3 Aug 2000 beldon   » (Apprentice)

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.

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