Sorry, but the minute you allow an ISP to block "spam" they are going to expand this to its logical conclusion. They are now in the business of identifying incoming mail as spam or not so why should they not also identify outbound mail as such?
Mail filtering at the ISP level results in this sort of nonsense. You can beg them to allow your important mail through, but if they have a filter which rejects all mail with the word "sales" in it good luck carrying on an email discussion with someone about the comedian Soupy Sales.
Basically, the ISP's have taken the initiative on this because other spam solutions depend on users. And those aren't working. So here we are - collateral damage is what the antispam crowd calls it. Too bad. If you don't like it, find another ISP.
If the news folks are anything like they are in the US, then the news reports are just going to spread panic rather than do anything useful. Do you want reporters interviewing rape victims with the tagline "it could happen to you"? Do you want your children watching such news programs? Why not? Wouldn't that be censorship? Do you think you have the right to censor your children's watching of important news-making events?
Seriously, that was happening in Phoenix recently. A man was raping 12-14 year old girls in their homes. Some of the news reports were a little over the top.
Linux hardware support might very well come. Open-source drivers aren't going to be the way it happens.
The problem is today most computer gear is commodity chips with the software/firmware/driver making it a unique product with a value proposition for the consumer. The hardware is easy to replicate - China has built a large part of their enconomy doing just that. The software is more difficult - so much more difficult that successful companies in the hardware space may be taking advantage of Far East production of the hardware device but keeping the firmware and drivers close to the vest. Failure to do that invites theft and results in a cheap knock-off with the R&D provided for them.
What this means is a printer where the driver does most of the work is cheap to design and cheap to produce. Anyone can copy the printer. Copying the driver - unless the hardware is 100% identical - isn't going to work. But if the source were available, it could easily be adapted to slightly different hardware by a junior programmer. Instant windfall for someone.
Same goes for a next-generation gigabit network card that has firmware downloaded into it or just about any software-based device you can think of.
Patent protection is meaningless in a global environment where one party doesn't respect any patents. Look at the DVD player situation today - $29 retail DVD players are not paying the $6 DVD Forum licensing fee. There isn't enough room in there for $6 to anyone. But the US Customs folks allow these in all day long even though they are violating US patents. To block them would uselessly create trade problems and would prevent US consumers from getting cheap DVD players. This happens with every other sort of device you can imagine.
Let's see... if I can get five radiation detectors to show a high reading, I'll bet I can convince people that there is real danger. Anybody at all.
So now I have "proof" that the government is hiding a terrorist attack or a nuclear plant meltdown. And if people stay in NYC they are all going to die. Soon. Do you think I could get some shady cable news folks to buy into this? Sure, they all want to believe the government would kill millions of people.
Why would the police get involved? Who would call the police if they thought the government was hiding this information? They would go right to the "responsible" people that would inform everyone and keep them safe, right? Surely in today's USA you trust MSNBC more than the government... or Fox News, or CNN or the Village Voice. Basically, I think you could say people trust anyone more than the government. So how exactly would this cause problems for the police? Except when the police finally noticed that people were running for somewhere else in a blind panic.
I suspect someone asked a lawyer about this and banning the devices is the only possible action. Think about it.
Could you make it illegal to tell anyone other than the police about your radiation detector reading? No.
Could you make it illegal for the news media to report on such things without real confirmation? No.
Could you somehow prevent "uncertified" detectors from being used? Not really.
Face it, if you want to create a panic, this would be one really, really good way to go about it. It would shut down the city in an afternoon and it would be days before the government got ahold of the situation enough to say "hoax". And would everyone believe them? Not on your life. People would be making movies about the great cover-up for decades.
The problem - as you point out - is irresponsible people operating such a device and not knowing anything about it. I'll bet the source for this new law isn't just someone daydreaming and staring out the window trying to think up new laws.
