It's not surprising that Al is hurt by iTunes. Most people are - it has DRM afterall. So the artists lose out on their music being playable on every MP3 player or computer after the DRM scheme is eventually dropped in being supported. The customers lose out for about the same reason. And apparently the artist also makes less money than they would if they sold the files themselves online, minus marketing costs. After all, wasn't online sales supposed to give artists the lion's share of the profits by cutting out middle men.
Buying CDs isn't a sure way to get money to the artist, they could be second hand, fakes, or the label could screw the artist in a contract.
Is the software industry in general prone to rumours, or are games primarily afflicted? It must be hard for a news site, having no confirmations to work from, and instead either being left behind, sticking their neck out, or getting a lucky tip from an insider.
Pssst, I heard that the Star Control sequel will feature Duke Nukem caught in a world of Orcs, blasting his way out in a massive Counterstrike against the enemy. Better still, it will run on Windows Vista when it's released too.
In Soviet Russia, all your bases are bombed by US.
Perhaps BSD is dying from exposure to fallout from NEW NEWCLUAR BOMBS! The new bombs are said to be no bigger than a naked and petrified statue of Natalie Portman.
These "Portman"able nuclear weapons will usher in a new age of atomic superiority for the Alliance, err, United States. Instead of being superior to everyone, like Americans are today with their current stockpile, they'll be superior to everyone including space ants that would have us toil in their underground sugar mines. I for one welcome our new nuclear bomb building overlords.
I could go on, but the absurdity of building more nuclear weapons has caused a mini-breakdown. I'll be over in the corner trying not to wet myself.
I was always pretty virus-savvy, but when I found vmyths.com Rob really opened my eyes. Someone doesn't need an antivirus program to go virus free, and I did it for years, and only got my first infection while I was running free AVG 7, and ran an insecure version of Java, giving me the javabyte virus when I must have surfed somewhere unsafe. It was easy to clean up fortunately.
Every year Symantec has a critical flaw in their software, so someone can actually be SAFER without Norton on their computer, and a little common knowledge.
What we need are major artists coming forward to say they are getting paid from allofmp3.com.
The CCMC including Bare Naked Ladies is trying in Canada to prove that the CRIA RIAA is full of crap by speaking against lawsuits and DRM. Who will step up and defend AOMP3, if it's legit?
Some customers are MORE vulnerable because they use McAfee or Norton. They either don't realize that their subscription is expired, they expect protection from obvious emailed viruses that slip past the scanner, or the scanner itself introduces a critical flaw in the system like Symantec often does. Not a year goes by without a critial Symantec security software flaw.
I'm not saying that telling a customer to uninstall or disable Norton is the right way, but there are worse things you could do.
What's the Halflife for an Unreal Tournament particle in the bloodstream? At what point is a gamer detoxified and ready to rejoin society without contaminating the rest of us?
Oh yeah? Well I changed my name to Osama Bin Laden, and there's a US Government stealth unmaned plane monitoring my position, with high resolution satellite photography on me or my house 24 hours a day.
I know why he was beaten. He kept clicking the popup that said: "Your computer may be infectd with spyware! Click here and Bullguard Spysoft will protect you." *click* "Please have your credit card ready..."
I'd have to guess that a distributed streaming system is a long way off in being possible, since timely delivery is crucial, and people further away from downloading from the source would not be getting the data fast enough in real time.
That being the case, what's a possible way to lessen the load on streaming servers, and to distribute the file transfers onto networks and users who are interested in the content they are downloading or helping to distribute?
If every change even a correction needs to be audited save-to-save of a file, then why don't we implement a Wiki style log of changes to the file? I wonder if Open Document Format would easily support this.
The mountains of next-to-worthless data the piles of auto-saves would generate is mind boggling.
"Why do marketroids and "journalists" have to keep coming back to this overloaded "web 2.0" term?"
I believe it was Al Gore who said, "In this post Web 1.0 Internets age, we have to defend ourselves from the information terrorists in the Axis of Evil: Microsoft Korea, Sonyistan, and SCOraq."
Or something like that - information is kinda spotty these days, what with all of the fake information on the Web 2.0.
