"At the heart of any patent, there should be some trade secret."

I think most people would disagree with you. The majority of ills in our patent system today are due to patented "trade secrets" [...] the workings of most useful INVENTIONS usually become pretty obvious at the point the invention hits the market; thus the need for a patent in the first place.

If the working of the invention become obvious at the point the invention hits the market, society has no reason to offer the inventor patent protection in exchange for being let in on the secret. Only in cases where the trick wouldn't be obvious to a practitioner skilled in the applicable arts do we have any reason to say "Oh, come on, just tell us how it works and we promise not to compete with you!" -- in other words, grant a patent in exchange for full disclosure.

Patents are supposed to be what we grant the inventor in exchange for their revealing a "trade secret" that we wouldn't have otherwise been able to figure out.

-- MarkusQ

http://manboobz.com/ has everything you could want.

The pie (the total of paid-for music) is shrinking too, though - because people are giving away free pies because they can.

And like any folk scene, Christian rock fans hate their bands for getting successful just as much as any metalhead or indie kid. "Oh, they're getting a bit worldly." No, you're a hipster.

Well, actually, they are. Fan fiction directly competes with what was the midlist of books. Fan fiction is laughed at for the hideous shit, but lots of it is passable quality if you like the characters, and it turns out the precious commodity is reader time and attention. So it plays out just like with music, except you need even less equipment. It's also totally a folk culture - the writers are the readers.

Audacity - simple, clunky, terrible interface Audacity - is basically the multitrack recorder we would have FUCKING KILLED FOR in the 1980s. And 1990s.

Trouble is their weapon was Rebecca Black. FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIIIIIDAAAAAAYYYYYYY

I can quite believe it, but do you have a cite on that 8 million that I can use? Thanks :-)

I used to be a music journalist, so "Old man yells at cloud" describes my life pretty accurately.

Yep. Note also how fan fiction actually competes with what was the midlist of books. Fan fiction is laughed at for the hideous shit, but lots of it is passable quality if you like the characters, and it turns out the precious commodity is reader time and attention. So it plays out just like with music, except you need even less equipment. It's also totally a folk culture - the writers are the readers.

This already happens. Deadmau5 has confessed he basically shows up, presses "play" and dances a lot. (no cite readily to hand, sorry)

I blame neoliberalism. Day jobs are fucking horrible these days too.

What you're missing is that the mainstream has never been about seeking out aesthetic quality. The driving force has always been to market things they know how to market. Weird shit can spend its time in the indie leagues, and we can pick it up later.

Yeah, that's 'cos there's not enough free autotune plugins.

There's very little worth doing that you can't do with the older cracked version. ... so I hear.