I've responded earlier and included a quote from Quran that basically says as a Muslim you have to respect all God's prophets and that all his prophets are equal.
Here's another Surat for you (the whole thing so it's not a snippet out of context): Al-Kafiroon (109):
109.001 Say: O disbelievers!
109.002 I worship not that which ye worship;
109.003 Nor worship ye that which I worship.
109.004 And I shall not worship that which ye worship.
109.005 Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
109.006 Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.
That hardly sounds like no peace until all have been converted to me.
Look, all religions have a dark history because humanity has a dark history. Look at what's happening in the world _today_ in the name of god, religion, freedom, peace, oil or whatever.
I'm a Muslim and my lunch break is almost over so I can't really write as long of a post as I wanted.
I agree that this war needs to stop, Palestinians and Israelies need to sit down and freaking figure out how to not kill 600+ people over a weekend.
The solutions presented by both sides so far are ridiculous: a) Throw them in the sea (Palestinian solution) b) Exterminate them (Israeli solution)
Both sides are idiots, hard headed and are in serious need for an adult conversation.
As a side note to the GP regarding extremist Muslims (or as I like to call them douche bags), if they read Quran they'll stop this my god is bigger than your god bull, here's a quote:
Al Baqara (002.136)
Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered.
P.S.: It's refreshing to see a post like yours on Slashdot:)
I never had issues calling Microsoft for re-activation. Most of the time I never have to call anyone and the online re-activation works fine.
There were a couple of times that I had to call, once when I moved to a completely different machine and another when I created a virtual machine of an installed copy. Both times I spent less than 10 minutes on the phone to get a new activation number without lieing about anything like some posters suggested.
I'm not calling you a liar, but if you dislike Microsoft that much vote with your feet.
By the way, if you haven't tried Ubuntu in a while you might be pleasantly surprised like I was at the state it's in nowadays. There's nothing I threw at my laptop that gave me grief, and I'm actually using it day in and out on my personal computers.
Lock it down as tight as you can, and here are the 3 benefits:
1) You will have 0 legal obligations. 2) You'll challenge the smart ones who _will_ break whatever you lock it down with and become tomorrow's greatest hackers. 3) The other (not so smart OR not interested in computers) kids will learn how the smart ones did it and hopefully become more tech savvy.
I'm old school and I've been behind filtering proxies before that I had to overcome, but looking back at it I think it was a great learning experience.
If web content is readable and meaningful to me than it already has inherent meaning. Semantic tagging duplicates effort.
Semantic web is also about accessibility. Take a blind person for example surfing the web using a screen reader, do you have any idea how horrible his/her browsing experience would be like in the web today?
[Robotic voice] Document Title - Slashdot | Nepomuk Brings Semantic.. Document Body Stories - Anchor link Slash boxes - Anchor link Comments - Anchor link Search Form field - Text - Query Submit button - Search New for nerds, stuff that matters Hello eihab! - Link Help & Preferences - Link....
Click on a different page, and there you go listening to the same headers _again_. It can get very frustrating.
Without semantics there's no easy way for a screen reader (or other accessibility enabling devices) to successfully translate a document to something intelligible and usable.
You can see how a photograph (or even worse, an image with text that conveys something) can be completely hidden from a blind user without proper meta data that describe it. Or how a mildly complicated table would be read completely out of order if the reader couldn't distinguish between header rows and content rows, etc. (That's why designing using tables is a horrible idea).
The example I gave above is solved *cough*hacked*cough* today by adding two anchor links at the top of the page (skip to contents and skip to navigation) then hiding these links from regular browsers using CSS (Note: It happens to also be a valid [not hack] solution to the problem of scrolling past long navigation links on mobile devices).
I think you can see how a reader could easily identify which parts of the document are important and what should be skipped over or highlighted had it been served a semantic and valid [x]HTML document.
I find it hard to believe people don't think it's worth $13/mo, honestly.
It really depends on your individual circumstances. I personally have absolutely no use for Sirius or any other Satellite based radio.