Imagine someone with a geiger counter gets some kind of reading. Are they going to call the police? Of course not. They are going to call their nearest friends. And the news media. I'll bet with the right propagation I could get the entire island of Manhatten evacuated before knowledgeable, responsible people could get a hold of the situation and calm people down. Especially if there was some kind of reading that could scare people.
Why is the citizen perceived as the enemy? Real simple - irresponsible people and even more irresponsible news reporting causes panic. If someone with a geiger counter could run around saying "dirty bomb!!!! The government is hiding the truth!!!" they would be believed today. Almost everyone in the news media would love a story like that and they would think it was their personal ticket to fame and fortune. Instant network news anchor spot.
Could the government stop such a panic once it started? Who knows. How many people would die in the panic as everyone ran around in circles?
I'll bet someone tried this already and it didn't really succeed. Maybe they did call the police instead of CNN or MSNBC or Fox News. Too bad really, it would have been fun to watch from way, way out here in Phoenix.
The Illinois Toll Authority implemented the EZ-Pass system with a lot of fanfare about how no records were kept. They made a big point about how there were no privacy considerations for having a transponder (not RFID in the usual sense) in your car.
An enterprising divorce attorney then took it upon himself to subpoena records from the Toll Authority, in spite of their PR campaign and very public statements to the effect that such records simply did not exist. The attorney was awarded the records and I believe it was material the divorce proceeding.
Shortly after that, detailed records were made available in billing information to customers. I guess there wasn't any point in denying that the information existed any longer.
Everyone can be surprised by what can be found when a court orders it to be turned over.
The sensors at retail stores are not RFID in any way. They broadcast a signal and look for a resonance. Upon finding one there is a specific change that occurs with the RF field that can be detected. The objects in the merchandise are resonators, not active RFID chips. A resonator is like $0.01 in quantity, or even less. An RFID chip is more like $0.30 in very, very large quantities - more like $2.00 in smaller quantities.
RFID in retail merchandise is going to be a long time in coming, if ever. Could it be done? Sure, but all the chips from China won't work and will need to be recalled two or three times. I just don't see them adding $2 to each pair of shoes, or anything else. WalMart is pushing for lower, lower, lower prices and aren't going to put up with $0.30 extra, much less $2.00. $2.00 per pallet, with 1000 items on the pallet? Sure. But not each one of them.
Aside from the basic "Book of Mormon" there are lots of documents about Joseph Smith that are not public and are considered by Mormons to be secret. If someone snuck into the archive in Salt Lake City and stole these documents, who knows what the result would be? I would be willing to bet that they would use the full force of law enforcement as well as the civil courts to block any publication and to arrest the thieves.
As mentioned, the Vatican also has secret archives. Want to know what some pope was doing in their spare time in the 12th century? I'm sure it is documented - and very, very secret. Read the book "Angels and Demons" for a glimpse into that - not all that far off from the truth considering how the Catholics hate the author.
Anybody seen a translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls? There is enough material there to fill a bookshelf, but nobody has access to it. Some was to be disclosed recently, but nothing that would "undermine faith" will ever be revealed.
There are plenty of secrets in all religions. Nobody has stolen them and published them with any other religion except Scientology. That is the big difference. I doubt many people have a real grasp of how much wealth is in the hands of the Catholic leadership. If they got seriously ticked at someone they could buy any kind of enforcement they wanted. Several times over.
We are currently leaving a culture alone that is responsible for female genital mutiliation and far, far worse. This culture seems to think that if they indoctrinate enough young people that life has no meaning other than to further the political ends of some radicals they will eventually win.
Call them Democrats, Progressives or Islamists. All of them are programming young people and we're sitting by and letting them do it.
You want to start judging religions by their beliefs and practices? Better get the big guns, because you're hunting for bear. Catholics and Muslims both have had obnoxious practices and beliefs, some of which persist today. Every religion has some that think it has no value and we would all be better off without it.
The Muslim faith has been associated with pedophilia, murder, torture, forced conversions, and a whole host of other bad acts.
Not all of these were done thousands of years ago.
The Catholic faith is clearly connected with pedophilia, child rape, torture, murder, incitement of violence, and a whole host of other bad acts. Some of these are going on right now.
Do we see a tiny problem with religion in general? What is this about the pot and the kettle?
I don't think it is a wise choice in the US today to be attacking a religion on any grounds whatsoever. Regardless of what you think the justification might be. There are no clean hands in this business.
Are you nuts? What is the band-related T-shirt? It is an advertisement that was made by the promotion company contracted by the recording company that is marketing the recorded music from the band. The first thing that goes is the promotional dollars.
You want to pay $50 for the T-shirt? I thought not.
Sure, there are some bands that have shirts on Cafe Press. No, these aren't sold in bulk at concerts. Prince probably makes his own as well. Last time I went to a county fair Charlie Daniels had some shirts as well, but nobody was buying them.
The scarcity is the quality - anyone can make music but only a few make music anyone wants to listen to.
What is happening is the scarcity is being artificially removed and replaced with placing all music, good and bad, on the same level of zero cost.
Music performance is a joke. Nobody has time to deal with concerts and without heavy promotion (by the record companies), they aren't going to exist at the same level. If they aren't playing at the neighborhood bar, nobody is going to hear about it and nobody is going to go into the battlezone that is the decaying inner city for a concert.
Sorry, but today "lending" music means copying it on the Internet for not just a friend or two but the planet. What, you aren't sharing? What are you, greedy or selfish? Why buy when you can just "share"?
Today's population of music listeners have grown to expect stuff for free, and if it isn't nailed down it develops legs and walks out the door. It happens at Best Buy, and it is going to happen with anything digital that can be shared.
Morality? I see a grab-all-you-can attitude and if you aren't grabbing you're left out.
What you apparently don't understand is the degree to which promotional efforts run the US economy. Sure, music will get made and music will be listened to. Absolutely. But music will not be promoted.
This means that a concert which might have been promoted by a record company will go unnoticed except by a few fans. So what, right?
This means that the advertising agencies that are 100% supported by music promotion - because they specialize in it - will be out of business. Again, so what?
Magazines that are "trade rags" for the music industry will disappear because there is no "industry" of recorded music. The "ratings" (such as they are) promulgated by these magazines and the other promotional spending disappear. This is probably the biggest deal because it means radio stations that exist to assemble their playlist from these ratings will be left with... nothing.
I'd say that certainly, music will be played and listened to. But a significant segment of the US economy will disappear, radio stations will close down and a bunch of magazines you never heard of will also disappear. End result, probably a 100,000 people or so out of work. Maybe more.
It's bigger than the "artists" and the "record company exec's" and it has been for a long, long time. The problem is that everyone wants to focus on those people and forget about the rest. OK, let's collapse the music "industry" - just watch out because there will be some people pretty defensive about their jobs and they seem to be invisible to most people. They are going to start to get real visible, real soon.
It's not the individual "I'm not gonna pay" pirate that is the problem. It is the "I'm going to give this to the planet" pirate that ensures there is no value to recorded music.
The sooner everyone is participating in the "buy one, share with the planet" strategy and coordinating media purchases to ensure one and only one copy is sold, then we will finally be free of advertising, promotion and the RIAA.
Pity about all the jobs, but they are all just leeches anyway, right?
Unfortunately, the RIAA/MPAA are in the position you acknowledge of content owner. They own the copyrights or at least have the ability to seek enforcement of infringement. The current crop of people railing against copyrights and the lawsuits are not in a position to dictate how the RIAA/MPAA products are to be sold.
If nobody wanted their products and they were buying government support for their business, that would be different. But obviously there is a market for music the RIAA is empowered to seek enforcement for infringement. That some people believe there is no reason for an "offline" marketplace and only desire an "online" marketplace is no reason to claim that the "offline" marketplace is outmoded and should be abolished.
