Just as an example, it would take a team of hobbyists working in their spare time 10 years or more to produce a game on the level of a Final Fantasy, and the likelihood is that it would just never happen. Without copyright, NONE of the videogame companies would have a reason to exist since their product could be copied and distributed by anyone, in the open and without fear of reprisal. Wrong.
Ask yourself this: Is there demand for games like Final Fantasy? Are people willing to pay for the ability to play them?
Obviously there is, and they are. Now, you don't have to be a free market fundamentalist to realize that as long as there's demand, there will be a way for that money to flow to the people who perform the service of making those games. Whether it happens after the service is performed (Square creates the game at their own expense and then tries to make their investment back by selling copies) or before (Square calls for contributions and starts work once they've made arrangements to be paid for it) is pretty much irrelevant.
You seem to think that in a world without copyright, it'd be impossible for anyone who currently creates copyrighted works to get paid, but that simply isn't true. They'd just have to do what the rest of us do: find someone willing to pay them for working.
If I want to work for the city as a landscaper, I can't just go down to the park, rake some leaves, and then show up at city hall expecting to be paid for it; I have to apply for a job first in order to be sure that I'm not just wasting my time working for free. For some reason, though, many people seem to think musicians, artists, and programmers are incapable of doing that, so they think it's normal to give them special treatment - but as a programmer, I sure don't need any special treatment.
I assume you've never heard of HDMI? Indeed I have, and it's one reason I don't own anything "HD".
Trust me, the media conglomerates are working on this problem. If they had their way, everything would be encrypted right up until the picture is displayed on your TV and the sound is coming out of your speakers. Which still wouldn't mean the end of fair use, as you note below.
Of course, you could always set up a camcorder, right? It'd look like shit, sure, but it's something... until they embed watermarks in the image which cause the camcorder to stop recording, at which point it's game over. Sure. If we ever come to a point where all video output is watermarked and all camcorders are mandated to stop recording once they see those watermarks, then maybe I'll agree that it's the end of fair use.
I know what effective means in this context, but I'm pretty sure you're still wrong.
The test of whether something controls access to a work is whether you need to deal with that thing to gain access. The Lexmark case, for example, showed that even though a printer manufacturer might design their drivers (or USB interface chips or whatever) to limit access to the code stored in the printer's ROM, preventing anyone using a third-party ink cartridge from invoking it, that doesn't count as an access control because the owner of the printer can still pull out the unencrypted ROM chip and read it directly. The fact that Lexmark took steps to protect the code is irrelevant because those steps don't actually prevent anyone from accessing it, they only limit one possible avenue of use.
In the silly case of double-ROT13, it's trivial to show that the output is the same as the input by definition. You don't need to guess a key, crack a code, or circumvent anything to access the plaintext, you just have to read it - it's right there in front of you, indistinguishable from the original.
And it's posts like yours that reinforce my belief that most support for copyright is based on greed and laziness. You're happy to restrict everyone else's rights--to remove certain speech from the public vocabulary until years after everyone who's living today has died--as long as it means you can create one thing and milk it for the rest of your life instead of finding real work like everyone else.
Oh, please. If I'm a writer and spend a year of 40+-hour weeks to write a book, should I not be able to profit from that effort if I choose? Think about what you're saying. Would it make sense if you were asking about any other profession on earth?
"If I'm a barber and I spend a year of 40+ hour weeks cutting hair, should I not be able to profit from that effort if I choose?" Yes, of course you're able to profit, by charging for your work as you do it. You don't work for nothing for a year and then worry about the money.
With no copyright law, I'm pretty much screwed once I show the book to any publisher or sell my first self-published copy to someone who decides to "share" because there's nothing illegal about doing so. Why would you be screwed if you've already been paid for writing that book (or at least signed a contract with someone who's promising to pay)? And if you haven't been paid, why are you working for free?
And that helps a band with their first album, how? Why should a band with their first album get any more special treatment than a barber performing his first haircut or a CEO running his first company? They may have to lower their asking price to compensate for their lack of a track record, or build up a portfolio to prove they can do quality work, but that's no different from just about any other field of endeavor.
