what happens if SOPA passes?

we takin' over

w/out realizing i mean obv

"hard disk" and "compact disc" look and feel completely natural. "hard disc" and "compact disk", not.

wake up sheeple

Taxing the internet is pretty much the opposite of commerce. It's a solution proposed by people who imo don't understand what encourages content production and distribution – at its distant logical conclusion (i.e. a dystopian world in which all content is free and everyone 'subscribes' to everything via an internet tax) what you're doing is basically just handing a load of people some money to vaguely make some stuff, with no financial incentive for that stuff to be good. At least with subscription television (the closest analogue I can come up with) there is some incentive to provide quality/value so that people keep subscribing. All this is in my opinion, in my opinion, in my opinion.

Also in my opinion, piracy absolutely needs to be reigned in, but there's no getting rid of piracy altogether. That has never been possible and it never will be. I think the content industries know that, but it's a convenient scapegoat for them to take to govts worldwide in order to get the SOPA-like protectionism that they will actually need if they want to continue operating for another n decades in their current bloated forms, maintaining artificial scarcity, geoblocking the world &c.

btw DJP's photocopying (and therefore scanning) analogy is u+k, principally imo because it indicates that people will always pay handsomely for the same content if it's of higher quality and easier to obtain. The whole 'you can't compete with free' argument is bullshit.

"financial incentive" does not equal "good music"

people will always pay handsomely for the same content if it's of higher quality and easier to obtain

pretty sure the last decade does not bear this out wtf

ie MP3s sound like shit

not anymore!

pretty sure the last decade does not bear this out wtf

― “How you like that, Mr. Hitler!” (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 09:42 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ie MP3s sound like shit

― “How you like that, Mr. Hitler!” (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 09:42 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

256 kbps one-click iTunes download is superior to a set of 96 kbps files you found on the third torrent site you tried that day

Taxing the internet is pretty much the opposite of commerce. It's a solution proposed by people who imo don't understand what encourages content production and distribution – at its distant logical conclusion (i.e. a dystopian world in which all content is free and everyone 'subscribes' to everything via an internet tax) what you're doing is basically just handing a load of people some money to vaguely make some stuff, with no financial incentive for that stuff to be good. At least with subscription television (the closest analogue I can come up with) there is some incentive to provide quality/value so that people keep subscribing. All this is in my opinion, in my opinion, in my opinion.

ideally the music downloaded or "subscribed to" would be tracked and money paid out accordingly

obviously this is not going to happen for a very long time given how much legislation is in place already, but it's not like I'm suggesting we give the big three several million in tax money and tell them to find another Justin Bieber

Digital file music actually added a lot of value compared to what came before! I mean you have shuffle, you have cloud storage, streaming through services like spotify, you can play them on really tiny players that don't skip if you jump up and down a lot, etc.

256 kbps one-click iTunes download is superior to a set of 96 kbps files you found on the third torrent site you tried that day

― Autumn Almanac (Schlafsack), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 2:52 PM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sure and wines taste different lol

That's pretty much where the music industry started digging its own grave

Nah, the industry started digging its own grave when CDs replaced LPs. Digital copies of anything = easy to copy and distribute for free.

At least with subscription television (the closest analogue I can come up with) there is some incentive to provide quality/value so that people keep subscribing. All this is in my opinion, in my opinion, in my opinion.

i think the incentive for cable tv channels is "pls god let us be put into a basic package with espn" :/

i honestly can't fathom why ppl still buy digital music from itunes instead of amazon

Nah, the industry started digging its own grave when CDs replaced LPs. Digital copies of anything = easy to copy and distribute for free.yeah, but no one that i know of anticipated the present situation at the time, so it's hard to blame it on poor decisions made by the industry (rather than the simple progress of technology). and i strongly doubt that keeping the single alive would have changed much about where we're at right now.

i guess that's becoming my signature

yeah, but no one that i know of anticipated the present situation at the time

usenet groups amirite

sometimes there will be obscure stuff that's not on amazon, but besides that I totally agree. things you buy for 99 cents should not become a hassle because you might "mis-use" them

they were first in the crosshairs because of data footprint, albums/mp3s are so small...then it happened to movies...video games might stay ahead of the curve because data keeps increasing with each generation, it used to be crazy to fill up a double-density DVD now naughty dog struggles to fit uncharted on a blu-ray

but there was nothing they could have done, piracy was too easy

there was nothing they could have done

One thing they could have done was to not go out of their way to make it harder for people to buy and use content

I definitely don't think keeping the single alive would have prevented the rise of file sharing, but it might have slowed down certain tendencies. Also, in addition to keeping singles around, labels still would have had to seriously lower prices on CDs, and since they were making insane profits on this no-singles/$18 CDs business model, majors saw no reason to mess with it.

xp This shit was the tipping point imo

http://seeklogo.com/images/C/Copy_Control-logo-9793502DF6-seeklogo.com.gif

i mean i guess there were things that could have slowed the decline, but everyone's a fuckin' genius now but you must admit it would have been hard to understand what was going on when the ground was moving so quickly under your feet

you must admit it would have been hard to understand what was going on when the ground was moving so quickly under your feet

Definitely, although there was a time (Napster stands out imo) when it was pretty gd obvious that people wanted to download stuff, and to have some control of what they were downloading. The Copy Control image I posted above is indicative of just how desperate the big music labels were to control people's use of music, and Copy Control happened years after the Napster thing.

