Somebody want to pony up some cash to buy these folks a clue:
"I applaud AT&T's decision to take action to clear their networks of infringing material", he said, "and I look forward to seeing how this will work in practice."
Wenham doubted if Japan really was growing, noting that it's one of the few Western markets that hasn't adopted the iPod.
"The iPod is one of the biggest problems we have in monetizing our music," she said.
???
Well, at least Prince gets it; he's giving away his latest CD with British newspaper The Mall on Sunday, though certain individuals are getting a bit peeved:
"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.
So it's out in the open now; they don't even pretend to be about the artists or their rights--it's all about monetizing, and if the artists stand in the way, woe to them. Does sound a bit dodgy though; is it even legal to collude with retail distributors like that? And the iPod is their biggest problem? What are they going to do? Outlaw the most popular music player of all time? Good luck with that one. Also, I'm sure that he won a bunch of fans siding with AT&T; those poor little monopolists and cartels have to protect themselves against those ruffian consumers. How dare they? They'll take what they're given, and like it!!!
While the GPLv3 was being released, the RIAA's UK equivalent was raiding a Honeywell plant to search for suspected terrorists file-sharers; maybe if they had their priorities straight they could have stopped an actual terrorist attack that took place less than two days later. But that only had the potential to cost human lives, and the would-be file sharers might be costing the cartels billions and billions!!! They weren't kidding when they said that file-sharing should be a higher priority than guarding against bank robbers, muggers, fraud and theft; presumably that now includes terrorist attacks, as well. Good to know. Anybody's guess how long until Microsoft claims that Linux is depriving it of its God-given rights to make an obscene profit on a broken Vista?
Eben Moglen of the Free Software Foundation explains it best:
Since the end of the 20th century, a great deal of effort and enterprise among economists seeking to justify the way we have been doing things has gone into explaining why their prior theory was wrong. The theory of the firm demanded that under 21st century conditions, the price of information goods be equal to their marginal cost -- that is, zero.
A great deal of ingenuity was necessary to explain why that wasn't the actual price in a supposedly free economy. The answer, of course, was not long to seek -- it was the presence of state-created monopolies, eliminating competitive markets in the distribution of information goods. What we came over time to call Intellectual Property rules, rules of copyright and rules of patent, rules of secrecy, which established artificial barriers to the competitive economy's tendency to deliver information goods at their marginal cost -- that is, at zero -- that is, the tendency of the market, if left free to itself, to extirpate ignorance and cultural deprivation.
If have no clue about the connections between monopolists like AT&T, Microsoft, and cartels such as the RIAA and the MPAA, your rights, and open source software, then his speech is the clearest and most beautiful encapsulization of said issues I have ever read. Truly moving and heartfelt and rich with poetry; a must-read. This is why I just lurve open source (one last quote, can't help myself):
The entertainment industry on Planet Earth had decided that in order to acquire Layer 7 Data Security, it was necessary to lock up layers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 so that no technological progress could occur without their permission.
If you are new to this series, then it may be a bit confusing; some good sources to check out for starters are here, here, here, and here. There's a nice synopsis of what exactly open source software is here. If you are thinking about getting some open source software into your computing experience, then a good way to do it is switch today!!! gradually, integrating open source into your daily life. An excellent source for Windows users is here; Mac users can check out some fine offerings here.
No open source reviews today; just wanted to share some apps I've been using on my iMac the past few days that are significantly better than some of the other bits out there, open source or not. I'm going to review Linuxconsole in a day or so, just as soon as the torrent finishes downloading. It's a French Linux distro that can run on as little of 16M of ram, and comes in five or six different varieties, depending on your needs. I'm getting the version that requires a whopping 64M of ram to run, so you may want to upgrade your computers for that one. Currently number nine at distrowatch, so something is up with it.
If you like to test drive the various Linux distribution liveCDs, then you need a reliable way to download them that doesn't eat up all your bandwidth; that means getting a bit torrent client. Most Mac users are on the java based Azureus; while it's a feature rich implementation of a torrent client, it's a wee bit ram hungry. A much nicer client (available for Linux, *BSD, and Windows as well) is Transmission; not all the bells and whistles of Azureus, but very stable and unobtrusive, with a load of nice hidden features.
Should you be strapped for hard drive space, then a nice alternative to Open Office writer is Abiword, a compact text editor/word processor that can save in a variety of formats, including Word. If you insist on the full Office Suite, then you have a couple of options; you can get Open Office and run it natively on the Mac using the X11 windowing system, or you can get NeoOffice, which runs on Aqua.
A wonderful little IM client is Adium; it allows you to connect to most every network out there, and is, well..quite cute. Hate to say it, but the Kawaii factor plays a role in what software I choose at times. Adium has some of the best smilies, and is super easy to set up and use.
Looking for an iTunes store type show downloader, but all free and legal? Democracy player is one of those apps you wish you'd never found, i.e., a rather large time-sink. Serves up shows and the selection is truly breathtaking in its scope.
For email, there's Thunderbird; though I personally don't use it, I have heard rave reviews about it, and thought it should be included on the list. From the same folks who brought you Firefox, so you know you can't go wrong there.
Quicktime not opening some file you've got? Try VLC--more often than not it's open up whatever you throw at it--and if it doesn't, MPlayer certainly will, also having the advantage of queuing up a number of shows and running them non-stop.
Those are all the ones I run (with the exception of Thunderbird), though at times I've been known to play this or this. Good fun, and no hyper Xsix trillion video card needed. Been spending too much time here, as well, though not everyone is a happy camper in SL-land. And naturally all of these fine programs are available on non-proprietary systems (i.e., Linux, *BSD, Solaris, etc.).
Ubuntu users may want to check this out; if you want to know who will license their software under the GPLv3 (and who doesn't??) a list is here; finally, an interesting study on social roles online--while not strictly related to open source (no connection whatsoever, or in helping elect Democrats: you got me!!), thought-provoking nonetheless. I think I'm a definite 'answer person'. What about you?
Update: Huge news! I'll diary more about this later, but too important not to note down right away--Google is offering Linux repositories for a number of Linux distributions. Un-friggin-believable. Includes walkthroughs with clear screenshots, as well as clear concise directions on how exactly to configure your system, through the GUI and the CLI! Amazing!