Sledgehammer will almost certainly fail, for several reasons. The main issue is software availability. There are currently six major operating systems native to Merced, while there are none for Sledgehammer. There have been no plans announced to produce an operating system for Sledgehammer. Second, not many vendors are supporting it. Merced is embraced by most of the major computer companies, both from PC companies and from enterprise server companies. Third, Merced is supposed to launch this year (and they do have real systems running real silicon, so there is some believability in this). They say 2001 for Sledgehammer, but I have serious doubts that they will come that close. They certainly do not have silicon yet. (They appear to have not even started the project until 1999, and the minimum time for a flagship CPU is about four years).
Computer programing is not a special skill, it is accessable to everyone with the time and some not uncommon abilities, just like being a mechanic or amateur radio operator.
Correct.
Is the right for an individual to build radio receivers and monster trucks not a freedom of expression?
You may be able to build them, but in many cases you certainly do not have the right to sell them. For example, in the case of radio receivers, it is illegal to sell ones which receive cell phone frequencies, and even if you do legally receive the signals, there are various restrictions on what you can do with them. There are certainly very restrictive laws on the operation of radio transmitters (which, while you didn't mention, certainly are comparable to projects fo free expression which people can build). There are certainly laws on automibiles you can operate, at least on public roads.
Note that the DeCSS case is not about building the tool, but distributing it.
I know I will get flamed and moderated down for this, but I think there should be serious restriction on technology creation. You can do substantially more real damage with a C compiler then you can with a gun, yet anybody is free to operate a C compiler, although you need a permit to operate/own a gun. As you said, programming is not technically difficult, but it does require responsibility. While perhaps everybody should have the right to code on their own machines for their own purposes, there should be serious government regulation on who is allowed to produce code which is given away. I fully expect there to be in the future, and for programmers to have much more responsibility than they do now.
I have a LAN at home, but most of my computers are not PC's, and do not have ISA/PCI/PCMCIA slots. So, converting my entire LAN to wireless is not an option.
However, I would like to add a wireless interface to my (Win98) laptop. What is the best way to do this? I saw a "wireless -> ethernet bridge" at Fry's, and it was $400. The Aviator set is something like $150. With this, would I be able to put two NIC's (one ethernet, and one wireless) into one PC, and set up the machine as a router? Or does anybody know of a cheaper bridge?
Universities are not-for-profit businesses. The chancellor is not sitting in his office, laughing, at all of the additional dollars he is going to make this year because they denied access to the free long distance program. Most likely, the extra money generated by this action will be spent back into increased network equipment, computer labs, possibly classes, etc., etc. This is not a case of making MORE money - it is a case of losing LESS money.
Second, Clemson does not have a monopoly, as far as ISP's go. I do not know if cable modem or DSL services are available in the Clemson area, but certainly other dialup ISP's are. So this is not a case of a monopoly leveraging its monopoly position in one market to gain an advantage in another (e.g. Microsoft allegedly using its monopoly is OS'es to gain an advantage in web browsers). You still have a choice for ISP. Now, if there was only one ISP (AOL-TW, anyone?) and they used their monopoly power to do this to leverage their own phone service, there would most definitely be cause for concern.
Third, you do not have a right to choice. We live in a free market, and you can only buy what people will sell you, not whatever you want.
Obviously you have not seen the Red Hat errata list. There are already ten security flaws in Red Hat 6.1. These bugs which were shipped with Red Hat 6.1 will allow an outsider to gain root access if the patch is not applied. It is OK for Red Hat to a buggy and insecure OS, but not for Microsoft?
Why aren't the security holes in Linux (e.g. in Red Hat 6.1) reported on slashdot? Do most slashdot users use Windows instead of Linux, or is slashdot backed by the multi-billion dollar Linux companies to spread FUD??
'Some kid' hacked an encryption algorithm so that he could play his DVD's on his machine, thereby going around the brand-forcing done to him by a company that sought to prevent him from READING (not copying) a DVD.
Irrelevant. He did it without permission. (I can just as well argue that DoubleClick is done for a "benign" cause).
DoubleClick is taking personal information (name, address, credit history, purchase history, phone number), and using it for their own purposes, and LYING to people, saying that they do NOT take it.
Riiiiight. That's why they give you an option to turn it off.
Two completely different situations. I don't know HOW you jumped to this conclusion, unless you work for the MPAA or something.
Yep - everybody who doesn't agree with your convenient little view of the universe works for the other side.
Slashdot readers are up in arms about DoubleClick taking THEIR information without their permission, put they have no problem with some kid taking the DVD consortium's information without THEIR permission. Slashdot readers support a lawsuit against DoubleClick, but defend the lawsuit against the person who stole the DVD secrets. To gain any credibility at all, you will need to formulate a consistent view of these things. Right now it is obvious that you jyst choose whichever side of the fence is more convenient.
There have ALWAYS been top 40 acts who make an album or two, and then disappear off the face of the planet. At the height of Pink Floyd's success, for example, disco was the most popular genre. Engineering bands out of nothing is not new (c.f. The Monkees). Artists like the Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, etc., etc., don't represent the "end of good music as we know it"; they are simply the current names of the eternal presence of throw-away top-40 music.
Most of the bands you like are NOT the most talented in the world. Eric Clapton is certainly not the best blues guitar player of all time (not even the best white one), but he became popular because he was in some successful bands, and had a few hit records. There were certainly lots of progressive bands in the 70's whose music was much more complicated and virtuousic than Pink Floyd. They just put some magic in their music, and became popular.
The current music scene is by far the most flourishing it has ever been. Practically every scene is absolutely thriving, and there is by far more different TYPES of music being produced today than there ever was in the past. It is an absolutely wonderful time to be a music fan. I do not have close to enough money and time to buy all of the CD's which come out these days, that I want to buy (and I do have a good income and a lot of free time on my hands). Basically, my advice to you, is that if you think Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys is the cream of what the current music industry has to offer, I suggest that you try just to put just a little more effort into locating good music, because there is an endless supply of it (and, no, you will not find it on the radio or MTV).
I don't understand how you can claim that the quarter-million sellers are being hosed to pay for the loser acts WHEN THE ACTS FOOT THE DAMN BILL! Do some homework. If you want to be a recording act you PAY for the services you need. If you don't seem to be a quarter million seller, guess what? The advance will be basically squat!
The acts only flip the bill if they succeed. Do you think the record company ever sees a penny of that $250,000 advance when the album ends up selling 20,000 copies, and the artist goes back to their job at 7-11?
