Actually, the GPL is designed to limit freedom in specific ways. It's not about "letting people be free." To make your software completely unrestricted, simply release it to the public domain. That's easy.
The GPL strives to create a freer overall community through limiting the freedom of individuals, and basically forcing them to participate in the community if they wish to modify and redistribute the code. Those who benefit should also be contributors and should follow certain wishes of the original authors. Creating freedom by limiting it is strange, but like it or not it has certainly had an effect.
Remember that everyone retains the freedom to either use GPL code or not to use it. Noone is being oppressed here, they simply have a choice to accept the terms or to write their own code from scratch.
At the heart of the GPL is the idea that this work is free - if you're going to add on to this work and then redistribute it, you must make your work free as well. The rest is just details that build on that idea.
The new Tivoization rules are just another extension of this idea. Did the people who wrote the GPL software used in the Tivo desire for it to be used that way? Did they envision DRM and locked down hardware? Of course not. Tivo simply found holes in GPLv2 that let them get away with it, and so the GPLv3 is coming along to try and close up those holes.
It's interesting that you talk about supply and demand, but the supply side is hardly mentioned. Once the music is recorded, the record companies can make as many copies as they like, and each additional copy probably costs them less than one dollar. So the supply is potentially enormous. By raising the prices high, they produce the same effect as a limited supply would cause, but there's nothing about the supply that is inherently limited.
This is where competition is supposed to help out. Some smart person should start a company that does less marketing, simple good quality recordings, and standard CD packaging, then sell the discs for $5. They could pay about $1 per CD to the artists, $1 for manufacturing and distribution, $1 on average for recording and production, $1 for company salaries and expenses, and $1 profit. Assuming they could get some big names on board, they should create quite a stir and make some good money undercutting the other companies and their artificial markups.
Unfortunately, the few big music corporations seem to have a stranglehold on the business, and they know better than to start a price war with each other. The status quo makes them all more profitable. It's a bit like OPEC, just done unofficially because it would be illegal to make it official.
With free music, you do get a great deal of noise, it is true. However, you also have the potential for great filters. I think there would be many cool websites popping up which would feature reviews and free album downloads. These sites would compete with each other by trying to do the best job of separating out the best music and making it easy to discover. Their motivation wouldn't be to sell you specific bands, but rather to do the best job of finding good music.
As for touring, once the best bands create a following over the web, they will have the highest demand to be seen. Venues will seek them out to play in order to draw a crowd. This will give the bands more power in the touring scene than what they have now.
Merchandise rules shouldn't change. The law could give bands exclusive rights to sell physical products with their brand, such as t-shirts and collector's CDs, just as is the case now. The only difference is that they can no longer limit a person from copying a series of digital bits from one location to another.
I agree, but at the same time it might be more luck than genius. I'd be curious what the same ad agency would come up with for a more mundane product. "Does it stack onto a Burger King Chicken Sandwich?" doesn't have quite the same appeal.
The problem with your analogy is that the scarcity of money is essential to its value - with infinite money, it all becomes worthless green paper. Music, on the other hand, retains its essential value as it is copied - more copies just allow more people to enjoy that music. If everyone copies music, it does lose its market value, but that market value only existed in the first place due to an artificially imposed scarcity.
If money were to be copied infinitely, chaos ensues and everyone loses. If music is copied infinitely, most people benefit, and only the few who are making big profits through creating hype over a small number or artists will lose out. Artists themselves would still record music, both out of the desire to make music, and as a way of advertising. They could then make money primarily from touring. They could also sell merchandise, and sell nice shiny releases of their music with attractive cover art.
With music being free, the best music would rise to the top and find an audience over the internet. Many more people would enjoy great new music that under the current system they might never find.
Plus, it's the common perception that artists don't make money off of CD sales. Performance rights are their chance to make money even if the record company screws them.
So, in effect we have a screwed up and completely unnecessary system, trying to correct for the fact that the artists signed bad contracts?
Why would you think that the purchase of a $20 CD gives you unlimited performance rights for commercial purposes?
I would intuitively think that purchasing a $20 CD gives me the right to play that on one stereo system at a time, anywhere, for any reason. This may not be legally true, but it should be. The only necessary limitation should be copying or broadcasting.
Could a bar owner have all their live acts sign something along the lines of "I agree to pay all licensing fees for songs we play which we did not write."? Of course many bands would sign and not think twice about it, but how is that the bar's responsibility?
Can ASCAP/etc. really charge for bars which play the radio or television? The songs are already being broadcast on the air for free. It would be legal for each patron to bring a portable radio and listen to it. All the bar is doing is converting already public signals into audible sounds. Furthermore, the radio stations already licensed the songs, so they shouldn't need to be licensed twice.
