Whose to say that they won't come out with the Wii HD in a year in a half or two? Not unlike how their portable line has developed (DS->DS lite, or any of the Gameboy upgrades). It's also what MS has done with the 360 and HDDVD.
There's a religious talk show called steve brown etc., and Jack was on there last week. A caller called in though and challenged him on whether video games cause violence when statistically violence is going down (at least in the us). Thompson said something about how the caller was wrong about violence going down and talked about some news study that showed it was going up. The caller then said something like "I can't believe you'd be calling a news story more accurate than crime statistics from the US govt." It was pretty funny...thompson basically conceded and then made some lame statement that violence would be down even more if there weren't violent video games, which is obviously bs. So anyway, why don't all of us arm ourselves with statistics like that guy and call into every show he's on?
Anyone who claims "The music industry is broadly unhappy with the...lack of subscription options" needs to actually talk to anyone in the music industry. The fact is that no one really knows how musicians or labels (independents or majors) are going to get any money at all from rhapsody or napster. This is partly because the PRO organizations (BMI, ASCAP) have not figured out how to collect the mechanical royalties from a subscription model. In fact, many people speculate that when they do tally up the mechanical royalties and send the bill to Real Networks, rhapsody will simply shut down because they won't have charged enough to cover the cost. Same thing with Napster. Apple will never offer subscriptions on iTunes until there is a concrete royalty scheme from the PROs, and Google would be stupid not to wait as well.
I guess this is just where we view things different: I see iPod + iTunes as a content platform. In this regard it doesn't matter how similar or different the underlying hardware is, or how easy or difficult it would be to make something work.
Since microsoft owns the xbox, they determine what software can run on it, just like Apple can determine what music plays on the ipod. I see no inherent difference. The game makers and the music publishers are the content providers, they have chosen in each case to publish their content for that specific platform. Again there is no precedent for saying that one closed platform should be made to support another one, however arbitrary of a choice that may seem to you.
To a consumer. the ipod hardware will not play WMA files the same way that the xbox will not play playstation games. Not because the chips inside are different, but because games that are labeled "playstation" on them are only expected to work on a playstation. The fact that the xbox hardware differs more from the playstation than the ipod hardware differs from a creative nomad, is a small differentiator: the platform is still different.
I mean, the original xbox and a pc have more hardware similarities than an ipod and a nomad. Why are xbox games not playable on pc's, and vice versa?
That's a good point too, but I think from the content publisher's perspective, there is no difference.
Example: EA and EMI
EA has Madden 2006 as a game. They publish that game to different platforms: Xbox, PS2, X360, Gamecube, PC, Mac, Gameboy, PSP, etc. Each of those products work exclusively with it's hardware platform.
EMI has Coldplay's X&Y as an album. They publish that album to different platforms: CD, SACD, DVD-A, iTunes AAC, Rhapsody AAC, PlaysForSure WMA, etc. Again, each of those products works with it's particular hardware (or software) platform.
I don't understand how the iTunes AAC format should be treated any different than any other "platform" out there. I mean, it's not like I buy a DVD-Audio disc and expect that it should be "open" enough so that it plays in my car CD player. I don't purchase Mario Kart and expect to play it on my PC. There is no precedent for saying that I should expect that.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if this suit is successful, then we would have to say goodbye to platform exclusive content, and the cost of supporting every platform would be incurred whenever you only wanted to buy one version of the content. Legally EA would have to not only support Madden 2006 on every platform, but give you the "right" to use it on any platform you wanted with a single purchase. That's the equivelent of what they are asking for. They want content purchased from iTunes to be supported on any competing platforms. I just think that's crazy, especially when the content IS already supported on competing platforms, just for an additional cost (just like the game industry).
How come no one has sued Microsoft for making xbox games unplayable on a playstation? Or Nintendo for not allowing gamecube games to work on a pc? It seems the concept is the same: I have a hardware platform (game console, ipod) and I have content that works on said content platform (games, itunes tracks).
There's nothing illegal about the fact that I'd have to buy 2 versions of Madden if I wanted to play it on my xbox and on my playstation...
This just seems silly to me.
