Both services are fairly new, and neither offer much if anything (at least that I've been able to find) in the way of the indie / alternative stuff that comprises a good 75% of my music library.
And the RIAA isn't going to sue you for the 75 percent of your music library that's comprised of indie / alternative stuff. They're going to sue people for stealing the stuff the RIAA's members actually make money off of.
The RIAA is a lobbying group funded by the major labels. It's not going to sue people trading music from indie bands and labels that don't give them any money.
As a linux geek who likes Mac OS, the big difference comes when I can make a decent linux box for between a half and a third of the cost for a decent Mac OS X box.
Don't true geeks buy two of every new gadget that comes out on the market so they can use one and take the other one apart? Aren't geek jobs some of the most highest paid professions in the country? Isn't a geek required by geek law to buy at least one piece of hardware of some sort per month in order to remain a true geek?
And you're worried about saving a couple hundred bucks on a COMPUTER? Hang your head in shame! You are no geek.
I had to teach my 75-year-old grandfather how to use a computer. Yes, trying to explain the difference between "left-click" and "right-click" can be VERY confusing. Trust me.:)
I'd rather go somewhere else where the music is better, the downloads are virtually unlimited and the sound quality is the best of any subscription service on the net (Lame VBR encoded MP3s).
Blah. I'll probably get modded down, but here goes...
"The recording industry is evil" mantra is like the "Big business is evil" mantra. It sounds real good and may be partially true, but artists still happily sign with labels without having a gun put to their head.
If a band is playing in some garage and a record exec comes in and puts down a contract, very few bands will say, "No, you're THE MAN! We want to stay independent! Sure, only the people in this area may ever hear us and we may only sell 100 albums a year and still have to work full time jobs, but at least we won't be working for someone evil like you!"
Record companies do put a lot of money into new artists before they even sell jack. That's one of the reasons they take so much on the back end. They take the risk of putting down hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to pay and promote a new artist that no one has heard of and just the year before was only singing in their church choir. If the artist sells lots of albums, I think the record company SHOULD make many times it's original investment because they're the ones that took the risk, not the artist.
It's easy to say "Oh, with the Internet any artist can distribute music on their own!" Yeah, that may be true but you still have to figure out some way to get people to your site. Record companies spend a lot of their money on promotion and marketing. If you put up a web site to sell your CD, MP3, ACC, whatever, but can't afford the money to promote it, aren't getting air play, have no video on MTV, no one knows who you are, your songs sound like they were produced in a garage, and you just hope you can just get by by having one fan tell another who tells another, you're probably not going to make a lot of money.
Some people talk about the record companies and their high prices like they're the Iraqi regime. They're keeping a tight grip on MUSIC, people! It's entertainment, not food and water. If you hate them, don't buy their music, don't steal their music. Just walk away and go read a book.
Hmmmm. That is a problem. On the one hand you don't have money. But on the other, you have lots of "free" time, or time where you're not doing anything. Just kinda wasting away and posting on Slashdot. How could those two situations help each other out? Could you some how use the free time to get some money? Hmmmm... OH!
Are you saying that the programmers and such who work for spam-filtering and other security companies have no other skills or abilities besides working for spam-filtering and security companies?
They've studied C++ for years and years but yet the only thing they seem to be able to come up with is e-mail filtering software? And if e-mail filtering software ever became obsolete, they would just sit in a corner, mumbling jibberish and writing e-mail filtering code on a blackboard like some type of computer security idiot savant?
I think they'd just get another job and move on with their life.
is buy a CD online for a much reduced price (where is the golden rule that says music produces/artist have to be millionaires? I mean, noone else is..)
ugh.
With the exception of dictators and congressmen, most people receive large paychecks because it's what they deserve.
Everyone now and then, I hear people whining about how much movie stars, performers, and sports figures get paid. And to me, that just reeks of pure jealousy. They get paid large amounts of money because of the value people put on their product, whether it be watching them in on a movie screen or TV set, listening to their music, or watching them play sports.
If you're so jealous of their success and you don't want them to be millionaries, DONT PAY MONEY FOR THEIR CRAP! Don't watch TV, don't go to the movies, don't buy music, and don't go to professional sporting events or watch them on TV.
They don't take your money from you (dictators). They don't force you to pay with your taxes (congressmen). You voluntarily give them money.
So the price of a CD or movie ticket should be lowered to whatever price would allow everyone responsible for creating that work to just make the average income level? Hey, welcome to communism!
Geez, some people act like inexpensive music CDs are a God-given right and that charging over X dollars for one is somehow immoral.
It's not air. You can live without it. Move along.