And without copyright (which you imply in the quote above should be done away with), how does even the established band with fans that you describe make any money beyond their costs? By building a profit into the amount they're collecting. If their actual costs to write and record an album are $50,000, then they can tell their fans they need $60,000 and pocket the difference. Again, this is the same way everyone else makes a profit from their work - charging more than it actually costs to perform.
If you believe that people shouldn't be able to profit from their jobs that's fine, but that belief doesn't fit into the economy, or society, of the US or the rest of the "western" world. I don't believe that, and I've said no such thing.
Yeah, but then it's analog, and I bought digital content, and I should be able to copy that digital content as much as I want Yes, you should, especially for the purposes that have been laid out as fair use. I'm not saying the DMCA isn't a horrible law--it is. It just isn't The End Of Fair Use Forever.
and I should be able to pass copies around to my friends, and they should be able to pass them around to their friends, and copyright laws are fundamentally wrong, You should, they should, and they are. I know you're being sarcastic, but what you've written here is right on the money. There are legitimate reasons for restricting speech (falsely shouting fire, etc.) but eliminating competition for people who want to sell that same speech isn't one of them.
and art should be created for its own sake, and artists should be supported by voluntary contributions, and why isn't everything free like Linux? Come on now, I think we all know there are ways to fund the production of art other than donations, volunteer work, and government-enforced monopolies on speech.
For example, if you're a band and you expect your next album to cost $50,000 to produce and sell 5000 copies, then instead of recording it at your own expense and hoping to break even by selling copies for $10, just collect $10 from 5000 of your fans ahead of time and eliminate the risk. It's certainly possible - political campaigns can raise millions of dollars from individual contributions, and those contributors know their money will be wasted if their guy doesn't win. These contributors can get their money back if the band cancels production.
Not really. First off, double-ROT13 doesn't "effectively control access to a work", and it'd be trivial to prove that in court - but you were joking about that, right?
Seriously, though, you still have fair use rights. The DMCA blocks one possible avenue of exercising those rights, but there are others. You can't crack the encryption on a DVD to extract a clip for your review, but you can still connect the DVD player's analog output to a capture card, or point a camcorder at the screen.
I'm one step ahead of you. I do give code away for free, and I don't try to restrict other people's communication just to make a buck.
Of course, you can still charge for your work without restricting other people's communication to do it. You just have to charge for your work--that is, your time and effort, just like nearly everyone outside the music/film/software industries (and even many people in those industries)--instead of copies that anyone can make on their own.
They know where the traffic jams are at different times of day, and how to avoid them. They know about road works, about avoiding the football statiums on match days and about all the other factors that can affect journey times. Getting GPS systems to take all that into account is very difficult, impossible almost. Nonsense. Traffic patterns, sports events, and road work can all be factored in simply by linking the GPS unit up to a server. Surely the traffic patterns are known, and the sports events and road work are scheduled? Once you have that data, it's easy to make a GPS navigator route around the problem areas.
A GPS system cannot replace a decent cabbie, and getting rid of the Knowledge requirement would punish the best drivers. It can, however, replace 95% of what a decent cabbie does, and for the other 5%, there's nothing to stop the best drivers from ignoring the GPS's suggestions when they know better.
If someone can't be bothered to do the Knowledge then I don't want them driving me home. How about this: everyone who insists on a Decent Cabbie can pay extra for it, and everyone else can use the cheaper GPS cabs.
If a person thinks the recording label shouldn't be selling their music for $X a CD, then he/she has the right not to purchase and use that music.. but you cannot use the music without purchasing it. Of course you can. Listening to a song doesn't harm anyone or infringe on their natural rights, so you have every moral and ethical right to do it, whether you've paid or not. No one has the right to limit others' communication just to make a buck.
Just because something is possible, it doesn't make it right. Indeed. Sharing is right no matter how easy it is. Sharing CDs with strangers was right even before the internet came along - it just wasn't practical.