Piracy is an established fact. Nobody I know is willing to pay for music any longer because it is available for free. As long as the "providers" are outside the jusidiction of the US copyright laws, there is no stopping the providing. Should the content owners make it even easier to upload their products to the non-paying part of the planet? I suppose the argument exists that it doesn't make any difference.
But currently the universities are teaching Internet == Free. Software, music, movies, books, anything in digital form on the Internet is free.
The problem is with board games and the like, you either deal with the world's largest retailer (and therefore have access to the world's largest retail marketplace) or you go out of business. WalMart's doesn't really care. Consumers are not going to not shop at WalMart if they no longer carry Hasbro products, but Hasbro will certainly be out of business if their products are not sold at WalMart.
It is pretty simple for suppliers. You conform to the terms and stay in business or else.
WalMart has pretty much tied the US consumer market up like this, either with real or imagined savings. The consumer has little choice in the matter, and given WalMart's position, every other retailer is going to go down the same road sooner or later.
Already large groups of people believe that software is "free" - they download it, install it and use it. They never paid a dime for it. They aren't going to, because someone made it available to them for free and you can count on people continuing to do so. Regardless of any laws to the contrary.
They have been doing this for years, since before the "Internet", although it has really taken off with the advent of warez web sites, P2P downloading and other stuff.
You are never going to convince someone that "vendor lock-in" is bad when they consider they are shafting the vendor just as much as the vendor is shafting them. Excessive costs? What cost? They are getting this stuff for free.
Does everyone do this? No, but it is a sizable group. Certainly enough to make a dent in overall statistics of revenue and use. The folks "in the know" about this consider the people paying to be losers and dummies, so you need a "guide" to get in with the right crowd. Information like this isn't free, especially for the people that are just graduating from AOL U.
Arguing about "free" software is pointless to these people. They aren't going to listen because to them all software is "free". There are no "vendors", there is no "support" and there are no costs.
Unfortunately, you are missing the target of most of the people on the planet right now.
Piracy == getting stuff for free.
Paying is for losers. Sharing is for winners. As long as people believe this and have it drilled into them in universities all over the world, there is no stopping piracy. Look at the numbers in the PDF - there are hundreds of millions of people using P2P networks to share files and not pay. What possible occurrence could make these people stop sharing and start paying? My belief is nothing, nothing at all.
If you expose something in digital form, your chance of getting revenue from it is zero. Because people believe that there is nothing wrong with "sharing". The EFF expresses the opinion that distribution electronically does not constitute publishing - which means you can't violate copyright through electronic distribution.
Sort of makes a mockery of GPL, doesn't it? Pretty much means that if it is digital, it is free. Perhaps in 20 years the only things with value will be those that are not and never have been in digital form.
Why would anyone ever, ever pay after experiencing half a lifetime of downloading for free?
The "artists" better find some other way of getting paid other than making music and selling recordings. Begging on street corners with a guitar works.
No way is anyone under 30 I know going to some day wake up and decide they are going to start paying for music suddenly.
Nobody is going to respect any rights in the digital domain, ever.
We've grown up a generation that thinks if it can be sent over a wire, it should be free. If I can find a way to download it, I took it for free. Therefore, I'm a winner and the people paying are suckers and losers.
If you honestly believe that "content creators" and their agents should have any rights, you must be over 30. I'm over 30 but I don't know many people under 30 that believe that - the Internet is free, everything on it should be free and whatever you can download is yours for free. Or so the thinking goes.
I do not see any "middle ground" in this. Nor do I see a good way to extract revenue out of recorded music or movies that can be transferred digitially. Back in the 1980s it was a common belief that new Apple II games would sell two copies, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast - everyone else would get their copy via the BBS network. This is where we are with music today and shortly to be there with movies.
I think the entire system is headed for a crash and it will be interesting to see what can be cobbled together from the wreckage.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but the minute you allow an ISP to block "spam" they are going to expand this to its logical conclusion. They are now in the business of identifying incoming mail as spam or not so why should they not also identify outbound mail as such?
