Yes, it is. Steal lots of music...err, no that's not it...Don't steal music, yeah, that's it.

4:19:05 PM  What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []   

Eisner is dangerously out on a limb. Napster wasn't a narrow thing. There were tens of millions of users. It was a cultural phenomenon, unlike anything Hollywood has ever manufactured. People know what nirvana looks like, we got a great demo, and that's what we want. Forbes reports that Eisner made over $700 million in five years as Disney's CEO. Where does it stop? He's 59 years old. How much money does he want? His money, our lives. Music is important, not just for its monetary value. I think we love his product much more than he does.  [Scripting News]

4:17:04 PM  What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []   

Michael Eisner wrote an op-ed piece in the Financial Times. A simple response. Where do I send the money? I want to buy music. I am not a pirate. I can afford to pay for what I use. But I won't buy it through the pre-Internet distribution system, or a bastardized Internet that's designed to behave like the old system. Also, once I've paid for the music, I want to use it on any device I want to. And if I like a song I want to play it for people I care about so they can learn about me, and also be inspired by the music. And since he raised the subject of slavery, I insist that some of the money flow to the creative people.   [Scripting News]

Michael Eisner is such a Looser. Hey, isn't Disney a people trap operated by a mouse?

3:57:01 PM  What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []   

FT.com  Michael Eisner quotes Lincoln as a defender of intellectual property rights.  He is probably right about that.  However, he would have choked on the idea that term of protection for copyrights would last 95 years or more!  That's more than the life expectancy of 99% of humanity or nearly 4 generations of Americans!  This is the equivalent of saying that a copyright's protection lasts until "hell freezes over."  Certainly this isn't what the framers had in mind when they enshrined the protection of intellectual property for a "limited time" in the constitution.  There isn't a reading of the constitution that could conclude otherwise.

>>>"In an 1859 speech, Lincoln said that before there were patent laws, "any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things." As Michael Novak, of the American Enterprise Institute, has pointed out, those principles explain why the US constitution includes a clause guaranteeing the right of inventors and authors to royalties for patents and copyrights."<<< [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

It's also funny that the US didn't recognize copyright to foreign authors until well in the XX century. Thomas Alva Edison made a lot of money with Lumier's film A Trip to the Moon. He stole it in London and made copies and show it in the US. Lumier went banckrupt... Hmmm! do I want to be like Lincoln and get killed in a theater or like Edison and become a millionare... Decisions, decisions...

3:55:37 PM  What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []   

Don't Confuse Fans With Pirates

Back when I was a member of the prime music-buying demographic, I went into Markland's Record Store on Main Street in Urbana, Illinois, and took the latest 45s into a soundproof listening booth where I could sample them. I sampled them a lot. So did all the other kids. Sometimes we would sample the same song every day for a week. The Marklands knew what we were up to. They also knew that we yearned to own those records, and that when we found the 89 cents for a 45 or the $3.98 for an LP we'd be their customers. We were fueling our enthusiasm.

MP3 fans using the Web are essentially doing the same thing.

3:44:30 PM  What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []   

Is Universal Music's Copy Protection a Joke? Want to crack Universal Music's CD copy protection? Just insert disc.

3:41:30 PM  What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []