Pete's Picocosm
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 2 most recent journal entries recorded in the "solune" journal:
|
23:49
[Link] |
Digital Rights Restriction
—MicroSoft: Great at screwing everyone
It's late, and I want to go to bed. But, before I do, I think you ought to read this, especially if you plan to buy your kid a media player from MicroSoft this Christmas (or hanaka, etc...)
Don't be fooled, DRM will not stop piracy for one simple reason: those that actually siphon huge profits from media distributors by immitating packaging and dealing to the public will always find a way.
While at one time recorded music was a novelty, the ubiquitousness of it relegates it to a more hearty function: promoting musicians for concert tours. The more I think of recorded music, the more I'm convinced its current purpose shouldn't be to sell copies, but to sell entertainment. With various ways to listen to music — MP3, CD, jukebox, terrestial and sattelite radio, digital music channels on television and streaming internet content — the actual need to purchase music dwindles. People that love a musician (I've always been a David Bowie fan) will go out and buy the hardcopy music with an expectation to be able to play it anywhere. No strings.
I bought all of Bowie's records in vinyl, and again when they came out in superior CD. I even have multiple copies of a few albums: Diamond Dogs in flat vinyl, picture disk, original vinyl bifold album cover, first CD release (with bonus tracks) and specially mastered edition.
Any musician will have no trouble selling packaging to their audience if their music is quality.
Furthermore, a well appreciated talent will always sell tickets if they perform. The Grateful Dead have always allowed "tapers" to record and share their concerts. They always sold out (generating income), and they still sold albums. In fact, I think their studio albums aren't that great — their passion for music being better conveyed by a live performance.
What this means, and how I've read musicians that abuse fans, is people who piss and moan about lost music sales while barely touring are, in fact, lazy bastards.
I work for a living. Every day I toil on my knees (I'm a tile setter) to earn my keep. As should anyone. Muscians that barely tour, yet cry foul over the uncorking of recorded music are really only angry that they've got to work for a living. "Oh my god, you mean I must have some sort of schedule?"
Fuck you! Work for a living!
Ask any band that does it for the love. They tour almost as often as I work, make great money, and have the nice perk called "groupies." As I worry about my knees holding out for a big job, so do singers worry about their voice. Being a musician doesn't automatically entitle you to millions the same as my skill doesn't automatically entitle me to my own business. If I want to make more, I have to work at it.
Now, if you'll excuse me I have to wake early for work.
Any Tile groupies out there?
—Pete
Tags: free speech, liberty, software
|
|
19:36
[Link] |
Guess who's coming to dinner?
So, if you're like me you're pretty bothered by the revelations that the NSA has been collecting calling records from your phone company. That is, unless your phone company is Qwest who, like real patriots, questioned authority.
I think what should especially annoy anyone is this scenerio: Suppose you're investigative reporter looking into corruption within the FBI. Say an agent has been using his position to molest underage girls, deal drugs and be an all around evil guy.
Agent Evil gets wind of this and uses these databases and powers to trace every phone call you've ever made. Your mother. Your sister. Your father, kids in college, and, yes, even your mistress. Now imagine Agent evil aprising you of the fact that he knows about your research, where everyone close to you lives, and just what he'll be able to do to stop you from writing the story:
Junior fails because the professor has been told he is subersive.
Junior doesn't get into med school because the staff is told he may
be using his knowledge for nefarious reasons.
Your sources are threatend and killed, or whisked away as "enemy
combatants, never to see constitutional light again.
Your sister has the life of her kids threatened; her kids are
targeted for harrasment through "drug trafficking investigation."
Your wife's stellar corporate job is cut short through prosecution
for tax issues (not so far fetched when you consider the complexity
of the tax code).
Dad gets harrassed every time he goes fishing, having been placed on
a watch list.
your mistress either gets outted or assaulted
Far fetched? I hardly think so. If, as the right-wingers say, there is as much anti-patriotism as they say in the press then logically (on a gut-level scale) there is an equal amount of rabid law enforcement officers willing to use the system to further their abuses.
What's more, what is there to prevent somone from using the surveillence system to plant evidence? Seems to me a secretive system such as this could easily be perverted into a terrible weapon against "enemies of the state." Cops have been known to plant evidence before, what's to stop them now from fabricating an electronic trail?
This gets a whole lot uglier when one considers provisions of the patriot act that allow information sharing among agencies. It's pretty likely all agencies have access to this database and unsupervised surveillence. Already we know the administration lied about Iraq, and about the reach of wiretaps. What else is being covered up?
As for senatorial oversight, this doesn't comfort me in the least. I mean, really, can you trust a senator that voted for the patriot act while simultaneously stating "I don't like it, we'll see how it goes"?
I think the most amazing thing about this revelation is the lack of outrage. Let's face it, if our country is spying on its citizenry in secret the terrorists are winning. They, with the aide of a clueless congress and president, have created a culture not too different than any other petty dictatorship.
And, if you think it isn't this way, see how easy it is to get a third party candidate into your mid-term elections.
Current Mood:  angry
Tags: liberty, surveillence, terrorism
|
|