My commute is about 10 minutes each way (20-25 minutes with traffic jams), and I almost never go on road-trips. I usually don't even listen to anything when I'm driving to work.
When I'm at work I have access to co-workers' iTunes libraries as well as mine, and when all else fails, I have access to Youtube and Internet radio. (Not mentioning the fact that I usually loop a song or an album for hours on end).
So from _my_ perspective, I find it hard to believe that people actually pay $13/mo for radio:)
Yea, I'm really looking forward to this, especially if they use the same algorithms GOOG-411 uses, that would be sweet!
User: Hey, where's a burger kind around here?
*Light bulb over head*
User (excited): I know! let's call GOOG-411 and get the address and punch it in the GPS navigator!!
[User calls]
Google: Calls may be recorded. Google: GOOG-411. What city and State?
User: San Francisco, California Google: San Francisco, California Google: What business name or category? *Hungry toddler starts crying in the car* Google: Starting over Google: What city and state?
User: $@$!@!
User: San Francisco, California! Shut up son! Google: What business name or category?
User: Burger king Google: Burner king, top listing.. *Kid crys a bit more* Google: Starting over
User: $@!$!@$@!!@ Google: What city and state?
User: SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA! Google: San Francisco, California Google: What business na..
User: BURGER F#@king KING *kid hungry and still crying* Google: Kabob King, top listing..
User: $@$$@%!
[Hang up] *User calms kid down, and calls back*
Google: Calls may be recorded Google: GOOG-411. What city and state? *User a little calmer*
User: San Fran.. (Kid starts crying again).. cisco, California Google: San Mateo, California
User: %#@%@#^@%$##!
[Hang up]
Google: Calls may be recorded Google: GOOG-411. What city and state?
User: San Francisco, California Google: San Francisco, California Google: What business name or category?
User: Burger king Google: Burger king, top listing: Burger king.. [Bunch of listings far far away from users' location] User: #%@%@#^!#
*Another light bulb over user's head*
[Hang up]
Google: Calls may be recorded. Google: GOOG-411. What city and state?
User: Nine-four-seven-one-two-three Google: Please only say the name of the city and state
User: @#$**%%#@$^#&%$^*&^@#!!!!
[Hang up]
User: Fsck it, we're having Chinese from the first fscking restaurant around the corner!
*Note: City and business name where obfuscated to protect the innocent.
The USC research group used the most innocuous type of network packet to probe the farthest reaches of the Internet. Known as the Internet Control Message Protocol, or ICMP, this packet is typically used to send error messages between servers and other network hardware.
My home network is in complete stealth mode, and to them that's another "idle IP" address.
I also love how they arrived to their conclusion:
the team probed a million random Internet addresses using both ICMP and TCP, finding a total of 54,297 active hosts... In total, the researchers estimate that there are 112 million responsive addresses... but the overall conclusion--that the Internet has room to grow--is spot on
How did this ghetto-science experiment end up on Slashdot again?
I could play Grateful Dead shows all day under this blanket license, and the band would get exactly d*ck.
True, but then again _they_ are the ones who signed the papers and gave their rights away. They could (like you can) have nothing to do with this deal, and they can simply keep their songs out of it.
The point I was trying to make is that a large percentage of the users who will find this protection appealing are also the ones who will gladly buy a Britney Spears CD (well maybe not exactly Britney, but you get the idea).
As long as this blanket license deal is not mandatory I personally have no problem with it.
Under such a circumstance there's _NO_ moral or ethical reason to pay
I disagree. I don't think it's unethical to enter a license agreement with _consenting_ parties that can be unfair to some of them. For instance right now is a "great time to buy real-estate", but it's also a very bad time to sell, and a lot of the sellers (at least in CA) are being slaughtered with these deals. Is it unethical to buy? No one is forcing anyone to do anything (aside from personal circumstances).
These bands or their record labels in behalf of them enter these licensing deals with BMI and others _because_ they can't go around knocking on businesses doors demanding royalties and because it makes business sense to them (from my understanding).
If it doesn't then they need to stay away from it and do their own licensing deal ($10 a year to download and share all the Grateful Dead you can have!).
