Posts by Demon 10 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jun 2007
"Space Data Corp. The company, which provides wireless connectivity via hydrogen-filled balloons floating around the southern US,"
Space Data uses Helium and not Hydrogen in the balloons, hydrogen is not permitted in use with electrical equipment as it is very flammable, helium is not flammable.
UMG still has big dreams and keeps seeing dollar signs just at the hint that some company or their own subscription site will become the big dominate player in Music.
This is a big problem for them as subscription models don't allow you to burn CDs of the tracks you download unless you pay extra for the track. With this software all you need to do is be authorized to pay the track and it will make a copy of it. So either UMG will need to take action or back one of their subscription service providers to go for the legal action. Apple won't bother it's not worth their trouble. UMG, Napster and Nokia on the other hand with their flagging subscription services on deaths door.
Like I said I'm an old fart my kids love music and respect the artists. But, my kids have found the music of Indie artists much more interesting then the commercial tripe . They support indie artists by buying their music and going to their shows. Old fart dad is not so, uncool that they don't listen to and rip his old media to a hard drive to put on their iPods. Nor, do they role their eyes when dad asked them to go with him to see a indie artist at a club. I fact they invite their friends along.
EMI's Guy Hands has the right plan and I'm glad to see the IPFI chief understands it. As he said, "So what Guy Hands is doing is absolutely right in pruning, and you need that expertise."
Guy Hands plans to prune the expense of the IPFI and RIAA membership fee vacuums right out of the wallet of EMI. Once EMI does it the other major labels will be following suit. With UMG being the last to holdout. John Kennedy and Mitch Bainwol will have to check out of their big money (million + dollar) jobs at the IPFI and RIAA as the remaining labels will need to cut expenses at the trade groups. If they try to raise the member fees the minor labels will pull out too. Which will leave UMG, and they'll have to turn off the lights.
Let the pruning commence (I love to see over paid executive who know their asses are going on the chopping block, start to talk all kinds of trash as they know the end is nearing and the gravy train is running dry).
Real Indie Music only (recorded, released and owned by the artist). The Power of the internet gives the recording a Black eye every day as they shove their crap in the faces of the public and then think that the we're too stupid to understand what is going on. Major, Minor and all the way down to mom & pop Records do not help artist to make a living all they are just looking to make as much money off of the Artists' work as they can and his own quote proves it.
"Record companies have to get a return, and the people in between need big investments. One of the unfortunate things with the way the music market has gone is that companies spent all this money but only took a return on one stream, the recorded stream. And now the 360 degree model, which is a necessity of the current market, means that artists will have to share all these streams to get the investment. But that's always a healthy choice - they can do it, or not do it."
Well what this is telling us is the labels not only what all the money the artist would make from selling their recorded music, they also what all the money when an Artist does a live performance and from the sales of merchandise i.e. Concert T's.
The record industry is the only industry were they own the copy write on the sound recoding of an artist. But, then charge the cost of the recoding, it's promotion, the manufacturing cost and all the administration cost back to the artist. In the end everyone gets paid but, the artist. Now, the labels what a sizable chunk of all live performance money and of the artists' merchandise sales too.
One of my favorite quotes is this one:
"I never made enough money from my records to be able to buy anything. I made everyone else really wealthy and I never saw a dime ... so that's life. That's why I took off eight years. I made millions of dollars for the songwriters, the record company and everyone else who had a piece of me... and the artist has to rent – it's a sin." - Alannah Myles.
The music the record labels is shoveling out these days is tripe trash. We hate it the first time but, they cram their crap into everything and over time it's not that we hate it any less we just become accustomed to hearing it, but we still don't go out and buy it.
If the music industry want to survive I'll give them some pointers:
1) move all digital downloaded music to a lossless format and make standardized (i.e. FLAC or Applelossless (We don't care but, pick one and the industry world wide stick to it and insist on it.)
2) we want DRM - Free ONLY. Subscription Music is a waste of everyone's time it over and start working on business that works.
3) we want really good artists, that make really good music. The Labels' producers and engineers need to stop dictating & manipulating what the artist does and just record what the artist is and is producing.
4) we want the artist to get fair and reasonable contracts from the labels, because fair and reasonable contracts attract better artists and better artist mean better music. (i.e. The label is getting ownership of the artists recorded work, therefore the label needs to pay for that recording, they need to pay for the promotion and they needed to pay all the costs, plus they need to pay the artist a fair royalty rate on 100% of all the recorded works that the labels sell.
5) Invest honest money in A&R and stop just trying to crank out the same formula music with just different artists names. We're tired of the Britney, JayZ, .... formulas. It just doesn't work.
6) The Labels destroyed their physical retail channel and now they are doing it to their digital channel too. I have one word and a statement on the subject. STOP! Treat all the retailers fairly and equally, Let the customers pick the retailer they what to use, But, the product that all retailers sell must be the same and it must be of the highest quality. The customer in the end is going to make the choice so, make the call establish a solid online channel or Free P2P will replace the labels.
7) The labels have tremendous value in their back catalogs or recordings and Videos. But, much of it will never see the light of day again. I'm an old fart myself and I have 3.5 to 5 thousand major label CD's and records and 5 to 8 thousand minor label CDs and records and another 8 to 9 thousand indie CDs and tapes. I could digital encode all the CDs, tapes and records which I'm slowly doing into a lossless format or I can just buy them in digital format. Which I would do for the label releases but MP3's sound like crap on my stereo. Like I said I'm and old fart and the on-line retailers don't have the much or the music I'm looking for.
