I’m sure most people have heard of the horrible treatment that internet radio is getting, with the rise in royalties by the copyright board threatening to completely destroy internet radio.
But the RIAA is taking it a step farther:
There has been an understandable public outcry against the RIAA’s attempts to more than triple the sound recording copyright royalties on Internet radio. (See Save Internet Radio from Corporate Money Grab) One solution proposed by Webcasters is to just not play RIAA-member songs under the assumption that then they don’t have to pay the royalty to the RIAA’s collection body, SoundExchange; Webcasters would then just pay the independent artist the royalty.
This sounds fair and just because it is. However, the RIAA is not about being fair and just. The game is rigged and the RIAA has rigged it in their favor. The strategy of playing only non-RIAA songs won’t work though because the RIAA has secured the right to collect royalties on all songs regardless of who controls the copyright. RIAA operates under the assumption that they will collect the royalties for the “sound recording copyright” and that the artists who own their own copyright will go to SoundExchange to collect at a later date.
So even if you aren’t a member of the RIAA, SoundExchange (which is in the pocket of the RIAA) will collect the money for you. Then you simply go to them and get your money. But what happens if you never collect because you don’t realize that there is money waiting for you? Well, the RIAA just cashes in.
So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties (http://soundexchange.com/faq.html#b6). But, and this is a big “but,” you only get royalties if you own the sound recording copyright. If you are signed to a major label, chances are you don’t. Even if you do own the copyright to your own recording of your own song, SoundExchange will collect Internet radio royalties for your song even if you don’t want them to do so.
So poor garage bands who have a few songs out online are going to be making a profit for the recording industry if they want to or not.
This is a disgusting monopoly not on an industry… but on an entire art form. Hopefully someone in congress will look at this and see how harmful it is, and make an effort to stop it.
This took me about 12 working hours, and consists of 1502 pieces. Future plans include other 8-bit subjects, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and some M.C. Escher-inspired works.
Anyone with this level of devotion to Mario deserves recognition. It’s a shame she’ll never be able to move it.
Many have been waiting for Infinity Ward to finally take the Call of Duty series out of the overused World War II era and into the modern age, and today they premiered the first trailer for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and confirmed these suspicions.
We don’t need to tell you how amazing this game looks — see for yourself. Please, Infinity Ward, show us more.
This looks amazing, I just hope they release it for PC unlike Call of Duty 3. Console release only on a shooter? That sounds like a losing strategy to me.
For so long, video games have been very much a guy thing, but this is no longer the case. We’re seeing more and more female gamers who are just as hardcore as anyone else. Long-Haired Offender and SonOfTheShiningPath have met some of these cool girls and we’re here to introduce them to you.
Much more in the full gallery, about 15 girls with lots of pictures.
Of course, you can tell by the level of skin shown exactly how much of a gamer they are, since gamers don’t generally like to show much skin. That could be a stereotype, and if all the girl’s bio’s are accurate.. then it isn’t and I’m a much happier person. That alone is a cause for celebration.
The survey was conducted at 34 cafes in 10 different prefectures through interviews with 85 individual cafe customers. The results of the survey underscore growing concern by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare that increased use of the cafes as a place to stay is a sign of increased poverty. The Ministry is planning to conduct their own investigation of the problem as well.
Of the 34 cafes surveyed, 26 cafes located across all 10 prefectures included have young customers that have been staying there for extended periods of time. Some of the cafes surveyed had more than 10 customers that were in a long term stay. Among those surveyed, there were young people without homes as well as people who are renting an apartment of their own. A considerable amount of those surveyed have been using the cafes as cheap lodging when they are working far from home or on business trips.
The surveys revealed that life at the cafes can be difficult. One unnamed 24-year old-male customer interviewed used to work a low wage job at a TV station but quit when the work became too much to handle. Since quitting, he has been making approximately 200,000 yen (about US$1,800) a month but has been unable to pay the fees required for a new apartment. As a result, he has been living in the Manga/Internet Cafe for 2 years. He says that there are 30 people who are also “living” in the cafe.
