I like your idea about getting Fake IDs. And if we could collectively hack the Social Security database into submission, maybe starting in 2025 we can all start collecting our retirement benefits.
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
I believe you are off-base comparing Real ID to 1984...
1984's rigid governmental controls were setup by the Inner Party to keep the rest of the Party in-line. The Proles were free to go about their lives more-or-less uninterrupted. Sure, they were spied upon and the government created nonsensical "shortages" for things like razors. The real spying, though, was upon members of the Party who were employed at the four Ministries (DoD (PEACE), Media (TRUTH), Prison (LOVE), and Wall Street (PLENTY)). These individuals were made to suffer until even the most basic mathematics was a lie. Meanwhile, the vast majority lived in ghettos outside of the insanity.
Thus, to the point that it will constrain everybody... Real ID is very dissimilar to anything in 1984. If you *really* want to cast stones, simply knowing the main slogan of 1984 provides better insight.
War is Peace,
Freedom is Slavery,
Ignorance is Strength
And if you'd like to read utopian science fiction *WITH* Real ID... follow the link in my sig. It isn't done, but it is polished enough that you'll get an enjoyable story.
The DS relies on Proprietary Software. Proprietary Software vendors usually like to charge money for their Software. Thus, the $129 cost you quoted is ONLY IF YOU WANT A FUNCTION-LESS BRICK.
One reason why OLPC is so cheap is because the OS was developed by Red Hat from a Linux based system. The education programs that come with it are also Open. And the children can develop their own programs to further improve the OLPC.
Education with a DS would become too much of a business to serve the children any good. And last time I checked, it is better to separate business interests from educational interests.
Most of the copyright infringement is for Microsoft, Adobe, and Symantec. Some is for AutoDesk. Less for Borland.
Honestly... besides AutoDesk... none of those companies is even worth infringing upon from.
When will cheap-bastards learn that there are comparable FREE alternatives? Maybe the $100k fines aren't enough. They should try harder to ruin businesses who insist on infringing. Not to be all bad though, they should also offer F/OSS conversion consultants in exchange for the infringement fines (and as a bargaining chip to lessen the fines).
For several years, I ran an open connection. Nothing bad happened. I doubt anybody used it, because it was in an apartment complex with mostly older, non-tech savvy individuals. But it was there.
I have since moved, and found an open network in my area. I browse, chat, e-mail, do occasional software updates, and occasionally download free music. I stream a Sirius radio audio connection from time to time, but that is low bandwidth. No streams of pirated movies. No infinite queues of warez or copyright infringing music. No password sniffers. Not even a packet sniffer to see what else is going on.
I protect myself by keeping a close eye on all of my accounts (and keeping the list of accounts that are important to me SHORT).
Meanwhile, the sharing provides me with enough personal entertainment to make me justify to myself NOT paying for cable TV (I have an antenna, but the signal is mediocre). But that fact is good too, because it gives me more of an incentive to visit friends when there is actually something on TV that I want to watch.
So, yeah. Agree with Bruce. Stealing/sharing Wifi is the way to go!
And the guy who compared using an Open Wifi connection to downloading a mp3 that infringes on a copyright is an idiot. The Wifi connect is not a creative work which an artist created. It is a service/utility. The fact that it can be trivially shared (unlike phone, heat, or electricity) is a bonus.
I agree with your original point that the biggest challenge will be *not* blocking data that *doesn't* infringe on anybody's copyright. Maybe they can just have distributors just start setting the Evil Bit. That way, it will be EASY to filter correctly and accurately.
I feel that a lot of their recent releases on their broad spectrum of product lines have been rather mediocre.
Hmm... this has been true dating back to MS-DOS.
Keep in mind, they are competing against Google. Google is ALSO getting involved in every god-damned corner of the market. They are just doing it better. They just have the advantage that "the advertising model" is more lucrative than "the software sales and licensing" model, right now.
