Of course, a moderation system would just be a reimplementation of the current recording industry, which acts precisely as a filter: its name on a CD means its high quality, it guarantees against manufacturing defects, and it gives you the artist you asked for instead of a different one.
By going to a moderation system, you are going back to the record company system which you despise so much.
And you have exactly the same problems.
The few who have the high feedback rating will be able to effectively control the market. It will in fact be much worse than the record company system.
There is an IRC style chat capability installed with the program. Granted, many people may not care to hear anything new or independent, but saying that there is no way you could find a new band on Napster is not true.
I do think that some people would go in the genre chat rooms and try new stuff. Who knows, maybe in a year or two, after everyone has been saturated by the top 40 crap, they will start getting hungry fo something new.
The problem is not so much identifying independent music, but in downloading it on Napster. Anybody can get magazines and look at websites dedicated to the genres which thrive without corporate support, but Napster does not list this music. All of the music listed on Napster is top 40 pop music. If you like indepdent music, you have to buy the CD's, because you can't get it through Napster; they only have top 40 pop music.
Jon Katz - why isn't your book on line? If you think the new media is the way to go and the way of vsionaries, why don't you publish your book on line? You promise to, but why didn't you release it simultaneously with the print version? You are PRECISELY the kushy old guard media person who are railing against. You reap massive profits, millions of dollars per year, from your book, charging for nothing more than bound paper, which (you believe) should be distributed for free. If you want to be taken anything close to seriously on this topic, you need to put your book online, and the fact that you didn't release it with the print version shows that wanted to reap massive profits from the print version. How does this make you different from what you are decrying?
Only morons don't know about anything but the Big Five copmpanies. That's my point. You'd have to be blind, deaf, and stupid to not be familiar with Rounder Records. That's my point.
You seem to honestly believe that artists will stop producing as a result of the things you predict.
The artists who currently make a full-time living off of music will no longer be able to when they can't make money off of recordings. Although they will be able to work for free, they will have much less time because they will have to get a full-time job to support themselves. Making music will be limited to part time work. Since you are a moron, you are not familiar with the true cost of making music; it is much more than merely time, also.
Get out of the money-is-the-be-all-and-end-all-of-music mindset and read up on some history.
Yeah, like how the 20th century was before the most productive century for music ever, because people could make money off of it? Like how Tin Pan Alley was the golden age of songwriting, because the music sheets could be sold as products? Like how the diversity and quantity of music has exploded every year?
The percentage of the marketshare represented (note: NOT controlled - the RIAA is a non-profit organization and does not get compensation for CD sales, nor does it dictate policies of the music industry) is irrelevant. Saying the RIAA has a monopoly on music is about as moronic as saying that the Candlemaker's Guild (which represents every maker of candles) has a monopoly on candles. The RIAA is not in the business of making music, does not make music, and has never made music, so it doesn't make sense that they would have a monopoly on music.
Anybody with any clue at all knows that a small group of companies which control an industry (which is _arguably_ true about the Big Five records companies -- which have nothing to do with the RIAA), is called an "oligopoly". Nobody goes around calling Ford/GM/Chrysler a monopoly; because it would be evidence of being a moron. You may remember from kindergarden that "mono" means one, so how can 5 companies constitute a monopoly? If you are going to insist on being an ignorant moron by stating that the Big Five control the music industry (which they don't - there are over 1463 record labels in business), at least call it by the proper term. By calling a group of 5 companies a "monopoly" you are just being offensively ignorant.
The difference between Microsoft, and the alleged monopoly the Big Five has (whatever sense that allegation makes) is that with Microsoft there is some limit to choice; with the music business there is no limit. There is absolutely no financial structure in place which forces me to buy a Sony CD when what I really want is a Rounder CD (of course, I have a clue: I know where to get the best music. Some music consumers do not so they are effectively locked into the Big Five labels - that's their own fault though). But Microsoft "forces" you to get the browser with the OS. That's the point.
Thank you ugbar. After 30 minutes of reading comments by people who do not understand how music is made, it was a serious fresh a breath air to read your comment.
K-Tel would go nuts with this one, and you'd quickly see the death of the record album. The hit single would once again be *everything* as it was in the 50's and early 60's.
This is indeed one of the two or three most important issues. Downloading quick byte sized snippets of music does indeed spell "top 40 pop music", and longer, more creative works will not survive in online delivery, nor will the current mechanism support it (which depends on revenue from top 40 music to support the infrastructure).
