The New Music model ( or how to buy something without ever owning it)

Wow.

A lot has happened in the past three or four years with regards to how we obtain and listen to music hasn’t it?

I am astounded at all the ways we can now enjoy our favorite artists and listen to our music.

Just in the last few years we have went from the ability to play a CD version of our song that we went to a brick and mortar store and bought to never actually owning the CD and only having an electronic version we downloaded from the Internet.

New words have shown up as well. iPod, Zune, Mp3, wma, DRM. These words meant virtually nothing 10-15 years ago.

Technology is always changing , sometimes for the better and sometimes not. The only thing you can say about it is that it will change. The rub and what sets new technology apart from the old technology is whether or not you choose to accept it.

Here’s a story to illustrate my point. Back in the good old days ( the late seventies) my Dad had what was considered by our family to be the schniz-nizzle of all music playing equipment. He owned a slick looking , encased in Aluminum, suitcase style, reel to reel sound system. You remember those don’t you? You used to see them all the time in movies and James Bond type flicks of the day. I think they illustrated the point that you were sophisticated and cool if you owned one of these devices. He would sit down and fire that bad boy up and you would have thought Walt Disney or Gunsmoke was on TV. Everybody would stop what they were doing and migrate into the front room with Dad and sit quietly while he fiddled with it trying to get the tape loaded onto the pickup reel correctly. I think we were all silently hoping he had some new music for it, however usually it was more of the same and the speakers he had at the time were pretty low class, but being kids , we didn’t know any better. Then he would get it right and out would come the lovely strains of another John Phillips Sousa march of some kind. (Kids silently depart the room.) Mom wanders back to her kitchen and puzzles or whatever. Dad gets lost in thoughts of Andrews sisters or Benny Goodman or some such topical reference. Seemed then like the machine was the point and the music was pretty much secondary.

I never did have any interest in those contraptions once I turned into a long haired hippie freak teenager. They may have been cool, but you couldn’t carry it around with you and impress girls with it so what was the point. Hell that’s all I cared about at the time.

Then along came the 8 track tape player. Now this was COOL. I could have the worst Junker of a car imaginable yet because I had a 8 track tape player (a miniature version of the reel to reel player I was to find out later) I could drive around and girls would be able to hear my music on my stereo in my car (away from my parents) and maybe , just maybe if I played the right Bee-Gees song, I would get lucky. Meaning my very strong desire as a teenager to see every other teenaged girl I knew naked underneath me, would be satisfied. Or so I thought at the time.

The only problem was it got old quick playing the same music over and over again in the same order. I spent a lot of money buying the latest K-Tell tape to play in that thing. Then something pretty interesting happened. That technology pretty much died a quick death. One day I was bopping along buying and playing 8 tracks and the next something called “CD’s” were all the rage. Or so it seems now in retrospect. Truth is it probably took a few years to change , but in my youth then and my older age now it seems like it was instantaneous. Same with 45’s, LP albums and Cassettes. Here one day and gone tomorrow.

Everything about all of this makes perfect sense to me except for one small thing. I don’t get and no matter how hard I try, I will never understand downloaded, DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected, subscription music. iPod by Apple and their iTunes store technology along with Microsoft and their new Zune would have you believe that it makes perfect sense to buy your tracks 99 cents at a time.

This is the big lie. It really doesn't make any logical sense at all. I guess you could say it is also the newest imperfect technology. Read on and I'll give you my opinion why it appears to be a rip-off. At least to me.

You see the trick of the game they play on you without telling you, is you never really own the songs. You never have full control over what you do with them. You really didn’t ever “buy” them. They want you to think you did, but you didn’t.

Consider the following scenario. You download a song on the subscription model (that they lie to you about and favorably compare to being about the same as having a cable TV account).

Say you use iTunes and download a song to your iPod. Can you play it on any other player? Nope. Can you play it on any other computer? Nope. What is the chance you would be able to get it back in playing condition if your computer crashed? Maybe. Depends on if you used a service that is still in business.

Now ask yourself these basic questions.

Do I have all of these restrictions on Cable TV? Well I don't know, Lets see.

