People used to say the "hair bands" of my day lacked talent. Yet, that era lasted what, 4 years, and today they STILL play it and people will still go to see those bands.
Arguably it started with KISS and ended shortly after "Nevermind" was released (though there were some good hard rock -> grunge transition bands -- Alice in Chains, for example).
That'd make it ~20 years (1972 to ~1992).
It's worth noting that a lot of those bands weren't particularly good, but in those days there was no easy way to get good copies of songs or distribute them in huge numbers without effort (basically, dual-deck boom boxes:D ), so the royalty system still *worked* and paid artists reasonably fairly.
I think the saddest thing about P2P/torrent music piracy is the loss of popular music culture. It used to be that every town had dozens of great record stores and venues where you could see live music. Now everyone sits at home, pulls up iTunes/TPB/whatever and downloads to their hearts' content. So sad.
In the US, while ASCAP/BMI get villified, they're a bit less crazy than PRS seems to be. Most of the time you hear about the evil organizations is when someone states that "such and such bar had to shut down because of license fees!". Then you dig deeper and find that they hadn't been paying their license fees for years, had been notices reminding of their need to pay, and finally got sued.
Yeah, there's exceptions, but by and large the license fee situation in the US is rather reasonable and easy to manage.
Whether or not that money gets to the artists in any significant/useful way... that's another issue altogether.
Same goes for the guy who did the decorations, yet *he* ain't getting monthly royalties either. No, they're both equally inmoral and stupid, its just that the Decorators Guild (if there's even such a thing) ain't as good as lobbying for advantageous laws.
It's not the copyright owners' faults that the market model for decorators is Work for Hire.
Then songwriters should take a lesson from software developers and charge for services, not for some "intellectual property" bullshit. A company needs you to write them a song, you charge for it, a company wants you to write songs for them regularly, you get employed by them for a stable salary. No need to deal with stupid lobbying organizations, overzealous lawyers, or paying royalties to people who've never had a hand in actually running the goddamned business. Win for all.
This has been tried in the past, and actually happens a fair amount in pop music.
However, copyright law is not a new thing and here's the key: You are perfectly free to not utilize the work of any given copyrighted work, however, if you wish to utilize that work, you must meet the copyright owners' terms. It's very simple.
Software writers can very much charge for their software (and do) with regards to "intellectual property bullshit". It's only OSS developers that need to charge for services, due to their voluntary relinquishing of their rights to the work. Most software in the world is not OSS, and you need to pay for most of it. Seems to work fine.
Just because you don't like paying for things, doesn't mean the business model of paying for things is flawed.
The truth of the matter is that the royalty industry *hurts* musicians (at least the performing kind) by forcing venues to stop having live music
Bullshit. The thing that forces venues to stop having live music is that venue owners are cheap bastards. It's like saying that requiring liquor licenses forces venues to close. Both are a cost of doing business. In the US BMI/ASCAP fees are *very* reasonable flat costs on a yearly basis, and can be covered by a well-run venue's revenue in less than a week (the fees vary depending on the size of the venue).
Maybe so, but the only way people could be professional musicians at that time was through patronage.
Its not like copyright is some newfangled, Orwellian thing, you know. It's been around since the early 17th century (and before that the *printers* owned the right to the works people asked them to print -- how's that for unfair).
Full disclosure: I'm a songwriter and a member of a PRS. The money I make a year on songwriting could maybe buy a nice dinner.
So, you're not really a professional "song writer" as much as someone who foists their really bad "music" off on friends who are too polite to tell you the truth?
No, if he makes money it's entirely possible he's "professional", he just doesn't do it for a living or is particularly successful at it.
I do not think "professional" means what you think it means.
I find that a lot of women not only find strippers entertaining, but thoroughly enjoy the boobage.
This seems to increase in prevalence as intelligence increases, however. And as we all know, just because someone is in IT, doesn't mean they're intelligent.
But when it came time to ACTUALLY correct some of the previous abuses, what's happened? 5 day review? Nope. No earmarks? Sorry, that was the last administration's business, and he's looking forward.
