zircon

Soundfont? I don't think so. But Omnisphere has exactly this, multisampled etc There really aren't any new soundfonts coming out these days, and any that do come out tend to be pretty low quality. Gotta spend $ to get the good stuff.

I can't honestly tell if you're dense or just a really crass relativist. You can't say stuff like this: And then say that there are no absolute or fundamental rights outside of what humans "arbitrarily" create for ourselves as situations change. Do you find it at all permissible that we had slavery to begin with? Or that some societies think it's OK to commit genocide? Or to enslave women? etc? You make it sound like it would obviously not be OK to legislate against gay marriage just because people are pissed about it, but aren't you saying that rules and rights are arbitrary, and made up as the situation dictates? What if the situation dictates banning gay marriage because the majority of people don't like it, or allowing men to beat their wives? You can't be a total relativist without being willing to say things like this. Of course, maybe you are, in which case, I think you're basically an asshole! I don't actually think you understand copyright. The purpose of copyright isn't to protect society from poor imitations, or to observe how to make a 'proper' version of something. It's (a) to financially reward the original creator, and ( allow people to access, improve and expand upon ideas. There is a balance that must be struck. The job of protecting society from imitations/dangerous products has always been left up to the free market, and now, regulatory agencies. If someone comes up with a brilliant patent, and I make a poor version of it, nobody will buy it - or if it's dangerous, I won't legally be able to sell it. After all, there is no guarantee that the person who originally discovered an idea will be able to execute it properly (and in fact, proper execution is far more likely once the idea can be refined by society) so your interpretation just makes very little sense.

This is why it's pointless even discussing copyright with you at all, Jack. You don't fundamentally believe that creators deserve exclusive rights, as you just said. I was going to make this point earlier, but I figured it would be more clear if you stated your own extremist view. Nobody needs to "definitively prove" that artists deserve exclusive rights because we shouldn't have to. People are fundamentally entitled to the fruit of their labor. Saying otherwise is literally either absolute communism or absolute totalitarianism. That isn't to say that there aren't plenty of cases where the individual must sacrifice something for the good of society (namely, income -> taxes) but in these cases, the question isn't "Why should the government let you keep any money at all?" but rather "Why should the government take 25% of your income?" Just because the original scope of copyright was different 300 years ago doesn't make it necessarily better. That's poor logic. But let's assume art (in the sense of paintings, music, etc.) doesn't qualify as "useful shit". By definition then, "useful" things are more useful to society than things that are not-useful. In that case, how does it make any sense at all to put MORE copyright protection on the "useful" stuff? You've made the argument repeatedly that restrictive copyright laws are bad for society (etc) by stifling innovation and derivative works, yet you also seem to think that only "useful" stuff deserves copyright... so essentially, you're saying that the things that could benefit society the most should be most restricted. That is stupid. If anything, if art really doesn't matter or isn't useful to society, then society shouldn't care if a creator has 50, 100, or even 500 years of copyright protection. It's of no value to society, so there is (by definition) no harm in allowing the creator total control.

So, you're not really proposing a viable alternative to Fair Use. You're just suggesting a radical re-altering of copyright law by making it unambiguously stricter, but only for an extremely short period, after which it's just public domain. That's not going to happen. Can you explain how, all other things being equal, Fair Use actually causes a net reduction on artistic output? Even if only 1 out of every 1,000 Fair Use cases was decided in favor of the party arguing Fair Use, that's still one more artistic work created than would have been created WITHOUT the doctrine.

Thanks all! Been a very chill day with family. Jill has been pretty sick, so she's mostly been resting. But I had awesome Chinese/Vietnamese food for dinner, saw X-Men: First Class, played Wii Sports Resort and sealed a major Impact Soundworks deal. Not bad. Later, I want to play some Master of Orion 2 and watch "Space Mutiny".

Great movie, one of the best comic book films I've seen yet. Two thumbs up from me. A nice amount of complexity and some emotional insight into how Magneto became, well, a comic book villain. One question my Dad had though when we were driving home... why didn't Eric try to kill Shaw earlier? Like during all the torture etc.? That is kind of a big plot hole. I have to admit, I was confused myself when he killed the other two guards at the beginning of the movie, but then just let Shaw hold his hand. Yes, I'm sure we could create some explanation for it, but overall I'd say that's a plot hole.