It was acknowledged by game developers in the 1980s that you would sell two copies of a game for the Apple platform, one on the East Coast of the US and one on the West Coast. Everyone else would get theirs from BBS systems. And yet for some reason, they've kept trying to sell copies, instead of selling their work like everyone else. Sorry, no sympathy. You know what they say about trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Whatever you think of content ownership and copyright, this isn't going to stand. You cannot have a situation where one group quashes the revenue and business of another group. I think the buggy whip manufacturers would disagree with you. So would reviewers, actually - a negative review can harm sales just the same as P2P sharing. There is no fundamental right to keep making a profit without having to adapt.
We can continue to "share" everything possible or we can contain our greed and selfishness and pay for entertainment. Likewise, creators can continue trying to sell copies, claiming "intellectual property rights" wherever possible, or they can contain their greed and selfishness and let information flow naturally. No one has a right to milk their past creations forever. If they want to get paid every year, let them write something new every year.
While patronage by the rich and powerful worked for a long time, it was an awful system. There's no reason to think we'd have to resort to that. We've got global communication networks and credit cards now, and the same infrastructure that makes it possible for political candidates to raise millions of dollars from small contributions also makes it possible for artists to work directly for their fans.
I get the feeling people are cynical and think Apple is DRM'ing the songs to keep them propietary to Apple. That's not why they're using DRM in the first place, but it is why they're refusing to license their DRM system to other stores and device manufacturers (remember Real?). Is there any other sensible explanation?
At this point, the XBMC developers are looking at ways to use the onboard GPU to do some of the calculations and take all the heat off the CPU, but this is like looking for breadcrumbs when right next door is a fully stocked kitchen pantry (XBOX 360 or PS3). Instead of wasting time developing for a platform that's basically a dead-end, they could be working on a system that will be able to handle HD content by design. But think of it this way: Xbox 360 still costs $300-$400. PS3, well, we know how much that costs, and even if you've got the money you'll have a hard time getting one.
Meanwhile, you can easily get an original Xbox for $100 or less, and by the time the 360 and PS3 prices drop, Xboxes will probably be even cheaper. At that price, you can put one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one in the kitchen. XBMC might be featureful enough to be worth $300, but I'd sure rather pay $100 for it.
The obvious OSS advantage is the choice of any language you want. As a professional software developer, C# does not impress me at all. It's all hype and features copied from other languages. They keep mentioning C# in connection with XNA, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't also use C++, VB.NET, or the other.NET languages. After all, language independence is one of the main features of.NET.
For this system to be fair, you have to round.5 to 0 half the time, and 1 the other half of the time, as you noted. But as the GP noted, there's no built-in bias when you round to the nearest five cents (or the nearest half cent, 50 cents, etc.).
You mean the same Zune that has only been out for a month? Did I claim there would be emerging DRMs every week? I don't see Microsoft licensing Zune to companies like SanDisk and Napster, do you? You claimed that a new system would come out with the full force of the RIAA behind it, to take the place of PlaysForSure among the device manufacturers and stores that are currently using PFS. Then you claimed that was "already happening". So where is it?
The real question is if Apple is using DRM to lock in music to their business model, or if DRM is a requirement of the big music industry. Perhaps it is a little of both? Clearly it's both. If it weren't a requirement of the music industry, we'd see stores selling DRM-free downloads of all the music customers want; and if Apple weren't trying to lock people into buying their hardware, they'd license FairPlay to other stores and/or device manufacturers.
You are very naive if you think Microsoft are going to support Plays For Sure(TM) long term. They've shifted all their efforts over to Zune, and Plays for Sure (what a strange orwellian name) will be gone in a few years, leaving you stranded. Once again: without evidence to back up this claim, all you're doing is spouting FUD.
So far, in favor of the proposition that MS will continue to support PlaysForSure, we have (1) Microsoft's statement, (2) the fact that all those PFS songs and players are still being sold, and (3) common sense telling us that those companies aren't just going to leave the market, and they aren't able to use FairPlay or Zune DRM, leaving PFS as their only alternative.
Against that proposition, we have (1) the opinion of a few Slashdotters, which boils down to "yeah, but everything MS says is a lie". Anything else?
Er, then where is this new DRM system that the RIAA is strong-arming companies into using? I haven't heard of any new ones since Zune. What I see is that those stores (and players) are still using PlaysForSure, Microsoft is still supporting it, and the only reason to think otherwise is FUD from Apple fanboys.