Music is going to die HARD as soon as online delivery becomes the norm (whether forced by Orrin Hatch, or forced by clueless pirates). The ONLY music which is viable to produce in this media is top 40 pop music. I predict that by 2010, there will be only three musical acts: Britney Spears, N Sync, and Backstreet Boys, all of which will only sing corporate sponsored jingles, and put out two songs each per year.
Ever used Napster? It's breathtaking. It's the largest musical library ever assembled, and it's entirely user driven.
Only if you like top 40 pop music. Napster only lists top 40 pop music, and if you search for anything aside from the MOST mainstream, biggest selling stars, you will get NOTHING. You can search for Moby, or AniDifranco, and you will get tons of hits, because they are trendy, fashionable, top 40 pop acts. But if you search for more interesting and creative music, such as music by Rebecca Pearcy or Jenny Choi, you will get no hits. This is because Napster is a haven on top 40 pop music, but nothing else.
My CD collection has more variety than Napster has. To call Napster a haven for music lovers is just plan offensive and degrading to music lovers. It's only a haven if you like top 40 pop music.
(1) The RIAA does not control the record industry. There are over 1463 record labels in business in the world, and a small fraction belong to the RIAA.
(2) The RIAA is a non-profit organization. It is inherently better than the government, and different from the government, because it cannot use physhical force.
This is obviously a case where 'free trade' isn't, and a 'competitive system' is just really a monopoly, or partnered monopoly.
You don't "get it". There is only a monopoly in music if you are trying to be as unresourceful and blind as a farm animal. Yahoo lists 1463 record companies. This is not a monopoly, by any definition. The recording industry is one of the most diverse industries in the world. Which part of this don't you understand.
THIS ISN'T ABOUT AMERICAN SITES. You cannot legislate for other countries - your laws are null and void. Did you read the article? You, as an american, can do jack squat to stop me (in a country where my online site is legal) from taking money from you. If the legal age of consent and majority in a country is 14, there's nothing stopping me from selling you haRdc0r3 of a 14 year-old. Possessing that material in the US a completely different matter.
You just don't "get it". It is illegal to traffic illegal goods into the US (such as drugs), and people who do these things are breaking the law. Similarly, it should be illegal to transfer network data which carries out illegal activity into the US. There is no difference between bringing drugs into the US and replying to network traffic which is requesting to place illegal bets into to the US. Which part of this don't you understand?
The very thing online delivery advocates have been moronically advocating is that music will be LESS commercial while in reality it will be more. Much more. Lower margins means less risk, more conservatism, and less choice. Now we can buy music as a product - ok, that's inherently commercial, but once I buy it, it's mine and commercial-free. Now we are going to get commercials with our music, or should I say, music with our commercials. What'll you have with your cheez-whiz ads - Shostakovich or Sibelius? Hmm?
What's next - corporate sponsorship? Since Metallica can't make money from records any more, the only way for them to survive is corporate sponsorship. They'll have to change their name to the Qualcomm Thrashers or some such (hey, it worked for sports stadiums!).
Ok, that'd be bad, but let's look beyond that. Obviously corporate sponsorship also means controlling content. Music will just turn into jingles - the artists will sing about products and services. Look forward to a bunch of songs about fast food, long distance calling plans, and lower insurance rates, but precious little about broken hearts, angry protest, or innocent love.
And, when you go downtown to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra -- oops, I meant CitiBanc Orchestra, Inc -- perform the AT&T theme song between the movements of Mahler's Fifth -- remember:
YOU ALL ASKED FOR THIS. YOU ALL ARE THE ONES WHO THOUGHT MUSIC WOULD BE BETTER AFTER IT BECAME UNPRODUCTIZED.
Yeah, really. When I was in college, I used to work 40 hours a week at a burger place, on top of going to classes and doing other college stuff. My life in the high-tech industry, where I work 60+ hours per week, on evenings, weekends, from home, etc. is a vacation in comparison. Not just from a work point of view, but I don't have to worry about paying bills, etc. It would be nice if Katz spoke to somebody who actually worked in the industry to ask what they thought it before he started blathering, pretending to be the voice of something he is completely and utterly clueless about.
One other point I would like to add: online delivery will make all serious music extinct, and only top 40 pop music will survive when online delivery overtakes the industry. I believe that CD's of serious music (bluegrass, classical, jazz) will become EXTREMELY valuable and collectible in this time, as it won't be possible to get this music otherwise (because all of the techno-teeny-rebels who steal music only pirate top 40 pop music, and aren't knowledgeable enough to take the serious music).