Or are you suggesting that all rock musicians should be robbed to pay for oboe players?
The already are. The average classical CD costs between $250,000 and $500,000 to produce, and sells between 2,000 and 3,000 copies. SOMEBODY is paying for that. EMI, Polygram, and Sony all have very large classical music divisions, and put out disks, virtually all of which lose money. Where is all of that money coming from?
They were only a superstar act _because_ the industry picked them to be, and the industry only picks a few acts each decade to do that with (Michael Jackson, Springsteen around 'Born in the USA + the live set, Madonna etc), but they had what it took to be marketed that heavily- and that almost certainly means a GnR business team who on the one hand got the band a cut of the money, and on the other hand were ready to _guarantee_ product.
This is an _extremely_ cliched view and very false. The industry cannot PICK who is going to succeed - only the listeners can. Yes, the industry can pick who the listeners will hear (to some extent) but it is still up to the listeners to decide. There have been albums which have been EXTREMELY heavily promoted, which have failed miserably. Remember Michael Jackson's HIStory?
Guns 'n Roses _in_particular_ was not chosen to succeed. They are a real band - not assembled by a record company. They released an EP before getting the major label contract. But my main point is that Appetite for Destruction was released much earlier than the point at where it succeeded. It was released in 1987, but Guns n Roses didn't become mega-pop superstars until a year or two later. They say that it was word of mouth and such which made the band big. Clearly if they were "chosen to be big", they would have succeeded immediately.
Talk to any Guns 'n Roses fan, and you will get some major arguments to your claim. You can't judge taste, but compare GnR to the other acts of the time - Poison, Warrant, etc. GnR's songs were catchy, energetic, and much more radio friendly in comparison. It was good music, and a lot of people agreed. In fact, just thinking about this, I think I'll go pull my copy of Appetite for Destruction off the shelf.
There is absolutely no such thing as a guarantee in this business. The music business is much riskier than most other businesses, because trends come and go and nobody can predict them. New artists are especially risky, because nobody can predict how they will appeal.
I love how Steve Albini is suddenly getting massive link-exposure on Slashdot. You're linking to a different copy than I linked to- I used the copy on this page, which has a more detailed costs breakdown on the band's expenditures, which you might find morbidly interesting. It's here: "Some of your friends are probably already this fucked". READ THESE ARTICLES, PEOPLE! It gets... _tiresome_ listening to otherwise really sharp and clued Slashdotters saying 'Gee, we should help support the artists though, so the music industry can't be all bad' because they don't know the reality and are only guessing.
I read Albini's article and he it is based on one fundamentally flawed assertion. He is looking at the micro-music industry, not the macro-music industry. He does not understand that one single record does not exist in a vaccum. All of the major record companies support music which they lose money off of. Classical, and jazz, for example, which almost always sell less than 10,000 copies, and sometimes even less than 2,000 (and almost never make money). The money made off of successful artists who sell 250,000 copies (like in your example) are used to pay for non-profitable artists. Albini's assertions are only correct if every item in the catalog sells 250,000 copies, but this is never the case: usually an extremely small number (like 10%) sell that big, and big-time money is lost of the rest. Much of the "profits" (the $700,000 in the article) goes into failed projects and is not re-invested into new successful projects. Albini does not understand that successful projects fund failed ones. If every record sold 250,000 (or 25,000,000 copies), the record company would indeed be more profitable than it is. But the business is so risky that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy how much an artists is going to appeal to the masses, so the success rate for new artists is only about 10%.
I suggest you read The Cost of CD's which persuasively argues that $20.00 is a fair price for classical CD's (and is written by an independent classical record company).
If you do not believe that 90% of projects fail, then here's an exercise for you: Get a one-year-old magazine on pop music, and look at the reviews of new artists. See how many you recognize. I have a one-year-old copy of PopStar (teeny bopper magazine) here. It has reviews of the following new top-40 artists: DollsHead, Rockell, Ultra Nate, The Murmurs, Baxter, She Moves, Tyrese, Rebekah, 4Kast, and Wild Orchid. Of those, only one "made it" (that I know of - Tyrese), and the rest failed - finished from music to find other careers. All of these were on major labels such as MCA, WB, etc., etc. If there was a "sure thing" as you claim, why would these artists be sign? If the industry can just make artists popular, why didn't they make these artists popular? Certainly they had a vested interest. This is a reality. It is always said that 90% of new artists fail, and all evidence (such as the above) demonstrate this to be true. The "massive profits" made from the one successful artist (Tyrese) are used to pay the others, before the company sees a profit. That changes the picture a quite a lot.
Have these artists gotten rich? Maybe they have, but I'm asking because I don't know, and it's certainly not a given.
I don't know if those artists in particular are rich. I seem to remember something about Roger Waters being quite rich, but I do not know for sure. Many music artists are quite rich. Herbert von Karajan's estate was worth 0.5 billion Deustchmarks when he died (in 1990). Some artists such as Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, and others seem to have quite a lot money, but I don't know their exact values. Of course, a lot of this money has come from other sources than recording, but I would argue that the "rock star" is inherently tied to records and would not exist without records.
What I'd like to see are some stats on how much money the various mega-stars have actually come away from the deal with. As anyone who watches ``Behind the Music'' knows, the artists often end up broke, and it's often for reasons other than ``they spent it all.''
A lot of the ones on Behind the Music are new artists who got average contracts, e.g. TLC. One thing to keep in mind is that 90% of new artists fail, and that they do not get lucrative contracts because they are so risky. The few who do succeed make up for the rest. The money is not necessarily going to rich people people behind the scenes, but to pay for recording, production, promotion, etc., etc. It is very expensive to bring up a new artist, and that is largely what you are paying for.
Some of the artists who went bankrupt was just out of irresponsibility (e.g. MC Hammer). He had plenty of money during his heyday, but blew it all, and then lost his popularity. This is hardly the music industry's fault.
Most of the more established artists have far more control. Many own their own record companies.
My favorite anti-music-industry rant: `` Some of your friends are probably already this fucked'' by Steve Albini.
And while you are at it, check out The Cost of CD's which is one of the more informative breakdown of where the cost of the CD is actually going. One interesting item: by far the biggest chunk of the retail CD price goes to the music STORE, so those who think CD prices are too high should be complaining to the stores, not the record makers.
I'll stick to my Guns N' Roses, Clapton, and Pink Floyd, thanks...
Of course, all of these artists are definitiveely part of the "music establishment", and all were developed by money from the major music corporations. They are all among the best selling artists OF ALL TIME, and the major music corporations have gotten very rich from them and these artists have gotten very rich with the help of the corporations.