So, it looks like I'll be ripping my music collection for some time to come. The Music Buyers need to telegraph this dislikes for the labels and their whining. How you say, well it's call supporting the indie artists year, Which by luck happens to be 2008. Take the pledge that in 2008 you will only purchase and listen to music from independent recording artists.
Creative is not a publicly traded company and is incorporated in Singapore in 1981 anyway. None publicly traded companies do not have to comply with SOX.
Sony Corporation of America, based in New York City, is the U.S. subsidiary of Sony Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Oh my mistake Nokia is headquartered in Finland and is a Finnish Corporation, the Nokia Mobil Handset Group is in Sweden.
Apple, Microsoft, GE, Ford, General Motors, ... all have offices and are incorporated in most major countries around the world, They are U.S. Multinational Corporations, SOX fully applies to these corporations.
Sony, Nokia, LG, Fuji, Mitsubishi, RBS, Toyota, Honda... all have offices and are incorporated in the U.S., but are non-U.S. multinational Corporations based outside the U.S. SOX does not fully apply to these corporations.
Microsoft service packs are bug fixes they do not add substantial new features.
I can honestly say that US Software Corporations are not likely to add any substantial new features to bug fixes so, that they can charge customers for the updates, it would be a load of crap to think or even claim that was the case.
If you do not buy the update for the iPod Touch it will still get bug fixes (it's called Software Branching and code management). Apple doesn't want to charge for these types of updates, no company does and Non-U.S. Multinational Companies don't have too, U.S. Multinational companies on the other hand do, because if they don't charge they will run a fowl of SOX accounting rules and risk big fines.
Nokia is not a US Company it is incorporated in Sweden and Sony is not a US company it is incorporated in Japan. SOX accounting rules do not apply fully to companies not incorporated outside the US. While certain classes of both companies stocks are Trade on US stock exchanges and they do business in the US there are differences in how SOX is applied.
Microsoft had to introduce the Zune and amortize the sales, revenues and costs over 2 years just like Apple did with the iPhone and Apple TV or they too would have run a fowl of SOX when they gave Zune1 owners the Zune2 software free.
Nintendo is incorporated in Japan and not the US see pervious comment.
SOX will not stop bug fixes and minor updates. The SOX Accounting rules only apply when New substantial features are added to a product.
Apple SMS on the iPhone to send to multiply addresses is not the type of update that is effected by SOX. SOX comes into play when you start adding major new features and applications.
Ok I'm tired of the whining here is the fact of life. Part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act prohibits a publicly traded company from not some types of accounting write downs. In the past when a company wanted to provide an update at no charge that was more then a bug fix they could do no questions asked and the R&D write off was 100% allowable. Then comes along the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, that saids you can't do this.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act will permit a company to amortize the sales and income from a new product over the first 2 years. (note 1: Sarbanes-Oxley Act rules would not allow the iPod Touch to be a new product it's a new model of an old product the iPod). The iPhone and Apple TV Apple Inc. Amortized the sells and income over two years so they could provide free no cost updates and that is the only reason that they going through the accounting red tape.
If you remember the Wi-Fi Airport Extreme N enabler Apple release after they sold system with the unannounced N capability before the N draft standard was approved. Then after the N Draft standard was approved they ended up having to charge $9.95 for the N enabler. Because the SEC said if they gave it away they would be in violation of Sarbanes-Oxley Act rules. Apple ended up paying a fine because the SEC didn't think the $9.95 was fair market value for the update.
If you want Apple and other companies to be able to provide these types of updates Free again they your Senator's and your future president that they need to repeal and rewrite the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to be more consumer and company friendly.
$20.00 for the iPod Touch update is fair and reasonable considering Apple did not plan to add them in the first place, but did so because that is what the customer wanted.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act is killing free updates.
You would think that after 5 years of development MS Vista would be the best version of Windows ever. Yet the opposite is true. There is some good starting points in Vista but, in the effort to make Vista the flashy modern OS. They chocked and cocked it up, They should have just shelved Vista on the release date and dusted off the XP code banged out a nice secure version of XP in 12 to 24 months released it as XP 2008 and then went back to working on Vista. Who knows given another 5 years they might have gotten it right or UNIX and Linux might have eroded enough of the MS market-share that it might not matter.
Interesting that the good comments on Vista above read like MS marketing and press hype, makes one wonder. Has I don't know anyone in the IT industry or outside the IT industry for that matter that has not had issues with Vista working right even when the install was an OEM install on a new out of the box kit. So, the comment that Vista is lamer then ME about sums it up. No wet dream but, a dry nightmare.
After several meetings and some long discussion our company is dumping Windows and moving to Open Solaris. All Desktop OS installs are now frozen at XP as the servers will be migrated to Open Solaris first Annual MS server contracts are due why pay when you're ditching it. Then later this year all desktops will be migrated. Key staff members already have Open Solaris and Open Office running on a second system so they can train and update staff member who will need a bit of coaching to get up to speed. Don't even ask about MS Office 2007. The only groups that will not be migrated to Open Solaris is out Marketing and graphics groups that use Mac OS X systems. They are more excited about the change then most of the other staffers.
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