Mail filtering at the ISP level results in this sort of nonsense. You can beg them to allow your important mail through, but if they have a filter which rejects all mail with the word "sales" in it good luck carrying on an email discussion with someone about the comedian Soupy Sales.
Basically, the ISP's have taken the initiative on this because other spam solutions depend on users. And those aren't working. So here we are - collateral damage is what the antispam crowd calls it. Too bad. If you don't like it, find another ISP.
If the news folks are anything like they are in the US, then the news reports are just going to spread panic rather than do anything useful. Do you want reporters interviewing rape victims with the tagline "it could happen to you"? Do you want your children watching such news programs? Why not? Wouldn't that be censorship? Do you think you have the right to censor your children's watching of important news-making events?
Seriously, that was happening in Phoenix recently. A man was raping 12-14 year old girls in their homes. Some of the news reports were a little over the top.
Linux hardware support might very well come. Open-source drivers aren't going to be the way it happens.
The problem is today most computer gear is commodity chips with the software/firmware/driver making it a unique product with a value proposition for the consumer. The hardware is easy to replicate - China has built a large part of their enconomy doing just that. The software is more difficult - so much more difficult that successful companies in the hardware space may be taking advantage of Far East production of the hardware device but keeping the firmware and drivers close to the vest. Failure to do that invites theft and results in a cheap knock-off with the R&D provided for them.
What this means is a printer where the driver does most of the work is cheap to design and cheap to produce. Anyone can copy the printer. Copying the driver - unless the hardware is 100% identical - isn't going to work. But if the source were available, it could easily be adapted to slightly different hardware by a junior programmer. Instant windfall for someone.
Same goes for a next-generation gigabit network card that has firmware downloaded into it or just about any software-based device you can think of.
Patent protection is meaningless in a global environment where one party doesn't respect any patents. Look at the DVD player situation today - $29 retail DVD players are not paying the $6 DVD Forum licensing fee. There isn't enough room in there for $6 to anyone. But the US Customs folks allow these in all day long even though they are violating US patents. To block them would uselessly create trade problems and would prevent US consumers from getting cheap DVD players. This happens with every other sort of device you can imagine.
So now I have "proof" that the government is hiding a terrorist attack or a nuclear plant meltdown. And if people stay in NYC they are all going to die. Soon. Do you think I could get some shady cable news folks to buy into this? Sure, they all want to believe the government would kill millions of people.
Why would the police get involved? Who would call the police if they thought the government was hiding this information? They would go right to the "responsible" people that would inform everyone and keep them safe, right? Surely in today's USA you trust MSNBC more than the government... or Fox News, or CNN or the Village Voice. Basically, I think you could say people trust anyone more than the government. So how exactly would this cause problems for the police? Except when the police finally noticed that people were running for somewhere else in a blind panic.
I suspect someone asked a lawyer about this and banning the devices is the only possible action. Think about it.
Face it, if you want to create a panic, this would be one really, really good way to go about it. It would shut down the city in an afternoon and it would be days before the government got ahold of the situation enough to say "hoax". And would everyone believe them? Not on your life. People would be making movies about the great cover-up for decades.
The problem is reporting bogus results to news media people who then think "Instant Pulizer" and run with the story about the big government cover-up.
If it gets reported fast enough, I'd bet you could get Manhattan evacuated.
The problem - as you point out - is irresponsible people operating such a device and not knowing anything about it. I'll bet the source for this new law isn't just someone daydreaming and staring out the window trying to think up new laws.
Imagine someone with a geiger counter gets some kind of reading. Are they going to call the police? Of course not. They are going to call their nearest friends. And the news media. I'll bet with the right propagation I could get the entire island of Manhatten evacuated before knowledgeable, responsible people could get a hold of the situation and calm people down. Especially if there was some kind of reading that could scare people.