Pink Floyd is tenth best selling musical act OF ALL TIME. They have sold 52 MILLION records in the US. Guns n Roses and Eric Clapton are #30 and #32 respectively, having sold 35 and 33 MILLION records. Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is the THIRD best selling album of all time at 23 million copies, and GnR's "Appetite for Destruction" is #17, and has sold 15 million copies.
It seems the artists you fear the corporations are going to reject are the very ones who they have promoted, and who they continue to promote. There is clearly a problem when you claim that you can live out with the major record companies when all of the artists you like are EXPLARY of the music establishment, and the wealth associated with it. When you start liking artsts who have sold less than fifty gazillion copies (and there are seemingly inifinite number of such artists out there), you can start talking about living without the record companies, and about fearing what they have to promote. Which artists exactly do fear are getting too much promotion? The nine who are above Pink Floyd?
I think this just shows you how much the computer industry has changed. In the '80s t was all about who had the better technology. The company who spent more money on R&D would win customers. Now today it seems that companies are worrying more about politics than developing actual companies.
Oh, yeah right. DEC had demonstrably better products than Sun did in the 1980's, for example, but Sun won out. Handily. And you know why? Because nothing has changed. Sun was better at producing FUD than making computers, and DEC had very poor marketing but top notch engineering. Sun published all sorts of FUD which was just plain wrong like "The Sun 3/60 is ten times as fast as the MicroVAX II". Yeah. FUD has been going on since the beginning of the industry - this is nothing new. It's actually rather tame now compared to what has happened in the past.
Re:This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
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When you capture the audio, you only get one program's interpretation of it, not the raw data itself. This isn't "the product", it is a copy of it. As long as the industry can distinguish between the product and a copy, everything is fine.
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The LP -> CD issue is tricky. You paid for the music already, and the record company has more than broken even on any LP which was successful enough to get a CD re-issue. There is some cost to re-master it to CD, but that cost is much less than producing something from scratch. Sometimes there are value-added features such as extra tracks and the like. But for the most part, it does seem to make some sense that you would get a discount when you buy the CD. You shouldn't get it for free because there IS some cost.
This problem would be solved by a software-like licensing scheme, where you pay a small price for the physical media, and a larger price for the license of listening to the music.
I do not believe that copyleft-type music would work. It is extremely expensive to produce albums, and I don't see where that money would come from. Although artists could make up the losses from touring et al, records are still by far the primary vehicle of music, and need to be preserved above all.
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I am a middle-aged adult, and I am not a criminal. I like mp3 because it allows me to burn a whole lot of songs, over a hundred tracks, onto a single CD. Wouldn't you rather carry around one CD than ten or fifteen? The relatively low quality of the playback system's speakers makes the sound quality difference with mp3s insignificant. And if I leave one of my mp3 CDs in a hot car and it gets ruined, then I'm only out a couple of bucks. At work, I can copy a bunch of tracks onto the hard drive of my PC without wasting gigabytes of disc space. And all this is perfectly legal. I have never stolen one single track of music. Every one of my mp3s I've made came from a CD I bought and own.
This is all perfectly fine. I have no qualms with MP3 for personal use, but I find that many people (esp. younger people) use MP3 solely to pirate music.
I just don't see how you can make any bootleg-proof scheme for on-line distribution that allows me to carry around the end product like I can now with ordinary CDs.
There are countless ways. One which springs to mind is to have a hardware dongle and a music file specifically generated for that dongle. You would have the same dongle on your car, home, office, etc.
At any rate it is my conviction, and it has been for decades, that a certain amount of illicit copying and sharing of music seves as a major stimulus to the music industry. The argument that "if listeners can get it for free, they won't buy it" is bogus. After all, when you listen to music on the radio, isn't that free? And yet all music companies and all recording artists are always very eager to get their music played on the radio, not just because of the radio royalties, but also because that's how their customers find out about it.
Yes, the radio is one way to find out about music, and yes it free, but radio has commercials, and is not play-on-demand. For the listeners whose musical tastes are actually well covered on the radio (not me!) many still want to be able to listen to something on demand, and listen to something commercial-free. For many people, radio is effectively a SUBSTITUTE for buying music, which is fine. How many people, who listen to e.g. oldies stations go out and buy the music they hear? Probably not many (compared to, say, a jazz station).
The same goes for this mp3 trading that is so popular these days. People trading mp3s hear musicians they otherwise would never have heard of, and if they like what they hear, they go to the store to buy more CDs by those musicians.
For every person who goes out and buys the CD after getting the MP3, there is at least one person who gets JUST the MP3. I've met people who cannot even fathom paying for music, and many people on this website have the same attitude (read the comments and count how many times people have said "I haven't bought a CD in two years").
The difference between people making CD's into MP3's, and the music companies distributing MP3's, is that their is a certain value lost from getting the MP3 instead of the CD. You lose the attractive presentation, the cover work, the high sound quality, etc., etc. But if record companies actually distributed MP3's (only), the MP3 would be THE PRODUCT. There would be no value lost by getting the MP3 because there is nothing more to have. How many people would buy an MP3 when they could get the EXACT same product from the internet for free? I would, and you would, but many people woudln't. This is different from "home taping" and the like, because you are not getting merely a copy, but the actual product itself. That's the danger.
Re:This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
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You call me a anti tech dude? common, 90% of these rare techno tracks are NOT AVAILABLE localy on CD, the rest are either mp3s from records which are NEVER printed again.
The rarity of a record does NOT give you the right to steal it. I have many expensive records and CD's in my collection, which are long out of print and not available locally, and which I've paid on the order of $50-$100 for, and which took forever to find. Many of these I could have simply made a cassette or MP3 copy, but I chose not to. Some people collect records which are VERY expensive; I know some are in the $30,000 range and probably more (I haven't followed the scene in several years). A lot of old vinyl records have not been re-issued on CD because the copyright owner isn't around, or isn't interested in releasing it, but there is still a copyright on the record. In this case, the only solution is to buy the original vinyl, or wait until the copyright expires, when a CD copy is released. There is a certain satisfaction in looking for a record for a long time, finally finding it, and then be able to enjoy it, rather than simply pirating it off the net and gaining instant gratification.
Now I -do- understand that the "rarity" of a record is inherently connected to the fact that records are currently physical artifacts, which can go in and out of print. When online distribution does become a commercial reality, we will not have this problem any more, but there will probably be other problems. For example, if you need some sort of license to play the song, it is possible that nobody will issue you the license anymore.
