The number of the phone on my desk is: 519-885-0774.
11:06:51 PM   []

This coincides with the official notice that the copyright board received my formal objection to the proposed tariffs on media.
10:18:43 PM   []

[A]re we CS students really all doomed to spend our careers in a cubical, working under an irrational pointy haired boss a la Dilbert ? Where's UW's entrepreneurial spirit that everyone can't stop talking about? It's certainly not in the CS classroom.

Don't worry! Waterloo is starting a Master of Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology program (for real info check my archives) which if you ask me is simply a program to churn out higher quality managers for the its corporate donors.

You have to realize that it's more profitable for Waterloo to churn out a large number of middle managers and cube farms full of coders then it is to turn a handful of us into world class leaders.
6:09:58 PM   []

Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers is stepping down. Also, the online music start-up is considering a bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter.

4:57:29 PM   []

"An unlikely alliance of swap-service Kazaa and telephone and Internet giant Verizon is floating a proposal to break the logjam of lawsuits: Computer manufacturers, blank CD makers, ISPs and software firms such as Kazaa will pool funds and pay artists directly.

'Historically, there's been a clash between the content community and new technology, back to the player piano,' says Verizon vice president Sarah Deutsch. 'We're proposing the idea of a copyright compulsory license for the Internet, so peer-to-peer distribution would be legitimate and the copyright community would get compensation. It's hard to get the genie back in the bottle.'

Kazaa lobbyist Phil Corwin says a $1-a-month fee per user on Internet providers alone (it's unclear whether costs would be passed along to subscribers) would generate $2 billion yearly: "We're talking about a modest fee on all the parties who benefit from the availability of this content."

Recording Industry Association of America president Hilary Rosen calls the proposal 'the most disingenuous thing I've ever heard. It's ridiculous.' "

Pay the artists directly!? Where have I heard that before! :)

I contend that it makes more sense to not pay artists at the time of download. My main reason for this is that I won't know till after repeated listenings if the song is worth paying for. This is backed up by the many studies that show music downloaders delete x% of what they download so why should they have to pay for it?

It was this belief that lead us to develop a Winamp plugin (which of course doesn't work anymore) which allowed you to pay the artists directly from Winamp. There was even a feature which tracked (locally) what music you listened to the most so you knew who to pay.

In hindsight it makes more sense to couple payment with downloading because the concept of paying after you've partialled consumed is a little too abstract for your every day downloader.

Re-reading the article I believe it was poorly written/reported since the RIAA would be completely in favor of a tariff on Internet usage. Of course they oppose a tariff that would be paid to musicians directly since through their legal wranglings artists no longer own the copyright to their own work. The real owners of the vast majorirty of our 'music culture' are a handful of companies. But of course the story reads better if the RIAA is the bad guy.
12:35:32 PM   []