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| Author |
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| 25 new of 165 responses total. |
dbratman
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response 72 of 165:
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May 4 00:32 UTC 2002 |
I heard about the webcast protest/shutdown. Consequently I did not
attempt to listen to any webcasting that day.
I'm pretty much off listening to web music anyway. It's most handy
when I'm doing boring stuff at work, but the boring stuff I'm doing
eats my processing power, or something, and the web music is constantly
stopping to rebuffer. This is particularly true if the boring stuff I
have to do involves web searching, and yet we've got a huge pipeline
here. Thinking of bringing in my CD-Walkman instead.
That SonicBlue item is just stunningly awful. Insert rant here; and
yes, I think this is part of the same privacy invasion that's leading
to useless intrusive security measures.
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keesan
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response 73 of 165:
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May 4 15:34 UTC 2002 |
Was this webcasting strike US only?
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krj
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response 74 of 165:
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May 4 19:12 UTC 2002 |
Yes, because the proposed copyright royalty only affects US webcasters.
(At least, I have not heard about any proposals to try and levy it
on, say, the BBC.)
-----
Slashdot has a roundup of a couple of stories.
First, Vivendi Universal is talking about trying to make the upcoming
Eminem CD copy-prevented on all editions worldwide; previous
copy-prevention efforts have been limited to one geographic region,
mostly to test consumer response. Reuters story from May 1 is at:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-896391.html
And a followup on the band Wilco and their new album
"Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," which was discussed above in resp:39 for about
ten responses. Their old label Reprise cut Wilco loose rather than
release an album Reprise saw as uncommercial; Wilco also, according
to an article in The New Republic, made the album available for
online downloads while they were between record deals:
http://thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=online&s=edlund041502
Anyway, first week sales figures are in, and Reprise looks clueless
for dumping Wilco, and the band looks like a genius for offering the
album on the net:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/trib/20020502/lo/wilco_defies_experts_as_fo
xtrot_gallops_1.html
In tabular form:
title first week sales billboard chart #
1999 SUMMERTEETH 19,000 around #80
2002 YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT 55,573 #13
First week sales almost three times as great as the previous album,
despite the tracks having been available for Internet download for weeks
or months.
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dbratman
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response 75 of 165:
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May 6 23:23 UTC 2002 |
Possibly relevant screed by Philip Shropshire on Locus, claims that 1)
file sharing and downloading have only increased since Napster was shut
down; but 2) free online copies of written fiction have apparently been
observed to increase sales.
http://www.locusmag.com/2002/Reviews/ShropshireOnEllison.html
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gull
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response 76 of 165:
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May 7 13:31 UTC 2002 |
I hope this goes through, but given all the money stacked against it I
doubt it has a chance.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,52298,00.html
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Rick Boucher is finally ready to try and dismantle a
key part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, said last July that he wanted to amend
the DMCA to permit certain "fair uses" of digital content, such as
backing up an audio CD by bypassing copy protection technology.
In an interview on Thursday, Boucher said he now has sufficient
support -- from the tech industry, librarians, and Internet activists --
to feel comfortable introducing his bill "in the next month."
"If I had introduced it six months ago, you wouldn't have seen this
kind of support," said Boucher.
As soon as it's introduced, Boucher's proposal seems certain to be
targeted for defeat by content lobbyists including Hollywood, the
recording industry and the publishing industry.
Boucher plans to rewrite section 1201 of the DMCA, which says, "No
person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under this title."
It doesn't require that the person bypassing the scheme is doing it to
infringe on someone's copyright. Boucher believes that people should be
allowed to circumvent technological protection for research, criticism
or fair use purposes, such as reading an encrypted e-book on another
computer.
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krj
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response 77 of 165:
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May 8 14:43 UTC 2002 |
Wired points to an excellent Wall Street Journal/MSNBC story on the
backstage industry maneuvering that led to the music industry's
own download service, MusicNet.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/748564.asp?0si=-
The story says MusicNet has "roughly 40,000" subscribers.
Its owners are trying to come up with Version 2.
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keesan
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response 78 of 165:
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May 8 16:00 UTC 2002 |
In the early days of radio, the record companies tried to prevent the radio
stations from broadcasting their music on the theory that nobody would buy
the records if they could hear them on the radio. Then they discovered it
was worth their while not to charge, but to PAY, the radio stations to play
their music. I don't understand how it would not equally benefit CD companies
to let their CDs be webcast.