And FSF guarantees the eventual destruction of "the software sales and licensing" model... so Microsoft has good reason to diversify.
Linux is copyrighted (it has to be to have a license on it).
Linux has a permissive distribution license. This is different then a copyright. Typically, the phrase "copyleft" is applied (which is represented by a symbol with a Backwards C).
The license on Linux and other copyleft artifacts provide distribution and modification guidelines, but they ALL the common trait of minimally guaranteeing the user to redistribute the code (at a minimum) without changing it.
The different flavors of Creative Commons encapsulate this well. ShareAlike, Attribution, and NoDerivatives are three of the most common options selected for distributing Creative Commons licensed work.
It should be noted, the NoDerivatives option is NOT in the spirit of the Free Software Foundation, but it does theoretically serve to protect an artist, while remaining a "permissive distribution" license.
Oh man... Bruce Perens. What a pleasure. I couldn't have said it better myself.
(Actually, I was going to make fun of proprietary software for the general idea of having source unavailable).
More to the point though, I received a lecture on this in a Software Architecture course a couple years ago and it struck a nerve. Even if you never need to review 99.9% of the code you run, it is nice to be able to look through the 0.1% that might be helpful for you to gain a better understanding of what is going on. And that is only possible with Open Source.
Does Amazon participate in this? They hold a ton of personal data whenever I make a purchase from them. Hell, whenever I sign into their site they keep track of all the items I have ever viewed.
It seems that there are so many ways for a website to get *my* data.
(a) personal data supplied (forms on their site that I fill in),
(b) friend data supplied (form on their site that my friend fills in),
(c) browsing data semi-supplied (pages on their site that I look at),
(d) 3rd party supplied data, (forms on other sites that I filled in)
If all of these data sources cannot be controlled by the end user (what gets aggregated where)... then I am going to have to find myself another Internet.
And yes, I don't like that Facebook gets personal data from 3rd Party Sites unless I specifically say they can (i.e. "Go Search Gmail for New Contacts to Add"). LinkedIn (I believe) does this search without asking you.
The old CE companies have tried to create a new ecology (HD TV + Surround sound) but the real ecology is much more complex and diverse (PCs, laptops, cellphones, iPods, and stuff we haven't even dreamed of yet)
You know better than to say "stuff we haven't dreamed of yet". The real winner will be the format that can run a lifelike virtual reality pornography simulation. Last I checked, Blu-Ray doesn't even come with a mechanical dildo (but imagine how quickly your wife would want it if it did).
In all seriousness... there are 5 human senses. Sight and hearing are taken care of. Really good movies can give you the chills or make you cry - so that *partially* handles the sense of touch. More work with that, and then an entertainment platform that can simulate smell are around the corner.
When you can smell Jenna Jameson's perfume as her virtual body climbs over you... that is when the Format War will be over.
The IT Career path is a mis-nomer, more like a dead end.
Do you like pulling cable? Reinstalling Windows? Lugging hardware around? Crawling under desks?
Excellent point. The IT Career path teaches a fairly limited set of computational expertise. Most people in IT would laugh at anybody who claimed to be a career Waiter. Each position requires a basic set of skills (more so for IT), but limited growth potential. A waiter can become a staff manager or even endevour to start his own restaurant, but that would be the exception. Most likely, he would get bored and go to school to do something different. An occasional few who truly enjoy waitering will do the job until retirement.
I think this comparison for an IT Professional is more or less true. After ten years... is it really still enjoyable for all that many people? And aren't the people who it really is enjoyable for going to be there for the next 30 years, until they retire? That is very limiting to the growth potential for the younger generation.
Nobody is saying "IT is Dead". The function of managing complex company networks will always be necessary to run a modern business. What is dead is the notion of a career IT staff member.
Nobody uses the iPhone as their main PC. A better comparison would be OLPC... which is more of a Laptop than a Tablet. But it is much more portable than Dell's which cost twice as much.
