ryper

joined 2 years ago
[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago

Is this the first time a WWE hall of famer has put a major show in jeopardy?

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago

Current regulations allow digital music providers to pay a lower music royalty rate if their paid music subscription offering is bundled with other legitimate product offerings. Seeing an opportunity, Spotify has exploited this regulation by converting all Premium Plan music subscribers into a new, bundled subscription offering without consumers’ consent or any notice. Spotify’s intent seems clear—to slash the statutory royalties it pays to songwriters and music publishers.

Spotify has priced its Audiobook Access plan with 15 hours of listening time per month from a limited catalog of 200,000 audiobooks at $9.99/month. In contrast, Spotify’s music-only Basic Plan—which includes unlimited hours of listening from a catalog of over 100 million songs—is priced only a dollar more. Under the regulations, the higher the Audiobooks Access plan is priced, the lower the music royalty Spotify must pay.

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

The Navy's is coming up in October and then the Marine Corps' in November. Somebody better get it right!

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (5 children)

The headline makes it sound like the premier is threatening to cut funding if municipalities don't cooperate, but the actual article seems more like he was suggesting that resource development would bring in money to help pay for what they want.

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago

The second problematic provision — found within Section 43201(c) of the House reconciliation bill — would impose a 10-year ban on the enforcement of all state and local laws that regulate artificial intelligence (AI), including rules for AI’s use in political campaigns and elections.

From what I've read about reconciliation bills, provisons need to be mainly about the budget rather than policy. What does banning AI regulation at lower levels of government have to do with the federal budget?

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

If you attack them the law is on their side even if they don't identify themselves:

[18 U.S. Code] Section 111 makes it a crime to “forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with” federal officials engaged in their duties. But here’s the problem: You don’t even need to know they’re federal officials. You can be convicted for shoving someone you think is just someone yelling in your face, even just placing them in “reasonable fear of harm” without physical contact—if they turn out to be a plainclothes agent. That’s not hypothetical. That’s precedent, courtesy of the Supreme Court over 50 years ago.

Which means this: An undercover agent embedded in a protest, a public meeting, even a constituent town hall could claim to have been “impeded,” and the federal government can treat that moment as a federal crime. Under the current administration’s appetite for authoritarianism, that’s not a loophole, it’s a feature.

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The supply of 4000-series cards started to dry up when they shifted production to prepare for the 5000-series launch, then the 5000s launched with low stock anyway, and now they're going to reduce production of those. I wonder they've done the math on how much gaming's low share of the company's revenue is due to there not being cards for people to buy.

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

He said most people are playing at 1080p, and last month's Steam survey had 55% of users with that as their primary display resolution, so he's right about that. Ignore what's needed for the 4K monitor only 4.5% of users have as their primary display; is 8GB VRAM really a problem at 1080p?

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 61 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The music labels have responded by trying to make artists wait much longer before they can try something similar:

It’s significant, Greenstein said, that the first Taylor’s Version wasn’t released until she’d been off Big Machine for three years. Until then, she was legally bound not to re-record any of the material, and this time frame was typical of record deals in the past. But this is the part of the equation that Swift likely changed for good.

“For decades, major labels were somewhat rational when it came to the prohibition of re-recordings,” Greenstein said. “But now they’re going to be asking, ‘What’s the risk of a Taylor’s Version?’”

In response, record companies are now trying to prohibit re-recordings for 20 or 30 years, not just two or three. And this has become a key part of contract negotiations. “Will they get 30 years? Probably not, if the lawyer is competent. But they want to make sure that the artist’s vocal cords are not in good shape by the time they get around to re-recording.”

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

It would be funny if Skydance tried to renegotiate the deal or back out entirely, based on how all this nonsense has affected Paramount's value.

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 31 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Users on reddit and lemmy always seem to think ad-based stuff is going to fail, and then it turns out people in the real world are depressingly accepting of ads. I would bet that this program is more likely to be expanded than canceled.

[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 months ago

Australia has never contemplated imposing a similar tax. New Zealand tried but backed down last week after the United States threatened to impose higher tariffs on New Zealand goods.

What happened in New Zealand is almost certainly what will happen in Australia. This will go nowhere.

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