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gull
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response 79 of 165:
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May 8 17:44 UTC 2002 |
It's not about whether they can benefit, it's about whether they can
wring money out of people for the privilage. They're not in the
business of letting people do for free what they might be able to
charge them for.
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mcnally
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response 80 of 165:
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May 8 18:24 UTC 2002 |
And it's equally about the record companies being able to control
what gets played..
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krj
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response 81 of 165:
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May 8 20:54 UTC 2002 |
This quote from a current Business Week magazine interview with
Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig is directly relevant:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_19/b3782610.htm
> Q: The current debate over Web radio is a good example. New fees
> that the U.S. copyright office has mandated threaten to put small
> Webcasters out of business.
>
> A: Web radio is a perfect example. In the course of its testimony
> before the CARP hearings [the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel,
> the government group responsible for setting compulsory license fee
> for Webcasters] the RIAA argued that higher rates would reduce the
> number of competitors to four or five big players. That's their model:
> To wipe out diversity and get back to a place where only a few people
> control delivery.
(The article, titled "The Dinosaurs are Taking Over," argues that
the old-economy giants are moving in to control the Internet and
squeeze out independent service, independent content, pretty much
independent everything, and that in this power grab, Congress has
been the willing servant of the corporate powers.)
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keesan
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response 82 of 165:
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May 8 21:25 UTC 2002 |
I was looking for classical music webcasts and many of the stations are no
longer in operation in the US. Europe still has plenty, then there is Hong
Kong and Chile. Maybe people will start listening to more 'foreign' music
of other genres and the US music companies will lose business before they
realize what idiots they were.
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krj
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response 83 of 165:
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May 9 00:26 UTC 2002 |
Everyone's probably seen this one by now, but I'm putting this in here
for brighn anyway:
"TV exec says skipping the commercials is THEFT" :) :)
http://www.2600.com/news/display.shtml?id=1113
Jamie Kellner, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting,
had a wide-ranging interview about the TV business in CABLEWORLD
magazine. To a query about why digital TV recorders
such as the Replay 4000 are bad, Kellner responded:
"Because of the ad skips.... It's theft.
Your contract with the network when you get the
show is you're going to watch the spots.
Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis.
Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button
you're actually stealing the programming."
((I assume he means, "hit the fast-forward button"))
Kellner did allow that there was "a certain amount of tolerance" for
viewers going to the bathroom during commercials. How thoughtful!
2600 did include a link to the original article, but it has now been
moved into the pay section of inside.com. I did read enough of the
original interview, before it was restricted to paying users, to satisfy
myself that Mr. Kellner's views were not being distorted.
http://www.inside.com/product/product.asp?entity=CableWorld&pf_ID=7A2ACA71-
FAAD-41FC-A100-0B8A11C30373
-------
Slashdot pointed to the best followup I have seen:
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=198
"Top Ten New Copyright Crimes"
which is a Letterman-style list...
"Number 9: Changing radio stations in the car when a commercial comes on."
-------
Slashdot finds a further followup from "Broadcast and Cable" in which
Kellner suggests that users should be charged $250 per year for the
privilege of skipping commercials.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/06/232213
http://www.tvinsite.com/broadcastingcable/index.asp?layout=story&doc_id=84804&display=breakingNews
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keesan
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response 84 of 165:
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May 9 01:01 UTC 2002 |
In the Netherlands everyone pays a yearly fee for any radio they own which
is hooked up to cable, and they all get to vote on what programming they want,
and the amount of each type of programming is based on the vote. At least
for the noncommercial tax-supported stations. There are pirate stations
broadcasting from ships. I assume some of the for-pay cable TV stations are
also commercial free, am I wrong? Requiring that one listen to ads in order
to hear music makes as much sense as requiring college students to play
football or vice versa.
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senna
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response 85 of 165:
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May 9 03:07 UTC 2002 |
Big entertainment business has become so insular that skipping commercials
is now THEFT? I don't recall there being any contract signed for me to watch
broadcast television, so this is news to me.
Thank you, Ken, for your occasionally alarmist tracking of copyright issues
which brings to my attention very real idiocy, and, in situations like this,
outrageously humorous examples of the effects of frontal lobotomy.
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mdw
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response 86 of 165:
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May 9 06:51 UTC 2002 |
For-pay cable channels are generally interuption-free. They generally
run blurbs for other shows as fillers, which is a form of advertisement.