No earmarks is always something people rant about, but earmarks (and riders, similarly derided) are how the US government has worked since the dawn of the Republic. I'm unconvinced it needs to change.
5 day review? Every version of every bill is online for people to check out. What good does 5 day review do, anyway? The majority of people aren't smart enough to understand how Congressional legislation is performed, much less smart enough to understand the various versions of bills. Or are you not-so-subtly trying to point out the fact that GOP members of the House and Senate want to have every version of every bill up for public review before a vote (as I said before, they already are), and require another 5 days every time a change is made? Because that's a really, really stupid idea. It would make Congress inoperative in no time flat.
Actually spend some time looking at what the current administration is working towards (and some time looking at what they've already done -- PROTIP: not everything that an administration does makes headlines), instead of relying on talking heads to make up your mind for you.
National government is like an aircraft carrier. You can't turn it on a dime, even if you desperately want to do so. The current administration is definitely making strides to separate itself in terms of behavior from the previous administration, but it can't do as quickly as our American attention level seems to require.
There's a substantially similar virus *now*, in that its running around in the general population since this spring. According to the CDC maps the outbreak is "widespread" (highest level that the have on their maps) and has been for some time.
Does that mean that everyone has gotten it? Of course not, but it does mean that there's a very high chance that most people have already been exposed multiple times already. Since viruses are not binary (you either get nothing or get severe symptoms), it's likely many people had "colds" that were actually the virus in question.
With a fatality rate of.05% at most, and the majority of those being folks with compromised health already, spread rate sounds scary, but seems to really not be.
Yeah but except for the "slate" designs, tablets are just too large, too hot, and too much of a pain in the ass to really be a viable option right now (and the slate PC designs are often either underpowered, over priced, or both)
The enterprise Xerox stuff I've been managing for the last 4 years (2 leases so far, 2 different deploys) have all been able to do authenticated SMTP
Thing is, most environments manage their SMTP by only allowing sends from certain IP spaces or hosts, at least insofar as I have seen. Unless you're doing SMTP between LANs on the public internet from your scanner/copier/printer, I don't see how that'd be an issue.
yeah but it's cheapest if you're starting from nothing. getting the os x server version costs $100 more than the non-server version, but OS X Server itself will run you $500 per license otherwise.
My issue isn't with LCD DPI abilities, it's the fact that the iPhone screen is tiny. That's why the iPhone, for me, is a useless device for reading e-books. The glossy screen doesn't help much, either.
Chances are that a significant amount of the US population has already been exposed to the "swine flu" without even knowing it. I remember seeing statistical work in an article or 12 a month or two ago to this effect, as well.
I dunno, but it seems like a good idea for a slice of the population that is more likely to be exposed to fluid-borne pathogens. My mom was sort of a worry-wart when it came to vaccinations (in the opposite way that Jenny McCarthy is a worry-wart), so I and my siblings are vaccinated against all sorts of odd things, with no ill-effects other than an usually low slashdot ID number.
Your argument is seriously based off the idea that people like the activity of listening "in general" and that they get pressured into buying music they don't like?
I don't even know where to begin with that. Do you, in fact, ever leave your house and interact with real, live people?
Slashdot Mirror
People used to say the "hair bands" of my day lacked talent. Yet, that era lasted what, 4 years, and today they STILL play it and people will still go to see those bands.
Arguably it started with KISS and ended shortly after "Nevermind" was released (though there were some good hard rock -> grunge transition bands -- Alice in Chains, for example).
That'd make it ~20 years (1972 to ~1992).
It's worth noting that a lot of those bands weren't particularly good, but in those days there was no easy way to get good copies of songs or distribute them in huge numbers without effort (basically, dual-deck boom boxes :D ), so the royalty system still *worked* and paid artists reasonably fairly.
I think the saddest thing about P2P/torrent music piracy is the loss of popular music culture. It used to be that every town had dozens of great record stores and venues where you could see live music. Now everyone sits at home, pulls up iTunes/TPB/whatever and downloads to their hearts' content. So sad.