And it doesn't really answewr my question, where does that money go?
According to BMI's FAQ, the money is distributed based on popularity. They calculate the popularity of a song/band based on Radio, TV and online music sites statistics (very vague). Based on all these numbers (and some voodoo) they decide who gets a bigger cut.
It does sound like Britney's writers will get more money in this model, but honestly they would anyway because you are outnumbered by moody and hormonic teenagers looking for the next American idol to worship.
This blanket license (if it ever becomes a reality) is targeted in my opinion towards that teenager segment (more specifically their parents).
As for people like me where I don't download music and I have a handful of _new_ songs that I enjoy and can easily purchase the album... I don't really care how it's done since I'm not going to be a part of it.
Now, if my son is living under my roof, is downloading music _and_ this licensing deal becomes a reality (I personally doubt it), I might seriously consider the $5 or $10 monthly and will just call it RIAA insurance.
However, if Comcast starts tacking this on my bill tomorrow, I will absolutely raise hell:)
Well there's an overhead for SSL encryption, and when you have Google's traffic that adds up quickly. I agree though that no matter what the cost is, everyone should use SSL when sending credentials.
The questions is, why are they not: a) Marking cookies as secure? or b) Checking session cookie + originating IP address instead of only session cookies?
I've looked into performance licensing for my company last year and I think this is similar.
If you operate a business and you play music for your employees or customers it's considered a "performance" and you are required to pay royalties. There are three or so American licensing non-profit organizations (BMI, ASCAP and others) that you pay a yearly licensing fee to. They base the fee on the number of employees or business locations or however you can work a deal with them (I believe a license from all three for a small sized company was just a few hundred dollars a year).
Having a license from all three organizations pretty much covers most (if not all) of the major songs out there. I believe BMI has some 375k songs covered or something to that effect.
So here's how it works in 3 steps: a) You get performance licenses from all three (or depending on your song needs get enough to cover what you're playing) b) You _purchase_ the CDs with the music or acquire the songs and play it to your employees or patrons c) The day someone knocks on your door saying "papers please" you pull out the license
I think they're trying to do the same thing here where ISPs would allow you to get a similar type license as an add-on to your internet subscription instead of sending BMI and others a check.
You are not forced to pay the $5 a month and the RIAA will keep cracking down on people who download. If you have your license and they send you (or your ISP) a letter demanding settlement you (or your friendly ISP) can tell them where to shove it.
It's basically lawsuit insurance, they don't track what you listen to (at least that's how it works for businesses), and they guarantee you that you won't be sued by composers and writers for songs they cover in their blanket license deal.
This is my understanding of the blanket license that the EFF was describing when I looked at it last, coupled by my business performance license research.
I'll probably get modded down for this unpopular opinion, but what the heck.
these rascals are alienating untold numbers of youth from music
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that most of what the music industry produces nowadays is garbage, and honestly if the path that the RIAA is taking causes the "music industry" as we know to collapse, so much the better!
they are not only killing an industry, but an ART
Britney Spears is NOT art. I'm tired of the mediocrity, the talent-less performances and the endless sexual innuendos that they keep pushing. There's nothing artistic or creative about a bunch of abused, clueless, futureless, intoxicated and hopeless girls "shaking their money maker".
its a crime against humanity, civilization
No it's not.
today's courts are too 'old' to understand the matter in its core, future generations of judges and lawmakers wont be as such
I'm sorry to be blunt, but it really sounds like you never created anything creative of value in your life.
If I spend countless hours working on a software project, perfecting a piece of code, debugging it, etc. then decide to release and license it under GPL/BSD or even pay-ware with an EULA then you ought to respect my license. If you don't, the court system will make sure you do.
I apply the same logic when I think about RIAA. I think the music that the industry produces is mainly trash, but I also think they ought to have the right to license their music as they wish, and to have the ability to enforce that license within the limits of and by the law.
and they are doing it for what ? to sustain an outdated business model
It's _their_ outdated business model, it's up to _them_ to change it, or we can force them to by boycotting them.