What you -- and 99.44% of the rest of the slashdot reading techno-rebels -- do not understand is that it COSTS MONEY TO RECORD MUSIC. The average symphony or opera costs between $100,000 and $500,000 to record. This is a FACT (documented in _Who Killed Classical Music_ copyright 1997 by Norman LeBrecht).
Your utopia about free music concentrates soley on COMPOSITION. Many of the aforementioned symphonies are out of copyright and do not require royalties ANYWAYS, so that is irrelevant.
Recording is an entirely different thing from composition. Even though copyright is mostly free in classical music, it is still expensive to produe.
Nobody has told me how classical music will survive in the online delivery world. Everybody talks about micropayments for three minute top 40 pop songs which can be recorded, but nobody wants to talk about how classical music, which is costly to record, costly to download, eats up disk space and bandwidth, and sounds like crap on small systems, is going to survive in the online world of micropaid three minutes jewel of top 40 pop songs. Is western civilization's single greatest achievement going to go down the drain so all of the techno-rebels can get free music? Or are we all going to have to listen to top 40 pop music becaue serious music will become obsolete?
No I wouldn't. Consumers don't like them for the same reasons. Do you think I enjoy the musical equivalent of eating spam when I buy a CD? Most of the music I like isn't available through the big labels.. that is, unless I happen to like pop music. I don't like it, but until recently I didn't have a choice - that's all there was.
I own well over 1,000 CD's, not one single one is on a major label (aside from some classical), no top 40 pop music, almost all are from the last five years, and almost all of them are extremely compelling. Basically, if you have any trouble at all finding hundreds of compelling CD's of serious music, you are extremely blind.
Using top 40 pop music and major labels are the barometer or music is extremely tired and extremely ignorant. No music fan with any clue at all cares about top 40 pop music, or major labels, but you, and the typical slashdotter are increasingly obsessed with top 40 pop music, which has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The big labels have a monopoly on nothing; Yahoo has 1500 labels listen in its directory. Doesn't sound like a monopoly to me. If you call 1500 labels a monopoloy, and if you have trouble buying CD's which are not top 40 pop music, you are just a moron.
Another problem with 10,000 CD's @ $8.00 is that much music is signficantly more expensive to record than $40,000. The author's premised is based on all music being able to be produced but obviously he is completely ignorant of any music aside from low-fi pop. A symphony or an opera costs $100,000-$500,000 to record on average, NOT TO MENTION the price of production. And these - in practice - never come close to selling 10,000 units. How is classical going to make money - let alone survive - in the online world? It won't. Recorded classical music will be COMPLETELY destroyed by online delivery, and we will only be able to listen to top 40 pop music.
Jazz, Blues, and Bluegrass artists have never had the option of getting wealthy from selling copies of albums. And yet these genre's have produced consistently far higher quality music than either indie or mainstream rock/pop/country. Just goes to show that money and art really don't have much to do with one another.
Bluegrass and jazz are two of my specialty genres (along with classical). Online distribution will completely destroy recorded classical music first, but I believe it will also destroy recorded bluegrass and classical. Remember, I am a music fan: I do not care how musicians make money; I care about getting recorded music. I am not interested in going out to the bluegrass festivals (for starters, I live in the west coast and they are all on the east coast). I want bluegrass to listen to AT HOME. I DEPEND on recorded music. I can't resort to live music, and the obsolescence of recorded music would be a horrible, horrible step backwards.
99.44% of music is not songs. It is symphonies, concertoes, sonatates, operas, and the like. The only music which is songs is top 40 pop music. So how do you distribute music which isn't top 40 pop music? Or are you _trying_ to eliminate music as part of your micropayment plan?
The fact is, the musical landscape is dominated by four corporate giants, and the indies are there, but they're such minor players in the distribution and promotion infrastructure, that anything outside the money-making "formula" is lost. It's a LOT harder now to find good stuff than it was 5-7 years ago.
I think the last five years have been by far the best in the history of recorded music. There is more GOOD music being put out now, and MORE music period out now. It is easier to access. None of the best music is on major labels, and none of it is played on the radio. Radio and major labels are the worst barometer of music -- there never has been good music played on the radio, and I don't expect there to ever be.