Yeah, that all makes sense. But I think it still speaks to the core of what GL is about. Courage, willpower, etc. It's not a stretch, it's not trying to bring in anything ridiculous and get too complex (like Spider-Man 3, cramming three villains in one movie.) We also agreed that characterizing yellow as fear made a lot more sense than just arbitrarily saying the ring can't deal with yellow. But you may not remember that the original GL had a weakness to WOOD, which was way, way stupider.

For what it's worth, I've only read the comics my dad owns, and he collected them only during the Silver Age (when he was a kid.) So, Hal Jordan IS the Green Lantern to me. I don't know what happens next. It's interesting watching a lot of these comic book movies because they all seem to draw from the Silver Age, generally speaking. Maybe I would feel differently if I had read every little bit of Green Lantern "lore" after. But from our perspective, this basically went through what the core of GL is all about. Likewise, we really enjoyed Spider-Man 2 as it represented what WE see as the whole idea behind that hero: a young adult who has incredible powers thrust on him, but it makes his life pretty miserable.

Rexy more or less covered this, but I'll elaborate as a staff member and former judge. Our submissions standards explicitly state that for a source tune to be eligible, it has to be music written for a game. If it gets used or licensed elsewhere after, that's fine. If it wasn't originally written for the game, then it's not eligible. This is our policy and it's very clear. The source tune you submitted was not written for Doom, thus it's not an eligible source. This should all make sense. Now, what you're frustrated about is that we have two Doom album projects and at least one Doom ReMix on the site which would seem to be in violation of that rule. I have three answers for that, all of which are related and relevant. 1. We do not require that every track of an album project meet our submission standards. That would be an almost impossibly high bar, and we feel that allowing project musicians some flexibility (eg. covering not otherwise eligible source tunes, or arranging in a conservative style that would normally not be accepted) is OK. So, you can't really use mixes on projects as a point of reference. 2. Exceptions to our policy are ultimately up to the discretion of the staff, and specifically djpretzel. The most well-known exception to the eligibility policy is the main Tetris theme. There are no other current exceptions. 3. Our standards and policies have changed over time. That Mazedude mix is over eight years old. I could find quite a few mixes from that time period that wouldn't be accepted today, but we're not in the business of removing old ReMixes unless there is a very good reason. In the past, we've done two "lockdowns" where we removed certain ReMixes that were found to be violations of the standards of their time (eg. correcting mistakes we made when the mixes were first posted.) But this goes back to my second point, which is that it's up to our discretion. As was posted in your mix evaluation thread, djpretzel used the posting of the Doom projects as a good time to set the NEW policy on Doom ReMixes. It would be unfair to retroactively apply that policy, just like it would be unfair to remove ReMixes from 2002 because they don't meet 2011 quality standards. Hopefully that all makes sense. You're not being treated unfairly here and we don't have a double standard. That posted Doom ReMix is eight years old, when our policies were different. The Doom projects didn't need to adhere 100% to the standards of the time (and even if they did, those standards aren't the same as those today.) In the end, we would treat ANY other *current* submission of that source tune the same way that we treated yours. It's not a ruling that your ReMix is at all bad, just that it's outside the scope of what we do.

I saw this yesterday with my dad and sister. Being an old-school comic book fan, I really liked it. I understand the reviews have been quite harsh, but while it's not the best comic book film I've seen, I think it's nowhere near as bad as reviewers have made it out to be. I'd rate it above Fantastic Four, Iron Man 2, X-Men 3 and Spider-Man 3. And Daredevil, if we even want to talk about that. The plot is coherent, the characters are likable, the special FX are great, the action is fun, and it doesn't take itself too seriously (we got lots of chuckles out of it.) So if you saw it, what did you think? Is it the train-wreck that some reviewers think, or a solid comic book film?

I'd say Amun-Ra is basically the best hero in the game right now, or close to it. Very OP. While the idea of spending max health on nukes isn't unbalanced, I think it's his 3rd skill that is just over the top. 2/4/6/8 extra regen on top of regen items gives him just insane staying power, but on top of that it also buffs his movement speed and gives him a free Mock all the time. The synergy is just ridiculous. I think taking away one of the properties on his passive (or nerfing the numbers) is probably enough to make him balanced.