The talk floats up over their heads in chat balloons, or, bandwidth permitting, their voices ring out through computer speakers.
I love how the author describes this futuristic virtual world where everyone is a walking, talking, gesturing 3-D caricature but yet voice chat is limited due to bandwidth.
"See, when they move their hand, their avatar moves its hand! And as you turn your head, you can actually see everything that's around you! What? You want to HEAR what they're saying? Sorry, you'll have to use the 100 year old telephone."
Are there really people out there that think one day - 75, 100, 150 years from now - the world is going to wake up and say, "Crap we've run out of oil! We're screwed!" and then the entire planet will plunge into some sort of 22nd century dark ages?
Ain't gonna happen.
Human beings are incredibly resilient and smart. A new technology will coming along and take the place of oil. It's already happening. Regular car engines are becoming more fuel efficient. Hybrid engines exist. You can buy a hybrid car. Hydrogine engines are getting cheaper, etc...
If we did suck the planet dry of every drop of oil (which I don't think we ever will) we're not gonna miss it. Something else will come along. It always has.
If oil was never discovered or never existed in the first place, we wouldn't still be throwing rocks at animals to kill our dinner. Something else would have taken its place. Societies would have advanced no matter what road block was put in their way.
Yet, even knowing they had no way to prevent clones, Mirabilis still went ahead and created the field.
Yeah, and look at what a profitable company Mirabilis became because of it! Oh, wait...
I know, open sourcers love free for alls, but not everyone does. Some people wanna get paid for what they made. They want to own it. They want it to be theirs. They don't want others to copy off it or profit from it. I don't think that's such a bad thing.
Come up with your own ideas and GPL it till your heart's content.
First off, Maxis has to give away the initial program for FREE. Charging $40 PLUS $10 a month is just a rip off. I'm going to have to spend $50 just to try the thing and know it sucks?
Yeah, yeah, that's what you do with other games. But other games don't run on the subscription model. The Sims Online costs me $120/year to play (plus buying the $40 software). Unreal Tournament costed me $50 and I haven't had to pay any more since.
I think online games such as The Sims Online have a future, but the paying up front business model isn't going to fly. Give the software away for free and then just charge per month. It worked for AOL.:)
And so what if there's "only" 100,000 subscribers? If they stick around for a year, that's $16 million in revenue the first year. Seems good to me.
People, this is EBAY! It's a giant garage sale! There's tons of stupid red necks out there that are going to leave negative feedback. If only 1% of your feedback comments are negative, I doubt that's going to have any sort of serious impact on sales.
The feedback system is GOOD. eBay is GOOD. (except maybe for their search engine) I worry that all this bitching and lawsuit will take away from the giant swap mart feel and instead turn it into a giant Wal-Mart feel.
There's really no such thing as "libelous words". If you're sued for libel/slander, the biggest defense is the truth. If you say your nextdoor neighbor is a whore and she sues you, show the judge a video tape of a different guy arriving at her house every night and leaving every morning.
If you call a seller "dishonest" on eBay and he sues you, bring up the auction where he said "These magazines are in mint condition!" and then show the judge the crappy condition the magazines were in. You're not being libelous if you're telling the truth.
I don't know why MSNBC points out the "This man should be banned from eBay" comment, because that is obviously opinion. That's not libel by any stretch of the imagination. It's when you try to pass something off as fact that you get into a risky area.
In this case, the word "dishonest" isn't libelous if the guy was in fact dishonest. If he said he was selling you something in one condition and it ended up being in a different condition, you could consider that dishonest. However, the "all the way" part worries me more. That seems to say "EVERYTHING he said regarding this was a lie." The lawyer could point out the things he WAS honest about and therefore say the "all the way" part was not true.
However, I don't think the lawyer would win if this case went to trial. Judges are usally very big on free speech, and you have to have a damn good case if you're gonna sue someone for libel or slander and win. I don't know if a one liner on eBay about someone being dishonest is a very good case.
Your comment about the average person interested in a Segway being over 250 pounds is just a weak guess on your part and makes no sense. You honestly think the only use for a Segway is to be more lazy? Sheesh. I guess you just run everywhere.
And ADA lawsuits aren't gonna touch a private company's product, dumbass. Even bicycles have weight limits and the ADA isn't suing them.
The reason the stoplight buttons don't look right anymore is because they're now "inset". It's intentional. The rumor is the new Apple Digital Device(s) will have stoplight buttons on them to match the look of OS X's button. The digital device buttons will be inset and will probably also have a "brushed metal" exterior.
Slashdot Mirror
And the RIAA isn't going to sue you for the 75 percent of your music library that's comprised of indie / alternative stuff. They're going to sue people for stealing the stuff the RIAA's members actually make money off of.