Anyone who is part of WAYN, HI5, MySpace, Digg, Slashdot [has friends and foes too you know], Stumbleupon, or has blogrolls, is really set up to be data mined rather completely. Either you have to not give a rat's patootie and do it anyway [like I do with some services], or you wear your foil hat and react with hostility to every "Hi:-)" email you get from a distant friend.
If you have matured and realize you really don't NEED that SUV, or Sony laptop to have a high quality daily life, then targetted marketing won't matter. But if you're letting your 10 year old play on the Internet, you should really wonder what Mattel and Disney/ABC knows about your child by now.
Ubuntu is no longer Linux for Human Beings, it's Linux for Old Fogies or Linux that Kills Trees.
Seriously though, it's good that actual paper documents are still made availalbe. Until we have e-paper or HP stops raping consumers for 3.5mL of ink at $30 a pop, we need a company like Canonical to keep the printed docs tradition alive.
"allow the consumer to know positively for sure what devices and manufacturers their product will be guaranteed to play on. "
Don't worry so much, Microsoft has taken care of the problem. There is a label on music players you should look for, it says PLAYS FOR SURE, and if you buy music from a PLAYS FOR SURE store, then it plays for sure. Until you copy it to another computer the wrong way. Or onto another MP3 player. Or hold your nose wrong. Or you don't download their license file. Or your hard drive crashes and you didn't back up the licenses without the WMA files.
Slashdot Mirror
The chair joke tipping point is surely at hand.
It's not surprising that Al is hurt by iTunes. Most people are - it has DRM afterall. So the artists lose out on their music being playable on every MP3 player or computer after the DRM scheme is eventually dropped in being supported.
The customers lose out for about the same reason.
And apparently the artist also makes less money than they would if they sold the files themselves online, minus marketing costs. After all, wasn't online sales supposed to give artists the lion's share of the profits by cutting out middle men.
Buying CDs isn't a sure way to get money to the artist, they could be second hand, fakes, or the label could screw the artist in a contract.
"Stop believing what you hear on TV...."
Yeah, everyone knows that you're supposed to believe what you read on the Internet these days.
[just kidding of course]
Is the software industry in general prone to rumours, or are games primarily afflicted? It must be hard for a news site, having no confirmations to work from, and instead either being left behind, sticking their neck out, or getting a lucky tip from an insider.
Pssst, I heard that the Star Control sequel will feature Duke Nukem caught in a world of Orcs, blasting his way out in a massive Counterstrike against the enemy. Better still, it will run on Windows Vista when it's released too.
As with a fine tea that needs to be steeped just the right length of time, Duke Nukem Forever shall not be hurried!
I'm concerned that if it's released too soon, it might not be certified to work on Windows Vista.
"but how many football fields was the impact?"
American, Canadian, European, or Lunar football? Or that really strange one... Australian.
In Soviet Russia, all your bases are bombed by US.
Perhaps BSD is dying from exposure to fallout from NEW NEWCLUAR BOMBS! The new bombs are said to be no bigger than a naked and petrified statue of Natalie Portman.
These "Portman"able nuclear weapons will usher in a new age of atomic superiority for the Alliance, err, United States. Instead of being superior to everyone, like Americans are today with their current stockpile, they'll be superior to everyone including space ants that would have us toil in their underground sugar mines. I for one welcome our new nuclear bomb building overlords.
I could go on, but the absurdity of building more nuclear weapons has caused a mini-breakdown. I'll be over in the corner trying not to wet myself.
I know, let's develop a gas sheild for the Moon to save the Martians from extra-terrestrial attacks!
Oh wait...
I came home one day and this horse was waiting outside. Naturally I let it in. Damn Greeks!
"I got ball"
That guy is really gutsy for being short a teste.
I was always pretty virus-savvy, but when I found vmyths.com Rob really opened my eyes. Someone doesn't need an antivirus program to go virus free, and I did it for years, and only got my first infection while I was running free AVG 7, and ran an insecure version of Java, giving me the javabyte virus when I must have surfed somewhere unsafe. It was easy to clean up fortunately.
