Music Industry Backlash Against Sony Rootkit 400
Foobar of Borg writes "The Associated Press describes how backlash from Sony's Rootkit CDs is causing problems for the music industry. The problem is two-fold: (1) the inherent technological problem of trying to prevent anyone from copying anything and (2) letting lawyers make technical decisions when (from the article) 'Lawyers don't have any better understanding of technology than a cow does algebra.'" More from the article: "'I think they've set back audio CD protection by years,' said Richard M. Smith, an Internet privacy and security consultant. 'Nobody will want to pull a Sony now.' Phil Leigh, analyst for Inside Digital Media, said the debacle shows just how reluctant the labels are to change their business model to reflect the distribution powers -- good and bad -- of the Internet. He believes that rather than adopting technological methods to try to stop unauthorized copying of music, record companies need to do more to remove the incentive for piracy."
use the attention (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmm anti-lawyer FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Debacle with good results? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it is too much to hope for, but it is certainly clear that the current system is completely out of whack. Perhaps it will collapse now and America can start considering why this was supposed to be a good idea in the first place. It's way past time to whack Mickey Mouse.
On the other hand, perhaps it doesn't matter. If you believe that the free exchange of creative ideas is a thing that benefits society, and that this encourages growth and development of a healthy society, then you must conclude it confers competitive advantage. Therefore, the societies that do better at encouraging creativity will eventually overwhelm the others--and nothing the **AA can do will stop that inevitable transition.
Cows, algebra, and slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't seem to stop every self proclaimed expert here from spouting off their particular pet theory that coiincidentally justifies their eMule use, nevertheless.
Re:Cows, algebra, and slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatively, the solicitors DO get their word heard in the corridors of power and incorporated. Mainly because the corridors of power are filled with the mangement and lawyer types.
Re:use the attention (Score:5, Insightful)
In talking with a few non-technical family members, part of the reason that this rootkit business is making headway with non-techy folks is because it is clear, in non-technical terms, that their music cd is "breaking" their computer. That computer that they find so damn incomprehensible, the one that they don't feel they have the expertise necessary to diagnose and fix.
Now they have a reason to blame their random computer slowness and its abberant behaviour on a big corporate monolith, (despite the fact that their computer probably contracted malware from elsewhere, seeing as they can't be bothered to patch it), and in having an identifiable target, they now want blood.
On one hand, I wish nothing but bad karma for Sony for putting a rootkit on people's machines. On the other, Sony is being made a scapegoat for the relative complexity of maintaining a secure and clean system.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
It Is Official (Score:3, Insightful)
You heard it here first
Plans Deferred (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: Sony BMG needs to research how to make their next crippling system-level crack more undetectable before they try this exact same crap again. They don't give a second thought b0rk1ng their customer's computers, but they absolutely hate getting caught.
Re:What would be good... (Score:1, Insightful)
It may seem obvious but it's the artists who are going to have to do it, the music "industry" is (brain) dead.
Re:For me this is a no-brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
The music industry is - at it's base - "selling" to artists the service for distributing music.
That means (or meant) basically the technology to record and produce music to sound storage mediums, the marketing to promote it and the infrastructure to distribute it.
The recording technology became commodity with the advent of digital recording, marketing was never a unique selling point for them, and the infrastructure question is answered by the internet.
For years now they reaped the benefits of vastly cheaper production, but now they are facing a situation where the everything has come together even for the average music customer.
In my opinion, what they are trying to do with that DRM stuff is trying to put the genie back in the bottle, by recapturing control of the distribution channel. Not only because of pirating, but also to save the heart of their business model.
the boycott begins to pay off. (Score:5, Insightful)
The other reason was that most companies abandoned recruiting local talent. All we get in our shops is American R&B, all we see on TV is American Gangsta Crap. There is a shitload of bands out their, but none of the big labels will see or hear them. Ilse de Lange might be the last you've heard from the Netherlands.
Haven't bought a single CD since, except directly from the hands of the musician.
Re:Remove incentive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remove incentive for piracy by providing digital version of music?
I wonder if it'll be a DRMed WMV.
Cut prices, allow personal copying. (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation: cut prices, allow personal copying w/o restrictions.
right.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies get away with murder, they tried to step on peoples feet again and they stepped on a very pissed off geeks feet and are now paying the price. If we had this uproar against all bullshit policies maybe the world would be a better place. But no, we're in a world of submissive consumers who won't say boo to a goose incase of a lawsuit.
