I would be anything that if copyright term length ever shortens, these works will be grandfathered so they don't have their term reduced... even though they were extended by legislation after they created.
I suppose I'm part of the Napster generation, in that I used it during high school and subsequent technologies beyond (once it was deconstructed by lawsuits).
I think the reason I used it so much back then is because I couldn't afford it. These days I rarely buy CDs, but do buy vinyl every once in a while, but only if I'm reasonably sure it's going to be a good record. I almost never buy movies.
That's not to say I don't consume content. But I don't download it either. I use Rhapsody to consume music. I use Netflix to consume video. If it's not available when I want it, then I find it pretty easy to ignore.
It has nothing to do with a "Napster" generation, and everything to do with an "On-demand" generation. I need to access whatever, whenever... and there's no good reason why I can't.
This is my plan as soon as my "bundling" discount ends in a couple months. Goodbye cable television. With netflix on demand and hulu and amazon unbox, all I need them for is an ISP at this point.
They're less evil than the phone company and faster than DSL... but I hate that I have to make that choice.
I know when I was in college, we never got together to watch things when they were actually on TV. Class and/or homework got in the way of that. We'd download the show, burn to a dvd (or eventually plug the computer into the tv) and watch them when we could all get together. We also bought a ton of tv shows on dvd and watched them that way.
We were anything but isolated and still had these watching parties. We were able to do it on our own time, and archive our favorites and watch them until we had them memorized. Then again... when I was in college, we all had computers, but we didn't all have TVs. Storage was also getting cheap enough that would hang onto everything we wanted.
We still paid for cable, but plugged it into a DVR that we built ourselves. We also learned how to author our own DVDs that looked nearly professional from the things we downloaded or recorded.
And this was about 5 years ago. Most (probably all) of these things have only gotten easier.
As far as this goes: "If nothing else, it shows that online viewing may also be making the under 25 crowd much less social and isolated than before." I doubt this to be true at all. You realize that it's pretty easy to plug a computer into a tv now, right? Most people under 25 probably know at least one person who could do it. Streaming media to a television is much easier now than when I used to do it. The cable box isn't the only thing that plugs into a television.
With XP they actually did a decent job with blocking updates. This lasted a very short time, then they realized it was a really bad idea so they allowed security updates to be pushed out automatically. Other updates, non-critical/non-security updates, and everything in Windows Update (Microsoft Update now) was blocked from machines that failed WGA.
The current hack exploits a back door they built in to Vista/7 for OEM distributors. These machines have no keys, and no need for them if they have the right OEM BIOS. The new crack exploits this by spoofing those OEM BIOSes and making Windows think the machine has a valid OEM license. Thus they always validate through WGA since the keys aren't checked, the BIOS is.
The world is probably getting ready for another BMI/ASCAP type split (not that I think we actually need a new licensing organization). Back then ASCAP got cocky and thought that they could charge whatever they wanted for performance rights, much like the collection agencies are doing now, so everybody just stopped performing ASCAP music. ASCAP made the mistake of assuming that the music was more important than the exposure, so BMI was formed.
If that were to happen today, no amount of legislation could save the RIAA and some new, forward-thinking organization (or no organization, because it's mostly unnecessary) could step up and take its place.
The RIAA needs to start thinking of itself as a marketing group, but they market things badly now that they can't control the charts (Billboard, etc..) like they used to.
I personally don't like buying iPods because apple makes it difficult (not impossible thankfully) to add media from anything but iTunes. I think that's a shame because its interface is better than most (at least better than the Sansa devices that I've started buying instead of iPods).
I also don't like the iTunes interface however.
I used to be under Apple's spell, but I slowly grew to resent how difficult it was to work with them from other devices. I've got a highly connected house where I don't heavily favor one tech over another. As time went by I found myself limited by Apple (and I'm including their PCs) rather than the liberation that you're supposed to feel when using a computing platform. There was always something I wanted to do but couldn't for no good reason.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by eMike.
(untitled comment)
Apple has a new patent...
They have a patent now on using an app while on the phone.
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/21/apple-patents-using-apps-during-phone-calls/
They now have a patent on multitasking in addition to their patent on pattern matching.
Not as much give it away and pray anymore
So... they're working on adding value.
Re: Re:
(untitled comment)
I think the reason I used it so much back then is because I couldn't afford it. These days I rarely buy CDs, but do buy vinyl every once in a while, but only if I'm reasonably sure it's going to be a good record. I almost never buy movies.
That's not to say I don't consume content. But I don't download it either. I use Rhapsody to consume music. I use Netflix to consume video. If it's not available when I want it, then I find it pretty easy to ignore.
It has nothing to do with a "Napster" generation, and everything to do with an "On-demand" generation. I need to access whatever, whenever... and there's no good reason why I can't.
You know what would be great?
That would show how anti consumer the content owners are and would potentially bring a lot of average joes into the fight for digital media.
Re:
They're less evil than the phone company and faster than DSL... but I hate that I have to make that choice.
Re:
We were anything but isolated and still had these watching parties. We were able to do it on our own time, and archive our favorites and watch them until we had them memorized. Then again... when I was in college, we all had computers, but we didn't all have TVs. Storage was also getting cheap enough that would hang onto everything we wanted.
We still paid for cable, but plugged it into a DVR that we built ourselves. We also learned how to author our own DVDs that looked nearly professional from the things we downloaded or recorded.
And this was about 5 years ago. Most (probably all) of these things have only gotten easier.
As far as this goes: "If nothing else, it shows that online viewing may also be making the under 25 crowd much less social and isolated than before." I doubt this to be true at all. You realize that it's pretty easy to plug a computer into a tv now, right? Most people under 25 probably know at least one person who could do it. Streaming media to a television is much easier now than when I used to do it. The cable box isn't the only thing that plugs into a television.
Re: Re:
The current hack exploits a back door they built in to Vista/7 for OEM distributors. These machines have no keys, and no need for them if they have the right OEM BIOS. The new crack exploits this by spoofing those OEM BIOSes and making Windows think the machine has a valid OEM license. Thus they always validate through WGA since the keys aren't checked, the BIOS is.
time for a change
If that were to happen today, no amount of legislation could save the RIAA and some new, forward-thinking organization (or no organization, because it's mostly unnecessary) could step up and take its place.
The RIAA needs to start thinking of itself as a marketing group, but they market things badly now that they can't control the charts (Billboard, etc..) like they used to.
Re:
I also don't like the iTunes interface however.
I used to be under Apple's spell, but I slowly grew to resent how difficult it was to work with them from other devices. I've got a highly connected house where I don't heavily favor one tech over another. As time went by I found myself limited by Apple (and I'm including their PCs) rather than the liberation that you're supposed to feel when using a computing platform. There was always something I wanted to do but couldn't for no good reason.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by eMike.
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