The biggest problem with the music industry is that it is just not so useful anymore. We don't need big companies to find artists for us. We don't need them to fund album productions and promote artists. With the internet, there are many ways to distribute music cheaply and connect with fans. It is also much more feasible with modern technology for anyone to economically produce their own albums.
The music industry is desperately holding on, and working hard to promote bands based on image and creating a perception of what is cool. The overall effect on the music scene is negative. That's right, they're spending vast amounts of money, and we are worse off than if they didn't exist at all. Without the industry, music would have to become popular on account of being good rather than from being hyped.
Hypothetically... if they were aliens from Andromeda, they could be going back to get reinforcements to extract revenge for their fallen ship. If their ships have similar capabilities to what you've described, they'll have a round trip of 56 years, but in that time 4 million years will have passed here. We'd better start the preparations!
I worked for NCSA as a web developer/researcher. Not all of the jobs there involve complex supercomputing tasks, so you may find an opening doing web development, networking, basic tech support, etc. From that point if you are able to train yourself and network inside the organization, you could probably move towards working with the big servers in time.
I imagine there would already be a good captioning solution if we could all agree on 1 or 2 basic video formats. It drives me nuts that there are so many codecs and standards out there. All the time spent on those could have been spent on developing a single free, cross-platform video format, which scales nicely from tiny to HD, which can be streamed or downloaded, and which supports captions and any other nice features people might want.
If I had the ability to blow $267,000, I think I would get more satisfaction from contributing to space research than I would from a simple 90-minute joyride. If a few of these rich folk pooled their money together they could make some cool deep space probe concept into reality, rather than just burning rocket fuel and having nothing to show for it.
I thought the same thing. Of course the Russian computers have an attitude problem.
"Beep boop... It's so fucking cold out here... I wish I were back in Siberia, at least there it's only cold 11 months out of the year. We're going to die out here, aren't we?"
Just send up some vodka already, problem fixed. Or, at least addressed.
I didn't RTFA, but I don't think the bear was equipped for fucking. I agree though. If I was injured in the desert and a robotic bear with a hydraulic robot bear penis was running straight for me, I'd die from shock too.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait... don't you mean he's probably a Sith?
Sith.
Actually, the GPL is designed to limit freedom in specific ways. It's not about "letting people be free." To make your software completely unrestricted, simply release it to the public domain. That's easy.
The GPL strives to create a freer overall community through limiting the freedom of individuals, and basically forcing them to participate in the community if they wish to modify and redistribute the code. Those who benefit should also be contributors and should follow certain wishes of the original authors. Creating freedom by limiting it is strange, but like it or not it has certainly had an effect.
Remember that everyone retains the freedom to either use GPL code or not to use it. Noone is being oppressed here, they simply have a choice to accept the terms or to write their own code from scratch.
At the heart of the GPL is the idea that this work is free - if you're going to add on to this work and then redistribute it, you must make your work free as well. The rest is just details that build on that idea.
The new Tivoization rules are just another extension of this idea. Did the people who wrote the GPL software used in the Tivo desire for it to be used that way? Did they envision DRM and locked down hardware? Of course not. Tivo simply found holes in GPLv2 that let them get away with it, and so the GPLv3 is coming along to try and close up those holes.
But is a baby mammoth really that huge? Well, I guess it's a little mammoth!
It's interesting that you talk about supply and demand, but the supply side is hardly mentioned. Once the music is recorded, the record companies can make as many copies as they like, and each additional copy probably costs them less than one dollar. So the supply is potentially enormous. By raising the prices high, they produce the same effect as a limited supply would cause, but there's nothing about the supply that is inherently limited.
This is where competition is supposed to help out. Some smart person should start a company that does less marketing, simple good quality recordings, and standard CD packaging, then sell the discs for $5. They could pay about $1 per CD to the artists, $1 for manufacturing and distribution, $1 on average for recording and production, $1 for company salaries and expenses, and $1 profit. Assuming they could get some big names on board, they should create quite a stir and make some good money undercutting the other companies and their artificial markups.
Unfortunately, the few big music corporations seem to have a stranglehold on the business, and they know better than to start a price war with each other. The status quo makes them all more profitable. It's a bit like OPEC, just done unofficially because it would be illegal to make it official.
With free music, you do get a great deal of noise, it is true. However, you also have the potential for great filters. I think there would be many cool websites popping up which would feature reviews and free album downloads. These sites would compete with each other by trying to do the best job of separating out the best music and making it easy to discover. Their motivation wouldn't be to sell you specific bands, but rather to do the best job of finding good music.
As for touring, once the best bands create a following over the web, they will have the highest demand to be seen. Venues will seek them out to play in order to draw a crowd. This will give the bands more power in the touring scene than what they have now.
