I'm curious about this too. I've heard copper oxides are too brittle to use in power lines, although I haven't worked with them personally.
Copper oxides are the only materials I know of which superconduct at temperatures greater than the boiling point of liquid nitrogen.
Progress has been made with Iron-based superconductors, but their superconducting temperature maxes out somewhere around 50K, which is below the boiling point of nitrogen (77K).
So it must be a cuprate, but I'd be interested to know what they are doing to make the material industrially viable
Am I the only one who thinks there has to be more to the story? I know there are a lot of silly lawsuits out there, but c'mon...
Since the company escorted him out of the building they are not trying to leverage him to stay, so they must be trying to recover some damages. I'm not saying the company is right, I'm just saying that a large company with a legal department wouldn't waste their money on a lawsuit unless they had at least a CHANCE to get some money.
For example....... Did he recently get a promotion that included relocation, which carried with it a minumum commitment? Something else? What's the rest of the story OP?
The article headline is wrong. Artist royalties are paid by record labels to recording artists for use of their recordings.
The article is referring to MECHANICAL ROYALTIES which are paid to SONGWRITERS for use of their songs. While the songwriter and artist are often the same, this is not always the case
EXAMPLE: Joe Schmoe writes a song that is recorded by Britney Spears for her new album. Britney Spears gets paid artist royalties by the record label. Joe Schmoe get paid mechanical royalties by the label.
The article is talking about reducing Joe Schmoe's royalties
For me, fair use is being able to backup my cds onto my harddrive and encode them in any format I please for my mp3 player.
For you? Are you entitled to your own interpretation of laws now?
If you actually read the fair use provision (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 17 of the U.S. Code) you'll see Cary Sherman's interpretation of the law is much more accurate than yours.
Why shouldn't an artist who creates a cong be able to charge whatever he/she wants for it? It's just like any other product.
And actually, you are incorrect about record companies owning movie licenses for songs. Record companies DO NOT OWN SONGS - THEY OWN RECORDINGS.
Any artist can make a new recording of a song. In the U.S., there is a standard compulsory rate of 8 cents per copy, meaning any artist can record any song they want (even without permission), provided they pay 8 cents per copy sold to the songwriter. This is hardly exhorbitant, and it allows for free use and spread of culture
Further, "My Sweet Lord" was a boon to George harrison, not a blow. If you listen to both songs, it's painfully obvious that he copied "He's So Fine". The similarity is beyond coincidence.
Geroge paid the 8 cents per copy for use of the song, but he still got to keep the artist royalties for his recording of the song. The song did very well, and helped George's reputation as a solo performed immensely. Sounds liek everyone is happy.
In conclusion, it is important to understand the difference between copyrights for songs, and copyrights for recordings. The licensing rules are very different, and are often misunderstood. If you study them, you'll find they are they way they are specifically for the reason you think is important: To allow for the free spread of culture while still compensating creators
Correct. Bars are responsible for paying for the songs they use. ASCAP & BMI routinely run audits to find establishments that are using their songs without paying for them.
They don't approach bands because the bands are not responsible for paying ASCAP and BMI - that is the responsibility of the venue.
Establishments that use recorded music to make money for their business must also pay for it. Generally these sorts of licenses cost less than licenses for live music venues. There is a special provision by which establishments under a certain square footage can use recorded music without paying, but this is unique to U.S. copyright law.
Licenses for a juke box can be paid either by the establishment, or the juke-box operator
this story sounds like a joke (If not, then Japan's copyright laws are much more draconian thant US laws) but I'll answer your question anyway.
Songwriters write songs, which can be used in any number of ways. When a bar wants to have performers play live music that somebody else wrote, they pay for the right to use songs (ASCAP and BMI issue blanket licenses to venues so this is much easier than it sounds).
The bar makes money from the work of the songwriters, and thus the songwriters should be compensated for it
It's true that this does not hurt artists or labels. That's why they do not get any money for performance rights. This money goes to songwriters (who may or may not also be artists) and publishers ONLY. Labels and recording artists do not get money for these types of uses.