Cost factors keep desktop computers relevant for gamers and businesses with a non-mobile workforce. Otherwise, Laptops + Smartphone are preferred. Five years from now, Laptops and Smartphone will merge into a user-friendly portable Tablet PC and kill those two markets. At least, that is my prediction... and five years from now you can quote this to make fun of me.
Linux comes with a fully features graphical editing tool which is lovingly called the Graphical Image Manipulation Program. Apple and Windows are packaged with bare bones, stripped down graphical editing tools.
The point is, "Linux" is a lot more than just the Kernel is nobody is "Killing" it. Ever.
it's worse still that it requires an external non-profit organization to "fight" in order to get ridiculous patents overturned
When overturning stupid patents is profitable, the free-market economy will come to the rescue and begin to undertake this role. If they can be profitable, Patent Fighter Corporations *will* get involved, for non-other than the sake of greed.
I would *much* rather have a non-profit watchdog handle the job. I applaud the EFF for the organized presentation of information that they've done on there "10 Patents" list. Good for them.
The only other way to fund them would be straight from the government, and then they would become just another wing of the USPTO. Now - don't get me wrong. I would LOVE to see RMS-like ideals at top levels of the government, but the bureaucrats would squash that type of progressive control.
In the end, it is *better* that EFF is privately funded. Just like news on PBS (tv) and NPR (radio) are BETTER because they are privately funded.
Windows XP: 2 versions
Windows 2003 Server: 8 versions
Windows Vista: 6 versions
Windows 2008 Server: 8 versions
If the pattern holds up, it will be like this:
Windows 7: 18 versions
Windows 7?!?!?! You must mean Windows Intergalactic! (TM) With version IDs (1) Andromeda, (2) Optimus Prime, (3) Galileo, (4) Newtonian, (5) Uranus, (6) Zod, (7) Zed, (8) Zoom, (9) Black Hole, and (10) Sagittarius.
I'm not convinced there's any way to die gracefully when your business becomes outmoded (SCO, too).
There business was not "outmoded" overnight. I pirated my first mp3 as a freshman in high school in 1996. This was the first lawsuit, in 2003. Whether they were keen on mp3 trading during the 7 years between those two dates is beyond me... but certainly by 2003 they had figured out that *something* was going on.
Right now it is 5 years later. It has been about 4 years since I have pirated an mp3 (because I am unwilling to deal with the risk of being sued). Instead of competing for market share, they sue for profits. That isn't a sound business plan.
And you know what REALLY killed them? iTunes success. For $1 per song, Apple became a music vendor. For figure, right? That's *almost* as much as the industry was charging for CDs. The industry response? DRM. I guess they didn't think that through either.
So, what would be a more logical solution when some customers are lost due to your high costs, and other customers are lost due to the inconvenience of dealing with your shiny plastic discs?
I want them to die... so I won't answer that. But I am sure anybody reading this post could formulate a couple of progressive answers to the situation that the music industry is in.
Madonna signed with LiveNation concert promotion group (I don't know if they are embedded or not).
Harvey Danger (90's one hit wonder) released a free CD
Barenaked Ladies have interesting views on releasing music (I can't remember the details, but they distribute through a non-traditional site)
Beastie Boys have put out at like one Creative Commons song and I think their latest album was somehow independent
But my favorite is any musician with decent music posted on Jamendo, where provides BitTorrent downloadable Ogg-Vorbis albums under Copyleft licenses. The site is a virtual treasure trove of exciting artists waiting to be discovered.
Ahem. Ahem. You must mean email and cell phones? There is nothing worse than the douchebag at the party thumbing out text messages all night. At least with a voice call, you need to seek some kind of privacy.
If you are not making money, I will assume you do music as a hobby. If you are... then GREAT! It is an awesome hobby to have. But if you want to quit your day job, you have to dedicate more of your time to your hobby.