Why not trade? (Score:5, Insightful)
I want high quality, which the online music stores do not provide (128k WMA and AAC SUCK for a serious music fan with even marginaly good equipment)
I want the ability to easily copy the music! I should be able to rip it to MP3 ort ogg for listening on a HTPC or iPod, or Dell DJ or an mp3 cell phone...
Now as I shop for CDs I will always wonder in the back of my mind, "does t6his have spy/scumware? a virus? a rootkit? what does "enhanced" mean? would I be safer DLing a 320k MP3 from (insert P2P of choice here)?"
Re:Remove incentive? (Score:2, Insightful)
There's a message here somewhere isn't there... lets see, the XCP system hasn't kept a single album off the internet, it's infected 2 million PCs with malware and they've p*ssed all the revenue from 50 artists up the wall.
I'm so glad I'm not the Sony employee that proposed the deal with First4Internet.
Re:Wait a minute (Score:5, Insightful)
Trolls are people who are excessive negative in there posts, often try to personally attack others, or come up with the standard insults, (examples all Apple Users are Gay, or All Linux users are geeky little boys with no lives.) Sometime a troll can be sarcastic, but they should be paid attention differently.
Flamebait are posts that are meant to get people angry and talks about things that a number of people feel strongly about. (examples VI vs Emacs, OS X vs. Linux, Apples 1 button mouse, Politics, Abortion, Religious views) these are arguments that neither side will gain any more insight then they did before. Thus a normal waist of bandwidth and file space.
Redundant these are posts that that say the same thing as other posts and bring no new light onto the table.
Offtopic this is how this post should be moderated it is where the topic of conservation has targeted to much off the original topic. Or the post has nothing to do with the topic.
Over Rated these are posts that seem to moderated to high for their content. Often used to give an other message(s) more priority over the others. So the quick one liner the got first post that had a +5 funny and wasn't really that funny can be modded to a +4 funny and have all the insightful comments underneath it be read first.
Under Rated these are post you want to mod up but really don't know what topic it really fits in, or you want to keep the original moderation but you want it to have a higer score. Ex. if you see a Troll but you really like it and want everyone to see it you give it underrated and if more moderators do the same that is how you can have a Troll +5.
Funny this is where sarcasm goes, normally it is an attempt at humor.
Informative when good and correct information is given. Usually helps fill the missing gap in a story or comment.
Interesting when the user says sorting that causes interest in the posts, normally if you see a posts with a lot of replies to it then it should be considered interesting.
Insightful when more then average thought was put into the post which gives a Point of View not given by others or the Article.
Issues that remain: (Score:5, Insightful)
Attacking customer computers seems to be the kind of thing that is part of the Sony corporate culture. There has been no apology [userfriendly.org], and Sony management makes statements giving the impression they will do it again if they think they can without bad publicity.
A music retail store spokesman said that Sony's attack became public just before Christmas. Customers can easily choose some other gift now that they are scared about computer attacks. Sony's attack has hurt the entire music industry, not just Sony. Also, the damage will continue after Christmas.
Few people are technically knowledgeable. The Sony CDs will be causing problems for many years, as they are traded or sold to thrift stores.
The number of computers already corrupted is probably far larger than the 500,000 quoted in articles about the Sony attack. That number is just the number of Domain Name Servers that show evidence that a computer has tried to contact the Sony phone home address. The average server would almost certainly service more than one corrupted computer.
One kind of attack has received attention. However, Sony apparently sells other CDs with other software that may also have negative consequences for Sony customers.
Following Microsoft's lead years ago, some businesses treat all their customers as crooks so that they can stop a few.
Re:Debacle with good results? (Score:2, Insightful)
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Re:What would be good... (Score:5, Insightful)
What you meant to say is
Music downloads are for people who don't fully *appreciate* music the way I do
I can perfectly well appreciate my iTMS downloads on less "snobbish" equipment. I don't require the knowledge of having spent tons of cash for a "resonable hi-fi setup" in order to enjoy listening to music. In fact, even the el-cheapo earphones that come with iPods will do. That is because my interest is in music and not in expensive equipment.
Increased security awareness (Score:5, Insightful)
To a certain extent, this incident has increased the public awareness of computer security, which is a good thing.
Re:Debacle with good results? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are rights a zero-sum game? (Score:2, Insightful)
The the success of the GNU and other OSS liscence models suggest that SONY and their brothers in greed are wrong. Just my 2 cents.