AMC used to run on the same system, although they now seem to be
evolving away from this.
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slynne
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response 87 of 165:
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May 9 12:49 UTC 2002 |
Yeah, I have been bummed to find commercials on AMC. But I guess they
have to make a buck just like everyone else.
Personally, I would love to see everyone get a TiVo to skip the
commercials because that really would make that advertising time less
valuable which could mean that companies that advertise would look
elsewhere. This would mean a big loss of revenue for the TV/cable
networks, unless the "elsewhere" was product placement within the shows
themselves. It would probably mean that they would have to be forpay
services. I know that if I had to pay a few bucks for *each* channel I
got, I wouldnt get very many. But it would be worth it not to have the
commercials. If a lot of folks get TiVo, it could result in a loss in
choices as probably some networks would find themselves unable to adapt
to a new model. It *could* also result in lower quality programming but
I like to think that it would be the lower quality stuff that would get
lost if networks go under.
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void
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response 88 of 165:
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May 9 15:26 UTC 2002 |
The entire point of cable in the first place was to be ad-free.
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remmers
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response 89 of 165:
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May 9 16:30 UTC 2002 |
Now that AMC does commercials, I don't watch it anymore. Same
goes for Bravo, with rare exceptions. Wouldn't wanna be guilty
of stealing. :)
Re #84: Yes, I remember that when "pay-TV" (which later evolved
into cable) was first being discussed in the 1950s, one of the
selling points was going be freedom from commercials. Um...
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jep
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response 90 of 165:
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May 9 16:58 UTC 2002 |
re #88: There was cable TV in Houghton, MI in the 1950's because there
were no locally accessible TV stations there. The original point of
cable was sharp reception and greater selection of programming.
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tpryan
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response 91 of 165:
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May 9 17:00 UTC 2002 |
The other end of it is the the local advertiser now has
a harder time than ever of getting their niche market into
the cable station slots.
I am sure some nightlife spot in Ann Arbor would love
to advertise only on Comedy Central's Insomniac. But no, instead
we get the ComCast self promotion ad instead. To me, it looks
like ComCast is not interested in the small order business.
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gull
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response 92 of 165:
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May 9 19:53 UTC 2002 |
Cable TV started as "community antenna television." (This is where the
acronym CATV comes from.) They'd put an array of single-channel Yagis
on top of some tall structure, pointed at the various local channels,
then amplify the signals and feed them out to residents, to avoid the
visual clutter of every house having its own outdoor TV antenna.
Obviously that wasn't commercial free since it was just another way to
get broadcast TV.
Even today most cable systems, as part of the francise agreement, have
to offer a cheap "basic service" level that mostly just provides area
broadcast stations. They rarely advertise that fact and will often
charge an arm and a leg to install it, but it usually exists.
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keesan
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response 93 of 165:
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May 10 01:33 UTC 2002 |
Last I knew the local basic service here was $30/month, hardly cheap.
It had suddenly gone up from $8.
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ea
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response 94 of 165:
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May 10 01:46 UTC 2002 |
92 - the acronym CATV has since been modified to be "Community Access
TV", which may go by other names including Public Access, or Community
Television.
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jmsaul
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response 95 of 165:
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May 10 03:53 UTC 2002 |
Re #88: I thought the point was to be able to show naked people and use
naughty words.
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dbratman
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response 96 of 165:
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May 12 09:43 UTC 2002 |
Well, there's two origins of cable tv, and they tend to get confused.
One is the provision of tv to back-country areas that get poor
broadcast reception, and that's always been commercial, simply because
it was a feed of broadcast stations. The other is cable-only channels,
intended in the first place for urban customers, which came along
around 1980, and that indeed was originally mostly commercial-free, the
idea being that subscription fees to cable would pay the cost. So much
for that notion.
Kellner's remark about stealing is profoundly disturbing, for several
reasons.
First, as several people have pointed out, applied to print
publications it would require that you read all the ads (and various
corollaries about electronic media suggest that you'd have to start at
the beginning and read the whole thing, read it only once, and you
couldn't pass it on to somebody else). It also suggests you can't flip
stations during commercials, either.
Second, it flies in the face of the whole basis of advertising, in
which the best ads are designed to actually attract attention and not
just lecture to a captive audience, and more than that, in which ad
rates are set with the specific understanding that there won't be 100%
feed-through.
Thirdly, if you can be required to watch the ads, you can also be
required to buy the wonderful products being pitched.
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