I don't like rebates, I think they're an outdated business model with a lot of loopholes and foul-play, should we encourage lawmakers to legalize shoplifting to fix it?
This is not Utopia, this is a free market. You don't like the RIAA? Boycott them! Write them a letter to tell them why you are boycotting them and the artists they sponsor and move on!
The last time I checked, there's no law that says you have to start your day with "Move b*tch, get out the way"!
Downloading music against their license will not fix the problem because two wrongs don't make a right.
You leave out two important factors in that big screen TV scenario:
1) Taxes, (assuming a 25% tax bracket) that's $11.49 to Uncle Sam leaving you with $34.48
2) Risk! If you read the fine print on almost all of these credit card agreements it simply says "We have the right to change the rules of the game or trigger universal default whenever we feel like it".
When you also factor in that if they charge you a 20% interest in any given month (typical for department store cards after the introductory 0%) for _any_ reason (missed payment, mind slip, job loss) before you could pay the card off, I can guarantee you that it will be more than the _$35_ you will be making in __a year and a half__.
I personally would feel better paying cash for the big screen TV and go work to make that $35 in a fraction of a fraction of the year and a half, while investing what would have been my monthly payment in a mutual fund or just saving it in a money market account.
.. people who have bad habits with their own money will very, very likely not have good habits with the company's money..
Agreed. But my point was that a credit score is not a good measure of financial success or responsibility, if you think about it a bit it's really quite the opposite. There's nothing in the making of a FICO score that measures your net worth, it only measures your debt, how long you've had it and how well are you paying it back (if you've been in debt and paying it for 10+ years you're a real winner!).
The fact that some places and so many things assume that everyone has to have a credit score shows how deep we've gotten into this mess.
My main argument was that credit scores may have seemed like a great idea one day for lenders (get approved instantly - sounds familiar from TFA?) and got so out of control that they're defining us today.
This thing can turn into a bigger beast with severe consequences worse than not getting a job or getting approved for a loan.
Far from it, look at the credit score mess and where it has gotten us.
What's a credit score? It's a score about how much you love being in debt, you get in debt and pay to get more debt and pay on time to get even more debt, etc. How is that relevant to you being able to get a job? It's beyond me.
What makes you think this system won't be abused exactly like the FICO score if not even worse?
Can you imagine identity theft in this scenario? Oh boy oh boy, someone steals your identity and all of the sudden you lose your life insurance, the doctor _won't_ see you now because you lost your health insurance, and all of that is because someone bought a heart medication with your info and your insurers dropped you immediately.
Isn't that similar to how credit scores work? Someone steals your identity messing up your score and all of the sudden _you_ are the criminal, universal default on all of your accounts, collector calls who won't believe you, etc.
The whole "insurance" thing is a form of measured "gambling"/risk industry, that is: "I bet you won't die in 30 years", "I bet you won't get sick so much this year" or "I bet you won't get in a car accident".
Things like this health score significantly reduces that gambling element and turns it almost into "I'll insure you if and only if you don't need the insurance", which just smells bad.
Finally, on a privacy stand point, the idea of even more of my information being thrown about out there doesn't sound that appealing to me.
What's the solution? I don't know. Maybe one day the system will collapse on its own weight or someone will come up with a better idea, but until that day comes, we'll be in this weird relationship with these middle-men characters.
Slashdot Mirror
Alright, I'll bite.
I've responded earlier and included a quote from Quran that basically says as a Muslim you have to respect all God's prophets and that all his prophets are equal.
Here's another Surat for you (the whole thing so it's not a snippet out of context):
Al-Kafiroon (109):
109.001
Say: O disbelievers!
109.002
I worship not that which ye worship;
109.003
Nor worship ye that which I worship.
109.004
And I shall not worship that which ye worship.
109.005
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
109.006
Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.
That hardly sounds like no peace until all have been converted to me.
Look, all religions have a dark history because humanity has a dark history. Look at what's happening in the world _today_ in the name of god, religion, freedom, peace, oil or whatever.