If you are any good, I would recommend choosing a Creative Common license (NonCommericial-ShareAlike, since you don't want people making money from your work). With this license, you can promote yourself and your product through the popular non-corporate website called Jamendo. Through here, thousands of local and global listeners can discover you and support you. Their support will help you develop a fanbase and will make it easier to book local gigs. I know a band from Massachusetts who posted to Jamendo and was discovered by a fan in the UK who he developed them a webpage. They have since booked 4 or 5 gigs in the last few months (one which I attended).
You too can book small bars and get them to pay you $400 a night (to give them the ability to charge 100 patrons a $10 cover charge). As your fanbase grows, it will be easier for you to book more shows because the bar will get more customers by you playing there. Then maybe you'll make the money that will give you enough time to quit your job and support yourself through music.
The great part? You don't even NEED copyrights to your music. Copyrights only constrain you. You cannot promote yourself for FREE online with copyrights. You described that you just want to stop others from profiting from your work. The clock starts ticking (hypothetically) during your first public performance of a song (or the day on which you were upload it to a public network).
So, if you loaded your entire discography to Jamendo today, you would have until 2013 before others could begin to perform your work for profit (given the 5 year rule). If you haven't written anything new in that time, then obviously music isn't really a passion for you and losing that right to your previous work might be a good thing in case somebody else can find the hidden value in it. But if you do continue to write music, then when 2013 rolls around you might have 30-50 new songs and losing the exclusivity rights on the original songs wouldn't be a terrible thing.
In summary - I don't know what your particular situation is, but the war that is going on between listeners and the RIAA is generational... and if you want to participate in the next generation of music then you best realize that it is necessary to abandon some of the dogmatic beliefs about copyright and realize that the world is changing.
Judge Kimball: CEO Smith, you hold an individual copyright license for the media in question? CEO Smith: Yes Judge Kimball: You are the author of the media? CEO Smith: No Judge Kimball: Then you cannot hold this license. You must opt for the corporate version.
Sure, it isn't clear cut... but I *cannot* imagine an artist who would willingly sign over the "Right to Claim Authorship" to a corporate monkey. Anything that legitimately has more than one author would be more complicated than my trivial example, but I would hope that the *REAL* artists would care enough about themselves enough to try to ensure that CEO Smith would be committing perjury if he ever claimed to be the author of *THEIR* work in court.
The distinction between Artist and Businessmen/FinanceMan is actually straight-forward enough that I would support having different (more strict) rules for Corporations.
Though... as an individual... I give away my art (see sig for current offering), so as long as my copyleft rights are protected, I am happy.
For the 3000 features? No, at least most don't. They buy Office for universal compatibility s that they can exchange documents with everyone.
Mostly true. A decade ago, the competition was WordPerfect. I was a young teen at the time, but found using Office to be better than WordPerfect. So, at the time, they did actually win on merit.
With the (recent) advent of OpenOffice as a usable/stable tool (three years ago, I wouldn't have recommended it to anybody) Microsoft needed to leverage their "compatibility" doctrine.
These days, Open Office is more compatible with both itself and older versions of MS Office. It actually turns out that currently, there are compelling technical reasons to use MS Office. It integrates better with e-mail and has many more "Collaboration" features (I loath those feature, but many people find them valuable).
So, the cycle continues... as Microsoft fights tooth-in-nail to remain the dominant player. And presently, killing off their old formats... while destructive, immoral, and rude... is probably the best thing to do to ensure that customers upgrade to the latest thing with all of it's bells-and-whistles.
My question is... do they offer a utility to up-convert older *.doc files to the latest *.docx format? Because if they do, then they are being responsible and this whole story is flamebait.
What I think is a joke is the advertising model. Wikipedia wouldn't be Wikipedia is there were sponsored ads. One of the first things I saw on the Wikia Search link was an ad for Netflix and a promise of the site's four Open Principles (which includes Transparency).