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PLEASE! MP3 is not piracy, it is convenience. I have a computer next to my stereo rack and am putting all of my CDs on it in MP3 format (large HD) so that I can make up play lists and listend to what I want all day while I work around the house without having to futz with it after starting.
I thoroughly understand that MP3's can be used for legitimate purposes, but the vast majority of online use (e.g. Napster) is rampant piracy. There are some iffy things in the MP3.com, because it does not actually do a thorough validation that you own the album, and the protocol is easily spoofable. What is needed is a copy protcted music format, since the a large percentage of the current user base of MP3 users have proven themselves to be irresponsible with pirated music in their hands.
Re:This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
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Actually, yes, the CD is becoming an unaccetable format due to its lack of copy protection. The recomd companies are investigating using closed, properitary technologies instead of open technologies like CD. It is unlikely that in the future companies will distribute their music so openly again - largely because history shows that if they do, people will illegally pirate them.
Re:This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
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Consumers chose mp3s as the next generation in music distribution. It would seem that the RIAA's posisition on technology is "Fight anything we did not originate."
A few clues...
Most consumers have NOT chosen MP3. Most adults I know, and most serious music collectors I know, realize MP3 for what it is - piracy, and avoid it like the plague, not because they do not understand how to use it, but because they realize it is illegal. I understand technology (I design microprocessors for a living), but I have absolutely no desire to steal music - nor do most of the people I know. Many of these people would be quite willing to go to some sort of on-line distribution system if it did NOT involve piracy.
Your assertion that the RIAA is avoiding MP3 because they did not originate it is fundamentally flawed because you have failed to demonstrate that it is in their interest to use it. The MP3 format is fundamentally flawed from a commercial standpoint because it has no copy protection. There is absolutely no way that they are going to release their entire library on a non-copyprotected format. Second, and nobody ever mentions this, the MP3 format is not as high quality as a regular CD. Why would the record companies choose to have quality suffer? The record companies are apparently working to develop formats for online distribution. As I said in another post: resistance to MP3's is NOT resistance to on-line distribution. On-line distribution is in the company's interested. Everybody knows this. But MP3 is fundamentally flawed from a commercial standpoint so there's no way they will use it. MP3 is not the final word in online distribution - it was not designed for commercial use and is basically the "alpha" version of what we will see in the future.
Re:This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
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I'm convinced that YOU don't get it. Not even close
Odd, since I agree with you about 95%. Much more so than other slashdotters.
Technology has changed the landscape in much the same fashion as machine guns have changed warfare. The RIAA needs to wake up and realize that they can no longer succeed in spoon feeding us overpriced CDs while paying so-called artists like Michael Jackson millions for "music" he hasn't even created yet.
Taste is not an issue, and has absolutely no bearing on the distribution issue. There are still mega-selling, mega-pop teen type acts such as Britney Spears, Nine Inch Nails, Christina Aguilera, and Metallica who still sells millions and millions of records, so your assertion that people do not buy Michael Jackson type music is only true in that they have shifted to different artists of the same genre. It is simply not true that people are moving away from teen-type, mega-pop music - it is probably stronger than ever right now. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.
The music which has the best chance of dying to due to online distribution is inide music, since the margins for it are absolutely diminutive, and online distribution will drive prices even lower. The reason I have a vested interest in trying to stop online piracy of music is because indie music is by far my interest and it makes me sick to see my favorite indie artists not get paid the money they deserve.
I can't tell how they're going to succeed in making money in the future, but I have at least one viable concept: would you pay ~$10-20 per month to have unlimited access to their entire library of recorded music, without restriction or limits, in your home, in your car, and by wireless walkman, even if you knew their hardware was secure and you couldn't copy it off digitally onto something else (to prevent people from "sharing" a subscription)? I know I would!
Obviously I would pay $10-$20/month for the complete collection. Heck, I would pay that much simply to get the access to every recording Deutsche Grammaphon released in 1967. See, you're on my side: you're willing to pay. That's my point. 99.44% of online users look at online distribution not as a new, innovative means to distribute music (as it does indeed have the potential to be), but as a way to never pay for music again (and as long as people have that attitude, they will be disappointed.)
This is but one idea that would do an end run around the machine gun nest of illegal MP3 distribution, yet still provide a fair trade of money for product for them and the artists. (I envision a micropayment system for the artists could be set up, to pay them for every time their songs are accessed.)
ABSOLUTELY! People look at the music industry and see them fighting against MP3, and assume they're against on-line music distribution in genral (and perhaps people misinterpreted my post the same way). Nothing could be further from the truth - the music companies would benefit from online distribution immensely. But there NEEDS to be a proprietary format for it, so it can't be stolen. MP3's are NOT an acceptable format for the industry because they can be stolen. It would be absolutely foolish for the record companies to officially release their catalogs on MP3, because the existing MP3 user base has proven itself to be completely untrustworthy due to piracy.
Thanks for the breath of frssh air - your response is by far the most clueful post I've read on slashdot about MP3's.
Re:This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
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What the fuck does any of that have to do with mp3s? You can pirate cds, ya know. It's not like it's a big superhuman effort to turn a cd into mp3 files. You can copy cassette tapes.
The big deal is that you can make an exact copy and distribute them quickly. You can't exchange cassette copies in mass quantity. CD's which are made from illegally pirated MP3's use MP3 technology to steal songs.
The cost of information is approaching zero. Bitch all you want, Luddite, but as far as I'm concerned, fuck you, I'm with the pirates
You better believe that people do MP3's instead of buying CD's. I've heard from many people who haven't bought a CD in a couple of years or more, because they just steal it from the net. Especially younger people (e.g. college students with dorm bandwidth).
I personally would much rather pay $15-$20 for the CD and get the artwork, case, booklet, etc. I own over 1,000 CD's (and not one single pirated MP3 or cassette), and I consider my collection "attractive" - especially boxed sets and the like, and is one of my prized possessions. It is one of the centerpieces of my home. I do not consider a hard drive with gigabytes of stolen music to be "atrractive" or something to be proud of. Above all, I have the satisfaction of having had supported the artists who produced the music, rather than have stolen from them (95% of the artists I listen to are indie).
It would be nice to be able to pay $1 and download a song, but there is no way that the industry can trust the consumer with the MP3 - thanks to all of the pirates who steal music currently. Probably it will end up working out like software and you will have to enter a registration number to play a song. A real pain, but when you have so many pirates running around who steal everything in sight and refuse to pay, that's what you have to live with.