I also believe that socially, there has been a mass-rejection of nonconformist music among kids who were shocked at the whole black-trenchcoat scene when Columbine went down. It's a backlash against the Primus/Marylin Manson/Ministry set. (hm - if I listen to n'synch, and don't wear black, people wont think I'm a freak and am going to kill them).
For starters, any guy who listens to NSync would be considered a freak or at least a fag, as that is girls music. Popular guys music is stuff like Limp Bizkit, Eminem, etc. Not exactly clean cut, manufactured pop stars, but not serious artists either. I was the least popular kid in my high school, but I think there is value in conforming, and think the youth geek/rebel culture is counterproductive.
After the pentium was released, intel released the Pentium Pro. It was a fine chip in it's day, but it was basically a pentium with on chip L2 cache and higher clock speeds. Not much of an innovation.
Your entire post is clueless, but this is the most glaringly incorrect. The Pentium Pro was three-way super-scalar, supported out of order execution, register renaming, supported 36 bit addressing, and had many other improvements over the Pentium. It has nothing to do with the Pentium aside from the common ISA.
Remember, intel made some concessions to the DOJ a year or year and a half back in order to NOT be found to be a monopoly
Proof please? Please provide documented evidence that Intel has changed its actions on a specific point due to DOJ intervention. The only recent antitrust legislation againt the company which I am aware of is the Intergraph case, which Intel won.
Just like our friends at the RIAA, who set the prices for CD's about 15x their cost
Proof? You need to provide documented proof (e.g. a notatrized financial statement) that the amortized cost of the average CD, including production, distribution, advertising, artist royalities, laywer fees, manufacturing, and packaging, is 1/15 of its sale price to (not at) record stores. If you cannot do this, you need to take back your claim.
Those other companies aren't the scapegoats of the industry like Microsoft is, and aren't the subject of massive government regulation. It is difficult to innovate when the government designs products for you, and tells you how you can and cannot build different products. The government isn't regulating the other companies. No doubt, within 10 years, all of the industries woes will shift to another company, which will then be the new scapegoat, and THAT company will be massively legislated also.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, a moderation system would just be a reimplementation of the current recording industry, which acts precisely as a filter: its name on a CD means its high quality, it guarantees against manufacturing defects, and it gives you the artist you asked for instead of a different one.
By going to a moderation system, you are going back to the record company system which you despise so much.
And you have exactly the same problems.
The few who have the high feedback rating will be able to effectively control the market. It will in fact be much worse than the record company system.
And this is supposed to be better?
There is an IRC style chat capability installed with the program. Granted, many people may not care to hear anything new or independent, but saying that there is no way you could find a new band on Napster is not true.
I do think that some people would go in the genre chat rooms and try new stuff. Who knows, maybe in a year or two, after everyone has been saturated by the top 40 crap, they will start getting hungry fo something new.
The problem is not so much identifying independent music, but in downloading it on Napster. Anybody can get magazines and look at websites dedicated to the genres which thrive without corporate support, but Napster does not list this music. All of the music listed on Napster is top 40 pop music. If you like indepdent music, you have to buy the CD's, because you can't get it through Napster; they only have top 40 pop music.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were 20 when they started their copmpanies. Wozniak was 25.
Jon Katz - why isn't your book on line? If you think the new media is the way to go and the way of vsionaries, why don't you publish your book on line? You promise to, but why didn't you release it simultaneously with the print version? You are PRECISELY the kushy old guard media person who are railing against. You reap massive profits, millions of dollars per year, from your book, charging for nothing more than bound paper, which (you believe) should be distributed for free. If you want to be taken anything close to seriously on this topic, you need to put your book online, and the fact that you didn't release it with the print version shows that wanted to reap massive profits from the print version. How does this make you different from what you are decrying?
Only morons don't know about anything but the Big Five copmpanies. That's my point. You'd have to be blind, deaf, and stupid to not be familiar with Rounder Records. That's my point.
You seem to honestly believe that artists will stop producing as a result of the things you predict.
The artists who currently make a full-time living off of music will no longer be able to when they can't make money off of recordings. Although they will be able to work for free, they will have much less time because they will have to get a full-time job to support themselves. Making music will be limited to part time work. Since you are a moron, you are not familiar with the true cost of making music; it is much more than merely time, also.
Get out of the money-is-the-be-all-and-end-all-of-music mindset and read up on some history.