The RIAA is a lobbying group funded by the major labels. It's not going to sue people trading music from indie bands and labels that don't give them any money.
Can I mod that as Funny just because you used the word "recockulus"?
A paycheck?
Don't true geeks buy two of every new gadget that comes out on the market so they can use one and take the other one apart? Aren't geek jobs some of the most highest paid professions in the country? Isn't a geek required by geek law to buy at least one piece of hardware of some sort per month in order to remain a true geek?
And you're worried about saving a couple hundred bucks on a COMPUTER? Hang your head in shame! You are no geek.
I had to teach my 75-year-old grandfather how to use a computer. Yes, trying to explain the difference between "left-click" and "right-click" can be VERY confusing. Trust me. :)
Hm. If only Linux groups could unite like this.
Yeah, look how well those caught on...
What am I talking about? EMusic of course.
You forgot, "Where the selection sucks."
Blah. I'll probably get modded down, but here goes...
"The recording industry is evil" mantra is like the "Big business is evil" mantra. It sounds real good and may be partially true, but artists still happily sign with labels without having a gun put to their head.
If a band is playing in some garage and a record exec comes in and puts down a contract, very few bands will say, "No, you're THE MAN! We want to stay independent! Sure, only the people in this area may ever hear us and we may only sell 100 albums a year and still have to work full time jobs, but at least we won't be working for someone evil like you!"
Record companies do put a lot of money into new artists before they even sell jack. That's one of the reasons they take so much on the back end. They take the risk of putting down hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to pay and promote a new artist that no one has heard of and just the year before was only singing in their church choir. If the artist sells lots of albums, I think the record company SHOULD make many times it's original investment because they're the ones that took the risk, not the artist.
It's easy to say "Oh, with the Internet any artist can distribute music on their own!" Yeah, that may be true but you still have to figure out some way to get people to your site. Record companies spend a lot of their money on promotion and marketing. If you put up a web site to sell your CD, MP3, ACC, whatever, but can't afford the money to promote it, aren't getting air play, have no video on MTV, no one knows who you are, your songs sound like they were produced in a garage, and you just hope you can just get by by having one fan tell another who tells another, you're probably not going to make a lot of money.
Some people talk about the record companies and their high prices like they're the Iraqi regime. They're keeping a tight grip on MUSIC, people! It's entertainment, not food and water. If you hate them, don't buy their music, don't steal their music. Just walk away and go read a book.
And this guy's a troll.
Well... Not to insert a serious comment into what at least five others have deemed to be "Funny", but...
The AAC format that Apple is using supposedly makes any MP3 burned from a CD that you made from the Apple Music Store sound crappy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah... There's ways around it, but it's not quite as easy as the three steps you laid out.
Back to being funny....
Hmmmm. That is a problem. On the one hand you don't have money. But on the other, you have lots of "free" time, or time where you're not doing anything. Just kinda wasting away and posting on Slashdot. How could those two situations help each other out? Could you some how use the free time to get some money? Hmmmm... OH!
HOW ABOUT GETTING A DAMN JOB?!?
Are you saying that the programmers and such who work for spam-filtering and other security companies have no other skills or abilities besides working for spam-filtering and security companies?
They've studied C++ for years and years but yet the only thing they seem to be able to come up with is e-mail filtering software? And if e-mail filtering software ever became obsolete, they would just sit in a corner, mumbling jibberish and writing e-mail filtering code on a blackboard like some type of computer security idiot savant?
I think they'd just get another job and move on with their life.
ugh.
With the exception of dictators and congressmen, most people receive large paychecks because it's what they deserve.
Everyone now and then, I hear people whining about how much movie stars, performers, and sports figures get paid. And to me, that just reeks of pure jealousy. They get paid large amounts of money because of the value people put on their product, whether it be watching them in on a movie screen or TV set, listening to their music, or watching them play sports.
If you're so jealous of their success and you don't want them to be millionaries, DONT PAY MONEY FOR THEIR CRAP! Don't watch TV, don't go to the movies, don't buy music, and don't go to professional sporting events or watch them on TV.
They don't take your money from you (dictators). They don't force you to pay with your taxes (congressmen). You voluntarily give them money.
So the price of a CD or movie ticket should be lowered to whatever price would allow everyone responsible for creating that work to just make the average income level? Hey, welcome to communism!
Geez, some people act like inexpensive music CDs are a God-given right and that charging over X dollars for one is somehow immoral.
It's not air. You can live without it. Move along.
Ummmm.. Shouldn't that be, "Mother, should I trust the corporate war photographer?"