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Sledgehammer will almost certainly fail, for several reasons. The main issue is software availability. There are currently six major operating systems native to Merced, while there are none for Sledgehammer. There have been no plans announced to produce an operating system for Sledgehammer. Second, not many vendors are supporting it. Merced is embraced by most of the major computer companies, both from PC companies and from enterprise server companies. Third, Merced is supposed to launch this year (and they do have real systems running real silicon, so there is some believability in this). They say 2001 for Sledgehammer, but I have serious doubts that they will come that close. They certainly do not have silicon yet. (They appear to have not even started the project until 1999, and the minimum time for a flagship CPU is about four years).
Computer programing is not a special skill, it is accessable to everyone with the time and some not uncommon abilities, just like being a mechanic or amateur radio operator.
Correct.
Is the right for an individual to build radio receivers and monster trucks not a freedom of expression?
You may be able to build them, but in many cases you certainly do not have the right to sell them. For example, in the case of radio receivers, it is illegal to sell ones which receive cell phone frequencies, and even if you do legally receive the signals, there are various restrictions on what you can do with them. There are certainly very restrictive laws on the operation of radio transmitters (which, while you didn't mention, certainly are comparable to projects fo free expression which people can build). There are certainly laws on automibiles you can operate, at least on public roads.
Note that the DeCSS case is not about building the tool, but distributing it.
I know I will get flamed and moderated down for this, but I think there should be serious restriction on technology creation. You can do substantially more real damage with a C compiler then you can with a gun, yet anybody is free to operate a C compiler, although you need a permit to operate/own a gun. As you said, programming is not technically difficult, but it does require responsibility. While perhaps everybody should have the right to code on their own machines for their own purposes, there should be serious government regulation on who is allowed to produce code which is given away. I fully expect there to be in the future, and for programmers to have much more responsibility than they do now.
I have a LAN at home, but most of my computers are not PC's, and do not have ISA/PCI/PCMCIA slots. So, converting my entire LAN to wireless is not an option.
However, I would like to add a wireless interface to my (Win98) laptop. What is the best way to do this? I saw a "wireless -> ethernet bridge" at Fry's, and it was $400. The Aviator set is something like $150. With this, would I be able to put two NIC's (one ethernet, and one wireless) into one PC, and set up the machine as a router? Or does anybody know of a cheaper bridge?
Which AMD part should DELL use? There is not a mobile version of Athlon.
Universities are not-for-profit businesses. The chancellor is not sitting in his office, laughing, at all of the additional dollars he is going to make this year because they denied access to the free long distance program. Most likely, the extra money generated by this action will be spent back into increased network equipment, computer labs, possibly classes, etc., etc. This is not a case of making MORE money - it is a case of losing LESS money.
Second, Clemson does not have a monopoly, as far as ISP's go. I do not know if cable modem or DSL services are available in the Clemson area, but certainly other dialup ISP's are. So this is not a case of a monopoly leveraging its monopoly position in one market to gain an advantage in another (e.g. Microsoft allegedly using its monopoly is OS'es to gain an advantage in web browsers). You still have a choice for ISP. Now, if there was only one ISP (AOL-TW, anyone?) and they used their monopoly power to do this to leverage their own phone service, there would most definitely be cause for concern.
Third, you do not have a right to choice. We live in a free market, and you can only buy what people will sell you, not whatever you want.
Obviously you have not seen the Red Hat errata list. There are already ten security flaws in Red Hat 6.1. These bugs which were shipped with Red Hat 6.1 will allow an outsider to gain root access if the patch is not applied. It is OK for Red Hat to a buggy and insecure OS, but not for Microsoft?
Why aren't the security holes in Linux (e.g. in Red Hat 6.1) reported on slashdot? Do most slashdot users use Windows instead of Linux, or is slashdot backed by the multi-billion dollar Linux companies to spread FUD??
'Some kid' hacked an encryption algorithm so that he could play his DVD's on his machine, thereby going around the brand-forcing done to him by a company that sought to prevent him from READING (not copying) a DVD.
Irrelevant. He did it without permission. (I can just as well argue that DoubleClick is done for a "benign" cause).
DoubleClick is taking personal information (name, address, credit history, purchase history, phone number), and using it for their own purposes, and LYING to people, saying that they do NOT take it.
Riiiiight. That's why they give you an option to turn it off.
Two completely different situations. I don't know HOW you jumped to this conclusion, unless you work for the MPAA or something.
Yep - everybody who doesn't agree with your convenient little view of the universe works for the other side.
Slashdot readers are up in arms about DoubleClick taking THEIR information without their permission, put they have no problem with some kid taking the DVD consortium's information without THEIR permission. Slashdot readers support a lawsuit against DoubleClick, but defend the lawsuit against the person who stole the DVD secrets. To gain any credibility at all, you will need to formulate a consistent view of these things. Right now it is obvious that you jyst choose whichever side of the fence is more convenient.
There have ALWAYS been top 40 acts who make an album or two, and then disappear off the face of the planet. At the height of Pink Floyd's success, for example, disco was the most popular genre. Engineering bands out of nothing is not new (c.f. The Monkees). Artists like the Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, etc., etc., don't represent the "end of good music as we know it"; they are simply the current names of the eternal presence of throw-away top-40 music.
Most of the bands you like are NOT the most talented in the world. Eric Clapton is certainly not the best blues guitar player of all time (not even the best white one), but he became popular because he was in some successful bands, and had a few hit records. There were certainly lots of progressive bands in the 70's whose music was much more complicated and virtuousic than Pink Floyd. They just put some magic in their music, and became popular.
The current music scene is by far the most flourishing it has ever been. Practically every scene is absolutely thriving, and there is by far more different TYPES of music being produced today than there ever was in the past. It is an absolutely wonderful time to be a music fan. I do not have close to enough money and time to buy all of the CD's which come out these days, that I want to buy (and I do have a good income and a lot of free time on my hands). Basically, my advice to you, is that if you think Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys is the cream of what the current music industry has to offer, I suggest that you try just to put just a little more effort into locating good music, because there is an endless supply of it (and, no, you will not find it on the radio or MTV).
I don't understand how you can claim that the quarter-million sellers are being hosed to pay for the loser acts WHEN THE ACTS FOOT THE DAMN BILL! Do some homework. If you want to be a recording act you PAY for the services you need. If you don't seem to be a quarter million seller, guess what? The advance will be basically squat!
The acts only flip the bill if they succeed. Do you think the record company ever sees a penny of that $250,000 advance when the album ends up selling 20,000 copies, and the artist goes back to their job at 7-11?