Yeah, like how the 20th century was before the most productive century for music ever, because people could make money off of it? Like how Tin Pan Alley was the golden age of songwriting, because the music sheets could be sold as products? Like how the diversity and quantity of music has exploded every year?
The percentage of the marketshare represented (note: NOT controlled - the RIAA is a non-profit organization and does not get compensation for CD sales, nor does it dictate policies of the music industry) is irrelevant. Saying the RIAA has a monopoly on music is about as moronic as saying that the Candlemaker's Guild (which represents every maker of candles) has a monopoly on candles. The RIAA is not in the business of making music, does not make music, and has never made music, so it doesn't make sense that they would have a monopoly on music.
Anybody with any clue at all knows that a small group of companies which control an industry (which is _arguably_ true about the Big Five records companies -- which have nothing to do with the RIAA), is called an "oligopoly". Nobody goes around calling Ford/GM/Chrysler a monopoly; because it would be evidence of being a moron. You may remember from kindergarden that "mono" means one, so how can 5 companies constitute a monopoly? If you are going to insist on being an ignorant moron by stating that the Big Five control the music industry (which they don't - there are over 1463 record labels in business), at least call it by the proper term. By calling a group of 5 companies a "monopoly" you are just being offensively ignorant.
The difference between Microsoft, and the alleged monopoly the Big Five has (whatever sense that allegation makes) is that with Microsoft there is some limit to choice; with the music business there is no limit. There is absolutely no financial structure in place which forces me to buy a Sony CD when what I really want is a Rounder CD (of course, I have a clue: I know where to get the best music. Some music consumers do not so they are effectively locked into the Big Five labels - that's their own fault though). But Microsoft "forces" you to get the browser with the OS. That's the point.
Thank you ugbar. After 30 minutes of reading comments by people who do not understand how music is made, it was a serious fresh a breath air to read your comment.
K-Tel would go nuts with this one, and you'd quickly see the death of the record album. The hit single would once again be *everything* as it was in the 50's and early 60's.
This is indeed one of the two or three most important issues. Downloading quick byte sized snippets of music does indeed spell "top 40 pop music", and longer, more creative works will not survive in online delivery, nor will the current mechanism support it (which depends on revenue from top 40 music to support the infrastructure).
Music is going to die HARD as soon as online delivery becomes the norm (whether forced by Orrin Hatch, or forced by clueless pirates). The ONLY music which is viable to produce in this media is top 40 pop music. I predict that by 2010, there will be only three musical acts: Britney Spears, N Sync, and Backstreet Boys, all of which will only sing corporate sponsored jingles, and put out two songs each per year.
Ever used Napster? It's breathtaking. It's the largest musical library ever assembled, and it's entirely user driven.
Only if you like top 40 pop music. Napster only lists top 40 pop music, and if you search for anything aside from the MOST mainstream, biggest selling stars, you will get NOTHING. You can search for Moby, or AniDifranco, and you will get tons of hits, because they are trendy, fashionable, top 40 pop acts. But if you search for more interesting and creative music, such as music by Rebecca Pearcy or Jenny Choi, you will get no hits. This is because Napster is a haven on top 40 pop music, but nothing else.
My CD collection has more variety than Napster has. To call Napster a haven for music lovers is just plan offensive and degrading to music lovers. It's only a haven if you like top 40 pop music.
(1) The RIAA does not control the record industry. There are over 1463 record labels in business in the world, and a small fraction belong to the RIAA.
(2) The RIAA is a non-profit organization. It is inherently better than the government, and different from the government, because it cannot use physhical force.
This is obviously a case where 'free trade' isn't, and a 'competitive system' is just really a monopoly, or partnered monopoly.
You don't "get it". There is only a monopoly in music if you are trying to be as unresourceful and blind as a farm animal. Yahoo lists 1463 record companies. This is not a monopoly, by any definition. The recording industry is one of the most diverse industries in the world. Which part of this don't you understand.
THIS ISN'T ABOUT AMERICAN SITES. You cannot legislate for other countries - your laws are null and void. Did you read the article? You, as an american, can do jack squat to stop me (in a country where my online site is legal) from taking money from you. If the legal age of consent and majority in a country is 14, there's nothing stopping me from selling you haRdc0r3 of a 14 year-old. Possessing that material in the US a completely different matter.
You just don't "get it". It is illegal to traffic illegal goods into the US (such as drugs), and people who do these things are breaking the law. Similarly, it should be illegal to transfer network data which carries out illegal activity into the US. There is no difference between bringing drugs into the US and replying to network traffic which is requesting to place illegal bets into to the US. Which part of this don't you understand?