Re:For me this is a no-brainer (Score:2, Insightful)
And it's about fucking time. I believe I've written a few posts on this subject in the past. Most people just don't get what's really going on and why.
In my opinion, what they are trying to do with that DRM stuff is trying to put the genie back in the bottle, by recapturing control of the distribution channel. Not only because of pirating, but also to save the heart of their business model.
Exactly. The real risk isn't even the DRM stuff though, it's their willingness, and success at, buying law to support the business model.
KFG
Re:You mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am so sick and fucking tired of hearing this. The musicians have that control now, and they have always had that power. Nothing forces them to sign a contract with the record labels. Oh, you're probably going to counter that the labels have distribution channels locked up. Well, duh. These distribution channels would much rather deal with a small handful of entities (the labels) than bother negotiating with each and every artist. I keep hearing about this technology, what's it called? The interweb or something. Anyway, it's supposed to empower artists to distribute their music to the widest audience possible or something, eliminating the middle man (the labels) and making music more accessible. One problem though. Everybody expects music on the web to be free and this doesn't make it easy to make a living as a musician now does it. T-shirts and concert tickets don't make up for lost album sales. Personally I blame all sides in this one. The labels need to reduce prices on older CD's, make their back catalogs more accessible, and stop the shenanigans with the foreign releases with bonus tracks. The rest of you should quit freeloading and whining when you get caught.
Re:Lawyers and Cows (Score:3, Insightful)
Where have you been?! Two such standards have been released and have been on sale for several years. Sony's SACD and everyone else's DVD-A. The problem is that no one gives a damn about them.
Or did you want the music industry to force these flops down the consumers' throats by eliminating the traditional CD?! That would have been corporate suicide as the backlash would have been phenomenal.
Another backlash to come (Score:3, Insightful)
Where the hell where they ?
I personnaly uninstalled Norton Security from my computer as it's now clear that they can not protect me from emerging threats.
The threats of today are not the threats of tomorrow and security firms have to adjust in consequences.
Threats of today : Companies hiding stuff in your computer and correlation between companies. Think Windows Vista.
Threats of tomorrow : Don't ask security firms
Linux/Mac is not an alternative to this shit if you like to play the latest games.
Re:Cows, algebra, and slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
If everybody and their mother could download atom bombs from the Internet (I don't mean the blueprints, but complete with U238/plutonium, high-precision high-performance explosives to initiate fission and detonator) we'd all be in deep shit. I talk to my friends on IRC (P2P), I maintain my parent's Linux box via OpenSSH (encryption), IP is being broadcasted to my house 24/7 by TV and radio. To be honest, I don't really feel having an atom bomb would improve my quality of life. Taking away tools and services that I already make use of is something completely different.
The cat is already out of the bag. You can not turn back time. I don't know how many ways there are to say this, but if they want to introduce a DRM-Internet less capable than Arpanet, a PVR less capable than VHS/Betamax combined or an encryption so weak as to not be trustable, I won't accept it. I alone don't have any right to execute policy. But we, the people do have the right to execute policy. The government is nothing but an organization put in place by the people to serve the people. That is the fundament of democracy. By that I don't mean that each and everyone can go do whatever the fuck they like and ignore the law. But if we collectively use P2P and encryption and IP in a given way, I say that we hold that authority and not those we have elected to serve us. When the government starts to represent a will of its own that is not the one of the people, it is they that are in the wrong and us that are in the right.
Re:For me this is a no-brainer (Score:3, Insightful)
If you take the classic distribution channels out, like getting the CDs to the big department store chains, there's nothing in what you describe above which couldn't be done by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple etc.
It's done in smaller dimensions today already, but imagine Google or Amazon throwing their knowledge of datamining the behavior of individual users and using it to find "relevant" products (i.e. music titles) to this field in a big way. This combined with them offering mp3 downloads. The classic core competency of record companies (distribution) is not only totally made obsolete, but they also add something where Sony et al. have nothing to bring on the table.
I'd say if Amazon wasn't still dependend on good relationships to the legacy music industry and google wasn't busy targeting microsoft, one of them reviving the mp3.com idea could really hurt the music industry.
The nice thing is that all this DRM crap will lessen their chances even more in the long run, because makes their product less attractive and other big players with alternative offers will eventually surface.
What needs to happen is that a big star will have to surface who is not already bound with contracts to the record industry.