Merchandise rules shouldn't change. The law could give bands exclusive rights to sell physical products with their brand, such as t-shirts and collector's CDs, just as is the case now. The only difference is that they can no longer limit a person from copying a series of digital bits from one location to another.
I agree, but at the same time it might be more luck than genius. I'd be curious what the same ad agency would come up with for a more mundane product. "Does it stack onto a Burger King Chicken Sandwich?" doesn't have quite the same appeal.
The problem with your analogy is that the scarcity of money is essential to its value - with infinite money, it all becomes worthless green paper. Music, on the other hand, retains its essential value as it is copied - more copies just allow more people to enjoy that music. If everyone copies music, it does lose its market value, but that market value only existed in the first place due to an artificially imposed scarcity.
If money were to be copied infinitely, chaos ensues and everyone loses. If music is copied infinitely, most people benefit, and only the few who are making big profits through creating hype over a small number or artists will lose out. Artists themselves would still record music, both out of the desire to make music, and as a way of advertising. They could then make money primarily from touring. They could also sell merchandise, and sell nice shiny releases of their music with attractive cover art.
With music being free, the best music would rise to the top and find an audience over the internet. Many more people would enjoy great new music that under the current system they might never find.
So, in effect we have a screwed up and completely unnecessary system, trying to correct for the fact that the artists signed bad contracts?
I would intuitively think that purchasing a $20 CD gives me the right to play that on one stereo system at a time, anywhere, for any reason. This may not be legally true, but it should be. The only necessary limitation should be copying or broadcasting.
Could a bar owner have all their live acts sign something along the lines of "I agree to pay all licensing fees for songs we play which we did not write."? Of course many bands would sign and not think twice about it, but how is that the bar's responsibility?
Can ASCAP/etc. really charge for bars which play the radio or television? The songs are already being broadcast on the air for free. It would be legal for each patron to bring a portable radio and listen to it. All the bar is doing is converting already public signals into audible sounds. Furthermore, the radio stations already licensed the songs, so they shouldn't need to be licensed twice.
Seriously - get 2.6.22 running on an iPhone, THEN we'll have a story!
Dude, a T3 would be almost as expensive as just buying all those CDs and movies.
:)
The biggest problem with the music industry is that it is just not so useful anymore. We don't need big companies to find artists for us. We don't need them to fund album productions and promote artists. With the internet, there are many ways to distribute music cheaply and connect with fans. It is also much more feasible with modern technology for anyone to economically produce their own albums.
The music industry is desperately holding on, and working hard to promote bands based on image and creating a perception of what is cool. The overall effect on the music scene is negative. That's right, they're spending vast amounts of money, and we are worse off than if they didn't exist at all. Without the industry, music would have to become popular on account of being good rather than from being hyped.
That's why it needs to be illegal to purchase a PC without paying for Vista. It's the only way to make the pirates pay.
Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans! Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me!
link
Hypothetically... if they were aliens from Andromeda, they could be going back to get reinforcements to extract revenge for their fallen ship. If their ships have similar capabilities to what you've described, they'll have a round trip of 56 years, but in that time 4 million years will have passed here. We'd better start the preparations!
I worked for NCSA as a web developer/researcher. Not all of the jobs there involve complex supercomputing tasks, so you may find an opening doing web development, networking, basic tech support, etc. From that point if you are able to train yourself and network inside the organization, you could probably move towards working with the big servers in time.
The 1968 discovery of placing the mike in front of the instruments was revolutionary!
I imagine there would already be a good captioning solution if we could all agree on 1 or 2 basic video formats. It drives me nuts that there are so many codecs and standards out there. All the time spent on those could have been spent on developing a single free, cross-platform video format, which scales nicely from tiny to HD, which can be streamed or downloaded, and which supports captions and any other nice features people might want.
If the experiment is a failure, just think of it as your investment growing backwards in time!
If I had the ability to blow $267,000, I think I would get more satisfaction from contributing to space research than I would from a simple 90-minute joyride. If a few of these rich folk pooled their money together they could make some cool deep space probe concept into reality, rather than just burning rocket fuel and having nothing to show for it.
I thought the same thing. Of course the Russian computers have an attitude problem.
"Beep boop... It's so fucking cold out here... I wish I were back in Siberia, at least there it's only cold 11 months out of the year. We're going to die out here, aren't we?"
Just send up some vodka already, problem fixed. Or, at least addressed.
I didn't RTFA, but I don't think the bear was equipped for fucking. I agree though. If I was injured in the desert and a robotic bear with a hydraulic robot bear penis was running straight for me, I'd die from shock too.
It used to be you'd just file a TPS report on the damage and be done with it. But that was back when Y2K was the biggest concern.
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