In the US, while ASCAP/BMI get villified, they're a bit less crazy than PRS seems to be. Most of the time you hear about the evil organizations is when someone states that "such and such bar had to shut down because of license fees!". Then you dig deeper and find that they hadn't been paying their license fees for years, had been notices reminding of their need to pay, and finally got sued.
Yeah, there's exceptions, but by and large the license fee situation in the US is rather reasonable and easy to manage.
Whether or not that money gets to the artists in any significant/useful way... that's another issue altogether.
Same goes for the guy who did the decorations, yet *he* ain't getting monthly royalties either. No, they're both equally inmoral and stupid, its just that the Decorators Guild (if there's even such a thing) ain't as good as lobbying for advantageous laws.
It's not the copyright owners' faults that the market model for decorators is Work for Hire.
Then songwriters should take a lesson from software developers and charge for services, not for some "intellectual property" bullshit. A company needs you to write them a song, you charge for it, a company wants you to write songs for them regularly, you get employed by them for a stable salary. No need to deal with stupid lobbying organizations, overzealous lawyers, or paying royalties to people who've never had a hand in actually running the goddamned business. Win for all.
This has been tried in the past, and actually happens a fair amount in pop music.
However, copyright law is not a new thing and here's the key: You are perfectly free to not utilize the work of any given copyrighted work, however, if you wish to utilize that work, you must meet the copyright owners' terms. It's very simple.
Software writers can very much charge for their software (and do) with regards to "intellectual property bullshit". It's only OSS developers that need to charge for services, due to their voluntary relinquishing of their rights to the work. Most software in the world is not OSS, and you need to pay for most of it. Seems to work fine.
Just because you don't like paying for things, doesn't mean the business model of paying for things is flawed.
The truth of the matter is that the royalty industry *hurts* musicians (at least the performing kind) by forcing venues to stop having live music
Bullshit. The thing that forces venues to stop having live music is that venue owners are cheap bastards. It's like saying that requiring liquor licenses forces venues to close. Both are a cost of doing business. In the US BMI/ASCAP fees are *very* reasonable flat costs on a yearly basis, and can be covered by a well-run venue's revenue in less than a week (the fees vary depending on the size of the venue).
As a software engineer, I'm not paid every time code I wrote 2 years ago is used.
So it's copyright holders' fault that the majority of your income is the result of Works for Hire?
Builders aren't paid every time a building they've worked on is sold or let.
Also a work for hire.
The current practice of rewarding artists every time their music is played is unsustainable, and more and more people are becoming aware of this fact.
Its perfectly sustainable, so long as people are willing to pay for what they utilize.
Maybe so, but the only way people could be professional musicians at that time was through patronage.
Its not like copyright is some newfangled, Orwellian thing, you know. It's been around since the early 17th century (and before that the *printers* owned the right to the works people asked them to print -- how's that for unfair).
Full disclosure: I'm a songwriter and a member of a PRS. The money I make a year on songwriting could maybe buy a nice dinner.
So, you're not really a professional "song writer" as much as someone who foists their really bad "music" off on friends who are too polite to tell you the truth?
No, if he makes money it's entirely possible he's "professional", he just doesn't do it for a living or is particularly successful at it.
I do not think "professional" means what you think it means.
I for one, welcome our new security female lapdancers overlords.
While I found much of your post hard to comprehend, we can agree on this part.
I find that a lot of women not only find strippers entertaining, but thoroughly enjoy the boobage.
This seems to increase in prevalence as intelligence increases, however. And as we all know, just because someone is in IT, doesn't mean they're intelligent.
I have no problem with people not keeping campaign promises that had no grounding in reality.
I personally voted for Obama, because he was the closest I was going to get someone who lined up with my political and social preferences.
I also vote knowing that politicians are and always will be constrained by reality, and that they haven't changed since the beginning of the Republic.
When we start electing wizards and unicorns to office, perhaps my expectations will be closer to yours.