Beyond this, is why are they different? I've done some music on ccmixter (the CC music remixing site), and right now I'm confused as hell about what all the licenses mean and what can and can't be combined etc. I mean, there is a "sampling" license, that allows you to sample an audio work, and a "by-attribution" license that also allows you to sample the audio work. The only difference I can tell is that with the "attribution" license you have to give credit to where you got the sample. Why not just build that into every license? I mean, part of the point of a site like ccmixter is to leave a trail telling what samples are from where. Why have a distinction? Especially a distinction that makes the licenses mutually exclusive?
Then you have the whole "commercial" versus "non-commercial" and "share-alike" versus whatever. Again, what's the point of having a sample available for anyone to do anything with (including make commercial works) if you have to release your end product under the same license? I mean, doesn't that defeat the purpose of allowing something to be used in commercial works? It couldn't truly be commercial if you have to be released back under the same license (free to be used), right?
Don't get me wrong, I really do like Creative Commons as a whole, it's just that I feel like we are right back where we started: consulting lawyers to figure out which samples can be used in what songs, when it sure seems like that was part of what CC was trying to get away from in the first place!
It just seems like ten iPods is a lot for one person and will just end up being given away.
What better way to get 9 more people hooked on buying iTunes downloads (and by extension other Apple products)?
Well that's exactly what happened in Japan when the PS2 came out. It was the cheapest DVD player on the market, and people bought them in droves for that very reason. They'd like nothing more than to repeat that success, this time in a bigger video markeet (the US).
The big wild card is whether consumers will actually care enough about Blu-ray for this angle to make a difference.
What I think we're all missing here as that raising the price of a single song makes purchasing the album more attractive. It's simple. If 1 song costs $2.49 and an album (around 10-12 songs) costs $9.99, I as a consumer am going to feel that buying the album is the "better deal" than the single track. The problem with iTunes for the labels is that there isn't much of an incentive to buy the higher priced item (the album) when all you want is 2 or 3 songs and you can get them for $.99 each. Make those 2 or 3 songs $2.49 each, and buying the album becomes much more attractive to the consumer.
Slashdot Mirror
Whose to say that they won't come out with the Wii HD in a year in a half or two? Not unlike how their portable line has developed (DS->DS lite, or any of the Gameboy upgrades). It's also what MS has done with the 360 and HDDVD.
There's a religious talk show called steve brown etc., and Jack was on there last week. A caller called in though and challenged him on whether video games cause violence when statistically violence is going down (at least in the us). Thompson said something about how the caller was wrong about violence going down and talked about some news study that showed it was going up. The caller then said something like "I can't believe you'd be calling a news story more accurate than crime statistics from the US govt." It was pretty funny...thompson basically conceded and then made some lame statement that violence would be down even more if there weren't violent video games, which is obviously bs. So anyway, why don't all of us arm ourselves with statistics like that guy and call into every show he's on?
3
Oh and that show has an mp3, here's the link for it: http://media.gospelcom.net/kln/sbetc/050606sbe.mp
Anyone who claims "The music industry is broadly unhappy with the...lack of subscription options" needs to actually talk to anyone in the music industry. The fact is that no one really knows how musicians or labels (independents or majors) are going to get any money at all from rhapsody or napster. This is partly because the PRO organizations (BMI, ASCAP) have not figured out how to collect the mechanical royalties from a subscription model. In fact, many people speculate that when they do tally up the mechanical royalties and send the bill to Real Networks, rhapsody will simply shut down because they won't have charged enough to cover the cost. Same thing with Napster. Apple will never offer subscriptions on iTunes until there is a concrete royalty scheme from the PROs, and Google would be stupid not to wait as well.
I guess this is just where we view things different: I see iPod + iTunes as a content platform. In this regard it doesn't matter how similar or different the underlying hardware is, or how easy or difficult it would be to make something work.
Since microsoft owns the xbox, they determine what software can run on it, just like Apple can determine what music plays on the ipod. I see no inherent difference. The game makers and the music publishers are the content providers, they have chosen in each case to publish their content for that specific platform. Again there is no precedent for saying that one closed platform should be made to support another one, however arbitrary of a choice that may seem to you.