Every year Symantec has a critical flaw in their software, so someone can actually be SAFER without Norton on their computer, and a little common knowledge.
What we need are major artists coming forward to say they are getting paid from allofmp3.com.
The CCMC including Bare Naked Ladies is trying in Canada to prove that the CRIA RIAA is full of crap by speaking against lawsuits and DRM. Who will step up and defend AOMP3, if it's legit?
Some customers are MORE vulnerable because they use McAfee or Norton. They either don't realize that their subscription is expired, they expect protection from obvious emailed viruses that slip past the scanner, or the scanner itself introduces a critical flaw in the system like Symantec often does. Not a year goes by without a critial Symantec security software flaw.
I'm not saying that telling a customer to uninstall or disable Norton is the right way, but there are worse things you could do.
What's the Halflife for an Unreal Tournament particle in the bloodstream? At what point is a gamer detoxified and ready to rejoin society without contaminating the rest of us?
Oh yeah? Well I changed my name to Osama Bin Laden, and there's a US Government stealth unmaned plane monitoring my position, with high resolution satellite photography on me or my house 24 hours a day.
I know why he was beaten. He kept clicking the popup that said:
"Your computer may be infectd with spyware!
Click here and Bullguard Spysoft will protect you."
*click*
"Please have your credit card ready..."
I'd have to guess that a distributed streaming system is a long way off in being possible, since timely delivery is crucial, and people further away from downloading from the source would not be getting the data fast enough in real time.
That being the case, what's a possible way to lessen the load on streaming servers, and to distribute the file transfers onto networks and users who are interested in the content they are downloading or helping to distribute?
If every change even a correction needs to be audited save-to-save of a file, then why don't we implement a Wiki style log of changes to the file? I wonder if Open Document Format would easily support this.
The mountains of next-to-worthless data the piles of auto-saves would generate is mind boggling.
Last I'd heard Google also agreed to censor search results for China, but if you've heard otherwise since then, thanks for the update.
"Why do marketroids and "journalists" have to keep coming back to this overloaded "web 2.0" term?"
I believe it was Al Gore who said, "In this post Web 1.0 Internets age, we have to defend ourselves from the information terrorists in the Axis of Evil: Microsoft Korea, Sonyistan, and SCOraq."
Or something like that - information is kinda spotty these days, what with all of the fake information on the Web 2.0.
Anyone who is part of WAYN, HI5, MySpace, Digg, Slashdot [has friends and foes too you know], Stumbleupon, or has blogrolls, is really set up to be data mined rather completely. Either you have to not give a rat's patootie and do it anyway [like I do with some services], or you wear your foil hat and react with hostility to every "Hi :-)" email you get from a distant friend.
If you have matured and realize you really don't NEED that SUV, or Sony laptop to have a high quality daily life, then targetted marketing won't matter. But if you're letting your 10 year old play on the Internet, you should really wonder what Mattel and Disney/ABC knows about your child by now.
I wonder why they aren't calling for a boycott of Google too? Maybe they are next.
Will Google support the journalists, and remove any Yahoo! feeds from news.google.com or do they already not use Yahoo!?
Ubuntu is no longer Linux for Human Beings, it's
Linux for Old Fogies
or
Linux that Kills Trees.
Seriously though, it's good that actual paper documents are still made availalbe. Until we have e-paper or HP stops raping consumers for 3.5mL of ink at $30 a pop, we need a company like Canonical to keep the printed docs tradition alive.
"allow the consumer to know positively for sure what devices and manufacturers their product will be guaranteed to play on. "
Don't worry so much, Microsoft has taken care of the problem. There is a label on music players you should look for, it says PLAYS FOR SURE, and if you buy music from a PLAYS FOR SURE store, then it plays for sure. Until you copy it to another computer the wrong way. Or onto another MP3 player. Or hold your nose wrong. Or you don't download their license file. Or your hard drive crashes and you didn't back up the licenses without the WMA files.
SO STOP WORRYING, and trust Microsoft's labels.
As a blogger, I beg to differ - it's built the "industry".
Blog will probably be a word from 2006 that sticks around in 40 years. A "newspaper" could become a "newsblog" in rather short order.