Why is the citizen perceived as the enemy? Real simple - irresponsible people and even more irresponsible news reporting causes panic. If someone with a geiger counter could run around saying "dirty bomb!!!! The government is hiding the truth!!!" they would be believed today. Almost everyone in the news media would love a story like that and they would think it was their personal ticket to fame and fortune. Instant network news anchor spot.
Could the government stop such a panic once it started? Who knows. How many people would die in the panic as everyone ran around in circles?
I'll bet someone tried this already and it didn't really succeed. Maybe they did call the police instead of CNN or MSNBC or Fox News. Too bad really, it would have been fun to watch from way, way out here in Phoenix.
The Illinois Toll Authority implemented the EZ-Pass system with a lot of fanfare about how no records were kept. They made a big point about how there were no privacy considerations for having a transponder (not RFID in the usual sense) in your car.
An enterprising divorce attorney then took it upon himself to subpoena records from the Toll Authority, in spite of their PR campaign and very public statements to the effect that such records simply did not exist. The attorney was awarded the records and I believe it was material the divorce proceeding.
Shortly after that, detailed records were made available in billing information to customers. I guess there wasn't any point in denying that the information existed any longer.
Everyone can be surprised by what can be found when a court orders it to be turned over.
The sensors at retail stores are not RFID in any way. They broadcast a signal and look for a resonance. Upon finding one there is a specific change that occurs with the RF field that can be detected. The objects in the merchandise are resonators, not active RFID chips. A resonator is like $0.01 in quantity, or even less. An RFID chip is more like $0.30 in very, very large quantities - more like $2.00 in smaller quantities.
RFID in retail merchandise is going to be a long time in coming, if ever. Could it be done? Sure, but all the chips from China won't work and will need to be recalled two or three times. I just don't see them adding $2 to each pair of shoes, or anything else. WalMart is pushing for lower, lower, lower prices and aren't going to put up with $0.30 extra, much less $2.00. $2.00 per pallet, with 1000 items on the pallet? Sure. But not each one of them.
Ask the people in inner-city Detroit or Washington DC. By this rule, murder should be legal, at least in those places.
Certainly prostitution, extortion and drugs should be legal. Just like the Internet.
There are no consequences to actions on the Internet, and this just affirms it.
Sadly, you are wrong.
Aside from the basic "Book of Mormon" there are lots of documents about Joseph Smith that are not public and are considered by Mormons to be secret. If someone snuck into the archive in Salt Lake City and stole these documents, who knows what the result would be? I would be willing to bet that they would use the full force of law enforcement as well as the civil courts to block any publication and to arrest the thieves.
As mentioned, the Vatican also has secret archives. Want to know what some pope was doing in their spare time in the 12th century? I'm sure it is documented - and very, very secret. Read the book "Angels and Demons" for a glimpse into that - not all that far off from the truth considering how the Catholics hate the author.
Anybody seen a translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls? There is enough material there to fill a bookshelf, but nobody has access to it. Some was to be disclosed recently, but nothing that would "undermine faith" will ever be revealed.
There are plenty of secrets in all religions. Nobody has stolen them and published them with any other religion except Scientology. That is the big difference. I doubt many people have a real grasp of how much wealth is in the hands of the Catholic leadership. If they got seriously ticked at someone they could buy any kind of enforcement they wanted. Several times over.
We are currently leaving a culture alone that is responsible for female genital mutiliation and far, far worse. This culture seems to think that if they indoctrinate enough young people that life has no meaning other than to further the political ends of some radicals they will eventually win.
Call them Democrats, Progressives or Islamists. All of them are programming young people and we're sitting by and letting them do it.
You want to start judging religions by their beliefs and practices? Better get the big guns, because you're hunting for bear. Catholics and Muslims both have had obnoxious practices and beliefs, some of which persist today. Every religion has some that think it has no value and we would all be better off without it.
Who's going to go first? Better, when do we stop?
The Muslim faith has been associated with pedophilia, murder, torture, forced conversions, and a whole host of other bad acts.
Not all of these were done thousands of years ago.
