I just got onto CG talk.com, and found a few articles I think are worthy of debate, I hope they don’t get locked. Please don’t throw a flamewar on me or I’ll close my own thread.
Grokster being shut down. I used to fileshare a lot on Kazaa Lite last year(only finding music I remember from 10 years ago, none of the recent stuff), and I found some out-of-print songs from Jean-Jacques Goldman. Great music. If it wasn’t for Kazaa, I never would have enjoyed M.Goldman. Now, with Grokster shut down, and if other file-sharing places go down, will we have to share lost music only in secret?
I’m not trying to encourage ‘illegal’ activity here, but I find file-sharing a great way to preserve old media artifacts as songs or games some of us haven’t seen in years. Why can’t the bigwigs see that? Or are they too obsessed with their riches to really pay attention to the customers? I would love it if they had a games subscription service, I never got to play a Sega Saturn…
Ads in games. I would never do that in my own games, take away the fantasy from one of my works(if I could get freakin’ Panda to run!). Now, advertisers are sticking in ads. We try everything we can to avoid them, and games are a great way to do that. Now, what’ll we do since they’ve invaded one of our best pasttimes?
retarded DRM protection on all sorts of electronic media to prevent analog reproduction. I don’t even do this sort of thing myself, but it does come in handy…very occasionally. What the big companies are doing just isn’t right. What’ll it mean to the indie artists, having to give some random permission to Hollywood to record a little ditty? Or to us, CG wannabe artists with a ‘Hollywood-approved’ videocard on possible future computers, to keep us from copying their media, crappy or not?
Like I said, I would like to see your feelings towards this, but, NO FLAME WARS!!! There, I said it again. Debate at will.
Ads in games. I would never do that in my own games, take away the fantasy from one of my works(if I could get freakin’ Panda to run!). Now, advertisers are sticking in ads. We try everything we can to avoid them, and games are a great way to do that. Now, what’ll we do since they’ve invaded one of our best pasttimes?
If I can get blender to export files that can be used in TESIV: Oblivion, I’m going to make a mod that has Coca-Cola banners for inside the major cities.
It’s the death throws of the proprietary software industry. They are consuming themselves in a final orgy of consumption. They have nowhere else to go.
TBH, I don’t know what Grokster is but I’ve heard about Kazaa (but never used either), so I can’t say I’m sentimental over it being gone. I can sympathize with your problem, although it’s sad that filesharing should be the solution. I agree that there should be a place for (legally) free music. MP3.com was such a place once. It was a waterhole for unsigned low-budget artist who gave most of their music for free. It was a great idea and it served both listeners and producers. Today it is bought up, reconstructed and only exists to promote established artists, another loss for the scene. I have stopped bying CDs. Not in favour of piracy but rather because I can’t really find music I like. The market has exploded in size but the selection of artists seems thinner than ever. Not that people have stopped producing stuff, but all you hear these days are those one-size-fits-all/MTV-crap where all bands sounds the same, where it’s about image and not soul, where the more skin you show relates to your salesfigures. I have a hard time idetifying with that. I have instead found myself digging in the underground scene and amongst old stuff (I’m in a 70’s vibe atm and borrowing old records from my parents ). The latest record I bought was actually from a friends band (www.malaise.net). I’m not really sure what to do about the situation. I hope that piracy is not the answear, although it seems like the only counterweight to the big corporations. I mean I read somewhere that the big publishers are so few these days (buying each other and whatnot) that they don’t really threaten each other anymore. It’s all about profit maximizing and getting rid of filesharing. Well it seems really messed up to me, a true catch 22 situation. It’s the sellers market. I almost feel disconnected from it all, I mean I’m not a consumer but not a pirate either. The only music I pay for these days are live music. And most of my music needs are from radio (not the commercial ones though for obvious reasons), webcasts and already bought music.
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A friend of mine is a vocalist in a metal-band and they give away their music free on their homepage, try it out if you like: www.subcyde.com
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It’s cool about the Orange-project, it is the first open source movie project I’ve ever heard of and I’m thinking about supporting it by bying their DVD. Maby it is time for open source music :D?
Ads in games. I would never do that in my own games, take away the fantasy from one of my works(if I could get freakin’ Panda to run!). Now, advertisers are sticking in ads. We try everything we can to avoid them, and games are a great way to do that. Now, what’ll we do since they’ve invaded one of our best pasttimes?
I’m both a game-programmer and a consumer so I can relate to the issue. I personally don’t think that they mix, not in general anyway. I dislike ads and banners, no matter their packaging.
retarded DRM protection on all sorts of electronic media to prevent analog reproduction. I don’t even do this sort of thing myself, but it does come in handy…very occasionally. What the big companies are doing just isn’t right. What’ll it mean to the indie artists, having to give some random permission to Hollywood to record a little ditty? Or to us, CG wannabe artists with a ‘Hollywood-approved’ videocard on possible future computers, to keep us from copying their media, crappy or not?
I agree that DRM is retarded, it only hurts the customer. Piracy is not about security, it is about price and availability. Skip region lockouts and lower retail prices, that is the REAL weapon against piracy. Production companies know it, but they refuse to listen because they know it will hurt their wallet. Their recent activities seems more focused on how to sue pirates of near astronomic sums of money.
I heard that one movie production company (don’t remember wich one but it was one of the major Hollywood brands) decided to release their DVDs in Thailand for approx €3, because of how bad the piracy situation is. That shocked me. They argue that they can’t afford to lower the prices in europe and US, but they can in asia? It doesn’t make sense…
). The latest record I bought was actually from a friends band (