I graduated a couple years ago, and it seemed to my that most college students' taste in music was as generic as the rest of the listening public. I was a big indie snob myself, but for every one of us, there were 20 students jamming to Britney Spears and Eminem.
people over 60 don't buy music......for themselves anyway
well, I suppose they might a little bit, but the amount of music they buy is so insignificant, that it just doesn't make sense to account for it. Old people are generally comfortable listening to Paul Harvey and occasionally putting their old Perry Como 33s on the hi-fi.
Middle aged baby boomers will often purchase older catalog titles they remember from their youth. Interestingly, I remember reading a study noting that copying is actually more of a problem with catalog titles.
You do raise an interesting theory though. There may be some obscure markets out there that do not vary proportionately, but I imagine they would be small and insigificant enough. I'd bet classical music has a very low rate of copying, but it makes up such a miniscule percentage of total music sales, that nobody cares if they are getting more than their fair share of blank media money.
Since the Audio Home Recording Act was passed in 1992. It doesn't affect most people though. It places a royalty on cassettes and special music CD-Rs.
What's a music CD-R you ask? You might notice if you have a consumer music CD burner (and very few people do), the only media it will accept are specially labelled music CD-Rs. These cost more than the regular CD-Rs you use in your computer due to the royalty that is placed on them.
They're pretty rare now, since most people use the burner in their computer, which takes regular CD-Rs. Also, it doesn't usually affect people who record their own music on CD-Rs, since professional burners (the ones you buy at a musical instrument or pro-audio store as opposed to a stereo store) do not require the special discs either
The hypothetical case you describe is never true. The number of copies, both legal and ilegal, varies proportionately with sales. This may change in the future, but so far this system works fine.
Of course we all know the record companies and RIAA equivelants are the only ones who will see any of this money.
In the US (Spain is probably similar...most countries have similar copyright laws since the Berne convention), the RIAA is not involved with this money. It is distributed by an independent panel which spreads the money around based on the previously noted sales figures. They use fixed percentages to determine what bodies get the money (e.g. x% to labels, y% to publishers, z% to songwriters, etc.). Interestingly, their system bypasses teh normal trickle-down system where money is paid directly to copyright holders (labels and publishers usually) and then distributed through royalties from there
Actually, anybody can make a re-recording of Shakira's songs. Here's some things you seem to be confused about:
Each song on a Shakira album is copyrighted. Those copyrights are owned by the songwriters, and are usually licensed through a music publisher to be used in exchange for a royalty. In the United States, ANYBODY (even without permission) can make a recording of Shakira's music and then do whatever they want with it, as long as they pay Shakira (or whomever wrote the song) 8 cents per song per unit. That's called a statutory rate. I'm pretty sure the UK has something similar.
Each recording has a seperate copy - meaning the recording by Shakira of the song "Whenever, Wherever" is owned exclusivelyby her label. She sold it to her label in exchange for a royalty (much higher than a few pence per record........I'd guess she's probably making around $1-$1.50 per record).
Finally, this is not a monopoly. In the business world, it's known as "monopolistic competition", in which brand variance exists, but each brand fulfills a function that is reasonably replacable by the others.
Our free market takes care of this. If "the only supplier of housing" became a bad deal for consumers, then the market would eventually even that out. It's the beauty of capitalism.
Nobody has a monopoly on housing, and nobody has a monopoly on music. Go forth and buy your house from whomever you want, and buy your music from the thousands of labels and artists who do not use DRM.
Actually, as logn as we've had the current two party system, single issue parties have really been the only ones that have succeeded..sort of. Works like this:
1. People found a party around an issue they feel is important but neither major party agrees.
2. Small single-issue party grows bigger
3. One major party takes notice, and absorbs the issue, effectively disbanding the party
I'm not saing it's great, but I suppose it's a kind of victory
What is Microsoft's "core competency"? If you say "software", that's enormously too vague of a focus, not to mention that it's a hugely diverse marketplace. Building a IM is nothing like building a corporate accounting system.
As I see it, Microsoft's core competency is usability. Whether you feel they are successful at this or not, their focus seems to be making feature-rich applications that can be used by "everyone". They have a knack for knowing what regular people want (if not IT people). They are also very competant in making their applications work well together.