Can I ask a question I think is important... whose pockets does the advertising revenue go into? Because my desire to support the site is incredibly contingent on the answer to that question. And my inquisitiveness about the answer is what a guy like me can do to get on the payroll (if anything) or if the revenue from this site can be a source for global charities in the starving parts of the world.
If the money filters into the pockets of a small number of top executives at Wikia, no thank you.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what my sig should be:
2076: A Novel [2076book.com] about a possible future of America, offered as a free download.
Because people born before 1962 run the country.
I like your idea about getting Fake IDs. And if we could collectively hack the Social Security database into submission, maybe starting in 2025 we can all start collecting our retirement benefits.
I believe you are off-base comparing Real ID to 1984...
1984's rigid governmental controls were setup by the Inner Party to keep the rest of the Party in-line. The Proles were free to go about their lives more-or-less uninterrupted. Sure, they were spied upon and the government created nonsensical "shortages" for things like razors. The real spying, though, was upon members of the Party who were employed at the four Ministries (DoD (PEACE), Media (TRUTH), Prison (LOVE), and Wall Street (PLENTY)). These individuals were made to suffer until even the most basic mathematics was a lie. Meanwhile, the vast majority lived in ghettos outside of the insanity.
Thus, to the point that it will constrain everybody... Real ID is very dissimilar to anything in 1984. If you *really* want to cast stones, simply knowing the main slogan of 1984 provides better insight.
War is Peace,
Freedom is Slavery,
Ignorance is Strength
And if you'd like to read utopian science fiction *WITH* Real ID... follow the link in my sig. It isn't done, but it is polished enough that you'll get an enjoyable story.
discourse in social choice using selective spelling excuses?
The DS relies on Proprietary Software. Proprietary Software vendors usually like to charge money for their Software. Thus, the $129 cost you quoted is ONLY IF YOU WANT A FUNCTION-LESS BRICK.
One reason why OLPC is so cheap is because the OS was developed by Red Hat from a Linux based system. The education programs that come with it are also Open. And the children can develop their own programs to further improve the OLPC.
Education with a DS would become too much of a business to serve the children any good. And last time I checked, it is better to separate business interests from educational interests.
Most of the copyright infringement is for Microsoft, Adobe, and Symantec. Some is for AutoDesk. Less for Borland.
Honestly... besides AutoDesk... none of those companies is even worth infringing upon from.
When will cheap-bastards learn that there are comparable FREE alternatives? Maybe the $100k fines aren't enough. They should try harder to ruin businesses who insist on infringing. Not to be all bad though, they should also offer F/OSS conversion consultants in exchange for the infringement fines (and as a bargaining chip to lessen the fines).
For several years, I ran an open connection. Nothing bad happened. I doubt anybody used it, because it was in an apartment complex with mostly older, non-tech savvy individuals. But it was there.
I have since moved, and found an open network in my area. I browse, chat, e-mail, do occasional software updates, and occasionally download free music. I stream a Sirius radio audio connection from time to time, but that is low bandwidth. No streams of pirated movies. No infinite queues of warez or copyright infringing music. No password sniffers. Not even a packet sniffer to see what else is going on.
I protect myself by keeping a close eye on all of my accounts (and keeping the list of accounts that are important to me SHORT).
Meanwhile, the sharing provides me with enough personal entertainment to make me justify to myself NOT paying for cable TV (I have an antenna, but the signal is mediocre). But that fact is good too, because it gives me more of an incentive to visit friends when there is actually something on TV that I want to watch.
So, yeah. Agree with Bruce. Stealing/sharing Wifi is the way to go!
And the guy who compared using an Open Wifi connection to downloading a mp3 that infringes on a copyright is an idiot. The Wifi connect is not a creative work which an artist created. It is a service/utility. The fact that it can be trivially shared (unlike phone, heat, or electricity) is a bonus.
Okay... we both understand.
I agree with your original point that the biggest challenge will be *not* blocking data that *doesn't* infringe on anybody's copyright. Maybe they can just have distributors just start setting the Evil Bit. That way, it will be EASY to filter correctly and accurately.