Will cable play on any other TV ? Yeah, Pretty much. Cable doesn’t care what player (TV) is being used. If your cable service goes out during a storm does it come back and just work? Yeah, again, pretty much. Unless the line got torn down, in which case it’ll be back in a day or two once they fix it. No action required on your part , except to pay the bill. Can I record my TV show and play it back on pretty much any television? You ever heard of a VCR? Or a DVR? Or a Tivo? No brainer if you ask me.

You see what you are actually doing with DRM protected music is not buying it. You are not “subscribing” to it. You never, ever really own it, unless you burned it immediately to CD. You will not be able to store it forever and ever and play it when ever you want to 25 years from now. You are leasing it (maybe renting is a better analogy, because like renting a house, when you stop paying for it, you have to give it up) . It will always belong to the place or company who provided the DRM technology in the first place, because the company who supplied it to you controls everything you can do with it.

You don’t believe me ? Stop paying your subscription bill and see what happens to your ability to play the music you have already “paid” for.

Now consider what happened to the 8 track player. When you buy a new computer, how will you access your DRM , subscribed music? Better yet, Can you access it? Can you play it? (The answer here is maybe, but probably not, depending on how technically capable you are, how well you understand licensing and how well you can follow complicated instructions) What happens if your hard drive crashed?

The answer usually is pretty much the same no matter what the problem or question is.

Sorry about your luck pal, you must start over. Your problem, not ours.

Sucks to be you.

This is why I don’t get it. If my CD player dies, I just buy another one. Poof , instant music. If my generic mP3 player dies, I just get another one. Poof, instant music.

If my subscription dies, not Poof, Not instant music. If my computer dies, not Poof, not instant music.

I have a lot of music. I own every bit of it. I bought every CD. I can burn as many copies of it as I want to.

The difference is in how you perceive ownership. When I own it, it is mine to do with what I want, within reason.

Same as owning a book. I can’t copy it and sell it because I would be breaking a perfectly reasonable copyright law. With , DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected music, I can only do what they say I can do with it and then only as long as the technology still works as intended. The decision is never mine to make, so I can't break the law, even if I wanted to.

This concept is called self determination. If I can't decide to abide by the law and can't decide to break it, then I don't own it. If I can't make any decisions about how I can choose to use it, then it is not my product nor is it my choice. Certainly there are ways around this, however every one of them involves a massive compromise, either in the sound quality or the legality.

I’ll be surprised is this is the answer to file sharing. I can’t imagine that this idiocy will still be around in 10 years. Too many flaws. Too many restrictions. Too many problems. Too much crap to put up with.

Who wants to own a music time share?

jmho.

~ bigmike

An Open Letter to Microsoft

Today I just want to say a few words about my favorite subject, The Microsoft Corporation.

This is not really a rant so much as it is a recognition that monolithic company's do not have the time or the patience to hear what the little guys (namely individual customers - like you and me) have to say, want or need. They just don't care as long as their marketing department can make it sound right, it doesn't matter if it is right.

Like many of you, I have been using MS products since MS-DOS. Heck I even still use a couple of batch commands written in DOS style to accomplish certain things. You basically cannot work on a computer without using their products, even if all of your stuff is free ware open source, chances are somewhere in your internet movement of email or online ordering that your information will go through a Microsoft product. They are everywhere. hence the monolith reference.

That being said, I think somebody needs to tell these guys that enough is enough. They need to STOP and think about what they are doing to us and what they have done to us and make it right. Fat chance they ever will. This is Probably an exercise in futility. I am going to have my say though. Lets start at the present and work backwards.


An Open Letter to Microsoft ( or bullet points to live by)

• The general public does not want, does not need and cannot afford Windows Vista. Why don't you just sit down and fix the crap you already sold us last year? We won’t be able to afford the hardware or the software. You are the ones that need us to buy it, because of the planned obsolescence of Windows XP. Make it affordable for the general public and we may purchase it. Keep as planned and watch us not buy. It is way too friggin’ expensive. If you can basically give away game consoles in order to get in and stay in the game market, do the same for the home computer user. Don’t you think we know you under priced the original Xbox on purpose?
  
