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Re: what do you think about this induce act stuff? Hi Matt. What do I think about INDUCE? It's dumb ... I went ahead and sent faxes at http://www.savetheipod.com/ - and referred some friends to do the same - but then I realized, we need not worry! This bill shall not pass! (Ooh I felt like Gandalf there for a second.) With the stupidity involved in the bill itself, and the corporate and community opposition to it (see http://www.eff.org/IP/induce_letter.php ) the bill is not going anywhere. From what I see of it, a total rewrite is needed in order to even be constitutional. I mean come on! - Xerox could be held liable for copyright infringement because they make copy machines! Stupid! What about Bic ? You can copy things with a pen too! With the current wording, any information storage or trasfer system is potentially illegal. What's really funny is that the RIAA's original letter urgently urging senators to pass this bill doesn't even really touch on the artists being paid! The wording very clearly outlines the corporate greed inherent in the recording industry. The tone is more like "Pass this bill quickly so that we can make more money off the artists." That letter is here: http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/RIAA_Letter.html In my (very humble) opinion, the music recording industry is a huge dying monster. The fact that excellent free or inexpensive high quality independent music is becoming more available ( http://mp3.com/ http://cdbaby.com/ ) - and the fact that some independent artists are more profitable than some signed artists ... these are little bugs beginning to swarm around the dying INDUSTRY monster. In addition, it's almost trivial to build a somewhat decent quality recording studio in one's own basement. With a good sound card, mixer, and a couple of decent microphones, you can make do for as little as $1000. Of course for truly excellent music you'll have to spend more, and have some talent, but it's not like you have to spend $50K on a studio anymore. Anyway, the INDUSTRY's business model on the whole is being attacked by many more forces than just piracy. Their own greed is driving people to infringe copyrights. When you pirate a one-dollar song, the label loses $0.98 and the artist loses their $0.02 ... We are clearly moving towards a better distibution method for music than recording labels. If everyone with a popular mp3 paid the artist say, 25 cents (not per mp3, but just a flat 25 cents per album maybe), then each *good* artist would have such huge residual income that the record comanies are no longer needed. AND people *would* pay the quarter for a high quality digital album. If the labels would recognize this and work to implement some good system ( iTunes is on the right track ... http://www.apple.com/itunes/ ) there would be huge rewards in it for them, but they're too caught up in suing people to even notice they're dying... let alone do anything about it. Other good references: - natrik On Tue, 10 Aug 2004
17:38:19 -0400, matt wrote: |