It must be really strange after reading this that I wasn’t concerned but thought, “I wish I lived in Japan!”
The thought of people getting away with living in these shops is just…. cool… there is no way this would happen in the United States. Perhaps living in a manga and internet cafe isn’t perfect (you shouldn’t be reading this blog if you think it isn’t) it’s better than living on the streets, which is probably where these people would end up in this country.
But the real purpose of this post is to say, I wish they had these cafes in America… who’s with me?!
I’ve been sick for the past few days, so I really don’t want to be online and posting. I have been watching though Futurama, since I have nothing better to do.
This video is awesome! So this is an Off-Kai, or an offline meeting of online friends. I think these are people who “met” on a cosplay-for-fun board on 2-channel. They met up for real in the middle of an Akihabara street on a Saturday to perform this wonderfully synchronized dance with blasted stereo music. Look how happy they look!Then the cops show up and the music stops and everyone runs.
To the lay person, this congregation might look like a harmless street dance unworthy of triggering the fear of cops, but you have to understand that it took a huge amount of guts for these law-abiding Japanese citizens to decide to do this without permission. I can’t imagine the cops in the US ever having this kind of power over the people, even with their fancy guns and booming voices. Sooo awesome.
If you follow the link there are a bunch more where the group is successful in finishing the dance like this one:
Those who don’t know it’s a dance from the ending sequence of the anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The original is a riot, and the anime is highly recommended. Watch the original below:
“It took Intel 4 years to catch AMD, as management noted on the call, but how long will it take AMD to catch Intel? We believe AMD will not have a product that can match Intels 45-nm parts for at least 12 months, and even then we expect it will take AMD considerable time to regain lost market share, he said.
Based on AMDs conference call, it gets worse. AMD expects to regain share in Q2. This is as much a function of increasing wins with ATI as it is a function of massive share loss in Q1, he said.
This is bad news for consumers, bad news for ATI, and bad news for all of us looking for what AMD has locked behind those closed doors. They need something to beat Intel and I know it’s right around the corner… but it won’t get out if they run out of money….
Talk about impressive. This video from Unseen64 demonstrates the kind of horsepower that the GBA really had, showcasing a tour of a facility not unlike the docking facility in the original Metal Gear Solid. Pretty neat that the best 3D on the GBA outweigh sub-par work on, say, the PSX. Not that you’d ever want to, y’know, play a 3D game on the platform — bit of a pain with only 4 buttons and a D-Pad — but it just goes to show just how much juice could be squeezed out of the little bastard with the right engine behind it.
This is kind of shocking that the GBA had so much power. Not that I was ever unsatisfied but I’ve always thought of it as a tiny, slightly better SNES. This puts it closer to the N64 which is how I think of the DS.
I wonder if the DS has some hidden power that hasn’t yet been fully disclosed.
Exhibit previously displayed in Osaka area reappears in Nasu Highland Park in eastern Japan
Starting Saturday April 21st, the city of Nasukogen in Ibaraki Prefecture will see the arrival of a new exhibit at their local amusement park: an exhibit featuring “life size” Gundam robots.The attraction, which will appear in Nasu Highland Amusement Park, will be laid out on a “giant diorama” that features a 4-meter (approx. 14 feet) tall Gundam, a model of Char Aznable’s Zaku robot, models of the cockpits for robots from the Gundam and Zeta Gundam anime, and a 1/144th-scale “White Base”, based on the location of the same name from the anime.
The attraction was previously featured in an Osaka-area park, and has never appeared in eastern Japan before. Nasu Highland Park is better known for its 9 rollercoasters and other attractions. The park will likely see a large number of visitors shortly after the Gundam exhibit opens; “Golden Week”, the week-long period in early May where most people are on vacation from work and school in recognition of a number of national holidays, begins one week after the exhibit opens.