If you want to see the future, go over to allofmp3 dot com, look here for an example. [allofmp3.com].
For the fifty millionth time ..... (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't provide a formal proof, unfortunately. But let's just say that there's no way for the dumb, read-only CD even to be certain of, much less do anything about, what lies downstream of the laser head, and that's where the problem begins and ends: the act of reading the CD for the legitimate purpose of listening to it is, on some level, utterly indistinguible from the act of reading the CD for nefarious purposes such as copying it. Of course, you might well have a right to copy it anyway: think Fair Use / Fair Dealing. If you've a cassette player, but no CD player, in your car, then you are allowed to make a copy of the CD onto a cassette as a necessary step in listening to the music on the CD -- your common law property right by virtue of ownership of the CD -- in your car. It only infringes copyright if you part with the CD and retain the cassette for longer than is reasonable for you to get around to recording something else over it, or if someone steals the cassette -- and they are the infringing party. You were merely aiding and abetting copyright infringement, but ignorance of the fact is a defence. These rights aren't set in stone anywhere, because exactly what constitutes Fair Dealing is determined by the courts; but face it, no court in the land is ever going to send you down for taping albums -- hell, even the judge probably has a few in his car.
If you boot up a Linux LiveCD on a computer which has already been infected with the Sony rootkit, you can still rip it with cdparanoia. That proves the protection is ineffective. And while it isn't obvious to everyone how to do it yet, it's a foregone conclusion that someone somewhere will make a Linux distro just for ripping CDs.
Why don't the record companies learn from the printing industry? Many newsagents have a photocopier sitting right next to the magazines and newspapers. Does anybody ever illegally photocopy the Times, the Penguin Shaggers' Gazette, the Woman's Monthly, or the latest Harry Potter novel? No, of course not.
The fact is that CDs are overpriced, and downloading offers an economically viable alternative to purchase. Downloading isn't free: it takes up time, bandwidth and drive space that all have some value to the downloader. If the intention is to burn the tracks to an actual CD, then this requires additional resources: a jewel case and about 1.05 blank CDs {remember the hit rate is not 100%}. Recreating the CD packaging -- even crudely -- will require further resources in the shape of paper, ink and time.
So my challenge to the music industry is to set a new price point for CDs that compares favourably with this figure. Make it cheaper to buy the physical CD than to download the tracks. And people will buy CDs in preference to downloading.
Re:For me this is a no-brainer (Score:3, Insightful)
What they missed was the possibility that, once the geeks figured out what was going on, that they could explain it to the masses in a way that they could understand just how badly Sony is treating everybody.
Re:hmm anti-lawyer FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, I doubt that Sony's rootkit scheme was unconditionally approved by legal. Lawyers tend to be very conservative when giving advice. I can't imagine any competent lawyer giving the green light to this type of thing given the patchwork of laws regulating and potentially impacting the legality of this scheme and that's just within the US, nevermind internationally. Companies, especially large companies like Sony, are not run by attorneys; they're run by professional managers. It's not uncommon for managers to end run legal or simply ignore legal advice when it's not what they want to hear.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the boycott begins to pay off. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a shitload of bands out their, but none of the big labels will see or hear them. Ilse de Lange might be the last you've heard from the Netherlands.
This is good news as far I'm concerned. These artists will basically have to ignore the record labels who are ignoring them and go into business without them. And, eventually, people will begin to hear how the good music is available online that you can't even get from the record companies. The more companies like Sony poison their business environment the better the alternatives look. The better the alternatives look the more word will spread. Thus, the money they lose by their own incompetence the less powerful they will become, paving the way for artists in busines for themselves to advertise (or online distrbution services selling their music to advertise).
Btw, anyone got any good links to palces to buy music from artists who aren't signed with the record companies? I'm defintiely interested in buying from the artists themselves.
A New Business Model... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here are the main points:
* Artists would retain all rights to their own music. Copyrights would be in the names of the artists and bands, not the studio.
* All contracts with the studio are open ended, they never expire, and allow the artists and/or bands to back out of them at any time. The artists and bands ARE NOT employees of the studio, the studio is strictly a service to them to get their music published and on the radio.
* The studio would only retain publishing rights, not ownership. The studio's publishing rights ends when the contracts end.
* Music would be published on CD and via a paid P2P service similar to iTunes or Napster. Downloaded music could be used on MP3 players (including the iPod) and burned to CD an unlimited number of times.
