in the meantime the burgeoning now-cashed-up RFID R&D industry has been "improving". Now it's no longer a few feet, it's...
You get the idea.
Sure it *might* be benign NOW. But it won't take long before it's exended, more and more.
It might sound paranoid, (and hey, that *is* probobly me:-) but time and time a gain has shown that this kind of technology losed it's original limitations over time. And if we're talking computing, then...*rapidly*.
Like in Orwell's 1984, it's citizens didn't realise they had lost most of their freedoms because they were taken away so incrementally and progressively.
This whole page of threads actually has lot¦s of good reasons pointing towards what¦s going on right now. I¦m posting my response here because I think that the above poster was right about the CD medium acting as some sort of catalyst for why we¦re at the point where we are today.
The music industry was heading into the doldrums in the 80¦s. Then the CD came out. Consumers liked it because they felt it gave them better sound (not quite true; but true enough from 95% of the market¦s perspective. V Don¦t get me started on this one!)
It was also good for the Record companies because manufacturing records was expensive and had a higher fault rate then CD¦s. Add up all the colourful large-size cardboard artwork (the sleeve) and CD¦s were good for business. V And they could finally kill off that pesky compact cassette medium too. (Konly now to be replaced by RW-CD¦s and DVDs V but this is another chapter already)
So all of a sudden - -bam V they¦re rolling in money by selling their back catalogue to us Kall over again! But this absolutely wasn¦t going to last. Yet because their industry is market driven, and internal pressures are always trying to force constant growth, any kind of (in this case) inevitable, downturn; doesn¦t get handled too well.
But from all the posturing about piracy killing their sales (same thing was true in the 70¦s and 80¦s BTW, with the aforementioned cassetteK), Hardly anyone in the industry is currently asking THEMSELVES: What are WE (the industry) DOING WRONG???
Well many reasons have been mentioned in this page for those who care to read the whole thing, but let¦s recap cause some of us are busy, right?
1. The risk-avoidance, let¦s just try and cash in on the quick catchy 3:05 riff V after all, it¦s worked for us before (Never mind that the Beatles originally got tuned down by 6 companies before being signed up by apple). Mass produced, bland, formulaic shmultz. -- Don¦t get me wrong, it has it¦s place, but it¦s place is not 99% of the industry (or shouldn¦t be.
Yes, it¦s a music *industry*, but the reason why we (the people) wanted to get involved with it at all (read: buy it) is because it was ABOUT MUSIC. Ergo: loose sight of what music is really about and *poof* there go all your consumers to the movies, or computer games, or open source software orK
So the industry needs to wake up to itself on this point. It¦s going to be painful for them, cause there might have to be some short-term explaining to shareholders, but then what¦s the alternative. Making money from RIAA lawsuits of downloading 14 year olds? (again note lack of music emphasis in that money making scheme)
2. An allied point is that the CD medium sucks to my ears; and we lost all of that human-friendly album art then we used to have. On the other hand, good turntables *were* expensive, and finally being able to play this stuff in the car might be worth it!
Seriously though, the music industry gave us the CD format because in the way that life imitates art, it was a sign of how they were viewing the industry that they were in: mass produced, unchanging soulless digits of ones and zeros. When consumers could suddenly copy those unchanging ones and zeros for themselves, then suddenly, it¦s gone from an inexpensive (read: higher profits for them, as has been previously noticed [never trust a rich man who claims to want to get richer so that he can give more to the poor V Confucius] ) to an expensive liability. Now the door gets opened for copy protection mechanisms and the like, again all about taking music away from the people (even if they legitimately paid for it).
3. The industry itself has changed: Now instead of only Top-40 we have a plethora of musical genreas and choices unheard of in the past. Finding them in the mainstream is still hard, but those choices came up anyway despite these original odds. But the music industry are slow to adapt to this. And again, people seem to be saying I
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Like with all ideas like this. It's starts out sensably: "It's for a good reason" and "it's only for a few feet" Well that's with *todays* technology. Pan out a few more years (say 20) when RFID is common place. Well, in the meantime the burgeoning now-cashed-up RFID R&D industry has been "improving". Now it's no longer a few feet, it's ...