  
• Fix your software before you sell it. Make everybody who sells it do the same if they want the rights to install it on a computer running your OS. Quit putting out this bug ridden, half done, patched to death , worthless code you call a finished product. Do the knowledgebase articles on all the bugs in your code have to number in the millions before somebody over there in Redmond gets the joke?
  
  
• MS-Office costs way too much and is too confusing. It is too complex. There are too many variations and too many permutations of the various ways it can be configured and bought. You ever wonder why you sell so many “Academic Editions” It makes too many mistakes getting installed. Simplify it and make it easy for us to use. I write some code (although I am not a programmer) use office every single day and have never used some of the silly bells and whistles you stick on a product in order to give it a higher perceived value. Knock it off. It is stupid and is a rip off to charge $ 500.00 to upgrade a product you already own.
  
  Bad PR too.
  
  
• Spend some of your billions in cash and fix the junk you sold us in the past that millions of people still use every day. You told us Windows 95 was the greatest thing since sliced bread. You should have realized you made a mistake and should have done the right thing and made it right for all of us when it crashed on Bill Gates during the live TV product launch. Instead you listened to some marketing guy who told you it would be ok, because you could now sell more , newer versions instead of giving away the fix to the junk you sold in the first place. I mean , why would we need a virus scanner in the first place , if the product wasn’t ill prepared to deal with the problems presented by your code?
  
  
• Step up and fix the errors your people made and quit selling us “Upgrades” which are really “Updates” to existing products. You don’t really expect us to 100 % believe that a product marked as “Must have XXX product to qualify” doesn’t really mean you are relying on previous code of the former product to be in place so you can fix it do you?
  
  
• I can go to the auto parts store and still buy new parts for my 1986 Ford Ranger Truck. Can I still get code and repair support for Windows 3.0 ? , 3.1 ?, 3.11?, Win 95?, Win 98?, Win 98SE (second edition a separate OS charge for the upgrade)?, Windows ME?, Windows CE?, Win 2000 ?, Windows 2000 Professional (or Windows NT if you prefer)?
  
  NO, I can’t and it is planned that way and it is crap.
  
  It is a big fat stinking pile of BS.
  
  
• I have refrigerators, televisions and radios that last longer than your Operating systems do. It is not a crime to sell something into a planned obsolescence death spiral, but it should be, because you sell all of them like they are a brand new product when in fact all of those products contain elements and modules that were built with the first versions. I can still find the icons file I have been using since the very first versions of your operating systems in your latest products.
  
  
• And now here come the platitudes for Windows Vista. Go on over to Vista Features And you’ll see things like “Windows Vista introduces a breakthrough user experience and is designed to help you feel confident in your ability to view, find, and organize information and to control your computing experience.”
  
  
• Ahhhhrrrggghhh ! This is a new product designed to pump up the bank accounts of Microsoft executives and raise the stock price and that is all. You will need new everything if you run a Pentium class processor to run this thing. It eats hard drives for breakfast, and needs more RAM than most people have ever seen in any computer they have ever owned. Almost none of your current software will run correctly on 64 bit processing. Your current motherboard probably will not run it (especially if it is 3 or 4 years old) , your current monitor is not big enough, your fancy video cards won’t run on it most likely and if you have a laptop you are thinking about upgrading , Fugghedaboutit!
  
  
• Here is the worst part.
  
  All of this and more is designed into the product. The marketing plan is to separate and extract as many corporate dollars as is humanly monolithically possible from corporate clients and you as the individual do not matter.
  
  
• By the way did I mention that the cost of a new computer will triple or quintuple (depending on whom you believe) over current prices? The days of a good cheap computer are about gone.
  
  
• Yeah Bill. This is definitely for our own good and is the best you could do. We are all so proud of you and your good works. And you wonder why Linux is getting bigger and bigger everyday ? Wake up and get a clue. By a vowel Vanna. Kinda brings back the heady days of Y2K and the free wheeling spending of all those IT departments who set those sales records don’t it?
  
  I hate getting taken advantage of and having them think we all are just stupid mindless sheep and of course you don’t know any better.~

WHATEVER. Smells like dog crap, looks like dog crap, must be dog crap.

jmho

~bigmike

Things you can only say at Thanksgiving!