The Catholic faith is clearly connected with pedophilia, child rape, torture, murder, incitement of violence, and a whole host of other bad acts. Some of these are going on right now.
Do we see a tiny problem with religion in general? What is this about the pot and the kettle?
I don't think it is a wise choice in the US today to be attacking a religion on any grounds whatsoever. Regardless of what you think the justification might be. There are no clean hands in this business.
Are you nuts? What is the band-related T-shirt? It is an advertisement that was made by the promotion company contracted by the recording company that is marketing the recorded music from the band. The first thing that goes is the promotional dollars.
You want to pay $50 for the T-shirt? I thought not.
Sure, there are some bands that have shirts on Cafe Press. No, these aren't sold in bulk at concerts. Prince probably makes his own as well. Last time I went to a county fair Charlie Daniels had some shirts as well, but nobody was buying them.
The scarcity is the quality - anyone can make music but only a few make music anyone wants to listen to.
What is happening is the scarcity is being artificially removed and replaced with placing all music, good and bad, on the same level of zero cost.
Music performance is a joke. Nobody has time to deal with concerts and without heavy promotion (by the record companies), they aren't going to exist at the same level. If they aren't playing at the neighborhood bar, nobody is going to hear about it and nobody is going to go into the battlezone that is the decaying inner city for a concert.
Sorry, but today "lending" music means copying it on the Internet for not just a friend or two but the planet. What, you aren't sharing? What are you, greedy or selfish? Why buy when you can just "share"?
Today's population of music listeners have grown to expect stuff for free, and if it isn't nailed down it develops legs and walks out the door. It happens at Best Buy, and it is going to happen with anything digital that can be shared.
Morality? I see a grab-all-you-can attitude and if you aren't grabbing you're left out.
What you apparently don't understand is the degree to which promotional efforts run the US economy. Sure, music will get made and music will be listened to. Absolutely. But music will not be promoted.
... nothing.
This means that a concert which might have been promoted by a record company will go unnoticed except by a few fans. So what, right?
This means that the advertising agencies that are 100% supported by music promotion - because they specialize in it - will be out of business. Again, so what?
Magazines that are "trade rags" for the music industry will disappear because there is no "industry" of recorded music. The "ratings" (such as they are) promulgated by these magazines and the other promotional spending disappear. This is probably the biggest deal because it means radio stations that exist to assemble their playlist from these ratings will be left with
I'd say that certainly, music will be played and listened to. But a significant segment of the US economy will disappear, radio stations will close down and a bunch of magazines you never heard of will also disappear. End result, probably a 100,000 people or so out of work. Maybe more.
It's bigger than the "artists" and the "record company exec's" and it has been for a long, long time. The problem is that everyone wants to focus on those people and forget about the rest. OK, let's collapse the music "industry" - just watch out because there will be some people pretty defensive about their jobs and they seem to be invisible to most people. They are going to start to get real visible, real soon.
It's not the individual "I'm not gonna pay" pirate that is the problem. It is the "I'm going to give this to the planet" pirate that ensures there is no value to recorded music.
The sooner everyone is participating in the "buy one, share with the planet" strategy and coordinating media purchases to ensure one and only one copy is sold, then we will finally be free of advertising, promotion and the RIAA.
Pity about all the jobs, but they are all just leeches anyway, right?
Unfortunately, the RIAA/MPAA are in the position you acknowledge of content owner. They own the copyrights or at least have the ability to seek enforcement of infringement. The current crop of people railing against copyrights and the lawsuits are not in a position to dictate how the RIAA/MPAA products are to be sold.
If nobody wanted their products and they were buying government support for their business, that would be different. But obviously there is a market for music the RIAA is empowered to seek enforcement for infringement. That some people believe there is no reason for an "offline" marketplace and only desire an "online" marketplace is no reason to claim that the "offline" marketplace is outmoded and should be abolished.
