Obviously, you are extremely new to slashdot. I didn't realize they were doling out five digit user-ids for new accounts. On this website, the meaning of monopoly has nothing to do with market segment share, but it means a company which does not use Linux, wants to shut down Napster, competes with AMD, and/or seeks to punish people who trade DeCSS source code. As you can see, AOL easily fits this definition (criteria #1), and therefore is a monopoly.
Musicians have been around for how many thousand years ? And they have traditionally been payed to show up at your castle or event and play. Only in this century have musicians actually made money (???) off their "art" by actually selling their (souls) music.
Incorrect. Beethoven was the first composer to 'break free' from the court and to make a living off music independently. All of the Romantic composers made money off of music (which wasn't funded by the court). There were battles between publishers and composers of this era for who would get royalties from published sheet music.
Furthermore, several other nineneeth century technologies had the ability to sell music itself as a commodity: such as music boxes, and player-piano rolls.
Also, sheet music for songs had been commodified around this point as well.
That doesn't make sense. Assume the two versions both cost $20. If you offered the second one for $4 + a used copy of the other one, you would lose money unless you sold the other for at least $16 (which is only a 20% discount - not 'heavily'). You proposal makes extremely poor business sense.
You are incorrect. The RIAA does not get $13.25 for a Britney Spears CD. The RIAA is a non-profit organization which represents record companies.
You also have failed to account for the non-negligible cost of the CD which is absorbed by the record stores, manufacturers of the physical packaging, and the delivery and distribution process.
Finally, and most importantly, you have fallen, hook, line, and sinker, for the 'Britney Spears Accounting Myth'. You assume that each dollar made off of Britney Spears is profit. However, Britney Spears is a one in 10,000 occurrence. Only 3 of the 30,000 CD titles released in 1999 sold as many copies of Britney Spears. For every 10,000 CD's, there is one Britney Spears, one 9,000 which lose money, and 999 which break even or make some money. The Britney Spears covers the cost of the rest - very, very little of that is profit.
In fact, no industry in the world has a 90% gross margin as you allege. The highest margins of any industry are companies like Intel and Microsoft which top off at about 50%. Record companies are considerably lower. Look into their financials some time (although it is not possible to separate music from the rest of their business).
The intellectual content is exactly the same on each product.
No, it's not. I think you are confusing the two copyrights on the recording. There is the copyright on the composition (which you did indeed pay the royalties for in the original purchase), but there is also the copyright for the recording, that you did NOT pay for in the original. The CD recording is at least subtly different (from being remastered) than the original, and remastering is itself a copyrightable act.
So they will buy a Alpha or SPARC with a lower MHz speed over a P4 that is slower in the real performance figures.
I take it you didn't see the SPEC performance figures published the other day. The P4 is the fastest microprocessor in the world according to SPECint, and the second fastest (to Alpha) in SPECfp.
Why don't you just get an Athlon? The P4 runs at about 30 degrees at 1.5 GHz, but the 1.5 GHz Athlon is projected (by an article on The Register) to run at 95 degrees (5 degrees below boiling!) if it actually ever comes out. Even three P4's would not approach the heat of one Athlon.
It can distinguish between the original and bootlegs because they are entirely different recordings, with obvious differences (such as the presence of audience applause, and in the case of Pearl Jam, yelling and screaming).
A much more interesting quuestion would be to ask if it could dinstinguish between to different 're-masters' of the same original recorded piece of music.
Nope, you are confused. Backstreet Boys have nothing to do with rock, and are 'Sonographic Clone Pop'. Example of 'Sonographic Clone Rock' are 'artists' like Moby, Matchbox 20, Nine Inch Nails, etc., etc., etc.
I was wondering about that too, but I figured that, assuming it is based on both harmony/melody and a fairly exact timing, it could probably distinguish between two different versions of the same song. No two pianists will play all the corresponding notes with the same duration, even given a similar tempo.
You need to get a clue. Solo classical piano music is not "songs".
The main reason this thing is going to have trouble with classical music is that it can only detect songs, but very little classical music is made up of songs (instead it is made up of symphonies, concertos, opera, and chamber pieces).
That said, I doubt it would have any problem at all distinguishing between different interpretations of the same piece, especially an amateur performance vs. a recorded performance. I doubt it would have trouble distinguishing between Bernstein's 1965 Mahler's Seventh vs. the one he recorded in the 1980's. All of the timings of different performances are completely different, not to mention the different instrumentation, different acoustics in the recording hall, different interpretations of the parts, etc., etc.
What's going on here is that the music industry establishment are absolutely terrified of the internet...and are trying to[?] force things to continue to be done as if turn-of-the-century technology was all we had to work with
That's unusual. All five of the major record companies have started aggressive ramps of online distribution, most particularly, BMG, who has allied with Napster. Do you think Napster is 19th century technology, or have you just been completely oblivious to all news in the past 18 months?