Stop the hatred, it's getting old.
I'm a Muslim and my lunch break is almost over so I can't really write as long of a post as I wanted.
I agree that this war needs to stop, Palestinians and Israelies need to sit down and freaking figure out how to not kill 600+ people over a weekend.
The solutions presented by both sides so far are ridiculous:
a) Throw them in the sea (Palestinian solution)
b) Exterminate them (Israeli solution)
Both sides are idiots, hard headed and are in serious need for an adult conversation.
As a side note to the GP regarding extremist Muslims (or as I like to call them douche bags), if they read Quran they'll stop this my god is bigger than your god bull, here's a quote:
Al Baqara (002.136)
Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered.
P.S.: It's refreshing to see a post like yours on Slashdot :)
I never had issues calling Microsoft for re-activation. Most of the time I never have to call anyone and the online re-activation works fine.
There were a couple of times that I had to call, once when I moved to a completely different machine and another when I created a virtual machine of an installed copy. Both times I spent less than 10 minutes on the phone to get a new activation number without lieing about anything like some posters suggested.
I'm not calling you a liar, but if you dislike Microsoft that much vote with your feet.
By the way, if you haven't tried Ubuntu in a while you might be pleasantly surprised like I was at the state it's in nowadays. There's nothing I threw at my laptop that gave me grief, and I'm actually using it day in and out on my personal computers.
Lock it down as tight as you can, and here are the 3 benefits:
1) You will have 0 legal obligations.
2) You'll challenge the smart ones who _will_ break whatever you lock it down with and become tomorrow's greatest hackers.
3) The other (not so smart OR not interested in computers) kids will learn how the smart ones did it and hopefully become more tech savvy.
I'm old school and I've been behind filtering proxies before that I had to overcome, but looking back at it I think it was a great learning experience.
Just my 2 cents :)
Semantics go past the "meta" tags in the header of an HTML document. It's about document structure and data accessibility.
Web designers learned a lot of bad habits like using tables for document layout, using header tags (h1,h2..5) for styling, etc.
The tags we have nowadays are not perfect, but they can be used a hell of a lot better than they already have.
I wrote a post a little bit ago regarding semantic markup and accessibility, please read it when you have a minute :)
If web content is readable and meaningful to me than it already has inherent meaning. Semantic tagging duplicates effort.
Semantic web is also about accessibility. Take a blind person for example surfing the web using a screen reader, do you have any idea how horrible his/her browsing experience would be like in the web today?
[Robotic voice] .. ....
Document Title - Slashdot | Nepomuk Brings Semantic
Document Body
Stories - Anchor link
Slash boxes - Anchor link
Comments - Anchor link
Search
Form field - Text - Query
Submit button - Search
New for nerds, stuff that matters
Hello eihab! - Link
Help & Preferences - Link
Click on a different page, and there you go listening to the same headers _again_. It can get very frustrating.
Without semantics there's no easy way for a screen reader (or other accessibility enabling devices) to successfully translate a document to something intelligible and usable.
You can see how a photograph (or even worse, an image with text that conveys something) can be completely hidden from a blind user without proper meta data that describe it. Or how a mildly complicated table would be read completely out of order if the reader couldn't distinguish between header rows and content rows, etc. (That's why designing using tables is a horrible idea).
The example I gave above is solved *cough*hacked*cough* today by adding two anchor links at the top of the page (skip to contents and skip to navigation) then hiding these links from regular browsers using CSS (Note: It happens to also be a valid [not hack] solution to the problem of scrolling past long navigation links on mobile devices).
I think you can see how a reader could easily identify which parts of the document are important and what should be skipped over or highlighted had it been served a semantic and valid [x]HTML document.
...Cygwin? Hah! Tricked you!
As a matter of fact it did in 2002, might still be the case.
I find it hard to believe people don't think it's worth $13/mo, honestly.
It really depends on your individual circumstances. I personally have absolutely no use for Sirius or any other Satellite based radio.
My commute is about 10 minutes each way (20-25 minutes with traffic jams), and I almost never go on road-trips. I usually don't even listen to anything when I'm driving to work.