That's because $50,000 is a ridiculous sum of money for essentially a no-name band.
First off, I could *buy* myself a highfalutin home studio for under $10,000 [...] Well, I agree that the price seems steep, but they aren't just paying for equipment. They're also paying for the time of the engineers and producers, who presumably will help the band come up with a better product than they could on their own. Also, 40% of the money goes to duplicating and mailing special-edition CDs for the contributors, which IMO is a waste.
Thirdly - and this is the most important point of all - why give away the music based on an upfront cost? Because part of the point is to try a different funding model for music. We all know the problems inherent in today's model, in which a band or record label absorbs the up-front costs of recording in the hopes of making it back later by selling copies - you can't stop people from making their own copies for free instead of buying them from you. New DRM and new laws don't really have an effect; this is a fundamental problem with trying to sell data.
OTOH, if everyone gets paid up front for production, you don't need to sell copies because you've already made your money. You decide what your work is worth, you find someone who'll pay your asking price, and if you want to make more money then you do more work. (Of course, Sellaband's model doesn't come up with any payment up front for the party that really deserves it most: the band. They have to settle for a slice of banner ad revenue.)
If I were in charge, I'd get rid of the $50k goal, letting artists set their own price and keep the money. The studio option would still be there for bands who wanted it, but it'd be an optional service the site sells to bands instead of the end goal of the whole process. Someone who already has a decent home studio could set his price at a few thousand, record some MP3s, and make money up front just from that. But a site like that would have to deal with certain issues, like scheduling payments fairly and resolving disputes between artists and contributors, which Sellaband conveniently sidesteps by not giving anyone a way to benefit by cheating.
By putting the barrier to entry so (artificially) high, that's a major disincentive for a fan to contribute. Say you saw a band on there you liked sitting at $18,000. Would you give them $10 in hopes they may some day reach $50,000? Are you kidding me? Sure, why not? I'd be spending more than that if I bought one of their CDs. If I spend it on Sellaband then I get a CD as well as a slice of banner ad revenue, and if a few months down the road it looks like they aren't ever going to hit $50k, I can get my $10 back.
Except they haven't really done anything to PlaysForSure - it's still supported, and you can still buy the music and devices. There's no evidence that MS is dropping support for it; there's only FUD.
How are you not locked in with PFS? You are just locked in to a smaller ecosystem. If I have a Sansa and want to switch to an iPod, how do I move my music? It's a bigger ecosystem in the ways that matter with regard to lock-in: the numbers of players and music stores that support it. With PFS, you might not be able to switch to an iPod, but you can switch to a player from Creative, Samsung, Archos, RCA, Toshiba, etc. With FairPlay, on the other hand, you can only "switch" to a different color or size of iPod.
What is wrong with iTunes that is not also wrong with PFS? It's a matter of degree. DRM sucks no matter what, but if you're going to have to choose one of the systems, choose the one that's going to interfere least with what you want to do. For me, that means the one with the least potential for lock-in. For you, maybe you don't care about switching brands and so it means something else; that's fine.
Is it anything more than that I can buy a Toshiba or a Creative product that works with PFS? But sales of all those combined are dwarfed by iPods. What do the sales figures have to do with it? We're talking about vendor lock-in. What matters is not how many other people are locked into the same system as you, but how free you are to choose other vendors.
You have fun with your PlaysForSure (ObsoleteForSure, more like it). That's cute. Are you and DECS classmates?
Do you seriously think that there will be a single PFS device for sale in two years? Yes, actually.
Think about all those MP3 players other than the iPod and the Zune - you think those companies will just give up and stop selling players? Or will they give up on DRM and start selling MP3-only players that you can't legally download the new Nickelback single onto? Or maybe they'll invent yet another DRM system and hope it catches on in an even more fragmented market?
I doubt it. They'll stick with PFS because that's where the music is. Unless there's a change of attitude at Apple (FairPlay licensing), Microsoft (Zune DRM licensing), or the RIAA (insistence on DRM), PFS is the only way those other manufacturers will be able to connect their players to online music stores.
