scott mc laughlin’s Comments

• Apr 25th, 2011 @ 10:43am

  (untitled comment)

  on Can You Copyright Pi? Lawsuit Filed Over Copyright On Pi Symphony
  daft! I get my undergraduate composition students to do this kind of thing all the time as a basic exercise, it's a common as muck technique in music courses.
• Apr 8th, 2011 @ 12:04am

  citation

  on Professor Gets Tenure With The Help Of His Wikipedia Contributions
  I don't let my students cite wikipedia but I tell them to start there and I frequently use it in class and let them use it in class (I'm a part-time lecturer in a UK university). The reason I don't let them cite from it is not because it's wrong (I've only very rarely come across this problem), but because its author-bias is obfuscated, you don't know who's written what. Academic knowledge is highly dependent on knowing the author bias and being able to show a trail of authors who are 'respectable'.
  I tell students to use wikipedia but find and cite the original sources as wikipedia is just an information hub, not research in itself (note the "original research" warnings on many wikipedia pages)
• Apr 13th, 2010 @ 8:18am

  brand name recognition etc.

  on RIAA Insists That Musicians Can't Make Money Without The RIAA

  As for the lack of "brand/name recognition" making it impossible to sell merchandise, that's true. But the RIAA seems to be implicitly stating that the only way to get brand/name recognition is through a big RIAA label.

  
  
  This is the crux of the point, and their real worry.
  
  The recording industry (like any other middleman) sells itself as being crucial to success in that area of business, and its business entirely depends on the creators and consumers seeing it as essential. Their old business model is a control model of "we will tell you what is good, we will tell you what to buy". They're used to having complete control over what can be sold and by whom, that's what's changing. Without being the sole controllers of "what you can buy", they start to become less relevant, and ultimately become much smaller players, because the space expanded around them. They're desperately trying to reverse that expansion by whatever means possible.
• Jan 27th, 2010 @ 7:48am

  Re: Re: can you clarify the connection

  on Yes, Three Strikes Laws Have Unintended Consequences That Even Music Industry Execs Hate
  ...and the law is the strikes law. I get it, I hadn't considered that aspect of the three strikes law.
  
  Thanks.
• Jan 27th, 2010 @ 7:34am

  can you clarify the connection

  on Yes, Three Strikes Laws Have Unintended Consequences That Even Music Industry Execs Hate
  Maybe I just have the afternoon dumbs, but can you clarify the connection between three strikes and wifi being locked down for me: apart from the general notion that 3-strikes is anti-open.
  
  thanks,
  scott