The very thing online delivery advocates have been moronically advocating is that music will be LESS commercial while in reality it will be more. Much more. Lower margins means less risk, more conservatism, and less choice. Now we can buy music as a product - ok, that's inherently commercial, but once I buy it, it's mine and commercial-free. Now we are going to get commercials with our music, or should I say, music with our commercials. What'll you have with your cheez-whiz ads - Shostakovich or Sibelius? Hmm?
What's next - corporate sponsorship? Since Metallica can't make money from records any more, the only way for them to survive is corporate sponsorship. They'll have to change their name to the Qualcomm Thrashers or some such (hey, it worked for sports stadiums!).
Ok, that'd be bad, but let's look beyond that. Obviously corporate sponsorship also means controlling content. Music will just turn into jingles - the artists will sing about products and services. Look forward to a bunch of songs about fast food, long distance calling plans, and lower insurance rates, but precious little about broken hearts, angry protest, or innocent love.
And, when you go downtown to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra -- oops, I meant CitiBanc Orchestra, Inc -- perform the AT&T theme song between the movements of Mahler's Fifth -- remember:
YOU ALL ASKED FOR THIS. YOU ALL ARE THE ONES WHO THOUGHT MUSIC WOULD BE BETTER AFTER IT BECAME UNPRODUCTIZED.
And, of course, a big, fat I TOLD YOU SO.
Only top 40 pop music is traded on Napster. If Hatch's music isn't top 40 pop music, there's no surprised it is not available through Napster.
Yeah, really. When I was in college, I used to work 40 hours a week at a burger place, on top of going to classes and doing other college stuff. My life in the high-tech industry, where I work 60+ hours per week, on evenings, weekends, from home, etc. is a vacation in comparison. Not just from a work point of view, but I don't have to worry about paying bills, etc. It would be nice if Katz spoke to somebody who actually worked in the industry to ask what they thought it before he started blathering, pretending to be the voice of something he is completely and utterly clueless about.
Somebody PLEASE moderate this parent up.
One other point I would like to add: online delivery will make all serious music extinct, and only top 40 pop music will survive when online delivery overtakes the industry. I believe that CD's of serious music (bluegrass, classical, jazz) will become EXTREMELY valuable and collectible in this time, as it won't be possible to get this music otherwise (because all of the techno-teeny-rebels who steal music only pirate top 40 pop music, and aren't knowledgeable enough to take the serious music).
What you -- and 99.44% of the rest of the slashdot reading techno-rebels -- do not understand is that it COSTS MONEY TO RECORD MUSIC.
The average symphony or opera costs between $100,000 and $500,000 to record. This is a FACT (documented in _Who Killed Classical Music_ copyright 1997 by Norman LeBrecht).
Your utopia about free music concentrates soley on COMPOSITION. Many of the aforementioned symphonies are out of copyright and do not require royalties ANYWAYS, so that is irrelevant.
Recording is an entirely different thing from composition. Even though copyright is mostly free in classical music, it is still expensive to produe.
Nobody has told me how classical music will survive in the online delivery world. Everybody talks about micropayments for three minute top 40 pop songs which can be recorded, but nobody wants to talk about how classical music, which is costly to record, costly to download, eats up disk space and bandwidth, and sounds like crap on small systems, is going to survive in the online world of micropaid three minutes jewel of top 40 pop songs. Is western civilization's single greatest achievement going to go down the drain so all of the techno-rebels can get free music? Or are we all going to have to listen to top 40 pop music becaue serious music will become obsolete?
No I wouldn't. Consumers don't like them for the same reasons. Do you think I enjoy the musical equivalent of eating spam when I buy a CD? Most of the music I like isn't available through the big labels.. that is, unless I happen to like pop music. I don't like it, but until recently I didn't have a choice - that's all there was.
I own well over 1,000 CD's, not one single one is on a major label (aside from some classical), no top 40 pop music, almost all are from the last five years, and almost all of them are extremely compelling. Basically, if you have any trouble at all finding hundreds of compelling CD's of serious music, you are extremely blind.
