ZOMBIE FORUMS

Give the apple service a bit of time. It is really is in its infancy at this point.

Any new business/service has some initial startup costs to be covered by the product price in the begining. As other entities enter into this venture, it will create competition, and as more people start using the services, the cost per unit (song) will go down to a level we all like.
This is all marketing/economics/managment 101.
As an example, look at how DVDs have changed. Both players and movies have dropped in price as they have become accepted (thus purchases increased). Just 4 to 5 years ago, the price of a player was in the 400 to 500 dollar range, today, units are under 100 dollars. Movies went from 100 to 10 to 20 dollars.
Give it a bit of time and we should be able to get the songs we want, and right around a quarter apiece.

Services such as apple's should end having to pay out 10 to 20 dollars for a disk that has only one decent song on it, one of the main reasons Mp3 swapping came about.
Buy what you want, and only what you want.

The asshole in the recording industry know this is going to happen, and why they are so hard right now to sue file swappers -> just trying to delay the inevitable; the end of their strangle/chicken-choking/hold on music.

Personally, I hope the apple service, and others like it put a huge cork in big mouths of the greedy record company exec's. I don't think we should resonsible for paying for their next vacation property/yacht/limo/whore/etc. They have enough money, and that is our money people!

EDIT: The competition is moving faster than I had figured. As of today(07/22/03) a windows-based service is going online, and cost per unit (song) is down to $0.70 usd. Whole albums are under 10 dollars (between 7 ans 9 dollars). Here we go....................................................................

Bump, and grind.
See edit on previous.....

The premises of intellectual property and copyright ownership will be around for a long long time to come because every lawyer in or near the industries affected by these can smell the long green of the corporations.

Some legislators and litigators will be looking out for us, the little guy, but it's going to be a protracted battle lasting several more years.

The answer might be to revamp the copyright laws and thereby removing the downright violent interpretation of DMCA.

There will be, in that time, dozens of excellent theses provided by economy, poli.sci. and technology doctorate-candidates on how the issue can be resolved to mutual benefit and satisfaction. None will see the light of day in a real sense because the lobbyists will get wind of them and snuff them out.

Call your representative and get copyright reform on their minds.

It is quite an international issue at this point. Copyright laws are the wrong thing to change. Directing the industry to just give us what we want. The music WE want, at the price WE want. Get competition in there and break the IRIAA ( or whatever the fuck those crooks call themselves)
of their current monopoly.

Been done before, can be done again.

Well, unfortunately I think a smaller country (Germany, most likely) will have to set a precedent. Honestly it's always hard to be the first at anything. But the US legislature will not be that first.

*edit: and personally, I am beginning to like the idea of class action countersuing anyone that is going to try and take me to court over how I share music that I own.

Okay, pardon me for a second while I dive into an thoroughly impossible hypothetical situation....

Let's say for a moment that ideas truly do want to be free. And, of course, they do. Once information is divorced from hardware-- books are no longer on paper, paintings are no longer on canvas, music is no longer on vinyl-- then there is no sense in charging a unit cost.

Artists deserve to be compensated for their work. The only alternative to selling individual copies of the art is to sell the art itself, once, to the world.

Essentially, infocommunism.

Artists would create one final version of their product. They would submit it to a government database of some sort, and people could download it, share it, and modify it to their hearts' content. Based on the popularity of the work (and, according to certain NEA-like government programs, based on its subjective artistic merit), the government would pay a certain sum to the artist.

This would, of course, mean massive art taxes-- but you'd never have to pay for entertainment again. Things like physical paintings, hardcover books, and live concerts would still have a unit price, because they are physical objects.

Of course, such a scheme would require a massive one world government, and they would have the final say on the quantified worth of any piece of art. Somewhat of a nightmare scenario, politically.

Not to mention it could be more cheaply and efficiently done by just selling the piece of art directly to the customer, from artist to customer. Instead of people who hate art paying for somebody's art, you get the people who love art paying for the art they love.

But why do that when you can come up with impossible, idiotic scenarios that are never gonna happen?

-MiB

I was just taking the idea of ideas wanting to be free and bringing it to its logical conclusion. If you think it's that far off topic, I can delete it...

Its not free if I have to pay a tax for it.

Welfare is hardly "free," since a good deal of America is PAYING FOR IT.

Its not off topic, just silly.

-MiB