(For those who don't know, Copy Control stopped you ripping the CD you paid for. The notion that you were purchasing one licence for use in only a CD player didn't wash.)

yeah, but no one that i know of anticipated the present situation at the time, so it's hard to blame it on poor decisions made by the industry (rather than the simple progress of technology). and i strongly doubt that keeping the single alive would have changed much about where we're at right now.

I might be overstating this but i think in general this is the result of an industry that's been fucking over its customers for the last 40 years, trying to get people to buy the same albums over and over, promising price drops that never came, limiting the consumer's options whenever possible, introducing ridiculous stuff like "copy protection" to dick over people who tried to do things legally, attempting to bankrupt and ruin the lives of college students and single mothers for downloading songs that everyone's heard on classic rock radio for the last 30 years - I mean they are truly one of the most unlikeable industries around (even the artists say so!), and I find I'm way, way, way more likely to buy stuff when it's directly from the artist or a small label

Music consumers are the biggest whiners on the planet imo

yes

I remember how great Napster was because the interface was so much easier to navigate than any other option at that point. I remember telling my roommate that even if I had to pay a quarter for a song I would have happily done so just to have to much music at my fingertips, instantly. My argument was based on people happily paying that much a jukebox for just on play!

i think in general this is the result of an industry that's been fucking over its customers for the last 40 years <...> limiting the consumer's options whenever possible

Additionally (it's sometimes tricky for Americans in particular to understand this), piracy is huge in many parts of the first world (particularly Australia) because of region lockout. One example: something comes out in the US, it's hyped to death on social media, Australians want to pay for it, they're told they're arbitrarily not allowed to (sometimes for months, sometimes never), they find a way to get it instantly, and money that could have changed hands never does. I'm not promoting any behaviour here, just pointing out that it happens, and it happens to service the redundant bloat of very old industries.

even if I had to pay a quarter for a song I would have happily done so just to have to much music at my fingertips, instantly. My argument was based on people happily paying that much a jukebox for just on play!

also $5 ring tones

and napster had the built in player which was great for comps light on ram despite being 3 months old and cost a fortune.

i guess i question the fact that people "wanted" to pay for something once they could get it free and w/o consequence very quickly and easily

yeah that is not a "fact". people want shit for free.

Taxing the internet is pretty much the opposite of commerce. It's a solution proposed by people who imo don't understand what encourages content production and distribution – at its distant logical conclusion (i.e. a dystopian world in which all content is free and everyone 'subscribes' to everything via an internet tax) what you're doing is basically just handing a load of people some money to vaguely make some stuff, with no financial incentive for that stuff to be good. At least with subscription television (the closest analogue I can come up with) there is some incentive to provide quality/value so that people keep subscribing. All this is in my opinion, in my opinion, in my opinion.

again I don't think 'taxing the internet' is the best way to go about this, but I'd like to hear an explanation for why the profit motive is the only way to for a society to create great art.

I guess I have to admit that I've at times made similar rationalizations for streaming sports ("Cable is too expensive and they're operating on an antiquated model! Plus they're choking the internet!") although there I'm REALLY getting inferior quality. Still, I could just maybe see NBA as being a tipping point for me getting cable if I really had no other way to watch. Maybe. I'd also probably just pay for that NBA leaguepass thing if it didn't have so many blackouts of the games I'd most want to watch, but that's not one single company's fault so much as the result of a tangled web of rights.

because steve jobs! rip xp

do we need a way to ensure that people can be artists full-time? absolutely. did paul mccartney write 'yesterday' because he wanted to be a billionaire? I don't think so.

No, he wrote "Maybe I'm Amazed" to be a billionaire. He wzs just another lowly millionaire before that.

again I don't think 'taxing the internet' is the best way to go about this, but I'd like to hear an explanation for why the profit motive is the only way to for a society to create great art.

― iatee, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 6:39 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't think it is at all, I just think you need an economically viable model, be it patronage, government support, private industry or whatever. I do see a downside to govt support vs private industry though, which is that, ironically, I think you're going to get more support for radical or challenging projects from a private model. The government would be under too much pressure to only support tame, centrist tastes.

haha for reasons i don't understand myself my most arch-libertarian beliefs exist in the zone of arts. do you want bureaucrats in washington deciding which records you get to hear?!?!?!

But he did invest in music publishing and, as a result, was the only Beatle to never come close to bankruptcy.

xp

hmm what do you guys think about pbs?

npr?

haha I mean I guess those are bad examples w/r/t boring or not but they're competently run despite 'bureaucrats in washington'

I think it would be really sad if most art was like PBS and NPR

antiques roadshow is the fuckin' bomb imo

well come up w/ a better feasible model for what the music economy should look like 20 years from now. "I'm against piracy" doesn't solve any problems.

xp

i see your point, but those are single actors in a still-commercial space, and who have been forced to accept their highly politicized nature from the attacks leveled at them.

you seem to be arguing for a 'single payer' model for music, which is a whole other order of difference. right?

(there is a non-classical npr music station here and i basically hate it fyi)

xps 2 iatee

and really it's not like I'm for creating one-government-radio-station, I'm for the gov't giving living wages to artists who want to create art. this stuff happens in more enlightened countries already!

again I don't think 'taxing the internet' is the best way to go about this, but I'd like to hear an explanation for why the profit motive is the only way to for a society to create great art.

― iatee, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 10:39 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I didn't say it is. The big companies that provide content will not have any incentive to find and fund good content if all the revenue is just coming in via a tax. Good art will always happen obviously.