Nobody is buying GBs of iTunes tracks without the understanding that they are designed to optimally play on the iPod. Indeed, and if you read carefully you'll note that I never said they did. Hopefully, anyone who buys that much music from iTMS realizes that they're locking themselves in as they do it. That isn't much consolation to the guy who decides a year later that he'd rather have a Zen, though, is it? The fact that he understood the lock-in as it was happening doesn't exempt him from having to sit there, burning and re-ripping CD after CD just to listen to the music he already paid for.
In a sense, it's like the early termination fee in a cell phone contract, except you pay with your time instead of your money. Everyone understands those fees, but that doesn't stop the fees from being a very obvious form of lock-in: an artificial obstacle to switching providers.
For somebody investing in PlayedForSure, say Napster, the songs they bought are not transferable to any other player, including the Zoops, a fact you skirted in your intent to repeat Microsoft's "talking points." Aww, aren't you a cute little troll?
You're right, everyone who disagrees with you must be a Microsoft shill. I don't own a portable DRM player, and the only DRM'd music I've ever bought came from iTunes Music Store - but go ahead, keep telling yourself I'm just repeating someone's talking points. Maybe they'll believe you and start paying me for it.
If you're really fooled by the illusion that Microsoft hasn't really and truely abandonded PFS, then why do you suposed that Peter Sealey, a professor at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, described Microsoft's PlayedForSure move in the words: "I've never seen a business so blatantly screw its business partners." I suppose he said that because he didn't realize they were still supporting PlaysForSure, or he was worth commenting on the fact that PFS partners now face competition from MS's Zune division (even as MS's PFS division continues to support them). It's hard to know, really, since AFAICT the quote only appears in a single article with no context.
And frankly, people say a lot of things, not all of which are important or correct. Some people even mispronounce or misspell their perceived enemies' names on purpose, although most of us got over it in second grade.
Slashdot Mirror
Ask yourself this: Is there demand for games like Final Fantasy? Are people willing to pay for the ability to play them?
Obviously there is, and they are. Now, you don't have to be a free market fundamentalist to realize that as long as there's demand, there will be a way for that money to flow to the people who perform the service of making those games. Whether it happens after the service is performed (Square creates the game at their own expense and then tries to make their investment back by selling copies) or before (Square calls for contributions and starts work once they've made arrangements to be paid for it) is pretty much irrelevant.
You seem to think that in a world without copyright, it'd be impossible for anyone who currently creates copyrighted works to get paid, but that simply isn't true. They'd just have to do what the rest of us do: find someone willing to pay them for working.
If I want to work for the city as a landscaper, I can't just go down to the park, rake some leaves, and then show up at city hall expecting to be paid for it; I have to apply for a job first in order to be sure that I'm not just wasting my time working for free. For some reason, though, many people seem to think musicians, artists, and programmers are incapable of doing that, so they think it's normal to give them special treatment - but as a programmer, I sure don't need any special treatment.
I know what effective means in this context, but I'm pretty sure you're still wrong.
The test of whether something controls access to a work is whether you need to deal with that thing to gain access. The Lexmark case, for example, showed that even though a printer manufacturer might design their drivers (or USB interface chips or whatever) to limit access to the code stored in the printer's ROM, preventing anyone using a third-party ink cartridge from invoking it, that doesn't count as an access control because the owner of the printer can still pull out the unencrypted ROM chip and read it directly. The fact that Lexmark took steps to protect the code is irrelevant because those steps don't actually prevent anyone from accessing it, they only limit one possible avenue of use.
In the silly case of double-ROT13, it's trivial to show that the output is the same as the input by definition. You don't need to guess a key, crack a code, or circumvent anything to access the plaintext, you just have to read it - it's right there in front of you, indistinguishable from the original.
And it's posts like yours that reinforce my belief that most support for copyright is based on greed and laziness. You're happy to restrict everyone else's rights--to remove certain speech from the public vocabulary until years after everyone who's living today has died--as long as it means you can create one thing and milk it for the rest of your life instead of finding real work like everyone else.