Piracy is an established fact. Nobody I know is willing to pay for music any longer because it is available for free. As long as the "providers" are outside the jusidiction of the US copyright laws, there is no stopping the providing. Should the content owners make it even easier to upload their products to the non-paying part of the planet? I suppose the argument exists that it doesn't make any difference.
But currently the universities are teaching Internet == Free. Software, music, movies, books, anything in digital form on the Internet is free.
The problem is with board games and the like, you either deal with the world's largest retailer (and therefore have access to the world's largest retail marketplace) or you go out of business. WalMart's doesn't really care. Consumers are not going to not shop at WalMart if they no longer carry Hasbro products, but Hasbro will certainly be out of business if their products are not sold at WalMart.
It is pretty simple for suppliers. You conform to the terms and stay in business or else.
WalMart has pretty much tied the US consumer market up like this, either with real or imagined savings. The consumer has little choice in the matter, and given WalMart's position, every other retailer is going to go down the same road sooner or later.
You don't really think the ISP is going to say "well, if you are going to make it hard we just don't need that revenue." Really?
No, they are going to say "We are getting it from Google or our customer. Pick one."
If you think it isn't going to turn out that way, think again.
Already large groups of people believe that software is "free" - they download it, install it and use it. They never paid a dime for it. They aren't going to, because someone made it available to them for free and you can count on people continuing to do so. Regardless of any laws to the contrary.
They have been doing this for years, since before the "Internet", although it has really taken off with the advent of warez web sites, P2P downloading and other stuff.
You are never going to convince someone that "vendor lock-in" is bad when they consider they are shafting the vendor just as much as the vendor is shafting them. Excessive costs? What cost? They are getting this stuff for free.
Does everyone do this? No, but it is a sizable group. Certainly enough to make a dent in overall statistics of revenue and use. The folks "in the know" about this consider the people paying to be losers and dummies, so you need a "guide" to get in with the right crowd. Information like this isn't free, especially for the people that are just graduating from AOL U.
Arguing about "free" software is pointless to these people. They aren't going to listen because to them all software is "free". There are no "vendors", there is no "support" and there are no costs.
Unfortunately, you are missing the target of most of the people on the planet right now.
Piracy == getting stuff for free.
Paying is for losers. Sharing is for winners. As long as people believe this and have it drilled into them in universities all over the world, there is no stopping piracy. Look at the numbers in the PDF - there are hundreds of millions of people using P2P networks to share files and not pay. What possible occurrence could make these people stop sharing and start paying? My belief is nothing, nothing at all.
If you expose something in digital form, your chance of getting revenue from it is zero. Because people believe that there is nothing wrong with "sharing". The EFF expresses the opinion that distribution electronically does not constitute publishing - which means you can't violate copyright through electronic distribution.
Sort of makes a mockery of GPL, doesn't it? Pretty much means that if it is digital, it is free. Perhaps in 20 years the only things with value will be those that are not and never have been in digital form.
Why would anyone ever, ever pay after experiencing half a lifetime of downloading for free?
The "artists" better find some other way of getting paid other than making music and selling recordings. Begging on street corners with a guitar works.
No way is anyone under 30 I know going to some day wake up and decide they are going to start paying for music suddenly.
Nobody is going to respect any rights in the digital domain, ever.
We've grown up a generation that thinks if it can be sent over a wire, it should be free. If I can find a way to download it, I took it for free. Therefore, I'm a winner and the people paying are suckers and losers.
If you honestly believe that "content creators" and their agents should have any rights, you must be over 30. I'm over 30 but I don't know many people under 30 that believe that - the Internet is free, everything on it should be free and whatever you can download is yours for free. Or so the thinking goes.
I do not see any "middle ground" in this. Nor do I see a good way to extract revenue out of recorded music or movies that can be transferred digitially. Back in the 1980s it was a common belief that new Apple II games would sell two copies, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast - everyone else would get their copy via the BBS network. This is where we are with music today and shortly to be there with movies.
I think the entire system is headed for a crash and it will be interesting to see what can be cobbled together from the wreckage.