Hmm... this has been true dating back to MS-DOS.
Keep in mind, they are competing against Google. Google is ALSO getting involved in every god-damned corner of the market. They are just doing it better. They just have the advantage that "the advertising model" is more lucrative than "the software sales and licensing" model, right now.
And FSF guarantees the eventual destruction of "the software sales and licensing" model... so Microsoft has good reason to diversify.
Linux has a permissive distribution license. This is different then a copyright. Typically, the phrase "copyleft" is applied (which is represented by a symbol with a Backwards C).
The license on Linux and other copyleft artifacts provide distribution and modification guidelines, but they ALL the common trait of minimally guaranteeing the user to redistribute the code (at a minimum) without changing it.
The different flavors of Creative Commons encapsulate this well. ShareAlike, Attribution, and NoDerivatives are three of the most common options selected for distributing Creative Commons licensed work.
It should be noted, the NoDerivatives option is NOT in the spirit of the Free Software Foundation, but it does theoretically serve to protect an artist, while remaining a "permissive distribution" license.
I hope I've cleared that up for you.
Oh man... Bruce Perens. What a pleasure. I couldn't have said it better myself.
(Actually, I was going to make fun of proprietary software for the general idea of having source unavailable).
More to the point though, I received a lecture on this in a Software Architecture course a couple years ago and it struck a nerve. Even if you never need to review 99.9% of the code you run, it is nice to be able to look through the 0.1% that might be helpful for you to gain a better understanding of what is going on. And that is only possible with Open Source.
Cheers.
Does Amazon participate in this? They hold a ton of personal data whenever I make a purchase from them. Hell, whenever I sign into their site they keep track of all the items I have ever viewed.
It seems that there are so many ways for a website to get *my* data.
(a) personal data supplied (forms on their site that I fill in),
(b) friend data supplied (form on their site that my friend fills in),
(c) browsing data semi-supplied (pages on their site that I look at),
(d) 3rd party supplied data, (forms on other sites that I filled in)
If all of these data sources cannot be controlled by the end user (what gets aggregated where)... then I am going to have to find myself another Internet.
And yes, I don't like that Facebook gets personal data from 3rd Party Sites unless I specifically say they can (i.e. "Go Search Gmail for New Contacts to Add"). LinkedIn (I believe) does this search without asking you.
You know better than to say "stuff we haven't dreamed of yet". The real winner will be the format that can run a lifelike virtual reality pornography simulation. Last I checked, Blu-Ray doesn't even come with a mechanical dildo (but imagine how quickly your wife would want it if it did).
In all seriousness... there are 5 human senses. Sight and hearing are taken care of. Really good movies can give you the chills or make you cry - so that *partially* handles the sense of touch. More work with that, and then an entertainment platform that can simulate smell are around the corner.
When you can smell Jenna Jameson's perfume as her virtual body climbs over you... that is when the Format War will be over.
:)
Do you like pulling cable? Reinstalling Windows? Lugging hardware around? Crawling under desks?
Excellent point. The IT Career path teaches a fairly limited set of computational expertise. Most people in IT would laugh at anybody who claimed to be a career Waiter. Each position requires a basic set of skills (more so for IT), but limited growth potential. A waiter can become a staff manager or even endevour to start his own restaurant, but that would be the exception. Most likely, he would get bored and go to school to do something different. An occasional few who truly enjoy waitering will do the job until retirement.
I think this comparison for an IT Professional is more or less true. After ten years... is it really still enjoyable for all that many people? And aren't the people who it really is enjoyable for going to be there for the next 30 years, until they retire? That is very limiting to the growth potential for the younger generation.
Nobody is saying "IT is Dead". The function of managing complex company networks will always be necessary to run a modern business. What is dead is the notion of a career IT staff member.
Nobody uses the iPhone as their main PC. A better comparison would be OLPC... which is more of a Laptop than a Tablet. But it is much more portable than Dell's which cost twice as much.