Probably the best reason to vote for Nader is if you wanted the economy to collapse. For example, if you were unhappy with your job, you could vote for him, wait for the economy to collapse and for you to be laid off. Otherwise, there is no reason to vote for him.
Some people feel that "fair use" involves all non-commercial distribution. I'm personally teetering on this one and haven't made up my mind which way to go.
This is irrelevant in the case of Napster, since it is commercial use; i.e. people are using it as a substitute for buying CD's (and if you need proof of THAT just look at all of the junior high school students on Slashdot who produly proclaim that they haven't bought a CD since they discovered Napster). There are several legal precedents in the past couple of decades which support this. There has NEVER in the history of copyright law, been an instance where somebody has been granted use of the ENTIRE work (as is transmitted currently via Napster - the whole song) as 'fair use'.
It 'makes it legal' because the owners of the property are now engaging in free business, and permitting you access to their property (instead of you prying it out of their hands without their permission).
For a drive standard to be widely adopted you have to meet both of those reasonably well. Backing up a 10 GB drive with a 100 MB ZIP is obviously a return to the problems of swapping floppies and is one reason CD-RW is picking up steam over ZIP.
Hmm... those puny little 640 MB CD-RW's harken back to "swapping floppies" a lot more than the 2 GB Iomega Jaz drives do...
As we've heard the benchmarks haven't overwhemled people - but are we measuring things the wrong way?
If Intel loses on benchmarks - Benchmarks are the One True Way(tm) to measure computer performance and they were collected properly in this measurement
If Intel wins by a little on the benchmarks - the procedures were flawed; the results were probably funded by Intel.
If Intel slaughters The Company Which Linus Works For(tm) on benchmarks - then, as Hemos says, "we are measuring things the wrong way"; in other words all benchmarks are inherently flawed and incorrect, and no useful information can be garnered from them.
Actually, Torvalds barely has an accent if you've heard him speak recently. Quite impressive, actually. However, I don't think he is a very good speaker (he's extremely pompous!)
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously, you are extremely new to slashdot. I didn't realize they were doling out five digit user-ids for new accounts. On this website, the meaning of monopoly has nothing to do with market segment share, but it means a company which does not use Linux, wants to shut down Napster, competes with AMD, and/or seeks to punish people who trade DeCSS source code. As you can see, AOL easily fits this definition (criteria #1), and therefore is a monopoly.
Musicians have been around for how many thousand years ? And they have traditionally been payed to show up at your castle or event and play. Only in this century have musicians actually made money (???) off their "art" by actually selling their (souls) music.
Incorrect. Beethoven was the first composer to 'break free' from the court and to make a living off music independently. All of the Romantic composers made money off of music (which wasn't funded by the court). There were battles between publishers and composers of this era for who would get royalties from published sheet music.
Furthermore, several other nineneeth century technologies had the ability to sell music itself as a commodity: such as music boxes, and player-piano rolls.
Also, sheet music for songs had been commodified around this point as well.
Metallica IS their record company. They own part of their label. So do many other artists.
That doesn't make sense. Assume the two versions both cost $20. If you offered the second one for $4 + a used copy of the other one, you would lose money unless you sold the other for at least $16 (which is only a 20% discount - not 'heavily'). You proposal makes extremely poor business sense.
You are incorrect. The RIAA does not get $13.25 for a Britney Spears CD. The RIAA is a non-profit organization which represents record companies.
You also have failed to account for the non-negligible cost of the CD which is absorbed by the record stores, manufacturers of the physical packaging, and the delivery and distribution process.
Finally, and most importantly, you have fallen, hook, line, and sinker, for the 'Britney Spears Accounting Myth'. You assume that each dollar made off of Britney Spears is profit. However, Britney Spears is a one in 10,000 occurrence. Only 3 of the 30,000 CD titles released in 1999 sold as many copies of Britney Spears. For every 10,000 CD's, there is one Britney Spears, one 9,000 which lose money, and 999 which break even or make some money. The Britney Spears covers the cost of the rest - very, very little of that is profit.
In fact, no industry in the world has a 90% gross margin as you allege. The highest margins of any industry are companies like Intel and Microsoft which top off at about 50%. Record companies are considerably lower. Look into their financials some time (although it is not possible to separate music from the rest of their business).
The intellectual content is exactly the same on each product.
No, it's not. I think you are confusing the two copyrights on the recording. There is the copyright on the composition (which you did indeed pay the royalties for in the original purchase), but there is also the copyright for the recording, that you did NOT pay for in the original. The CD recording is at least subtly different (from being remastered) than the original, and remastering is itself a copyrightable act.
So they will buy a Alpha or SPARC with a lower MHz speed over a P4 that is slower in the real performance figures.