But when it came time to ACTUALLY correct some of the previous abuses, what's happened? 5 day review? Nope. No earmarks? Sorry, that was the last administration's business, and he's looking forward.
No earmarks is always something people rant about, but earmarks (and riders, similarly derided) are how the US government has worked since the dawn of the Republic. I'm unconvinced it needs to change.
5 day review? Every version of every bill is online for people to check out. What good does 5 day review do, anyway? The majority of people aren't smart enough to understand how Congressional legislation is performed, much less smart enough to understand the various versions of bills. Or are you not-so-subtly trying to point out the fact that GOP members of the House and Senate want to have every version of every bill up for public review before a vote (as I said before, they already are), and require another 5 days every time a change is made? Because that's a really, really stupid idea. It would make Congress inoperative in no time flat.
Actually spend some time looking at what the current administration is working towards (and some time looking at what they've already done -- PROTIP: not everything that an administration does makes headlines), instead of relying on talking heads to make up your mind for you.
National government is like an aircraft carrier. You can't turn it on a dime, even if you desperately want to do so. The current administration is definitely making strides to separate itself in terms of behavior from the previous administration, but it can't do as quickly as our American attention level seems to require.
I should sue someone, is what you're saying?
Yes, I'm American, why do you ask?
There's a substantially similar virus *now*, in that its running around in the general population since this spring. According to the CDC maps the outbreak is "widespread" (highest level that the have on their maps) and has been for some time.
Does that mean that everyone has gotten it? Of course not, but it does mean that there's a very high chance that most people have already been exposed multiple times already. Since viruses are not binary (you either get nothing or get severe symptoms), it's likely many people had "colds" that were actually the virus in question.
With a fatality rate of .05% at most, and the majority of those being folks with compromised health already, spread rate sounds scary, but seems to really not be.
Yeah but except for the "slate" designs, tablets are just too large, too hot, and too much of a pain in the ass to really be a viable option right now (and the slate PC designs are often either underpowered, over priced, or both)
"Server" isn't particular hardware. Anything can be a server, it just not be the *proper* server for a given usage.
You even note it in your objection: "...Linux, MySQL [server software] and Apache [HTTP server software]"
You're confusing the terms "enterprise class server configuration" with "server".
Score: -3 (Pedantic)
The enterprise Xerox stuff I've been managing for the last 4 years (2 leases so far, 2 different deploys) have all been able to do authenticated SMTP
Thing is, most environments manage their SMTP by only allowing sends from certain IP spaces or hosts, at least insofar as I have seen. Unless you're doing SMTP between LANs on the public internet from your scanner/copier/printer, I don't see how that'd be an issue.
yeah but it's cheapest if you're starting from nothing. getting the os x server version costs $100 more than the non-server version, but OS X Server itself will run you $500 per license otherwise.
King Arthur: "This means two things"
Sir Lancelot: "Three, sir"
Arthur: "What"
Lancelot: "It means three things, not two"
Arthur: "Ah, right. Now then, this means one of five things"
For some value of "readable" that means "it's no fun at all to read a long work", I suppose.
My issue isn't with LCD DPI abilities, it's the fact that the iPhone screen is tiny. That's why the iPhone, for me, is a useless device for reading e-books. The glossy screen doesn't help much, either.
Chances are that a significant amount of the US population has already been exposed to the "swine flu" without even knowing it. I remember seeing statistical work in an article or 12 a month or two ago to this effect, as well.
I dunno, but it seems like a good idea for a slice of the population that is more likely to be exposed to fluid-borne pathogens. My mom was sort of a worry-wart when it came to vaccinations (in the opposite way that Jenny McCarthy is a worry-wart), so I and my siblings are vaccinated against all sorts of odd things, with no ill-effects other than an usually low slashdot ID number.
Your argument is seriously based off the idea that people like the activity of listening "in general" and that they get pressured into buying music they don't like?
I don't even know where to begin with that. Do you, in fact, ever leave your house and interact with real, live people?