* Music CDs published by the studio would contain CD Extra content such as interviews with the artists and bands, music videos, printable lyrics sheets for all the music on the CD, and news about the artists or bands updated via RSS Feed daily.
* A PR Department of the studio would help with merchandising the artist or band. The artist and/or band retains the copyrights and trademarks of all merchandise. The studio receives a percentage of sales as a fee.
* The studio would pioneer the Open Media License, or OML. The OML like the GPL, but for music, video and literature, would apply to media that is offered free of copyrights and trademarks and can be downloaded, used, and even altered without restriction depending on the OML License that is used.
Basically, the artists and bands have full control over everything, and the studio becomes their client offering CD publishing services, P2P music sales and distribution, marketing and advertising, and the artists and bands retain all the copyrights and trademarks. A studio like this I think would set the whole recording industry on its head.
Any comments? If you know a VC who can help me please let me know.
Re:If the RIAA ran other industries.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at DeBeers. In a relatively short time frame, they were able to convince people to spend "up to 2 months salary" for rocks from the ground that they don't want.
Here a completely artificial need and a tight control of the supply was created from scratch, and now most every man is brainwashed into buying a diamond for his woman.
Now we have an industry that already has an inherent demand, yet they are doing stupid stuff like suing their customers, wrecking their computers, still wearing neon and having winged hair from the early '80s, and what is their problem now?
Never before have I heard of such a collectively stupid and greedy people before.
Re:If the RIAA ran other industries.... (Score:1, Insightful)
In normal business relations, it the customers' needs and desires that dictate the business model. Businesses that want to survive would then adapt accordingly. If people stop buying a product, you lose money. Maybe customers leave. You either accept the loss or seek to gain anew.
What we have with RIAA, MPAA, energy, Microsoft, etc., in the bigger picture are industry models working not to accept the loss or seeking to gain anew. It's called customer lock-in.
What is RIAA doing to cater to your mode of listening? Not providing downloads. Apple made headway actually, but is now being asked to provide a tiered pricing structure.
what is MPAA doing to cater to your mode of viewing? Not providing downloads.
What is oil industry doing to reduce your cost of energy?
What is Microscoft doing to make your computer more interoperable?
Point is, RIAA et al., are living in the past, like the oil industry.
Re:Remove incentive? (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance, Sony, while on the one hand decrying copying of its CDs to mag tape spent several years selling Walkmen for the express purpose of playing music thus copied, not to mention supplying the blank media to do so.
They also need to stop sending mixed messages to our legislators, who, needless to say, roll over to corporate demands at the drop of a hat. Here in Australia, for instance, it is illegal to copy a CD that you have purchased with your own hard-earned dollars on to your iPod. Apple fails to mention that in the little booklet that comes with the gadget. Legally speaking, you are supposed to pay again for the second copy, despite the fact that you only listen to one at a time. Thousands of us don't, of course, including myself, and are militantly unrepentant. This is clearly a case of a failure of the legal system to keep pace with technology, and sooner or later some form of rationalisation has to take place.
How far we have come in 20 years (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference was, back then (and even now, to a large extent), there was an entry level knowledge often needed to do this kind of thing. You couldn't just make a copy, because of the variable disk speeds often written into the games, etc. You had to know how to use certain programs to make it work, and access to folks that had copies of the original wasn't always easy.
10 years ago, as well as today, for music especially, there isn't a great deal of knowledge you need to do it. Windows will rip a CD for you, in fact. You don't need anything more than what your core OS gives you.
It is similar, in a fashion, to how Sony and Verant handled some cheating in EverQuest. There was an application often run on a Linux box called ShowEQ. It would give you relevant data about where mobs were, how much xp they would grant you (approx) and their levels, etc. For the longest time, there was an entry level knowledge required to use it, so Sony didn't go out of it's way to protect it that much. Then folks started selling machines with a pre-built ShowEQ kit on it that automatically updated itself, and too many folks were using it. Sony had to fight back, and did, with much harder encryption as well as other things to make it harder to work. Could it still be done? Yes, but it made it that much harder. The entry level went up.
Basically, that is what these music companies need to do. Make the cost of entry to rip a CD illegally higher than most folks can handle. The problem they have is that they haven't been able to come up with a way to do that. Until they do, they won't fix anything. And with the internet being what it is, as soon as someone figures an easier way to get around what the music companies have done, they will distribute it easily. Today's ease of naer global communication makes the job well nigh impossible.