When I'm at work I have access to co-workers' iTunes libraries as well as mine, and when all else fails, I have access to Youtube and Internet radio. (Not mentioning the fact that I usually loop a song or an album for hours on end).
So from _my_ perspective, I find it hard to believe that people actually pay $13/mo for radio :)
Please excuse the typos, I was *very* frustrated when I was typing this!
Yea, I'm really looking forward to this, especially if they use the same algorithms GOOG-411 uses, that would be sweet!
User: Hey, where's a burger kind around here?
*Light bulb over head*
User (excited): I know! let's call GOOG-411 and get the address and punch it in the GPS navigator!!
[User calls]
Google: Calls may be recorded.
Google: GOOG-411. What city and State?
User: San Francisco, California
Google: San Francisco, California
Google: What business name or category?
*Hungry toddler starts crying in the car*
Google: Starting over
Google: What city and state?
User: $@$!@!
User: San Francisco, California! Shut up son!
Google: What business name or category?
User: Burger king
Google: Burner king, top listing..
*Kid crys a bit more*
Google: Starting over
User: $@!$!@$@!!@
Google: What city and state?
User: SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA!
Google: San Francisco, California
Google: What business na..
User: BURGER F#@king KING *kid hungry and still crying*
Google: Kabob King, top listing..
User: $@$$@%!
[Hang up]
*User calms kid down, and calls back*
Google: Calls may be recorded
Google: GOOG-411. What city and state?
*User a little calmer*
User: San Fran.. (Kid starts crying again).. cisco, California
Google: San Mateo, California
User: %#@%@#^@%$##!
[Hang up]
Google: Calls may be recorded ..
Google: GOOG-411. What city and state?
User: San Francisco, California
Google: San Francisco, California
Google: What business name or category?
User: Burger king
Google: Burger king, top listing: Burger king
[Bunch of listings far far away from users' location]
User: #%@%@#^!#
*Another light bulb over user's head*
[Hang up]
Google: Calls may be recorded.
Google: GOOG-411. What city and state?
User: Nine-four-seven-one-two-three
Google: Please only say the name of the city and state
User: @#$**%%#@$^#&%$^*&^@#!!!!
[Hang up]
User: Fsck it, we're having Chinese from the first fscking restaurant around the corner!
*Note: City and business name where obfuscated to protect the innocent.
I thought the whole point of their research is to say "Wait, we can squeeze more IPs that are allocated and not used before moving to IPv6".
From the article:
The USC research group used the most innocuous type of network packet to probe the farthest reaches of the Internet. Known as the Internet Control Message Protocol, or ICMP, this packet is typically used to send error messages between servers and other network hardware.
My home network is in complete stealth mode, and to them that's another "idle IP" address.
I also love how they arrived to their conclusion:
the team probed a million random Internet addresses using both ICMP and TCP, finding a total of 54,297 active hosts ... ...
In total, the researchers estimate that there are 112 million responsive addresses
but the overall conclusion--that the Internet has room to grow--is spot on
How did this ghetto-science experiment end up on Slashdot again?
And the fact that it might not technically be a search engine, makes exactly what bogus?
The claim that "YouTube Passes Yahoo As #2 Search Engine".
(Posted without RTFA because it sounds trollish anyway)
Is this why they have cameras built into the digital TV converter boxes?
No, I believe that was to allow them to spy on you and figure out who's watching.
Way off topic and you can rightly mod me so, but:
Did you just purposefully top-post on Slashdot??
I could play Grateful Dead shows all day under this blanket license, and the band would get exactly d*ck.
True, but then again _they_ are the ones who signed the papers and gave their rights away. They could (like you can) have nothing to do with this deal, and they can simply keep their songs out of it.
The point I was trying to make is that a large percentage of the users who will find this protection appealing are also the ones who will gladly buy a Britney Spears CD (well maybe not exactly Britney, but you get the idea).
As long as this blanket license deal is not mandatory I personally have no problem with it.
