Simply throwing all studio musicians away as if they were garbage would be painfully costly. A lot of really good music is made that way, where the artist never performs at all. Just because the artist doesn't perform live shows doesn't make his or her music worthless. Or does it? If it does, then this world will have lost much, artistically speaking.
I don't think your average musician, entertainer or sports figure DOES make more than the rest of us, in general. Your average musician is, like, a dude playing a horn in some orchestra, or doing gigs for $300/night (split 4 ways, and that's before expenses), that kind of thing. Your average entertainer is some no-name actor or writer that makes $40k/year in a good year. Your average sports figure is the no-name guy you will never hear of slaving in baseball's minor leagues for $65k/year.
The exceptionally successful people in each of those fields DO make a lot of money, but the AVERAGE person in those fields does not. And that's true of pretty much any field: the exceptional CEO makes a ton of money, the exceptionally good brain surgeons make tons of money, and so on. I don't really have a problem with the best in any particular field making a lot of money; that's the American dream, to be the best in your field, and to reap rewards for being so. Everyone making the same paycheck regardless of talent or skill -- that's been tried, and it was called Communism.
Copyrights go far beyond touring musicians, in case you thought copyright only applied to touring musicians. So, you download a book and spread it around, so that more people...go see the author in concert? Um, authors don't have concerts. Some musicians are studio musicians and do not have concerts either. Photographers don't have concerts. Assuming that mass dissemination helps the copyright holders is a pretty idiotic assumption in my opinion.
Ultimately, he who has the power to destroy something controls it. (Paraphrase from Dune!) The persons with the ultimate power to destroy creative works are those who create them, who can destroy their creations by simply not creating them in the first place. If working at Mickey D's or whatever pays the mortgage and the medical bills and whatnot better than artistic creation, well, then people will move on to other endeavors that better provide for their families.
Do some artists profit from mass distribution of their works on P2P networks? I'm sure some do. But at the same time, I'm every bit as sure that a lot of them suffer as well. It would be better, would it not, if the artists got to make the decisions regarding their creations? I'm sure you may feel you have a right to make distribution decisions for people you don't know, for works you have contributed nothing to, but is that 'moral'? I doubt your average rational person would think so, and I doubt ANY artist would think so.
I've never had a Tivo, and don't see any reason to get one now. I have satellite TV, with a dual-tuner DVR that holds 100 hours. I can't auto-skip commercials but I can ff through them without any ads coming up (for anything time-shifted obviously, I can't ff thru realtime commercials since that would involve fast forwarding thru reality into the future).
So, is there anything Tivo would offer me for the price of the box and the subscription fee? The only thing I can think of is the recommendation thing, but I don't need that enough to pay anything for it. That's probably something the satellite providers will add to their DVRs eventually anyway.
Tivo looks to be a company without much future to me, or am I missing something?
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Simply throwing all studio musicians away as if they were garbage would be painfully costly. A lot of really good music is made that way, where the artist never performs at all. Just because the artist doesn't perform live shows doesn't make his or her music worthless. Or does it? If it does, then this world will have lost much, artistically speaking.
I don't think your average musician, entertainer or sports figure DOES make more than the rest of us, in general. Your average musician is, like, a dude playing a horn in some orchestra, or doing gigs for $300/night (split 4 ways, and that's before expenses), that kind of thing. Your average entertainer is some no-name actor or writer that makes $40k/year in a good year. Your average sports figure is the no-name guy you will never hear of slaving in baseball's minor leagues for $65k/year. The exceptionally successful people in each of those fields DO make a lot of money, but the AVERAGE person in those fields does not. And that's true of pretty much any field: the exceptional CEO makes a ton of money, the exceptionally good brain surgeons make tons of money, and so on. I don't really have a problem with the best in any particular field making a lot of money; that's the American dream, to be the best in your field, and to reap rewards for being so. Everyone making the same paycheck regardless of talent or skill -- that's been tried, and it was called Communism.
Copyrights go far beyond touring musicians, in case you thought copyright only applied to touring musicians. So, you download a book and spread it around, so that more people...go see the author in concert? Um, authors don't have concerts. Some musicians are studio musicians and do not have concerts either. Photographers don't have concerts. Assuming that mass dissemination helps the copyright holders is a pretty idiotic assumption in my opinion. Ultimately, he who has the power to destroy something controls it. (Paraphrase from Dune!) The persons with the ultimate power to destroy creative works are those who create them, who can destroy their creations by simply not creating them in the first place. If working at Mickey D's or whatever pays the mortgage and the medical bills and whatnot better than artistic creation, well, then people will move on to other endeavors that better provide for their families. Do some artists profit from mass distribution of their works on P2P networks? I'm sure some do. But at the same time, I'm every bit as sure that a lot of them suffer as well. It would be better, would it not, if the artists got to make the decisions regarding their creations? I'm sure you may feel you have a right to make distribution decisions for people you don't know, for works you have contributed nothing to, but is that 'moral'? I doubt your average rational person would think so, and I doubt ANY artist would think so.
I've never had a Tivo, and don't see any reason to get one now. I have satellite TV, with a dual-tuner DVR that holds 100 hours. I can't auto-skip commercials but I can ff through them without any ads coming up (for anything time-shifted obviously, I can't ff thru realtime commercials since that would involve fast forwarding thru reality into the future). So, is there anything Tivo would offer me for the price of the box and the subscription fee? The only thing I can think of is the recommendation thing, but I don't need that enough to pay anything for it. That's probably something the satellite providers will add to their DVRs eventually anyway. Tivo looks to be a company without much future to me, or am I missing something?