I contend that the "incestuous relations" that MS apps have is a good thing. It's like poetry the way MS applications effortlessly work together (ocmparatively speaking).
um, I doubt this would make much sense. There's really no reason to spin-off their core products. By doing this, they would lose the cash-cows they need to incubate new products
IMO, all the products you mentioned above fit well into Microsoft's core-competency, and make good business sense under the MS umbrella. Also, none of them are too risky, so there is no major threat to shareholder value by keeping them.
Well, that's the rub. It's basically going to be impossible to beat the convenience and freedom-of-use of P2P without a price that too many people would find too high.
There's always going to be plusses and minuses (poor selection, DRM, high price, etc.) to everything, so the only thing the music industry can rely on is people regarding illegality as a big enough minus to stop using illegal P2P.
Folks are always saying things like "I would be willing to pay [insert absurdly low amount of money] for a legal service that's just like P2P in every way". It's just not possible
You raise an interesting point, however the amount of "what ifs" in the EFF's argument invalidates it in my mind. Our laws are often left a little bit open to interpretation, relying on the common sense of our legal system. This law's potential for abuse requires too many leaps-of-faith and too much suspension of common sense to have much of a chance of ever happening
Further, the aforementioned consequences to news organizations, etc, are covered by the fair use defense, which more-or-less trumps everything else when properly applied.
This bill doesn't even apply to consumers!
The gist is this: licensing is cumbersome for digital music services, because there are no standards. This bill is attempting to simplify the process by applying a blanket license to digital distribution. This is similar to what is set up for radio stations - so they don't need to negotiate with every single artist they play, there is a royalty system that works very efficiently.
The other language, if you actually read it, prevents copyright holders from charging twice for cached copies. This enables subscription services (like Napster's) to stream a song to a consumer who has "purchased" it unlimited times while only paying one royalty.
geez. It amazes me how people get so up-in-arms about things they don't even take the time to read
Ethics pervade every decision made by the modern corporation.
And honestly, if it's not Google Yahoo or MSN's responsibility to bring about revolution, then whose is it? It's nobody's DUTY, but there are many corporations who go out of their way to go beyond their ethical duties to do what's right even though they don't have to. That's called corporate responsibility, and every day ethical corporations make money-losing decisions in the pursuit of what's right; whereas unethical corporations do not. Let us not forget that corporations are still controlled by human beings...
Cheers to the UK journalists for fighting the good fight.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm curious about this too. I've heard copper oxides are too brittle to use in power lines, although I haven't worked with them personally. Copper oxides are the only materials I know of which superconduct at temperatures greater than the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. Progress has been made with Iron-based superconductors, but their superconducting temperature maxes out somewhere around 50K, which is below the boiling point of nitrogen (77K). So it must be a cuprate, but I'd be interested to know what they are doing to make the material industrially viable
Am I the only one who thinks there has to be more to the story? I know there are a lot of silly lawsuits out there, but c'mon...
Since the company escorted him out of the building they are not trying to leverage him to stay, so they must be trying to recover some damages. I'm not saying the company is right, I'm just saying that a large company with a legal department wouldn't waste their money on a lawsuit unless they had at least a CHANCE to get some money.
For example.......
Did he recently get a promotion that included relocation, which carried with it a minumum commitment? Something else? What's the rest of the story OP?
The article headline is wrong. Artist royalties are paid by record labels to recording artists for use of their recordings.
The article is referring to MECHANICAL ROYALTIES which are paid to SONGWRITERS for use of their songs. While the songwriter and artist are often the same, this is not always the case
EXAMPLE: Joe Schmoe writes a song that is recorded by Britney Spears for her new album. Britney Spears gets paid artist royalties by the record label. Joe Schmoe get paid mechanical royalties by the label.
The article is talking about reducing Joe Schmoe's royalties
whoops, that should read Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107
pardon me
If you actually read the fair use provision (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 17 of the U.S. Code) you'll see Cary Sherman's interpretation of the law is much more accurate than yours.
Why shouldn't an artist who creates a cong be able to charge whatever he/she wants for it? It's just like any other product.
