Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not represented as fact
At last,
the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook
are revealed for all to see!
|
|
More wierd, wonderful and whacky stuff from the world wide web.
PhoneBashing
You'll need the Apple quicktime media player for this site but it's worth
a look.
Burn & Get Burnt?
The local recording industry has started up a campaign designed to try and
reduce the number of pirated music CDs floating around the country.
Need Cutting-Edge Copy?
As NZ's longest-running online commentator, I'm looking for
extra syndication opportunities for this daily publication -- or I'm happy
to write casual or regular material specifically to order for print or
Net-based publications. If you're
interested, drop me a line
|
|
They say that unauthorized copying is costing the industry nearly $100
million a year -- and that's a lot of money.
Threats of legal action have begun to fly and the campaign warns that
such copying is illegal.
Then there's the "lets tug at their heartstrings" pitch in which they claim
that copying music CDs takes money out of the pockets of the hard-working
musicians -- especially local artists.
Okay, I think we must all agree that selling or giving away unauthorised
copies of copyrighted material is theft -- plain and simple.
However, the music industry shouldn't cry in its dinner quite so much -- at
least not until they offer a somewhat better deal to both the customers
and the recording artists.
As acknowledged by those conducting the campaign -- the media is dirt-cheap --
so why are prerecorded CDs so damned expensive to purchase?
Compare the cost of a blank cassette with the cost of a CDR disk -- then
look at the price of an album on CD and the same album on cassette. Why
is the industry gouging CD-album buyers so much? Could it be simply
because they can?
Let me also repeat a bitch I've made before in this column -- why can't
we have a scratched CD recording replaced for the cost of the media and
handling instead of having to buy a whole new recording??? If it's good
enough for tough-minded software vendors like Microsoft to have such a
policy, why can't the recording industry do the same?
What about those poor local recording artists?
From what I've heard, they get a pretty rough deal from the recording
industry anyway -- seeing very little of the hefty retail price obtained
for each CD. It becomes hard to feel sorry for the recording industry when
the recording artist sees little more than pocket-change out of each sale.
Here's a tip for the recording industry: start giving the customer and the
artist a reasonable deal and they'll probably be less inclined to steal
your intellectual property.
And another tip: if you treat everyone like a thief by copy-protecting your
CDs and mounting witch-hunts then what have people got to lose by stealing
your stuff?
I think the final word should go to the girl who presents the
Juice TV Music
News when she refered to the campaign as: "Burn or Get Burnt" -- possibly by accident, possibly
by way of a Freudian slip.
Save The Aardvark Fund
Yes, I have had several donations to the Aardvark fund and I thank those
who put their money where their mouse is :-)
If guilt is gnawing away inside you then there's still time to donate.
Just drop by and
hand over your loot.
Add Aardvark To Your Own Website!
Got a moment? Want a little extra fresh content for your own website or
page?
Just add a
couple of lines of JavaScript
to your pages and you can get
a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated
each and every week-day.
Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using
the RSS format. More details can be found
here.
Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and
have any problems.
Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it
now!
|
|
There are new Vacancies Last added 2 Oct In The Job Centre
There are 14 Domain Names for sale
|