Under such a circumstance there's _NO_ moral or ethical reason to pay
I disagree. I don't think it's unethical to enter a license agreement with _consenting_ parties that can be unfair to some of them. For instance right now is a "great time to buy real-estate", but it's also a very bad time to sell, and a lot of the sellers (at least in CA) are being slaughtered with these deals. Is it unethical to buy? No one is forcing anyone to do anything (aside from personal circumstances).
These bands or their record labels in behalf of them enter these licensing deals with BMI and others _because_ they can't go around knocking on businesses doors demanding royalties and because it makes business sense to them (from my understanding).
If it doesn't then they need to stay away from it and do their own licensing deal ($10 a year to download and share all the Grateful Dead you can have!).
Sounds a lot like protection money
I agree!
And it doesn't really answewr my question, where does that money go?
According to BMI's FAQ, the money is distributed based on popularity. They calculate the popularity of a song/band based on Radio, TV and online music sites statistics (very vague). Based on all these numbers (and some voodoo) they decide who gets a bigger cut.
It does sound like Britney's writers will get more money in this model, but honestly they would anyway because you are outnumbered by moody and hormonic teenagers looking for the next American idol to worship.
This blanket license (if it ever becomes a reality) is targeted in my opinion towards that teenager segment (more specifically their parents).
As for people like me where I don't download music and I have a handful of _new_ songs that I enjoy and can easily purchase the album... I don't really care how it's done since I'm not going to be a part of it.
Now, if my son is living under my roof, is downloading music _and_ this licensing deal becomes a reality (I personally doubt it), I might seriously consider the $5 or $10 monthly and will just call it RIAA insurance.
However, if Comcast starts tacking this on my bill tomorrow, I will absolutely raise hell :)
Well there's an overhead for SSL encryption, and when you have Google's traffic that adds up quickly. I agree though that no matter what the cost is, everyone should use SSL when sending credentials.
The questions is, why are they not:
a) Marking cookies as secure?
or
b) Checking session cookie + originating IP address instead of only session cookies?
I've looked into performance licensing for my company last year and I think this is similar.
If you operate a business and you play music for your employees or customers it's considered a "performance" and you are required to pay royalties. There are three or so American licensing non-profit organizations (BMI, ASCAP and others) that you pay a yearly licensing fee to. They base the fee on the number of employees or business locations or however you can work a deal with them (I believe a license from all three for a small sized company was just a few hundred dollars a year).
Having a license from all three organizations pretty much covers most (if not all) of the major songs out there. I believe BMI has some 375k songs covered or something to that effect.
So here's how it works in 3 steps:
a) You get performance licenses from all three (or depending on your song needs get enough to cover what you're playing)
b) You _purchase_ the CDs with the music or acquire the songs and play it to your employees or patrons
c) The day someone knocks on your door saying "papers please" you pull out the license
I think they're trying to do the same thing here where ISPs would allow you to get a similar type license as an add-on to your internet subscription instead of sending BMI and others a check.
You are not forced to pay the $5 a month and the RIAA will keep cracking down on people who download. If you have your license and they send you (or your ISP) a letter demanding settlement you (or your friendly ISP) can tell them where to shove it.
It's basically lawsuit insurance, they don't track what you listen to (at least that's how it works for businesses), and they guarantee you that you won't be sued by composers and writers for songs they cover in their blanket license deal.
This is my understanding of the blanket license that the EFF was describing when I looked at it last, coupled by my business performance license research.
I'll probably get modded down for this unpopular opinion, but what the heck.
these rascals are alienating untold numbers of youth from music
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that most of what the music industry produces nowadays is garbage, and honestly if the path that the RIAA is taking causes the "music industry" as we know to collapse, so much the better!
they are not only killing an industry, but an ART
Britney Spears is NOT art. I'm tired of the mediocrity, the talent-less performances and the endless sexual innuendos that they keep pushing. There's nothing artistic or creative about a bunch of abused, clueless, futureless, intoxicated and hopeless girls "shaking their money maker".
its a crime against humanity, civilization
No it's not.
today's courts are too 'old' to understand the matter in its core, future generations of judges and lawmakers wont be as such
I'm sorry to be blunt, but it really sounds like you never created anything creative of value in your life.
