Tom's link makes some interesting points. I'm just afraid that if the record companies get their way, they'll raise prices on new, popluar stuff without lowering prices on other stuff.

And there's still a lot of stuff I want that's still out of print and not available on iTunes. I've spent a small fortune on used copies of rare, out of print CDs in the last year. Come to think of it, I would have gladly paid $1.50 per song on iTunes for them. It's just if the majority of stuff went for the $1.50 that would piss me off.

eta: Anyone know if the record companies also want to raise the $9.99 per album price that most stuff goes for on iTunes?

Apple makes the software and equipment that allows you to make recordings relatively cheaply, and it has the largest (legal) online distribution network.

If you don't need anyone to print and distribute CDs, then what function does a record label serve?

The penguin's article was incomprehensible nonsense. Wolfram hits the nail on the head: penguin doesn't even consider the economics of making back catalogues available.

My experience with record companies is that they don't consider the economics of the back catalog either. I do hope that they will change, but they haven't up until this point.

The music insdustry is actively working on trying to get the marketplace to a model where the consumer is charged each time they listen to a song. They are on crack, and live in fantasyland.

Do you really think this? Why?

I need some help with the Google toolbar and Foxfire.

I had the tool bar on Foxfire and it was doing fine. Except I ended up uninstalling it kind of by accident. I went to reinstall the toolbar and I followed the directions, but the toolbar didn't reappear when I restarted the browser. However, after I restarted my computer the toolbar was there.

Last night after I turned on the computer the toolbar was gone again. I went back, uninstalled it, deleted it, and then reinstalled it. It says that when Foxfire restarts the toolbar will be there, but again, it didn't do that. I assumed that today when I turned on my computer the Google tool bar would be on foxfire, but it's not.

I need to know how to make the toolbar stick around.

There's a Google search box built into Firefox -- it should be in the upper-right corner.

I See that the search box is there, but what I was missing was the spell check and auto fill, especially the spell check. But I just discovered that I didn't have the toolbar selected.

So, never mind.

Opera has done away with its banner ads and license fee. Article: [link]

May 2005 article comparing Opera 8 and Firefox 1.0: [link]

Mac users who transfer torrents to DVD and have the Philips DVP642 -- is there an easy way to make shows broadcast in HD appear letterboxed on my TV? They're widescreen when I watch them on the computer, but anamorphically squished on the television -- everything's long & tall. I've tried every aspect ratio listed on the DVD player's menu, so I'm hoping there's a setting in iDVD somewhere to say "Yo, letterbox this." Or a setting on the player that I've missed. (Otherwise, I can probably re-encode everything in Final Cut, but that sounds like a fairly time-consuming PITA.)