Much to my surprise today, when I logged into Advogato
today, I was certified as an apprentice! Kewl! (thanx
miniver, lilo, and mobius!)
Haven't had much time to study with work being as busy as it
is. for some reason this year everyone wants everything
done by September 1. Usually this is a quiet time-- or so
I'm told. I've only been at this company for six months.
It's still a pain that I've been averaging one server build
per month, and in July I had five.
I use the spare time in work to learn *nix techniques.
Currently, I'm running through the Unix CD Bookshelf from
O'Reilly. I'm doing Sed and Awk as a precursor to
PERL as a precursor ro C or some such 'real' language.
Co-worker of mine is taking a course in Intellectual
Property and all everyone is talking about in the class is
Napster. good. we need more people who at least know
enough to discuss this intelligently. For what it's worth,
the overwhelming consensus is that the record companies (all
four of them) really missed the boat on this one. If they
were as interested in capitalizing on a new opportunity as
they have been on protecting their monopoly, they could have
been a part of the revolution instead of becming a casualty.
And I hate the self-righteous assholes who insist on writing
articles about how Napster just feeds people's selfishness.
Napster (and it's related technologies) are the answer to
what has always been the real desire of music fans and
musicians since the first cave-person hit a stick in rhythm
with another cave-person's stick hits. Freely available
music, with fans paying for what they want rather than what
some marketroid wants them to buy (by depleting the supply
of everything but "signed" (i.e. corporately-owned) music.
In all the ruckus, I'm surprised no one's looked at the
artists' organizations (BMI and ASCAP in the US) for a
possible compromise. Right now, these organizations colect
money from Radio stations, night clubs and other venues.
They also survey radio, tv, muzak, clubs where cover bands
play, etc. Based on how much play a song gets, the artists
receive a share of the fees collected. It's all based on a
pretty complicated structure (market size, etc), but it
works. The companies are set up as non-profit
organizations, so 100% of the money after operating expenses
goes to the artists.
Why can't these organizations (or some other
similarly-structured organization) do something similar with
Napster-like sites? Napster could pay fees to these artist
organizations and keep track of what gets downloaded. Then
the artists get paid out of that fund.
Maybe. I don't know. It just seems like with all the
lawsuits going on, no one is lookig at what can be
done, as opposed to what someone or other wants to
prevent.
Your humble and obedient.