If I spend countless hours working on a software project, perfecting a piece of code, debugging it, etc. then decide to release and license it under GPL/BSD or even pay-ware with an EULA then you ought to respect my license. If you don't, the court system will make sure you do.
I apply the same logic when I think about RIAA. I think the music that the industry produces is mainly trash, but I also think they ought to have the right to license their music as they wish, and to have the ability to enforce that license within the limits of and by the law.
and they are doing it for what ? to sustain an outdated business model
It's _their_ outdated business model, it's up to _them_ to change it, or we can force them to by boycotting them.
I don't like rebates, I think they're an outdated business model with a lot of loopholes and foul-play, should we encourage lawmakers to legalize shoplifting to fix it?
This is not Utopia, this is a free market. You don't like the RIAA? Boycott them! Write them a letter to tell them why you are boycotting them and the artists they sponsor and move on!
The last time I checked, there's no law that says you have to start your day with "Move b*tch, get out the way"!
Downloading music against their license will not fix the problem because two wrongs don't make a right.
You leave out two important factors in that big screen TV scenario:
1) Taxes, (assuming a 25% tax bracket) that's $11.49 to Uncle Sam leaving you with $34.48
2) Risk! If you read the fine print on almost all of these credit card agreements it simply says "We have the right to change the rules of the game or trigger universal default whenever we feel like it".
When you also factor in that if they charge you a 20% interest in any given month (typical for department store cards after the introductory 0%) for _any_ reason (missed payment, mind slip, job loss) before you could pay the card off, I can guarantee you that it will be more than the _$35_ you will be making in __a year and a half__.
I personally would feel better paying cash for the big screen TV and go work to make that $35 in a fraction of a fraction of the year and a half, while investing what would have been my monthly payment in a mutual fund or just saving it in a money market account.
.. people who have bad habits with their own money will very, very likely not have good habits with the company's money ..
Agreed. But my point was that a credit score is not a good measure of financial success or responsibility, if you think about it a bit it's really quite the opposite. There's nothing in the making of a FICO score that measures your net worth, it only measures your debt, how long you've had it and how well are you paying it back (if you've been in debt and paying it for 10+ years you're a real winner!).
The fact that some places and so many things assume that everyone has to have a credit score shows how deep we've gotten into this mess.
My main argument was that credit scores may have seemed like a great idea one day for lenders (get approved instantly - sounds familiar from TFA?) and got so out of control that they're defining us today.
This thing can turn into a bigger beast with severe consequences worse than not getting a job or getting approved for a loan.
Alarmism
Far from it, look at the credit score mess and where it has gotten us.
What's a credit score? It's a score about how much you love being in debt, you get in debt and pay to get more debt and pay on time to get even more debt, etc. How is that relevant to you being able to get a job? It's beyond me.
What makes you think this system won't be abused exactly like the FICO score if not even worse?
Can you imagine identity theft in this scenario? Oh boy oh boy, someone steals your identity and all of the sudden you lose your life insurance, the doctor _won't_ see you now because you lost your health insurance, and all of that is because someone bought a heart medication with your info and your insurers dropped you immediately.
Isn't that similar to how credit scores work? Someone steals your identity messing up your score and all of the sudden _you_ are the criminal, universal default on all of your accounts, collector calls who won't believe you, etc.
The whole "insurance" thing is a form of measured "gambling"/risk industry, that is: "I bet you won't die in 30 years", "I bet you won't get sick so much this year" or "I bet you won't get in a car accident".
Things like this health score significantly reduces that gambling element and turns it almost into "I'll insure you if and only if you don't need the insurance", which just smells bad.
Finally, on a privacy stand point, the idea of even more of my information being thrown about out there doesn't sound that appealing to me.
What's the solution? I don't know. Maybe one day the system will collapse on its own weight or someone will come up with a better idea, but until that day comes, we'll be in this weird relationship with these middle-men characters.
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.