You get the idea.
Sure it *might* be benign NOW. But it won't take long before it's exended, more and more.
It might sound paranoid, (and hey, that *is* probobly me :-) but time and time a gain has shown that this kind of technology losed it's original limitations over time. And if we're talking computing, then ...*rapidly*.
Like in Orwell's 1984, it's citizens didn't realise they had lost most of their freedoms because they were taken away so incrementally and progressively.
This whole page of threads actually has lot¦s of good reasons pointing towards what¦s going on right now. I¦m posting my response here because I think that the above poster was right about the CD medium acting as some sort of catalyst for why we¦re at the point where we are today. The music industry was heading into the doldrums in the 80¦s. Then the CD came out. Consumers liked it because they felt it gave them better sound (not quite true; but true enough from 95% of the market¦s perspective. V Don¦t get me started on this one!) It was also good for the Record companies because manufacturing records was expensive and had a higher fault rate then CD¦s. Add up all the colourful large-size cardboard artwork (the sleeve) and CD¦s were good for business. V And they could finally kill off that pesky compact cassette medium too. (Konly now to be replaced by RW-CD¦s and DVDs V but this is another chapter already) So all of a sudden - -bam V they¦re rolling in money by selling their back catalogue to us Kall over again! But this absolutely wasn¦t going to last. Yet because their industry is market driven, and internal pressures are always trying to force constant growth, any kind of (in this case) inevitable, downturn; doesn¦t get handled too well. But from all the posturing about piracy killing their sales (same thing was true in the 70¦s and 80¦s BTW, with the aforementioned cassetteK), Hardly anyone in the industry is currently asking THEMSELVES: What are WE (the industry) DOING WRONG??? Well many reasons have been mentioned in this page for those who care to read the whole thing, but let¦s recap cause some of us are busy, right? 1. The risk-avoidance, let¦s just try and cash in on the quick catchy 3:05 riff V after all, it¦s worked for us before (Never mind that the Beatles originally got tuned down by 6 companies before being signed up by apple). Mass produced, bland, formulaic shmultz. -- Don¦t get me wrong, it has it¦s place, but it¦s place is not 99% of the industry (or shouldn¦t be. Yes, it¦s a music *industry*, but the reason why we (the people) wanted to get involved with it at all (read: buy it) is because it was ABOUT MUSIC. Ergo: loose sight of what music is really about and *poof* there go all your consumers to the movies, or computer games, or open source software orK So the industry needs to wake up to itself on this point. It¦s going to be painful for them, cause there might have to be some short-term explaining to shareholders, but then what¦s the alternative. Making money from RIAA lawsuits of downloading 14 year olds? (again note lack of music emphasis in that money making scheme) 2. An allied point is that the CD medium sucks to my ears; and we lost all of that human-friendly album art then we used to have. On the other hand, good turntables *were* expensive, and finally being able to play this stuff in the car might be worth it! Seriously though, the music industry gave us the CD format because in the way that life imitates art, it was a sign of how they were viewing the industry that they were in: mass produced, unchanging soulless digits of ones and zeros. When consumers could suddenly copy those unchanging ones and zeros for themselves, then suddenly, it¦s gone from an inexpensive (read: higher profits for them, as has been previously noticed [never trust a rich man who claims to want to get richer so that he can give more to the poor V Confucius] ) to an expensive liability. Now the door gets opened for copy protection mechanisms and the like, again all about taking music away from the people (even if they legitimately paid for it). 3. The industry itself has changed: Now instead of only Top-40 we have a plethora of musical genreas and choices unheard of in the past. Finding them in the mainstream is still hard, but those choices came up anyway despite these original odds. But the music industry are slow to adapt to this. And again, people seem to be saying I