Cost factors keep desktop computers relevant for gamers and businesses with a non-mobile workforce. Otherwise, Laptops + Smartphone are preferred. Five years from now, Laptops and Smartphone will merge into a user-friendly portable Tablet PC and kill those two markets. At least, that is my prediction... and five years from now you can quote this to make fun of me.
Linux comes with a fully features graphical editing tool which is lovingly called the Graphical Image Manipulation Program. Apple and Windows are packaged with bare bones, stripped down graphical editing tools.
The point is, "Linux" is a lot more than just the Kernel is nobody is "Killing" it. Ever.
When overturning stupid patents is profitable, the free-market economy will come to the rescue and begin to undertake this role. If they can be profitable, Patent Fighter Corporations *will* get involved, for non-other than the sake of greed.
I would *much* rather have a non-profit watchdog handle the job. I applaud the EFF for the organized presentation of information that they've done on there "10 Patents" list. Good for them.
The only other way to fund them would be straight from the government, and then they would become just another wing of the USPTO. Now - don't get me wrong. I would LOVE to see RMS-like ideals at top levels of the government, but the bureaucrats would squash that type of progressive control.
In the end, it is *better* that EFF is privately funded. Just like news on PBS (tv) and NPR (radio) are BETTER because they are privately funded.
Windows 2003 Server: 8 versions
Windows Vista: 6 versions
Windows 2008 Server: 8 versions
If the pattern holds up, it will be like this:
Windows 7: 18 versions
Windows 7?!?!?! You must mean Windows Intergalactic! (TM) With version IDs (1) Andromeda, (2) Optimus Prime, (3) Galileo, (4) Newtonian, (5) Uranus, (6) Zod, (7) Zed, (8) Zoom, (9) Black Hole, and (10) Sagittarius.
There business was not "outmoded" overnight. I pirated my first mp3 as a freshman in high school in 1996. This was the first lawsuit, in 2003. Whether they were keen on mp3 trading during the 7 years between those two dates is beyond me... but certainly by 2003 they had figured out that *something* was going on.
Right now it is 5 years later. It has been about 4 years since I have pirated an mp3 (because I am unwilling to deal with the risk of being sued). Instead of competing for market share, they sue for profits. That isn't a sound business plan.
And you know what REALLY killed them? iTunes success. For $1 per song, Apple became a music vendor. For figure, right? That's *almost* as much as the industry was charging for CDs. The industry response? DRM. I guess they didn't think that through either.
So, what would be a more logical solution when some customers are lost due to your high costs, and other customers are lost due to the inconvenience of dealing with your shiny plastic discs?
I want them to die... so I won't answer that. But I am sure anybody reading this post could formulate a couple of progressive answers to the situation that the music industry is in.
Also...
Madonna signed with LiveNation concert promotion group (I don't know if they are embedded or not).
Harvey Danger (90's one hit wonder) released a free CD
Barenaked Ladies have interesting views on releasing music (I can't remember the details, but they distribute through a non-traditional site)
Beastie Boys have put out at like one Creative Commons song and I think their latest album was somehow independent
But my favorite is any musician with decent music posted on Jamendo, where provides BitTorrent downloadable Ogg-Vorbis albums under Copyleft licenses. The site is a virtual treasure trove of exciting artists waiting to be discovered.
Ahem. Ahem. You must mean email and cell phones? There is nothing worse than the douchebag at the party thumbing out text messages all night. At least with a voice call, you need to seek some kind of privacy.
If you are not making money, I will assume you do music as a hobby. If you are... then GREAT! It is an awesome hobby to have. But if you want to quit your day job, you have to dedicate more of your time to your hobby.