Things you can only say at Thanksgiving!

1. Talk about a huge breast!

2. Tying the legs together keeps the inside moist.

3. It's Cool whip time.

4. If I don't undo my pants, I'll burst.

5. Whew, that's one terrific spread!

6. I'm in the mood for dark meat.

7. Are your ready for seconds yet?

8. It's a little dry, do you still want to eat it?

9. Just wait your turn, you'll get some.

10. Don't play with your meat.

11. Just spread the legs open and stuff it in.

12. Do you think you'll be able to handle all these people at once?

13. I didn't expect everyone to come at once!

14. You still have a little bit on your chin.

15. How long will it take after you stick it in?

16. You'll know it's ready when it pops up.

17. Wow, I didn't think I could handle all of that!

18. That's the biggest one I've ever seen!

19. How long do I beat it before it's ready?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

MAN LAW 101

"I got this from the Internet. I am not the author. Having said that.......this is funny!"
-bigmike

MAN LAW 101

1. Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.
2. It is OK for a man to cry ONLY under the following circumstances:

• When a heroic dog dies to save its master.
• The moment Angelina Jolie starts unbuttoning her blouse.
• After wrecking your boss's car.
• One hour, 12 minutes, 37 seconds into "The Crying Game".
• When she is using her teeth.

3. Any Man who brings a camera to a bachelor party may be legally killed and eaten by his buddies.

4. Unless he murdered someone in your family, you must bail a friend out of jail within 12 hours.

5. If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off limits forever unless you actually marry her.

6. Moaning about the brand of free beer in a buddy's fridge is forbidden. However complain at will if the temperature is unsuitable.

7. No man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering your buddy's birthday is strictly optional. At that point, you must celebrate at a strip bar of the birthday boy's choice.

8. On a road trip, the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not the weakest.

9. When stumbling upon other guys watching a sporting event, you may ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who's playing.

10. You may flatulate in front of a woman only after you have brought her to climax. If you trap her head under the covers for the purpose of flatulent entertainment, she's officially your girlfriend.

11. It is permissible to drink a fruity alcohol drink only when you're sunning on a tropical beach... and it's delivered by a topless model and only when it's free.

12. Only in situations of moral and/or physical peril are you allowed to kick another guy in the nuts.

13. Unless you're in prison, never fight naked.

14. Friends don't let friends wear Speedos. Ever. Issue closed.

15. If a man's fly is down, that's his problem, you didn't see anything.16. Women who claim they "love to watch sports" must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the ability to drink as much as the other sports wa tchers.

17. A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight.

18. Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both, that's just greedy.

19. If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you'd better be talking about his choice of beer.

20. Never join your girlfriend or wife in discussing a friend of yours, except if she's withholding sex pending your response.

21. Phrases that may NOT be uttered to another man while lifting weights:

• Yeah, Baby, Push it!
• C'mon, give me one more! Harder!
• Another set and we can hit the showers!

22. Never talk to a man in a bathroom unless you are on equal footing: i.e., both urinating, both waiting in line, etc. For all other situations, an almost imperceptible nod is all the conversation you need.

23. Never allow a telephone conversation with a woman to go on longer than you are able to have sex with her. Keep a stopwatch by the phone. Hang up if necessary.

24. The morning after you and a girl who was formerly "just a friend" have carnal, drunken monkey sex, the fact that you're feeling weird and guilty is no reason for you not to nail each other again before the discussion occurs about what a big mistake it was.

25. It is acceptable for you to drive her car. It is not acceptable for her to drive yours.

26. Thou shalt not buy a car in the colors of brown, pink, lime green, orange or sky blue.

27. The girl who replies to the question "What do you want for Christmas?" with "If you loved me, you'd know what I want!" gets an Xbox. End of story.

28. There is no reason for guys to watch Ice Skating or Men's Gymnastics. Ever.

29. We've all heard about people having guts or balls. But do you really know the difference between them? In an effort to keep you informed, the definition of each is listed below:

• "GUTS" is arriving home late after a night out with the guys, being assaulted by your wife with a broom, and having the guts to say, "are you still cleaning or are you flying somewhere?"
• "BALLS" is coming home late after a night out with the guys smelling of perfume and beer, lipstick on your collar, slapping your wife on the ass and having the balls to say, "You're next!