And actually, you are incorrect about record companies owning movie licenses for songs. Record companies DO NOT OWN SONGS - THEY OWN RECORDINGS.
Any artist can make a new recording of a song. In the U.S., there is a standard compulsory rate of 8 cents per copy, meaning any artist can record any song they want (even without permission), provided they pay 8 cents per copy sold to the songwriter. This is hardly exhorbitant, and it allows for free use and spread of culture
Further, "My Sweet Lord" was a boon to George harrison, not a blow. If you listen to both songs, it's painfully obvious that he copied "He's So Fine". The similarity is beyond coincidence.
Geroge paid the 8 cents per copy for use of the song, but he still got to keep the artist royalties for his recording of the song. The song did very well, and helped George's reputation as a solo performed immensely. Sounds liek everyone is happy.
In conclusion, it is important to understand the difference between copyrights for songs, and copyrights for recordings. The licensing rules are very different, and are often misunderstood. If you study them, you'll find they are they way they are specifically for the reason you think is important: To allow for the free spread of culture while still compensating creators
this story sounds like a joke (If not, then Japan's copyright laws are much more draconian thant US laws) but I'll answer your question anyway.
Songwriters write songs, which can be used in any number of ways. When a bar wants to have performers play live music that somebody else wrote, they pay for the right to use songs (ASCAP and BMI issue blanket licenses to venues so this is much easier than it sounds).
The bar makes money from the work of the songwriters, and thus the songwriters should be compensated for it
It's true that this does not hurt artists or labels. That's why they do not get any money for performance rights. This money goes to songwriters (who may or may not also be artists) and publishers ONLY. Labels and recording artists do not get money for these types of uses.
Hope that clears some of it up
Yes, satire is protected, but the use of copyrighted images is not.
In other words: It's ok for you to draw a picture of Barney for satirical use, but you can't copy their drawing of Barney.
What college did you go to?
I graduated a couple years ago, and it seemed to my that most college students' taste in music was as generic as the rest of the listening public. I was a big indie snob myself, but for every one of us, there were 20 students jamming to Britney Spears and Eminem.
I believe the objection is rooted in the fact that allofmp3 sells music by British artists, not that they sell to British consumers
people over 60 don't buy music......for themselves anyway
well, I suppose they might a little bit, but the amount of music they buy is so insignificant, that it just doesn't make sense to account for it. Old people are generally comfortable listening to Paul Harvey and occasionally putting their old Perry Como 33s on the hi-fi.
Middle aged baby boomers will often purchase older catalog titles they remember from their youth. Interestingly, I remember reading a study noting that copying is actually more of a problem with catalog titles.
You do raise an interesting theory though. There may be some obscure markets out there that do not vary proportionately, but I imagine they would be small and insigificant enough. I'd bet classical music has a very low rate of copying, but it makes up such a miniscule percentage of total music sales, that nobody cares if they are getting more than their fair share of blank media money.
Since the Audio Home Recording Act was passed in 1992. It doesn't affect most people though. It places a royalty on cassettes and special music CD-Rs.
What's a music CD-R you ask? You might notice if you have a consumer music CD burner (and very few people do), the only media it will accept are specially labelled music CD-Rs. These cost more than the regular CD-Rs you use in your computer due to the royalty that is placed on them.
They're pretty rare now, since most people use the burner in their computer, which takes regular CD-Rs. Also, it doesn't usually affect people who record their own music on CD-Rs, since professional burners (the ones you buy at a musical instrument or pro-audio store as opposed to a stereo store) do not require the special discs either
In the US (Spain is probably similar...most countries have similar copyright laws since the Berne convention), the RIAA is not involved with this money. It is distributed by an independent panel which spreads the money around based on the previously noted sales figures. They use fixed percentages to determine what bodies get the money (e.g. x% to labels, y% to publishers, z% to songwriters, etc.). Interestingly, their system bypasses teh normal trickle-down system where money is paid directly to copyright holders (labels and publishers usually) and then distributed through royalties from there
I believe it's:
FLoating point OPerations / second, with the / representing "per"
It's pretty clear that our friend here has an agenda. Anarchist perhaps?
Seriously... there's a big difference between control over a product, and control over a specific brand or make of that product.