Using top 40 pop music and major labels are the barometer or music is extremely tired and extremely ignorant. No music fan with any clue at all cares about top 40 pop music, or major labels, but you, and the typical slashdotter are increasingly obsessed with top 40 pop music, which has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The big labels have a monopoly on nothing; Yahoo has 1500 labels listen in its directory. Doesn't sound like a monopoly to me. If you call 1500 labels a monopoloy, and if you have trouble buying CD's which are not top 40 pop music, you are just a moron.
Another problem with 10,000 CD's @ $8.00 is that much music is signficantly more expensive to record than $40,000. The author's premised is based on all music being able to be produced but obviously he is completely ignorant of any music aside from low-fi pop. A symphony or an opera costs $100,000-$500,000 to record on average, NOT TO MENTION the price of production. And these - in practice - never come close to selling 10,000 units. How is classical going to make money - let alone survive - in the online world? It won't. Recorded classical music will be COMPLETELY destroyed by online delivery, and we will only be able to listen to top 40 pop music.
Jazz, Blues, and Bluegrass artists have never had the option of getting wealthy from selling copies of albums. And yet these genre's have produced consistently far higher quality music than either indie or mainstream rock/pop/country. Just goes to show that money and art really don't have much to do with one another.
Bluegrass and jazz are two of my specialty genres (along with classical). Online distribution will completely destroy recorded classical music first, but I believe it will also destroy recorded bluegrass and classical. Remember, I am a music fan: I do not care how musicians make money; I care about getting recorded music. I am not interested in going out to the bluegrass festivals (for starters, I live in the west coast and they are all on the east coast). I want bluegrass to listen to AT HOME. I DEPEND on recorded music. I can't resort to live music, and the obsolescence of recorded music would be a horrible, horrible step backwards.
99.44% of music is not songs. It is symphonies, concertoes, sonatates, operas, and the like. The only music which is songs is top 40 pop music. So how do you distribute music which isn't top 40 pop music? Or are you _trying_ to eliminate music as part of your micropayment plan?
The fact is, the musical landscape is dominated by four corporate giants, and the indies are there, but they're such minor players in the distribution and promotion infrastructure, that anything outside the money-making "formula" is lost. It's a LOT harder now to find good stuff than it was 5-7 years ago.
I think the last five years have been by far the best in the history of recorded music. There is more GOOD music being put out now, and MORE music period out now. It is easier to access. None of the best music is on major labels, and none of it is played on the radio. Radio and major labels are the worst barometer of music -- there never has been good music played on the radio, and I don't expect there to ever be.
I also believe that socially, there has been a mass-rejection of nonconformist music among kids who were shocked at the whole black-trenchcoat scene when Columbine went down. It's a backlash against the Primus/Marylin Manson/Ministry set. (hm - if I listen to n'synch, and don't wear black, people wont think I'm a freak and am going to kill them).
For starters, any guy who listens to NSync would be considered a freak or at least a fag, as that is girls music. Popular guys music is stuff like Limp Bizkit, Eminem, etc. Not exactly clean cut, manufactured pop stars, but not serious artists either. I was the least popular kid in my high school, but I think there is value in conforming, and think the youth geek/rebel culture is counterproductive.
After the pentium was released, intel released the Pentium Pro. It was a fine chip in it's day, but it was basically a pentium with on chip L2 cache and higher clock speeds. Not much of an innovation.
Your entire post is clueless, but this is the most glaringly incorrect. The Pentium Pro was three-way super-scalar, supported out of order execution, register renaming, supported 36 bit addressing, and had many other improvements over the Pentium. It has nothing to do with the Pentium aside from the common ISA.
Remember, intel made some concessions to the DOJ a year or year and a half back in order to NOT be found to be a monopoly
Proof please? Please provide documented evidence that Intel has changed its actions on a specific point due to DOJ intervention. The only recent antitrust legislation againt the company which I am aware of is the Intergraph case, which Intel won.
Just like our friends at the RIAA, who set the prices for CD's about 15x their cost
Proof? You need to provide documented proof (e.g. a notatrized financial statement) that the amortized cost of the average CD, including production, distribution, advertising, artist royalities, laywer fees, manufacturing, and packaging, is 1/15 of its sale price to (not at) record stores. If you cannot do this, you need to take back your claim.
Those other companies aren't the scapegoats of the industry like Microsoft is, and aren't the subject of massive government regulation. It is difficult to innovate when the government designs products for you, and tells you how you can and cannot build different products. The government isn't regulating the other companies. No doubt, within 10 years, all of the industries woes will shift to another company, which will then be the new scapegoat, and THAT company will be massively legislated also.