"We hope this clears up any confusion, The International Council of Manhood, Ltd.

AND THIS JUNK IS NEWS !

The following list (by no means inclusive) recently made all the headlines .

My question is simple, yet has a couple of moving parts

A ) Why do we think this is newsworthy?
B) Why do we pay attention to this crap?

and

C) WHO CARES?



Top Ten Decidedly unnewsworthy made up worthless news we are bombarded with daily.

1. Madonna goes on tour again. " Has Beens in Paradise tour 06?"(Who cares?)
2. OJ sells a book and does an interview. "I didn't do it , I was at the movies honest." (Who cares?)
3. FOX cancels the book and the interview. Burns the book. " I know nothing, nothing."(Who cares?)
4. Michael Jackson performs at a music show (or doesn't) again - "King of Pedo-Pop flops?" (Who cares?)
5. Madonna adopts a baby -yawn- (Who Cares?) Repeat offender. See #1.
6. Tom Cruise gets married to whats her name.- Her claim to fame is showing her breasts in a movie. WHICH ONE YOU ASK? I DON'T KNOW BECAUSE I DON'T CARE !(Couldn't care less)
7. Brittney is splitney. Files for divorce from Joe no talent. Hope the home movie does real well for her though. text to K-Fed- "K-fed. Bred. Fled. Red. Over.-Brit" (Big friggin whoopee)
8. Katie Couric can't think of her own send off for her nightly news show. How about "I'm Katie Couric and this was the news, Goodbye". Give this a try, I bet it works. (Whatever)
9. Anything Paris Hilton does, did or will do. Ever. Or for that matter anything anyone ever says to her or does to her on videotape.(Pointless to care)- I wouldn't take the time to visist this Paris for ten minutes , much less a whole night. I hear Siskel and Ebert gave her movie a thumbs up though because even though the plot was real weak and the dialogue sucked, the cinematogrophy was pretty good when the lights were off and you couldn't see her face.
10. Anything some stupid celebrity says- i.e-Mel Gibson, Michael Richards (Kramer), Lindsay Lohan, et al- Just because they make money in buckets I should care? (Here's a clue - I don't)

And actually, come to think about it, nobody I have ever met has ever cared about this crap.

Every bit of it is manufactured to give us something to watch on the electronic activity director.

Maybe some dissaffected loser who is high on crack or crank or meth who only has a black and white TV , 2 jello donuts and nothing else to do cares about this crap, But I gotta tell you, I can't believe normal people with normal problems do at all.

I'd love to talk more about it but I gotta go, Jerry Springer is on, and my neighbors are on todays show. (It's all about how the pets divorced the owners and they are now on Jerry telling him how they (two male dogs) were forced to participate in disgusting immoral acts, cause thats how the masters liked it.

This is gonna be good.

Couple Calls for orgasm for peace.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/peace_orgasm

Really I am not making this one up !!

In its entirety is the news story below which explains this.

Perverts for Peace. Finally, a protest group I maybe could appreciate !

- bigmike


By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer Sun Nov 19, 9:05 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - Two peace activists have planned a massive anti-war demonstration for the first day of winter.

But they don't want you marching in the streets. They'd much rather you just stay home.
The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace.

"The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," Reffell said Sunday. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change."

The couple are no strangers to sex and social activism. Sheehan, no relation to anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, brought together nearly 50 women in 2002 who stripped naked and spelled out the word "Peace."

The stunt spawned a mini-movement called Baring Witness that led to similar unclothed demonstrations worldwide.

The couple have studied evolutionary psychology and believe that war is mainly an outgrowth of men trying to impress potential mates, a case of "my missile is bigger than your missile," as Reffell put it.

By promoting what they hope to be a synchronized global orgasm, they hope to get people to channel their sexual energy into something more positive.

The couple said interest appears strong, with 26,000 hits a day to their Web site, http://www.globalorgasm.org.

"The dream is to have everyone in the world (take part)," Reffell said. "And if that means laying down your gun for a few minutes, then hey, all the better."