Path: utzoo!hoptoad!well!acad!eric
From: eric@acad.UUCP (Eric Lyons)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Technology in the hands of the masses
Summary: Shock, Shmock
Message-ID: <223@acad.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 88 03:33:38 GMT
References: <5016@well.UUCP> <1046@mas1.UUCP> <8671@ism780c.UUCP> <1079@percival.UUCP>
Lines: 72

>      Getting paid for your work would definitely be a problem.  

Well, I'm not so sure.  The question is more one of whether it's getting 
harder and harder to get paid for intellectual property (software, music, 
books, etc) PERIOD.  My livelihood depends on our company being able to sell
software at $3000 a copy that costs us $16 to manufacture, and it is solely
up to the public's conscience whether we get paid or not.  No amount of 
legislation will remedy a society that feels it can freely copy intellectual
property without remuneration to its creators.

Also, there are some interesting technology / market comparisons to be made
here.  Did you know that the music industry had a net GAIN in sales as a result
of selling pre-recorded tapes?  And another net gain from CD's?  We're not
talking new music here, just a new format, and a perfectly copyable one at
that.  Better stuff tends to make people buy it.

>      A more significant problem is the ever-increasing quantity of recordings
> and programs.  I can copy a thousand diskettes relatively quickly, but I can't
> learn a thousand different programs in a short amount of time.  I can dupe
> tapes on a high-speed dubbing machine, but I've only got x amount of time to
> listen to those tapes.  The "barriers to entry" (gotta use those old economic
> catch phrases somehow) meant that more than one person had to participate.

Wait a minute!! An ever-increasing quantity of recordings and programs is a 
PROBLEM!!! SINCE WHEN!!!  Cite an example when abundant supply of an art form
or intellectual property has created a "saturation" of that art or property.
This is the equivalent to saying that if there were fewer book stores, we'd
have better books.  Granted, the time we have to read / appreciate / listen
to / etc. them is finite, but Society determines the relative quality of
things.  Also granted, Society may be degenerating into slimy, boneless lumps
of consumers that eat, read, watch and listen to all that is produced.

> What's good? What's not?  Who can you trust to tell you the truth about each? 


Hey, what's ever been good?  Who could you ever trust?  What's changed?

>       Information Shock is here, it's real and it's getting worse.   Try
> reading every book published on computers.  Try reading every magazine on
> computers.  Try reading every newsgroup on your system.  Or to close the
> loop, and bring it back to your original theme: try listening to every
> band in your hometown, even excluding the garage bands.  Modern man may be
> reduced to not a cowboy (ala Gibson), but a surfer: those who survive are
> those who can skim the surface cleanly, without getting sucked down into
> the undertow of specialization, without getting thrown off by the sudden
> surges of change, smoothly riding the waves, sensitive always to impending
> change, constantly alert until the ride is over.

Whoah, hey, how 'bout "try reading every book ever published" or "try reading
every magazine"?  Why get specific about computers?  Pa-leese, you're sounding
too much like my father (and his father, and his father before him).  Only
now we're already complaining about how the "quality of computer life" is get-
ting worse and worse.  Okay.  So these are the heydays of computerdom, maybe.
Enjoy it while it's hot.

But on the original theme of computers / music / how easy it is to produce one
with the other et al, I ain't too hip to a lot of what's being done with the
form either.  I've been a musician for 14 years (my avocation) and you would
think that computers (my vocation) combined with that fact would make me a
natural fit with what's happening today in the musical/computer business.  Ha.
For some reason, I just can't do it.  Give me a Fender Rhoades and a Strat
plugged straight into a Twin Reverb any day over drum machines and drone
sequencers playing this week's digital rap-o-matic.

It's not that I can't appreciate what you can do with computers and music.
They are, in fact, natural partners for exploring the art.  But, as usual,
it's the application that can make or break it for me.  And I'll always pay
for the stuff I like (this separates me from criminals), and I'll always find
out about the stuff I like (this separates me from animals).

Eric.
sun!acad!eric