Because the people who "need to get better security" didn't do anything wrong. They are the victims. They obviously HAVE security, but if you have a large group of people intent on causing as much chaos as possible, they're going to get through no matter what (as Jack said.) Whether they have low or high security, social engineering and sheer manpower will break through to some degree. So, it is senseless saying we shouldn't defend the victims when literally any organization, no matter their level of security, is a potential victim. Really, what is the more likely explanation? Scores of high-profile, multi-billion dollar companies and organizations have no idea what they're doing when it comes to internet security, including Citigroup (one of the largest corporations on the planet and one that deals with financial data?) Or that securing yourself against an army of people with motivation and too much free time is simply very hard? As with conspiracy theories, the more possible places for the theory to fail, the less likely it is to be true.

No, they're hacking for their own personal amusement, as they've said repeatedly. If they really cared about just exposing security holes, they would contact these companies privately. But they don't. They're hacking Sony over and over, for example, because they don't like Sony. Saying anyone owes them anything is absurd; it's like saying if a thief broke into your house and bragged about it, you should thank him because he showed you that your locks weren't strong enough. I don't think so.

I really would like to try LoL, but it took me so long to internalize EVERY HoN hero (and I'm still learning the new ones.) I don't know if I can take memorizing another 50+ characters, common builds, abilities, and so on. Not to mention all the items

A better (IMO) compromise would be to tweak last hitting. I think I've brought this up before. You can still have all the tactical options if you just change the last hitting mechanic. eg. Once a creep hits 25% life, it's in the 'kill zone'. If someone does at least 10% of damage to the creep after that point, they get the last-hit or deny. You know? There's a lot of creative ways this could be rebalanced.

Yeah, I would not recommend getting a hardware synth in this day and age unless any of the following are true: 1. You're familiar with the range of software synths and samples available, and you know there are sounds in a specific hardware synth or workstation that you CAN'T get in software. 2. The hardware synth is analog (not virtual analog.) 3. You perform live a lot. 4. You don't have a keyboard controller AND you don't have a pool of bread & butter sounds that are ready to go anytime. I personally have two hardware synths, and I'm quite good with programming. That being said, I use them maybe 3% of the time, whereas my software synths are used almost all of the time. Now, some people find hardware inspiring, and I can understand that. To me, it breaks my workflow too much as I have to record tracks in, make sure my interface is set up properly, and so forth.

It's one thing to pay homage to another musician through an arrangement or remix. It's another to go on a torrent site and download a sample library that took me 12 months and $10,000 to make.

Disagree with this. People pirate out of opportunity. Say program X takes 5 minutes to pirate. More people will pirate that than a program that takes 30 minutes to pirate and requires registry editing or something, and more people will pirate THAT then a program that requires a series of shady keygens, custom firewall rules, and so forth. So overall, I think making piracy harder will deter some people. Legal action is questionable as a deterrent. Look at the RIAA suing filesharers. Where did that get them? As for pirating music being more acceptable, that's simply because it's cheaper. Duh. Stealing a candy bar from the convenience store is wrong, but you're hardly going to go to jail over it. Stealing a car, on the other hand, is much more serious. Music is valued at 99c per song or less, music software can easily extend into the thousands of dollars.

Or you could buy an alternative product like QLSC, or simply save for the full version. It's not reasonable to call Requiem Lite "discontinued" in the sense that abandonware is "discontinued". They're selling the exact same content (plus more), they just couldn't reasonably (and fiscally) afford to keep selling a light version. I think it's troubling that you have no trouble with pirating things when you've made thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars from your music. You obviously have money and spend a great deal of time on music, so you're just choosing to be dishonest and pirate out of opportunity. The only people who I'd say are even worse pirates are those who actually resell cracked software on eBay, but that's not saying much. Ultimately, this is really no different than the idea of turnstile jumping. It takes money to maintain a subway. You're not "stealing" from a municipality by jumping a turnstile, in that they're not technically losing anything physical. You're just robbing them of potential income because you have the opportunity to break the law and get away with it. If everyone jumped turnstiles though, the municipality would not have enough money to run the subway, thus robbing law-abiding and law-breaking citizens alike of a valuable service. Yes, I know this is a simplification of budgeting, but you get the point.