To a consumer. the ipod hardware will not play WMA files the same way that the xbox will not play playstation games. Not because the chips inside are different, but because games that are labeled "playstation" on them are only expected to work on a playstation. The fact that the xbox hardware differs more from the playstation than the ipod hardware differs from a creative nomad, is a small differentiator: the platform is still different.
I mean, the original xbox and a pc have more hardware similarities than an ipod and a nomad. Why are xbox games not playable on pc's, and vice versa?
That's a good point too, but I think from the content publisher's perspective, there is no difference.
Example: EA and EMI
EA has Madden 2006 as a game. They publish that game to different platforms: Xbox, PS2, X360, Gamecube, PC, Mac, Gameboy, PSP, etc. Each of those products work exclusively with it's hardware platform.
EMI has Coldplay's X&Y as an album. They publish that album to different platforms: CD, SACD, DVD-A, iTunes AAC, Rhapsody AAC, PlaysForSure WMA, etc. Again, each of those products works with it's particular hardware (or software) platform.
I don't understand how the iTunes AAC format should be treated any different than any other "platform" out there. I mean, it's not like I buy a DVD-Audio disc and expect that it should be "open" enough so that it plays in my car CD player. I don't purchase Mario Kart and expect to play it on my PC. There is no precedent for saying that I should expect that.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if this suit is successful, then we would have to say goodbye to platform exclusive content, and the cost of supporting every platform would be incurred whenever you only wanted to buy one version of the content. Legally EA would have to not only support Madden 2006 on every platform, but give you the "right" to use it on any platform you wanted with a single purchase. That's the equivelent of what they are asking for. They want content purchased from iTunes to be supported on any competing platforms. I just think that's crazy, especially when the content IS already supported on competing platforms, just for an additional cost (just like the game industry).
How come no one has sued Microsoft for making xbox games unplayable on a playstation? Or Nintendo for not allowing gamecube games to work on a pc? It seems the concept is the same: I have a hardware platform (game console, ipod) and I have content that works on said content platform (games, itunes tracks). There's nothing illegal about the fact that I'd have to buy 2 versions of Madden if I wanted to play it on my xbox and on my playstation... This just seems silly to me.
Beyond this, is why are they different? I've done some music on ccmixter (the CC music remixing site), and right now I'm confused as hell about what all the licenses mean and what can and can't be combined etc. I mean, there is a "sampling" license, that allows you to sample an audio work, and a "by-attribution" license that also allows you to sample the audio work. The only difference I can tell is that with the "attribution" license you have to give credit to where you got the sample. Why not just build that into every license? I mean, part of the point of a site like ccmixter is to leave a trail telling what samples are from where. Why have a distinction? Especially a distinction that makes the licenses mutually exclusive?
Then you have the whole "commercial" versus "non-commercial" and "share-alike" versus whatever. Again, what's the point of having a sample available for anyone to do anything with (including make commercial works) if you have to release your end product under the same license? I mean, doesn't that defeat the purpose of allowing something to be used in commercial works? It couldn't truly be commercial if you have to be released back under the same license (free to be used), right?
Don't get me wrong, I really do like Creative Commons as a whole, it's just that I feel like we are right back where we started: consulting lawyers to figure out which samples can be used in what songs, when it sure seems like that was part of what CC was trying to get away from in the first place!
It just seems like ten iPods is a lot for one person and will just end up being given away. What better way to get 9 more people hooked on buying iTunes downloads (and by extension other Apple products)?
Well that's exactly what happened in Japan when the PS2 came out. It was the cheapest DVD player on the market, and people bought them in droves for that very reason. They'd like nothing more than to repeat that success, this time in a bigger video markeet (the US). The big wild card is whether consumers will actually care enough about Blu-ray for this angle to make a difference.
What I think we're all missing here as that raising the price of a single song makes purchasing the album more attractive. It's simple. If 1 song costs $2.49 and an album (around 10-12 songs) costs $9.99, I as a consumer am going to feel that buying the album is the "better deal" than the single track. The problem with iTunes for the labels is that there isn't much of an incentive to buy the higher priced item (the album) when all you want is 2 or 3 songs and you can get them for $.99 each. Make those 2 or 3 songs $2.49 each, and buying the album becomes much more attractive to the consumer.