#1) This is simply not true. Capitalism (with an a - the word capitol refers to three things: Washington, D.C., the Roman temple of Jupiter, where the Senate met, or a U.S. statehouse (where a state legislature meets), according to Webster) isn't necessarily the best thing in the world. Pure capitalism can be synonymous with pure evil due to the nature of human being. Simply because this is true doesn't mean we should embrace it. However, capitalism and art are two things that generally should stay apart. As an artist, you should realize this because:
To maintain artistic integrity, one has to be free of the forces of censorship and repression, at least insofar as being "free" to say what you will or draw or photograph what you will, etc. Capitulating to the demands of *anything* can be shown to mean that you've lost some of your artistic integrity.
Which brings us to Star Wars. Now, admittedly, I'm not as into the hype as some of the other people in the world, nor am I one of those who follows Star Wars as a religion. That aside, not only is it tacky to put images from your movie on disposable plastic cups, lunch boxes, toys, magazine covers, etc., but it violates artistic integrity because the case can me made that, when such merchandising follows so quickly on the heels of a movie (which is an art form), one has deliberately placed these objects into the movie strictly for marketing value, and, possibly removed images from the movie which were or could be construed to be disturbing, and contrary to the "goal" of making lots and lots of money.
To sum up and give yet another perspective on why capitalism and art are not two things that mix well, examine, if you will, the actor, the artist, and the whore. All of which perform their craft for the entertainment of others, for money. All of which, if they're supremely excellent, truly enjoy and believe in what they're doing. What actors, artists, etc., strive for is to not be that whore. That's why there is such a concept as artistic integrity. This is why Lucas doesn't meet this test and such could be referred to as a whore, because he sold himself for the money that promised to arrive. It's not evil to make money - far from it. But to sacrifice your integrity for that money - that's not right. This is the crux of what Katz attempts to argue. I'm inclined to believe that while the hype surrounding this film *is* pretty high, I still remember collecting Star Wars toys (and there were *plenty*) as a child. It's nothing new, but that doesn't make it right.
Actually, that's not off-topic at all. I'm concerned that Real is going to kill off Xing's development of their MP3 encoder for Linux. Xing is currently beta testing their MP3 encoder on both i386 *and* PPC platforms. Real so far has shown a remarkable standoffishness towards Linux. I'm not too happy about this, because in theory this could mean the end of what was looking like a company who had shifted their focus from strictly M$ to more Linux-centric. I dunno.
Another brilliant posting from an AC. University professors don't make money from publishing works in the trades, fool. They publish their works so anyone can read them in order for peer review to take place. Research takes funds from grants to fuel itself. So your assertion that research funds schools is foolish.
Schools are concerned with piracy and MP3s only to limit their own liability. A better way to limit their liability would be to shut down their law schools so the silly lawyers would be forced to come up with another way to breed, but I digress.
There isn't anything requiring a person to disclose his or her thoughts. However, what the article very successfully argued was that if I happen to figure out what you were thinking, you don't "own" those thoughts and therefore I can duplicate the results of your thoughts. "If someone hoards their own knowledge and manages to create a superior product then I'll choose on product merit, philosophy." Fine. So I decide you're charging too much for your product and decide to come up with a product to duplicate your idea. What this article is saying to me is that the latter practice should not be illegal. Currently, assuming "someone" had patented enough of their idea, this practice would be illegal. This is a Bad Thing(tM).
I've got a really neato-keen way to remove clippy. Never install him. It's an option if you go to the custom install. I'd say to RTFM, but since that's more like reading the friendly configuration menu, I'll shut up:)
So there's a section there for gender on their app. Does it really matter?? Do women get higher precedence over men, or the other way around? Why the hell do they care?
I'm suprised no one has yet spoken up about the quality issues with watermarking. Watermarking is audible. You can take this technology, watermark something, broadcast it over FM radio (or AM radio) and analyze the signal from somewhere else and tell what the watermark is. This destroys the integrity of the signal. That is, you can hear the watermark, and it sounds like someone did something to your MP3. It sucks. DIVX does this to MPEG-2, and it looks like waterdroplets on your picture. Watermarking is simply not the answer.
"So long as people are willing to shell that much for CD's, that's how much they're going to be."
Oh really? And how else do you propose to go about purchasing music? The bottom line is that the only reasonable method for purchasing music today is the CD. Vinyl is almost impossible to find, as are decent turntables which don't run into thousands of dollars. Tapes are also harder to find than CDs, and are of much less quality. It is very possible for a record to sound as good as if not better than a CD. Tapes do not, and will not. Music is not distributed extensively on MiniDisc or DAT, nor is is distributed extensively on any format except for CD. So how does supply and demand work here? There's a monopoly at work.