"If I'm a barber and I spend a year of 40+ hour weeks cutting hair, should I not be able to profit from that effort if I choose?" Yes, of course you're able to profit, by charging for your work as you do it. You don't work for nothing for a year and then worry about the money. With no copyright law, I'm pretty much screwed once I show the book to any publisher or sell my first self-published copy to someone who decides to "share" because there's nothing illegal about doing so. Why would you be screwed if you've already been paid for writing that book (or at least signed a contract with someone who's promising to pay)? And if you haven't been paid, why are you working for free? And that helps a band with their first album, how? Why should a band with their first album get any more special treatment than a barber performing his first haircut or a CEO running his first company? They may have to lower their asking price to compensate for their lack of a track record, or build up a portfolio to prove they can do quality work, but that's no different from just about any other field of endeavor. And without copyright (which you imply in the quote above should be done away with), how does even the established band with fans that you describe make any money beyond their costs? By building a profit into the amount they're collecting. If their actual costs to write and record an album are $50,000, then they can tell their fans they need $60,000 and pocket the difference. Again, this is the same way everyone else makes a profit from their work - charging more than it actually costs to perform. If you believe that people shouldn't be able to profit from their jobs that's fine, but that belief doesn't fit into the economy, or society, of the US or the rest of the "western" world. I don't believe that, and I've said no such thing.
For example, if you're a band and you expect your next album to cost $50,000 to produce and sell 5000 copies, then instead of recording it at your own expense and hoping to break even by selling copies for $10, just collect $10 from 5000 of your fans ahead of time and eliminate the risk. It's certainly possible - political campaigns can raise millions of dollars from individual contributions, and those contributors know their money will be wasted if their guy doesn't win. These contributors can get their money back if the band cancels production.
Not really. First off, double-ROT13 doesn't "effectively control access to a work", and it'd be trivial to prove that in court - but you were joking about that, right?
Seriously, though, you still have fair use rights. The DMCA blocks one possible avenue of exercising those rights, but there are others. You can't crack the encryption on a DVD to extract a clip for your review, but you can still connect the DVD player's analog output to a capture card, or point a camcorder at the screen.
I'm one step ahead of you. I do give code away for free, and I don't try to restrict other people's communication just to make a buck.
Of course, you can still charge for your work without restricting other people's communication to do it. You just have to charge for your work--that is, your time and effort, just like nearly everyone outside the music/film/software industries (and even many people in those industries)--instead of copies that anyone can make on their own.
Meanwhile, you can easily get an original Xbox for $100 or less, and by the time the 360 and PS3 prices drop, Xboxes will probably be even cheaper. At that price, you can put one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one in the kitchen. XBMC might be featureful enough to be worth $300, but I'd sure rather pay $100 for it.
That's only when you're rounding to the nearest whole number (e.g. the nearest cent, dime, or dollar):
.0 -> 0 (no change)
.1 -> 0 (you save .1)
.2 -> 0 (you save .2)
.3 -> 0 (you save .3)
.4 -> 0 (you save .4)
.5 -> ???
.6 -> 1 (you lose .4)
.7 -> 1 (you lose .3)
.8 -> 1 (you lose .2)
.9 -> 1 (you lose .1)
For this system to be fair, you have to round .5 to 0 half the time, and 1 the other half of the time, as you noted. But as the GP noted, there's no built-in bias when you round to the nearest five cents (or the nearest half cent, 50 cents, etc.).
So far, in favor of the proposition that MS will continue to support PlaysForSure, we have (1) Microsoft's statement, (2) the fact that all those PFS songs and players are still being sold, and (3) common sense telling us that those companies aren't just going to leave the market, and they aren't able to use FairPlay or Zune DRM, leaving PFS as their only alternative.
Against that proposition, we have (1) the opinion of a few Slashdotters, which boils down to "yeah, but everything MS says is a lie". Anything else?
Er, then where is this new DRM system that the RIAA is strong-arming companies into using? I haven't heard of any new ones since Zune. What I see is that those stores (and players) are still using PlaysForSure, Microsoft is still supporting it, and the only reason to think otherwise is FUD from Apple fanboys.