If you are any good, I would recommend choosing a Creative Common license (NonCommericial-ShareAlike, since you don't want people making money from your work). With this license, you can promote yourself and your product through the popular non-corporate website called Jamendo. Through here, thousands of local and global listeners can discover you and support you. Their support will help you develop a fanbase and will make it easier to book local gigs. I know a band from Massachusetts who posted to Jamendo and was discovered by a fan in the UK who he developed them a webpage. They have since booked 4 or 5 gigs in the last few months (one which I attended).
You too can book small bars and get them to pay you $400 a night (to give them the ability to charge 100 patrons a $10 cover charge). As your fanbase grows, it will be easier for you to book more shows because the bar will get more customers by you playing there. Then maybe you'll make the money that will give you enough time to quit your job and support yourself through music.
The great part? You don't even NEED copyrights to your music. Copyrights only constrain you. You cannot promote yourself for FREE online with copyrights. You described that you just want to stop others from profiting from your work. The clock starts ticking (hypothetically) during your first public performance of a song (or the day on which you were upload it to a public network).
So, if you loaded your entire discography to Jamendo today, you would have until 2013 before others could begin to perform your work for profit (given the 5 year rule). If you haven't written anything new in that time, then obviously music isn't really a passion for you and losing that right to your previous work might be a good thing in case somebody else can find the hidden value in it. But if you do continue to write music, then when 2013 rolls around you might have 30-50 new songs and losing the exclusivity rights on the original songs wouldn't be a terrible thing.
In summary - I don't know what your particular situation is, but the war that is going on between listeners and the RIAA is generational... and if you want to participate in the next generation of music then you best realize that it is necessary to abandon some of the dogmatic beliefs about copyright and realize that the world is changing.
Cheers, and Keep writing Music. :)
CEO Smith: Yes
Judge Kimball: You are the author of the media?
CEO Smith: No
Judge Kimball: Then you cannot hold this license. You must opt for the corporate version.
Sure, it isn't clear cut... but I *cannot* imagine an artist who would willingly sign over the "Right to Claim Authorship" to a corporate monkey. Anything that legitimately has more than one author would be more complicated than my trivial example, but I would hope that the *REAL* artists would care enough about themselves enough to try to ensure that CEO Smith would be committing perjury if he ever claimed to be the author of *THEIR* work in court.
The distinction between Artist and Businessmen/FinanceMan is actually straight-forward enough that I would support having different (more strict) rules for Corporations.
Though... as an individual... I give away my art (see sig for current offering), so as long as my copyleft rights are protected, I am happy.
Mostly true. A decade ago, the competition was WordPerfect. I was a young teen at the time, but found using Office to be better than WordPerfect. So, at the time, they did actually win on merit.
With the (recent) advent of OpenOffice as a usable/stable tool (three years ago, I wouldn't have recommended it to anybody) Microsoft needed to leverage their "compatibility" doctrine.
These days, Open Office is more compatible with both itself and older versions of MS Office. It actually turns out that currently, there are compelling technical reasons to use MS Office. It integrates better with e-mail and has many more "Collaboration" features (I loath those feature, but many people find them valuable).
So, the cycle continues... as Microsoft fights tooth-in-nail to remain the dominant player. And presently, killing off their old formats... while destructive, immoral, and rude... is probably the best thing to do to ensure that customers upgrade to the latest thing with all of it's bells-and-whistles.
My question is... do they offer a utility to up-convert older *.doc files to the latest *.docx format? Because if they do, then they are being responsible and this whole story is flamebait.
What I think is a joke is the advertising model. Wikipedia wouldn't be Wikipedia is there were sponsored ads. One of the first things I saw on the Wikia Search link was an ad for Netflix and a promise of the site's four Open Principles (which includes Transparency).
Can I ask a question I think is important... whose pockets does the advertising revenue go into? Because my desire to support the site is incredibly contingent on the answer to that question. And my inquisitiveness about the answer is what a guy like me can do to get on the payroll (if anything) or if the revenue from this site can be a source for global charities in the starving parts of the world.
If the money filters into the pockets of a small number of top executives at Wikia, no thank you.