I don't know about the rest of the world but in America it takes over a hundred years for music to go into the public domain. You might be able to find little tiny Indies but the production values are going to be the relatively low and so the music isn't going to sound right when played over restaurants speakers. If you had a punk bar that might work but for anybody else they're stuck and that's why the music industry can crank up prices.

Big data and a complete lack of antitrust law enforcement means large corporations can screw everybody over and you just have to suck it down.

People always like to appeal to the free market but we fired the referee so the market isn't free. What do you think would happen to the NFL if it didn't have a referee?

If the music industry actually paid people for their work. But that's so rare I find your comment disingenuous.

The licenseers have a practical Monopoly because of how music gets out to the public. Radio stations are owned by a handful of billionaires and Spotify is a de facto Monopoly with a laundry list of anti-competitive practices that prevent anyone from competing with them.

Restaurants need music for multiple reasons. Music contributes to an atmosphere of fun and parties which makes it much more likely that people are going to come to your establishment. For a lot of restaurants it's really not optional and that's why music companies can soak them.

If we had proper antitrust law enforcement to reign in the music industry this wouldn't be an issue but if I started listing off the number of things in your life that would improve with proper antitrust law enforcement we'd be here all year.

And you'd think it'd be common knowledge in that we should all know some basics about genetics and evolution and if we share a common ancestor and like 80-99% of our DNA with other mammals and like over 30% with all other life on Earth that viral infections could adapt, like it logically follows if you understand and believe those things are true.

But of course that's the rub ain't it, to say animal to human transmission is possible is implicitly acknowledging all those other things are true as we know them and recent events have made accepting this idea of animal to human transmission not a scientific thing but a political one.

Legislator Misconduct Database

I believe the correct method is a unicorn tail.

That sort of status applies in the USA, but not so much in places like Europe where you'd potentially expect time off to compensate.

Volunteering can mean free. "I like volunteering, I help at the hospice on Saturdays" implies for free. "I'll volunteer to debug this code" does not. But I've heard of corporations expecting people to do work-adjacent activity in their own time for free. This is why people aren't sure what is being suggested as English doesn't distinguish between free and free as in beer very well.

Frankly I'm surprised they haven't already. I mean it's already basically just background noise to almost everybody. There's not a hell of a lot of people that listen to music for the sake of listening to music. Yeah elevator music doesn't work but AI can make extremely convincing renditions.

The FTC followed every rule. The judge ignored the ftc's ruling even though the FTC made the ruling and just said that arbitrarily the amount is larger and therefore the judge gets to strike down the law.

These are fucking Democrats dude. If it's one thing I know about my political party and its people they follow every fucking rule and Dot every fucking eye and every t gets crossed. To the point where it's infuriating because they refuse to actually wield power and do their damn jobs to stop fascism.

And I get that this is a relatively minor thing. But there is so much worse going on that the Democrats are ignoring because they were so obsessed with proprietary and procedure. To the point where when they have the power they won't use it.

They absolutely did follow their own procedures. The judge is altering the math the FTC did in order to invalidate this ruling. This is a judge doing whatever the fuck they want because they want to do it.

I bet he gets a nice RV and some great vacations out of it. Heck if he keeps this up he might get a supreme court seat.

The FTC side it with consumers right up until Donald Trump became president and replaced a few of them.

Elections have consequences.

There is lubrication that does dry out, and belts that deteriorate, but the main thing is that they were just cheap crap to begin with. The same is true of the audio tape mechs, they are rubbish and it's worth repairing the older ones.

That's where this valuation is coming from. It's the possibility that Nvidia gpus will replace half of all white collar workers within the next 10 years.

Personally I think it's a good Gamble. At least based on what basically everybody is saying and doing. Not that I can afford to invest.

Whose gonna press charges? Haven't you heard, if you have the right politics you are exempt from crimes.

My understanding is that they are using new-old-stock (NOS) mechanisms. It's the same with audio tape mechanisms. There was one company making them, which built up stock, and that's it.