Speaking of the Sony incident, where's all the outrage about Citibank being hacked and not telling anyone for a month? http://techland.time.com/2011/06/09/now-citibank-hacked-though-admits-breach-one-month-late/ Oh my God, my video game network got hacked? RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE One of the biggest companies in the world, present in 140 countries and controlling hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of dollars gets hacked and doesn't tell anyone about it for a month? DUHHH WHO CARES ABOUT THAT I ONLY CARE ABOUT MY VIDEO GAMES Hypocrites.

How is it justified? Why do you think you are entitled to free software from a developer because you don't like their prices? That's pretty much the OPPOSITE of justified piracy. It's self-entitlement. The only justified piracy is if you PAID for something already and it becomes unavailable, or it stops authorizing on your computer properly, etc. I can also understand downloading something with no trial just to see if it runs well on your computer, but only if you delete it after you're done trying it or you buy the full version later (I admit I've done this a few times.)

No idea, but check out the link for details!

Nope, all PLAY stuff is uncracked. Any would-be cracks would run like complete ass, unusable for real-world applications. I follow this kind of news like a hawk Not much music software is like that. Anything by Native Instruments is basically a one-click authorization. Install the software, punch in a serial, hit "Activate". Done. Spectrasonics is the same way. Reason and FL Studio are both very easy to activate. Any NI-based libraries like LASS or Kontakt require one-click activation. Any 3rd party sample libraries (not official Kontakt Player) have no authorization at all. So what are you complaining about again? The only stuff that is a true pain would be iLok/Synchro and even then, registering my VSL Woodwinds I was pretty painless.

Two big pieces of news. 1. You can now get Kontakt 4, for a limited time, for less than $200. If you weren't getting Shreddage because K4 was too expensive, you no longer have an excuse. $180 or so for the best software sampler in the business? Yes plz: http://www.esoundz.com/news1.php?nbr=6008 2. Every copy of Shreddage now comes with a copy of ReValver HPse, a custom amp-sim plugin developed by Peavey - ONLY available with Shreddage! Here are the deets:

But why not just use free software, or buy inexpensive music-making software? There is so much good stuff out there. When I started out (2003) there was nothing. You didn't have the free Kontakt Player and Alchemey Player with gigabytes upon gigabytes of free samples. You didn't have free orchestral sounds from East West, amazing free synths from companies like u-he, free effects like TLs Pocket Limiter/Maximizer and dBlue Glitch, and so on. Yet even as a high school student, I spent $1000 on Komplete 2. Might sound like a lot, but I spent at least that much on MTG, video games, etc. The point is twofold. One, that it is reasonable to expect that you would spend money on a hobby. The other is that pirating really does affect developers. You might have bought Shreddage, and I appreciate that, but thousands upon thousands of others (conservative estimate) did not buy it. It is all over torrent sites and file sharing sites. I'm sure not everyone would have bought it if it were unpirateable, but some percentage of them would have. That makes me sad. Nobody likes their hard work being taken from them, especially when they're offering it at such a low price to begin with. Here's a history lesson for you. East West (www.soundsonline.com) has some of the most popular, best-selling and critically-acclaimed libraries around. Yet several years ago, they opted to stop using Kontakt and develop their own plugin. This no doubt has cost them tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in development costs. Not only that, but almost everyone hates the new plugin. It's buggy and unstable. Only now, YEARS later, has it become more accepted (and even today, I don't know anyone who would say it's better than Kontakt.) So why did they do it? Piracy. Kontakt is pirateable. Their plugin uses a dongle, and it is not pirateable. You might think that driving their library costs up and additive intense hardware-based DRM would lose them sales. I'm sure it did. But the fact that they are doing better than ever leads me to believe that they've made up for this by eliminating ALL piracy of their libraries. Literally 100% of it. Now maybe if people hadn't pirated their stuff extensively to begin with, they would have stuck with Kontakt, and consumers would be happier.