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#1) This is simply not true. Capitalism (with an a - the word capitol refers to three things: Washington, D.C., the Roman temple of Jupiter, where the Senate met, or a U.S. statehouse (where a state legislature meets), according to Webster) isn't necessarily the best thing in the world. Pure capitalism can be synonymous with pure evil due to the nature of human being. Simply because this is true doesn't mean we should embrace it. However, capitalism and art are two things that generally should stay apart. As an artist, you should realize this because:
To maintain artistic integrity, one has to be free of the forces of censorship and repression, at least insofar as being "free" to say what you will or draw or photograph what you will, etc. Capitulating to the demands of *anything* can be shown to mean that you've lost some of your artistic integrity.
Which brings us to Star Wars. Now, admittedly, I'm not as into the hype as some of the other people in the world, nor am I one of those who follows Star Wars as a religion. That aside, not only is it tacky to put images from your movie on disposable plastic cups, lunch boxes, toys, magazine covers, etc., but it violates artistic integrity because the case can me made that, when such merchandising follows so quickly on the heels of a movie (which is an art form), one has deliberately placed these objects into the movie strictly for marketing value, and, possibly removed images from the movie which were or could be construed to be disturbing, and contrary to the "goal" of making lots and lots of money.
To sum up and give yet another perspective on why capitalism and art are not two things that mix well, examine, if you will, the actor, the artist, and the whore. All of which perform their craft for the entertainment of others, for money. All of which, if they're supremely excellent, truly enjoy and believe in what they're doing. What actors, artists, etc., strive for is to not be that whore. That's why there is such a concept as artistic integrity. This is why Lucas doesn't meet this test and such could be referred to as a whore, because he sold himself for the money that promised to arrive. It's not evil to make money - far from it. But to sacrifice your integrity for that money - that's not right. This is the crux of what Katz attempts to argue. I'm inclined to believe that while the hype surrounding this film *is* pretty high, I still remember collecting Star Wars toys (and there were *plenty*) as a child. It's nothing new, but that doesn't make it right.
Actually, that's not off-topic at all. I'm concerned that Real is going to kill off Xing's development of their MP3 encoder for Linux. Xing is currently beta testing their MP3 encoder on both i386 *and* PPC platforms. Real so far has shown a remarkable standoffishness towards Linux. I'm not too happy about this, because in theory this could mean the end of what was looking like a company who had shifted their focus from strictly M$ to more Linux-centric. I dunno.
Another brilliant posting from an AC. University professors don't make money from publishing works in the trades, fool. They publish their works so anyone can read them in order for peer review to take place. Research takes funds from grants to fuel itself. So your assertion that research funds schools is foolish.
Schools are concerned with piracy and MP3s only to limit their own liability. A better way to limit their liability would be to shut down their law schools so the silly lawyers would be forced to come up with another way to breed, but I digress.
One comment on your posting:
There isn't anything requiring a person to disclose his or her thoughts. However, what the article very successfully argued was that if I happen to figure out what you were thinking, you don't "own" those thoughts and therefore I can duplicate the results of your thoughts. "If someone hoards their own knowledge and manages to create a superior product then I'll choose on product merit, philosophy." Fine. So I decide you're charging too much for your product and decide to come up with a product to duplicate your idea. What this article is saying to me is that the latter practice should not be illegal. Currently, assuming "someone" had patented enough of their idea, this practice would be illegal. This is a Bad Thing(tM).
I've got a really neato-keen way to remove clippy. Never install him. It's an option if you go to the custom install. I'd say to RTFM, but since that's more like reading the friendly configuration menu, I'll shut up :)
So there's a section there for gender on their app. Does it really matter?? Do women get higher precedence over men, or the other way around? Why the hell do they care?
I'm suprised no one has yet spoken up about the quality issues with watermarking. Watermarking is audible. You can take this technology, watermark something, broadcast it over FM radio (or AM radio) and analyze the signal from somewhere else and tell what the watermark is. This destroys the integrity of the signal. That is, you can hear the watermark, and it sounds like someone did something to your MP3. It sucks. DIVX does this to MPEG-2, and it looks like waterdroplets on your picture. Watermarking is simply not the answer.
"So long as people are willing to shell that much for CD's, that's how much they're going to be."
Oh really? And how else do you propose to go about purchasing music? The bottom line is that the only reasonable method for purchasing music today is the CD. Vinyl is almost impossible to find, as are decent turntables which don't run into thousands of dollars. Tapes are also harder to find than CDs, and are of much less quality. It is very possible for a record to sound as good as if not better than a CD. Tapes do not, and will not. Music is not distributed extensively on MiniDisc or DAT, nor is is distributed extensively on any format except for CD. So how does supply and demand work here? There's a monopoly at work.