First off, I could *buy* myself a highfalutin home studio for under $10,000 [...] Well, I agree that the price seems steep, but they aren't just paying for equipment. They're also paying for the time of the engineers and producers, who presumably will help the band come up with a better product than they could on their own. Also, 40% of the money goes to duplicating and mailing special-edition CDs for the contributors, which IMO is a waste. Thirdly - and this is the most important point of all - why give away the music based on an upfront cost? Because part of the point is to try a different funding model for music. We all know the problems inherent in today's model, in which a band or record label absorbs the up-front costs of recording in the hopes of making it back later by selling copies - you can't stop people from making their own copies for free instead of buying them from you. New DRM and new laws don't really have an effect; this is a fundamental problem with trying to sell data.
OTOH, if everyone gets paid up front for production, you don't need to sell copies because you've already made your money. You decide what your work is worth, you find someone who'll pay your asking price, and if you want to make more money then you do more work. (Of course, Sellaband's model doesn't come up with any payment up front for the party that really deserves it most: the band. They have to settle for a slice of banner ad revenue.)
If I were in charge, I'd get rid of the $50k goal, letting artists set their own price and keep the money. The studio option would still be there for bands who wanted it, but it'd be an optional service the site sells to bands instead of the end goal of the whole process. Someone who already has a decent home studio could set his price at a few thousand, record some MP3s, and make money up front just from that. But a site like that would have to deal with certain issues, like scheduling payments fairly and resolving disputes between artists and contributors, which Sellaband conveniently sidesteps by not giving anyone a way to benefit by cheating. By putting the barrier to entry so (artificially) high, that's a major disincentive for a fan to contribute. Say you saw a band on there you liked sitting at $18,000. Would you give them $10 in hopes they may some day reach $50,000? Are you kidding me? Sure, why not? I'd be spending more than that if I bought one of their CDs. If I spend it on Sellaband then I get a CD as well as a slice of banner ad revenue, and if a few months down the road it looks like they aren't ever going to hit $50k, I can get my $10 back.
Except they haven't really done anything to PlaysForSure - it's still supported, and you can still buy the music and devices. There's no evidence that MS is dropping support for it; there's only FUD.
Well, that's an interesting prediction. Care to make a wager?
There's already this attempt.
Think about all those MP3 players other than the iPod and the Zune - you think those companies will just give up and stop selling players? Or will they give up on DRM and start selling MP3-only players that you can't legally download the new Nickelback single onto? Or maybe they'll invent yet another DRM system and hope it catches on in an even more fragmented market?
I doubt it. They'll stick with PFS because that's where the music is. Unless there's a change of attitude at Apple (FairPlay licensing), Microsoft (Zune DRM licensing), or the RIAA (insistence on DRM), PFS is the only way those other manufacturers will be able to connect their players to online music stores.
In a sense, it's like the early termination fee in a cell phone contract, except you pay with your time instead of your money. Everyone understands those fees, but that doesn't stop the fees from being a very obvious form of lock-in: an artificial obstacle to switching providers. For somebody investing in PlayedForSure, say Napster, the songs they bought are not transferable to any other player, including the Zoops, a fact you skirted in your intent to repeat Microsoft's "talking points." Aww, aren't you a cute little troll?
You're right, everyone who disagrees with you must be a Microsoft shill. I don't own a portable DRM player, and the only DRM'd music I've ever bought came from iTunes Music Store - but go ahead, keep telling yourself I'm just repeating someone's talking points. Maybe they'll believe you and start paying me for it. If you're really fooled by the illusion that Microsoft hasn't really and truely abandonded PFS, then why do you suposed that Peter Sealey, a professor at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, described Microsoft's PlayedForSure move in the words: "I've never seen a business so blatantly screw its business partners." I suppose he said that because he didn't realize they were still supporting PlaysForSure, or he was worth commenting on the fact that PFS partners now face competition from MS's Zune division (even as MS's PFS division continues to support them). It's hard to know, really, since AFAICT the quote only appears in a single article with no context.
And frankly, people say a lot of things, not all of which are important or correct. Some people even mispronounce or misspell their perceived enemies' names on purpose, although most of us got over it in second grade.