As with most arguments involving a party with an agenda (the creationist analogy is a good one), nothing is going to convince our friend of anything.
Actually, anybody can make a re-recording of Shakira's songs. Here's some things you seem to be confused about:
Each song on a Shakira album is copyrighted. Those copyrights are owned by the songwriters, and are usually licensed through a music publisher to be used in exchange for a royalty. In the United States, ANYBODY (even without permission) can make a recording of Shakira's music and then do whatever they want with it, as long as they pay Shakira (or whomever wrote the song) 8 cents per song per unit. That's called a statutory rate. I'm pretty sure the UK has something similar.
Each recording has a seperate copy - meaning the recording by Shakira of the song "Whenever, Wherever" is owned exclusivelyby her label. She sold it to her label in exchange for a royalty (much higher than a few pence per record........I'd guess she's probably making around $1-$1.50 per record).
Finally, this is not a monopoly. In the business world, it's known as "monopolistic competition", in which brand variance exists, but each brand fulfills a function that is reasonably replacable by the others.
Our free market takes care of this. If "the only supplier of housing" became a bad deal for consumers, then the market would eventually even that out. It's the beauty of capitalism.
Nobody has a monopoly on housing, and nobody has a monopoly on music. Go forth and buy your house from whomever you want, and buy your music from the thousands of labels and artists who do not use DRM.
Actually, as logn as we've had the current two party system, single issue parties have really been the only ones that have succeeded..sort of. Works like this:
1. People found a party around an issue they feel is important but neither major party agrees.
2. Small single-issue party grows bigger
3. One major party takes notice, and absorbs the issue, effectively disbanding the party
I'm not saing it's great, but I suppose it's a kind of victory
I contend that the "incestuous relations" that MS apps have is a good thing. It's like poetry the way MS applications effortlessly work together (ocmparatively speaking).
um, I doubt this would make much sense. There's really no reason to spin-off their core products. By doing this, they would lose the cash-cows they need to incubate new products
IMO, all the products you mentioned above fit well into Microsoft's core-competency, and make good business sense under the MS umbrella. Also, none of them are too risky, so there is no major threat to shareholder value by keeping them.
Well, that's the rub. It's basically going to be impossible to beat the convenience and freedom-of-use of P2P without a price that too many people would find too high.
There's always going to be plusses and minuses (poor selection, DRM, high price, etc.) to everything, so the only thing the music industry can rely on is people regarding illegality as a big enough minus to stop using illegal P2P.
Folks are always saying things like "I would be willing to pay [insert absurdly low amount of money] for a legal service that's just like P2P in every way". It's just not possible
You raise an interesting point, however the amount of "what ifs" in the EFF's argument invalidates it in my mind. Our laws are often left a little bit open to interpretation, relying on the common sense of our legal system. This law's potential for abuse requires too many leaps-of-faith and too much suspension of common sense to have much of a chance of ever happening
Further, the aforementioned consequences to news organizations, etc, are covered by the fair use defense, which more-or-less trumps everything else when properly applied.
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat051606.html
This bill doesn't even apply to consumers!
The gist is this: licensing is cumbersome for digital music services, because there are no standards. This bill is attempting to simplify the process by applying a blanket license to digital distribution. This is similar to what is set up for radio stations - so they don't need to negotiate with every single artist they play, there is a royalty system that works very efficiently.
The other language, if you actually read it, prevents copyright holders from charging twice for cached copies. This enables subscription services (like Napster's) to stream a song to a consumer who has "purchased" it unlimited times while only paying one royalty.
geez. It amazes me how people get so up-in-arms about things they don't even take the time to read
Ethics pervade every decision made by the modern corporation.
And honestly, if it's not Google Yahoo or MSN's responsibility to bring about revolution, then whose is it? It's nobody's DUTY, but there are many corporations who go out of their way to go beyond their ethical duties to do what's right even though they don't have to. That's called corporate responsibility, and every day ethical corporations make money-losing decisions in the pursuit of what's right; whereas unethical corporations do not. Let us not forget that corporations are still controlled by human beings...
Cheers to the UK journalists for fighting the good fight.