I love how the author describes this futuristic virtual world where everyone is a walking, talking, gesturing 3-D caricature but yet voice chat is limited due to bandwidth.
"See, when they move their hand, their avatar moves its hand! And as you turn your head, you can actually see everything that's around you! What? You want to HEAR what they're saying? Sorry, you'll have to use the 100 year old telephone."
Are there really people out there that think one day - 75, 100, 150 years from now - the world is going to wake up and say, "Crap we've run out of oil! We're screwed!" and then the entire planet will plunge into some sort of 22nd century dark ages?
Ain't gonna happen.
Human beings are incredibly resilient and smart. A new technology will coming along and take the place of oil. It's already happening. Regular car engines are becoming more fuel efficient. Hybrid engines exist. You can buy a hybrid car. Hydrogine engines are getting cheaper, etc...
If we did suck the planet dry of every drop of oil (which I don't think we ever will) we're not gonna miss it. Something else will come along. It always has.
If oil was never discovered or never existed in the first place, we wouldn't still be throwing rocks at animals to kill our dinner. Something else would have taken its place. Societies would have advanced no matter what road block was put in their way.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $1 million for more teacher training.
Heh. That should have been part of the DOJ settlement.
Yeah, and look at what a profitable company Mirabilis became because of it! Oh, wait...
I know, open sourcers love free for alls, but not everyone does. Some people wanna get paid for what they made. They want to own it. They want it to be theirs. They don't want others to copy off it or profit from it. I don't think that's such a bad thing.
Come up with your own ideas and GPL it till your heart's content.
First off, Maxis has to give away the initial program for FREE. Charging $40 PLUS $10 a month is just a rip off. I'm going to have to spend $50 just to try the thing and know it sucks?
:)
Yeah, yeah, that's what you do with other games. But other games don't run on the subscription model. The Sims Online costs me $120/year to play (plus buying the $40 software). Unreal Tournament costed me $50 and I haven't had to pay any more since.
I think online games such as The Sims Online have a future, but the paying up front business model isn't going to fly. Give the software away for free and then just charge per month. It worked for AOL.
And so what if there's "only" 100,000 subscribers? If they stick around for a year, that's $16 million in revenue the first year. Seems good to me.
People, this is EBAY! It's a giant garage sale! There's tons of stupid red necks out there that are going to leave negative feedback. If only 1% of your feedback comments are negative, I doubt that's going to have any sort of serious impact on sales.
The feedback system is GOOD. eBay is GOOD. (except maybe for their search engine) I worry that all this bitching and lawsuit will take away from the giant swap mart feel and instead turn it into a giant Wal-Mart feel.
Regulation is BAD.
There's really no such thing as "libelous words". If you're sued for libel/slander, the biggest defense is the truth. If you say your nextdoor neighbor is a whore and she sues you, show the judge a video tape of a different guy arriving at her house every night and leaving every morning.
If you call a seller "dishonest" on eBay and he sues you, bring up the auction where he said "These magazines are in mint condition!" and then show the judge the crappy condition the magazines were in. You're not being libelous if you're telling the truth.
I don't know why MSNBC points out the "This man should be banned from eBay" comment, because that is obviously opinion. That's not libel by any stretch of the imagination. It's when you try to pass something off as fact that you get into a risky area.
In this case, the word "dishonest" isn't libelous if the guy was in fact dishonest. If he said he was selling you something in one condition and it ended up being in a different condition, you could consider that dishonest. However, the "all the way" part worries me more. That seems to say "EVERYTHING he said regarding this was a lie." The lawyer could point out the things he WAS honest about and therefore say the "all the way" part was not true.
However, I don't think the lawyer would win if this case went to trial. Judges are usally very big on free speech, and you have to have a damn good case if you're gonna sue someone for libel or slander and win. I don't know if a one liner on eBay about someone being dishonest is a very good case.
The average American woman is 140 pounds. The average American male is about 180 pounds. So a 250 pound person weight maximum is well below average.
Your comment about the average person interested in a Segway being over 250 pounds is just a weak guess on your part and makes no sense. You honestly think the only use for a Segway is to be more lazy? Sheesh. I guess you just run everywhere.
And ADA lawsuits aren't gonna touch a private company's product, dumbass. Even bicycles have weight limits and the ADA isn't suing them.
The reason the stoplight buttons don't look right anymore is because they're now "inset". It's intentional. The rumor is the new Apple Digital Device(s) will have stoplight buttons on them to match the look of OS X's button. The digital device buttons will be inset and will probably also have a "brushed metal" exterior.
Ummm... I think he should have typed "Just as WINDOWS users would be worse off if the MAC didn't exist."