Or are you suggesting that all rock musicians should be robbed to pay for oboe players?
The already are. The average classical CD costs between $250,000 and $500,000 to produce, and sells between 2,000 and 3,000 copies. SOMEBODY is paying for that. EMI, Polygram, and Sony all have very large classical music divisions, and put out disks, virtually all of which lose money. Where is all of that money coming from?
They were only a superstar act _because_ the industry picked them to be, and the industry only picks a few acts each decade to do that with (Michael Jackson, Springsteen around 'Born in the USA + the live set, Madonna etc), but they had what it took to be marketed that heavily- and that almost certainly means a GnR business team who on the one hand got the band a cut of the money, and on the other hand were ready to _guarantee_ product.
This is an _extremely_ cliched view and very false. The industry cannot PICK who is going to succeed - only the listeners can. Yes, the industry can pick who the listeners will hear (to some extent) but it is still up to the listeners to decide. There have been albums which have been EXTREMELY heavily promoted, which have failed miserably. Remember Michael Jackson's HIStory?
Guns 'n Roses _in_particular_ was not chosen to succeed. They are a real band - not assembled by a record company. They released an EP before getting the major label contract. But my main point is that Appetite for Destruction was released much earlier than the point at where it succeeded. It was released in 1987, but Guns n Roses didn't become mega-pop superstars until a year or two later. They say that it was word of mouth and such which made the band big. Clearly if they were "chosen to be big", they would have succeeded immediately.
Talk to any Guns 'n Roses fan, and you will get some major arguments to your claim. You can't judge taste, but compare GnR to the other acts of the time - Poison, Warrant, etc. GnR's songs were catchy, energetic, and much more radio friendly in comparison. It was good music, and a lot of people agreed. In fact, just thinking about this, I think I'll go pull my copy of Appetite for Destruction off the shelf.
There is absolutely no such thing as a guarantee in this business. The music business is much riskier than most other businesses, because trends come and go and nobody can predict them. New artists are especially risky, because nobody can predict how they will appeal.
I love how Steve Albini is suddenly getting massive link-exposure on Slashdot. You're linking to a different copy than I linked to- I used the copy on this page, which has a more detailed costs breakdown on the band's expenditures, which you might find morbidly interesting. It's here: "Some of your friends are probably already this fucked". READ THESE ARTICLES, PEOPLE! It gets... _tiresome_ listening to otherwise really sharp and clued Slashdotters saying 'Gee, we should help support the artists though, so the music industry can't be all bad' because they don't know the reality and are only guessing.
I read Albini's article and he it is based on one fundamentally flawed assertion. He is looking at the micro-music industry, not the macro-music industry. He does not understand that one single record does not exist in a vaccum. All of the major record companies support music which they lose money off of. Classical, and jazz, for example, which almost always sell less than 10,000 copies, and sometimes even less than 2,000 (and almost never make money). The money made off of successful artists who sell 250,000 copies (like in your example) are used to pay for non-profitable artists. Albini's assertions are only correct if every item in the catalog sells 250,000 copies, but this is never the case: usually an extremely small number (like 10%) sell that big, and big-time money is lost of the rest. Much of the "profits" (the $700,000 in the article) goes into failed projects and is not re-invested into new successful projects. Albini does not understand that successful projects fund failed ones. If every record sold 250,000 (or 25,000,000 copies), the record company would indeed be more profitable than it is. But the business is so risky that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy how much an artists is going to appeal to the masses, so the success rate for new artists is only about 10%.
I suggest you read The Cost of CD's which persuasively argues that $20.00 is a fair price for classical CD's (and is written by an independent classical record company).
If you do not believe that 90% of projects fail, then here's an exercise for you: Get a one-year-old magazine on pop music, and look at the reviews of new artists. See how many you recognize. I have a one-year-old copy of PopStar (teeny bopper magazine) here. It has reviews of the following new top-40 artists: DollsHead, Rockell, Ultra Nate, The Murmurs, Baxter, She Moves, Tyrese, Rebekah, 4Kast, and Wild Orchid. Of those, only one "made it" (that I know of - Tyrese), and the rest failed - finished from music to find other careers. All of these were on major labels such as MCA, WB, etc., etc. If there was a "sure thing" as you claim, why would these artists be sign? If the industry can just make artists popular, why didn't they make these artists popular? Certainly they had a vested interest. This is a reality. It is always said that 90% of new artists fail, and all evidence (such as the above) demonstrate this to be true. The "massive profits" made from the one successful artist (Tyrese) are used to pay the others, before the company sees a profit. That changes the picture a quite a lot.
Have these artists gotten rich? Maybe they have, but I'm asking because I don't know, and it's certainly not a given.
I don't know if those artists in particular are rich. I seem to remember something about Roger Waters being quite rich, but I do not know for sure. Many music artists are quite rich. Herbert von Karajan's estate was worth 0.5 billion Deustchmarks when he died (in 1990). Some artists such as Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, and others seem to have quite a lot money, but I don't know their exact values. Of course, a lot of this money has come from other sources than recording, but I would argue that the "rock star" is inherently tied to records and would not exist without records.
What I'd like to see are some stats on how much money the various mega-stars have actually come away from the deal with. As anyone who watches ``Behind the Music'' knows, the artists often end up broke, and it's often for reasons other than ``they spent it all.''
A lot of the ones on Behind the Music are new artists who got average contracts, e.g. TLC. One thing to keep in mind is that 90% of new artists fail, and that they do not get lucrative contracts because they are so risky. The few who do succeed make up for the rest. The money is not necessarily going to rich people people behind the scenes, but to pay for recording, production, promotion, etc., etc. It is very expensive to bring up a new artist, and that is largely what you are paying for.
Some of the artists who went bankrupt was just out of irresponsibility (e.g. MC Hammer). He had plenty of money during his heyday, but blew it all, and then lost his popularity. This is hardly the music industry's fault.
Most of the more established artists have far more control. Many own their own record companies.
My favorite anti-music-industry rant: `` Some of your friends are probably already this fucked'' by Steve Albini.
And while you are at it, check out The Cost of CD's which is one of the more informative breakdown of where the cost of the CD is actually going. One interesting item: by far the biggest chunk of the retail CD price goes to the music STORE, so those who think CD prices are too high should be complaining to the stores, not the record makers.
I'll stick to my Guns N' Roses, Clapton, and Pink Floyd, thanks...