Conclusion: The music companies can't win this fight. They never could.
Re:Neither are viable solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
From what I've understood, SACD is in quite widespread use today as hybrid CD/SACD discs. Just about every argument you had about them being inferior to CD pretty much went out the window, since they are at least equal to a CD. But as you say, hardly anyone has a SACD-compatible system due to the wierd bitstream, it's not so much that it is proprietary but wildly different, instead of 16bit/44.1KHz it's something like 1bit/2.83MHz. So if you really want the added resolution, it's there in a lot of mainstream music today. But guess what? Nobody cared.
With apologies for harping on about this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait a minute (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remove incentive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm... Copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If the RIAA ran other industries.... (Score:1, Insightful)
You might want to reconsider this example. Personaly I'd prefer if all long haul frieght got off the Interstates. And given the choice of coast to coast runs vs. local deliveries and sleeping at home, I think many truckers would too.
I have something to sell to you! (Score:3, Insightful)
Great! Then you would be interested in buying my own version of Beethoven's Ninth, sung by myself in the shower? If, as you say, any "el cheapo" earphones are okay, then maybe an "el cheapo" artist as myself would also do? What really matters is music itself, not the quality of the recording, right?
Sony HAS BEEN GREAT! (Score:4, Insightful)
- Windows users all over the place have turned off autoplay on their machines, so they won't get infected again
- Nerds everywhere will be posting ways to defeat whatever shows up in the future
- The whole industry (and Sony in particular, thank God) is trembling about taking the risk of the ire of the computer industry if they screw these things up again
- The fact that it took 6 months or more to discover this rootkit is a GOOD thing, as the damage done is now more noteworthy and it has caused more damage than if it was discovered quickly
- There's been a ton of bad press, meaning the awareness of 'fake' CDs that are really copy-protected disks has been raised, even in the minds of many non-technical people
How much money would it have cost to arrange for this ourselves? Way to go Sony! Your long-standing behavior toward proprietary and lock-in types of behavior (Betamax, Minidisc, Memory Stick, and now rootkits) has *really* hosed you up good this time!
Us Slashdotters owe Sony a debt of gratitude.
Try this (Score:3, Insightful)
Try sitting in a dark room with your eyes closed and put on some of your favourite music - either in headphones or a good quality stereo. I tend to lie in bed with good headphones
Now REALLY listen to the music. Focus on the different layers. Listen to the textures of the instruments. Focus on the form of the composition.
Pretty soon you'll be hearing all sorts of little details and layers that the musician has put in there that you never noticed before, and with any luck you'll get a shiver running down your spine occasionally. I'm speaking literally here - listening to music this way can actually get shivers running down your spine, the way you can be moved when you loose yourself at a great concert.
Your milage may vary.... and it might not work like this with all styles of music :D
Lawyers, cows, and algebra (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not the lawyers at fault here, it's the courts. Judges (and moreso juries) are people too. Even if this case went before a judge, there is a lot of technicality that would probably need to be very much reworded in order for him/her to understand. One of the problems with law is that one not only need to understand law (a difficult task in itself), but how it applies to the case at hand. In technology we've been getting by using laws pieced together from non-technical applications - sometimes coming out OK but often ending in disaster.
Even if the lawyers understand tech (Lessig, for example), you still need a judge and/or jury that understands it... and possibly more importantly laws that actual deal with tech rather than vaguely related scenarios/applications that have been applied to tech.
Re:hmm anti-lawyer FUD (Score:1, Insightful)
I have worked for law firms as a technical specialist for over ten years the technology gap is only growing larger. Why? In part because of the advances in legal technology law. Part of this can be blamed on the legal system and lawyers in general. But mostly, I think it can be blamed on the billable hour system.
Technology training, and training in general, is not billable. Because it is not billable it is only done with extreme reluctance and then only to the absolute minimum possible.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What would be good... (Score:4, Insightful)
Every generation complains about the music that the following generation prefers. Every single one in history.
There will be classic popular tunes of the 200x decade that people will still listen to in 2050, just like we still listen to Elvis and the Beatles today. But not everything in current charts will survive this long. But it's the same with 1950s pop music. Look at the old chart hits of the 1950s and you will note that only few of those pop tunes and artits of that era survived music history.
Throwaway, easy-to-consume music existed in the 1950s, as well, and it's forgotten today.