January 15, 2003
Ringtone royalties top $71m
The Register reports that Ringtone royalties paid to songwriters topped $71m last year. Ummm. Wow. Gets me to thinking about how different things would have been if Napster and RIAA had been able to come to a friendly royalty agreement (or whomever would have had to be at the table to make it work out...)
Lazy is not the word.
Tima says that "Lazy is not the word." I'd tend to agree, but also add that "Web is not the word either". Its just a bad term altogether. Customers aren't lazy and its not about the web. Something that describes the interplay between developers and customers would be more interesting methinks...how about "Communication"? "Iterative Development"? "Demand Driven"?
On using plug-ins in the DNS...
Simon Higgs in response to Jeff Workman on NANOG:
">If it's *my* DNS server running on *my* equipment using *my* bandwidth,
>then I can do whatever I want to with it, right?
Good punt. But you're returning data owned elsewhere (like someone else's A
record). If you are responsible for returning accurate data to a public
audience, and it's not your data to alter, then you are liable for the
consequences. If you want to run a different .COM in private (i.e. no
public audience and no consequences), go right ahead."
Register.com: "It's a pie in the sky concept unlikely to get traction long term. I think anything that undermines the existing Internet is bad for consumers and the Internet as a whole. If it's able to extract value and doesn't hurt the overall Net, then that's fine, but anything that causes confusion for consumers we would (be unlikely to support)."
Verisign: "Our commitment is to the betterment of the system that 99.99 percent of Internet users use on a daily basis."
Of course all of these players are referring to the evil new.net.
Brett talks about IDNs again this week with an emphasis on the aggressiveness of Verisign's approach. D. Laine has a slightly different view.
My view on this particular point? Plug-in's are a terrible way to achieve world domination.
Last bit in the round-up, the registrars are in the process of electing someone to the president's standing committee on IDNs. Small problem though, the candidates are three North Americans, one of which is an IDN vendor.