Of course, all of these artists are definitiveely part of the "music establishment", and all were developed by money from the major music corporations. They are all among the best selling artists OF ALL TIME, and the major music corporations have gotten very rich from them and these artists have gotten very rich with the help of the corporations.
Pink Floyd is tenth best selling musical act OF ALL TIME. They have sold 52 MILLION records in the US. Guns n Roses and Eric Clapton are #30 and #32 respectively, having sold 35 and 33 MILLION records. Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is the THIRD best selling album of all time at 23 million copies, and GnR's "Appetite for Destruction" is #17, and has sold 15 million copies.
It seems the artists you fear the corporations are going to reject are the very ones who they have promoted, and who they continue to promote. There is clearly a problem when you claim that you can live out with the major record companies when all of the artists you like are EXPLARY of the music establishment, and the wealth associated with it. When you start liking artsts who have sold less than fifty gazillion copies (and there are seemingly inifinite number of such artists out there), you can start talking about living without the record companies, and about fearing what they have to promote. Which artists exactly do fear are getting too much promotion? The nine who are above Pink Floyd?
I think this just shows you how much the computer industry has changed. In the '80s t was all about who had the better technology. The company who spent more money on R&D would win customers. Now today it seems that companies are worrying more about politics than developing actual companies.
Oh, yeah right. DEC had demonstrably better products than Sun did in the 1980's, for example, but Sun won out. Handily. And you know why? Because nothing has changed. Sun was better at producing FUD than making computers, and DEC had very poor marketing but top notch engineering. Sun published all sorts of FUD which was just plain wrong like "The Sun 3/60 is ten times as fast as the MicroVAX II". Yeah. FUD has been going on since the beginning of the industry - this is nothing new. It's actually rather tame now compared to what has happened in the past.
When you capture the audio, you only get one program's interpretation of it, not the raw data itself. This isn't "the product", it is a copy of it. As long as the industry can distinguish between the product and a copy, everything is fine.
The LP -> CD issue is tricky. You paid for the music already, and the record company has more than broken even on any LP which was successful enough to get a CD re-issue. There is some cost to re-master it to CD, but that cost is much less than producing something from scratch. Sometimes there are value-added features such as extra tracks and the like. But for the most part, it does seem to make some sense that you would get a discount when you buy the CD. You shouldn't get it for free because there IS some cost.
This problem would be solved by a software-like licensing scheme, where you pay a small price for the physical media, and a larger price for the license of listening to the music.
I do not believe that copyleft-type music would work. It is extremely expensive to produce albums, and I don't see where that money would come from. Although artists could make up the losses from touring et al, records are still by far the primary vehicle of music, and need to be preserved above all.
I am a middle-aged adult, and I am not a criminal. I like mp3 because it allows me to burn a whole lot of songs, over a hundred tracks, onto a single CD. Wouldn't you rather carry around one CD than ten or fifteen? The relatively low quality of the playback system's speakers makes the sound quality difference with mp3s insignificant. And if I leave one of my mp3 CDs in a hot car and it gets ruined, then I'm only out a couple of bucks. At work, I can copy a bunch of tracks onto the hard drive of my PC without wasting gigabytes of disc space. And all this is perfectly legal. I have never stolen one single track of music. Every one of my mp3s I've made came from a CD I bought and own.
This is all perfectly fine. I have no qualms with MP3 for personal use, but I find that many people (esp. younger people) use MP3 solely to pirate music.
I just don't see how you can make any bootleg-proof scheme for on-line distribution that allows me to carry around the end product like I can now with ordinary CDs.
There are countless ways. One which springs to mind is to have a hardware dongle and a music file specifically generated for that dongle. You would have the same dongle on your car, home, office, etc.
At any rate it is my conviction, and it has been for decades, that a certain amount of illicit copying and sharing of music seves as a major stimulus to the music industry. The argument that "if listeners can get it for free, they won't buy it" is bogus. After all, when you listen to music on the radio, isn't that free? And yet all music companies and all recording artists are always very eager to get their music played on the radio, not just because of the radio royalties, but also because that's how their customers find out about it.
Yes, the radio is one way to find out about music, and yes it free, but radio has commercials, and is not play-on-demand. For the listeners whose musical tastes are actually well covered on the radio (not me!) many still want to be able to listen to something on demand, and listen to something commercial-free. For many people, radio is effectively a SUBSTITUTE for buying music, which is fine. How many people, who listen to e.g. oldies stations go out and buy the music they hear? Probably not many (compared to, say, a jazz station).
The same goes for this mp3 trading that is so popular these days. People trading mp3s hear musicians they otherwise would never have heard of, and if they like what they hear, they go to the store to buy more CDs by those musicians.
For every person who goes out and buys the CD after getting the MP3, there is at least one person who gets JUST the MP3. I've met people who cannot even fathom paying for music, and many people on this website have the same attitude (read the comments and count how many times people have said "I haven't bought a CD in two years").
The difference between people making CD's into MP3's, and the music companies distributing MP3's, is that their is a certain value lost from getting the MP3 instead of the CD. You lose the attractive presentation, the cover work, the high sound quality, etc., etc. But if record companies actually distributed MP3's (only), the MP3 would be THE PRODUCT. There would be no value lost by getting the MP3 because there is nothing more to have. How many people would buy an MP3 when they could get the EXACT same product from the internet for free? I would, and you would, but many people woudln't. This is different from "home taping" and the like, because you are not getting merely a copy, but the actual product itself. That's the danger.
You call me a anti tech dude? common, 90% of these rare techno tracks are NOT AVAILABLE localy on CD, the rest are either mp3s from records which are NEVER printed again.
The rarity of a record does NOT give you the right to steal it. I have many expensive records and CD's in my collection, which are long out of print and not available locally, and which I've paid on the order of $50-$100 for, and which took forever to find. Many of these I could have simply made a cassette or MP3 copy, but I chose not to. Some people collect records which are VERY expensive; I know some are in the $30,000 range and probably more (I haven't followed the scene in several years). A lot of old vinyl records have not been re-issued on CD because the copyright owner isn't around, or isn't interested in releasing it, but there is still a copyright on the record. In this case, the only solution is to buy the original vinyl, or wait until the copyright expires, when a CD copy is released. There is a certain satisfaction in looking for a record for a long time, finally finding it, and then be able to enjoy it, rather than simply pirating it off the net and gaining instant gratification.
Now I -do- understand that the "rarity" of a record is inherently connected to the fact that records are currently physical artifacts, which can go in and out of print. When online distribution does become a commercial reality, we will not have this problem any more, but there will probably be other problems. For example, if you need some sort of license to play the song, it is possible that nobody will issue you the license anymore.