I take it you didn't see the SPEC performance figures published the other day. The P4 is the fastest microprocessor in the world according to SPECint, and the second fastest (to Alpha) in SPECfp.
Why don't you just get an Athlon? The P4 runs at about 30 degrees at 1.5 GHz, but the 1.5 GHz Athlon is projected (by an article on The Register) to run at 95 degrees (5 degrees below boiling!) if it actually ever comes out. Even three P4's would not approach the heat of one Athlon.
If this formula is widespread enough, the program will be able to adapt and ignore seconds 3-5 of the piece.
If the formula is not widespread enough, then it is useless.
It can distinguish between the original and bootlegs because they are entirely different recordings, with obvious differences (such as the presence of audience applause, and in the case of Pearl Jam, yelling and screaming).
A much more interesting quuestion would be to ask if it could dinstinguish between to different 're-masters' of the same original recorded piece of music.
Nope, you are confused. Backstreet Boys have nothing to do with rock, and are 'Sonographic Clone Pop'. Example of 'Sonographic Clone Rock' are 'artists' like Moby, Matchbox 20, Nine Inch Nails, etc., etc., etc.
I was wondering about that too, but I figured that, assuming it is based on both harmony/melody and a fairly exact timing, it could probably distinguish between two different versions of the same song. No two pianists will play all the corresponding notes with the same duration, even given a similar tempo.
You need to get a clue. Solo classical piano music is not "songs".
The main reason this thing is going to have trouble with classical music is that it can only detect songs, but very little classical music is made up of songs (instead it is made up of symphonies, concertos, opera, and chamber pieces).
That said, I doubt it would have any problem at all distinguishing between different interpretations of the same piece, especially an amateur performance vs. a recorded performance. I doubt it would have trouble distinguishing between Bernstein's 1965 Mahler's Seventh vs. the one he recorded in the 1980's. All of the timings of different performances are completely different, not to mention the different instrumentation, different acoustics in the recording hall, different interpretations of the parts, etc., etc.
What's going on here is that the music industry establishment are absolutely terrified of the internet...and are trying to[?] force things to continue to be done as if turn-of-the-century technology was all we had to work with
That's unusual. All five of the major record companies have started aggressive ramps of online distribution, most particularly, BMG, who has allied with Napster. Do you think Napster is 19th century technology, or have you just been completely oblivious to all news in the past 18 months?
Maybe some readers can describe how the "music on the internet" debate has gone in other areas of the world.
But all but one of the big five record companies is foreign. So the debate has been international since the big record companies began opposing it.
RPM? What kind of VAX geek are you? Show me PCSI package for IE on VMS (or, in a pinch, VMSINSTAL.COM will suffice).
At least Haglin isn't likely to draw a lot of flak (his answers seemed downright sane in comparison.)
Like making Napster pay-per-view?
Probably the best reason to vote for Nader is if you wanted the economy to collapse. For example, if you were unhappy with your job, you could vote for him, wait for the economy to collapse and for you to be laid off. Otherwise, there is no reason to vote for him.
Some people feel that "fair use" involves all non-commercial distribution. I'm personally teetering on this one and haven't made up my mind which way to go.
This is irrelevant in the case of Napster, since it is commercial use; i.e. people are using it as a substitute for buying CD's (and if you need proof of THAT just look at all of the junior high school students on Slashdot who produly proclaim that they haven't bought a CD since they discovered Napster). There are several legal precedents in the past couple of decades which support this. There has NEVER in the history of copyright law, been an instance where somebody has been granted use of the ENTIRE work (as is transmitted currently via Napster - the whole song) as 'fair use'.
It 'makes it legal' because the owners of the property are now engaging in free business, and permitting you access to their property (instead of you prying it out of their hands without their permission).
Hold on ... you actually thought Napster had a "cause" other than making money? Wow.
Nobody ever cloned the VAX
Incorrect.
For a drive standard to be widely adopted you have to meet both of those reasonably well. Backing up a 10 GB drive with a 100 MB ZIP is obviously a return to the problems of swapping floppies and is one reason CD-RW is picking up steam over ZIP.
... those puny little 640 MB CD-RW's harken back to "swapping floppies" a lot more than the 2 GB Iomega Jaz drives do ...
Hmm
As we've heard the benchmarks haven't overwhemled people - but are we measuring things the wrong way?
If Intel loses on benchmarks - Benchmarks are the One True Way(tm) to measure computer performance and they were collected properly in this measurement
If Intel wins by a little on the benchmarks - the procedures were flawed; the results were probably funded by Intel.
If Intel slaughters The Company Which Linus Works For(tm) on benchmarks - then, as Hemos says, "we are measuring things the wrong way"; in other words all benchmarks are inherently flawed and incorrect, and no useful information can be garnered from them.
Actually, Torvalds barely has an accent if you've heard him speak recently. Quite impressive, actually. However, I don't think he is a very good speaker (he's extremely pompous!)