PLEASE! MP3 is not piracy, it is convenience. I have a computer next to my stereo rack and am putting all of my CDs on it in MP3 format (large HD) so that I can make up play lists and listend to what I want all day while I work around the house without having to futz with it after starting.
I thoroughly understand that MP3's can be used for legitimate purposes, but the vast majority of online use (e.g. Napster) is rampant piracy. There are some iffy things in the MP3.com, because it does not actually do a thorough validation that you own the album, and the protocol is easily spoofable. What is needed is a copy protcted music format, since the a large percentage of the current user base of MP3 users have proven themselves to be irresponsible with pirated music in their hands.
Actually, yes, the CD is becoming an unaccetable format due to its lack of copy protection. The recomd companies are investigating using closed, properitary technologies instead of open technologies like CD. It is unlikely that in the future companies will distribute their music so openly again - largely because history shows that if they do, people will illegally pirate them.
Consumers chose mp3s as the next generation in music distribution. It would seem that the RIAA's posisition on technology is "Fight anything we did not originate."
A few clues...
Most consumers have NOT chosen MP3. Most adults I know, and most serious music collectors I know, realize MP3 for what it is - piracy, and avoid it like the plague, not because they do not understand how to use it, but because they realize it is illegal. I understand technology (I design microprocessors for a living), but I have absolutely no desire to steal music - nor do most of the people I know. Many of these people would be quite willing to go to some sort of on-line distribution system if it did NOT involve piracy.
Your assertion that the RIAA is avoiding MP3 because they did not originate it is fundamentally flawed because you have failed to demonstrate that it is in their interest to use it. The MP3 format is fundamentally flawed from a commercial standpoint because it has no copy protection. There is absolutely no way that they are going to release their entire library on a non-copyprotected format. Second, and nobody ever mentions this, the MP3 format is not as high quality as a regular CD. Why would the record companies choose to have quality suffer? The record companies are apparently working to develop formats for online distribution. As I said in another post: resistance to MP3's is NOT resistance to on-line distribution. On-line distribution is in the company's interested. Everybody knows this. But MP3 is fundamentally flawed from a commercial standpoint so there's no way they will use it. MP3 is not the final word in online distribution - it was not designed for commercial use and is basically the "alpha" version of what we will see in the future.
I'm convinced that YOU don't get it. Not even close
Odd, since I agree with you about 95%. Much more so than other slashdotters.
Technology has changed the landscape in much the same fashion as machine guns have changed warfare. The RIAA needs to wake up and realize that they can no longer succeed in spoon feeding us overpriced CDs while paying so-called artists like Michael Jackson millions for "music" he hasn't even created yet.
Taste is not an issue, and has absolutely no bearing on the distribution issue. There are still mega-selling, mega-pop teen type acts such as Britney Spears, Nine Inch Nails, Christina Aguilera, and Metallica who still sells millions and millions of records, so your assertion that people do not buy Michael Jackson type music is only true in that they have shifted to different artists of the same genre. It is simply not true that people are moving away from teen-type, mega-pop music - it is probably stronger than ever right now. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.
The music which has the best chance of dying to due to online distribution is inide music, since the margins for it are absolutely diminutive, and online distribution will drive prices even lower. The reason I have a vested interest in trying to stop online piracy of music is because indie music is by far my interest and it makes me sick to see my favorite indie artists not get paid the money they deserve.
I can't tell how they're going to succeed in making money in the future, but I have at least one viable concept: would you pay ~$10-20 per month to have unlimited access to their entire library of recorded music, without restriction or limits, in your home, in your car, and by wireless walkman, even if you knew their hardware was secure and you couldn't copy it off digitally onto something else (to prevent people from "sharing" a subscription)? I know I would!
Obviously I would pay $10-$20/month for the complete collection. Heck, I would pay that much simply to get the access to every recording Deutsche Grammaphon released in 1967. See, you're on my side: you're willing to pay. That's my point. 99.44% of online users look at online distribution not as a new, innovative means to distribute music (as it does indeed have the potential to be), but as a way to never pay for music again (and as long as people have that attitude, they will be disappointed.)
This is but one idea that would do an end run around the machine gun nest of illegal MP3 distribution, yet still provide a fair trade of money for product for them and the artists. (I envision a micropayment system for the artists could be set up, to pay them for every time their songs are accessed.)
ABSOLUTELY! People look at the music industry and see them fighting against MP3, and assume they're against on-line music distribution in genral (and perhaps people misinterpreted my post the same way). Nothing could be further from the truth - the music companies would benefit from online distribution immensely. But there NEEDS to be a proprietary format for it, so it can't be stolen. MP3's are NOT an acceptable format for the industry because they can be stolen. It would be absolutely foolish for the record companies to officially release their catalogs on MP3, because the existing MP3 user base has proven itself to be completely untrustworthy due to piracy.
Thanks for the breath of frssh air - your response is by far the most clueful post I've read on slashdot about MP3's.
What the fuck does any of that have to do with mp3s? You can pirate cds, ya know. It's not like it's a big superhuman effort to turn a cd into mp3 files. You can copy cassette tapes.
The big deal is that you can make an exact copy and distribute them quickly. You can't exchange cassette copies in mass quantity. CD's which are made from illegally pirated MP3's use MP3 technology to steal songs.
The cost of information is approaching zero. Bitch all you want, Luddite, but as far as I'm concerned, fuck you, I'm with the pirates
How old are you? 12? 13, tops?
You better believe that people do MP3's instead of buying CD's. I've heard from many people who haven't bought a CD in a couple of years or more, because they just steal it from the net. Especially younger people (e.g. college students with dorm bandwidth).
I personally would much rather pay $15-$20 for the CD and get the artwork, case, booklet, etc. I own over 1,000 CD's (and not one single pirated MP3 or cassette), and I consider my collection "attractive" - especially boxed sets and the like, and is one of my prized possessions. It is one of the centerpieces of my home. I do not consider a hard drive with gigabytes of stolen music to be "atrractive" or something to be proud of. Above all, I have the satisfaction of having had supported the artists who produced the music, rather than have stolen from them (95% of the artists I listen to are indie).
It would be nice to be able to pay $1 and download a song, but there is no way that the industry can trust the consumer with the MP3 - thanks to all of the pirates who steal music currently. Probably it will end up working out like software and you will have to enter a registration number to play a song. A real pain, but when you have so many pirates running around who steal everything in sight and refuse to pay, that's what you have to live with.