Comments by "yessum15" (@yessum15) on "JRE Clips" channel.

  1. RZA ignores that the only reason Napster was able to steal from the music industry was because the industry was a bloated, corrupt monster that had grown fat stealing from their customers and artists. The RIAA was an oligopoly engaging in price fixing and collusion. In 1997 Tower Records was selling 2pac's Hail Mary single for $13 (1997 dollars). Multiple artists (including Wutang) put out double CDs to instantly double their revenue without actually having enough good material to fill the record. Recording contracts were charging artists completely fraudulent fees like "Breakage Clauses" on contracts that were already incredibly predatory and exploitative (eg: Artists were seeing pennies off a CD sold for $20+, but then forced to pay all production costs and bullshit fees from their penny stake.) This is why artists like TLC could go multiple times platinum & multiple globally iconic hits while simultaneously going bankrupt. All of this would have been illegal, but the only thing the RIAA didn't skimp on was investing in lawyers, lobbyists and bribery in order to cement their position of power. Napster would not have made a dent in their business if: 1) Prices were set anywhere near the real fair price for the product. 2) The industry used its massive revenue to invest in improving the customer experience by developing innovative music delivery technology (I mean fuck they should've been the ones to invent Napster) 3) Customers perceived illegal downloads as actually stealing from the artists, rather than from the bloated bureaucracy between them. Honestly, stealing Jeru the Damaja's entire music catalog and sending him $1 in the mail would've been a lot more generous than actually buying all his albums. RZA doesn't care because Wutang started from such humble beginnings and became so wildly successful that he can overlook the fact that 98% of his money early on was stolen by his bosses. But he needs to shut the fuck up about illegal downloads.
    1100
  2. Smith was unhurt. The intruder left bleeding heavily with multiple contusions & was hospitalized after for brain swelling. CJ Ross scored the bout for the intruder. Cecil Peoples called it a draw. The third judge asked for an extension because he didn't understand the assignment. This is who we are.
    416
  3.  @Laocoon283  100% not true. Unfortunately, reality disagrees with you. Netflix is successful despite the fact that i can literally go to duckduckgo and find any movie streaming for free within the top 3 results. When Weezy's new album dropped i listened to it on Spotify despite the fact that it was widely available on bittorrent and i already had utorrent installed on my PC. Even before Napster, tape decks allowed you to get music for free from your friends. The industry didn't fail. Nothing is free. Limewire, kazaa & napster were expensive in terms of time investment because you'd frequently get corrupt versions of the song, mislabeled copies, viruses, etc. And the product offered was inferior. Time is not free. Furthermore, breaking the law is not free, and even though the risk of getting caught is negligible, it still creates marginal stress and occupies a bit of thought. The problem is that the only official alternative was ridiculously overpriced, produced in a very restrictive format (CDs), and sold to you by blatant white collar criminals.
    149
  4.  @lachyt5247  Hmm.. yeah I don't think so. $100 million dwarfs all those petty complaints. Joe's getting older and can see the end on the horizon. He's not passing on cash to be hero to a bunch of broke internet douchebags for the next few years.
    43
  5.  @AnApplesLegend  exactly. This seemed pretty clear.
    28
  6.  @Laocoon283  1) Yes. There's a percentage of the population that will always steal regardless. That's always been a given. These are not your target consumers, and never were. 2) The 'fair price' is the price that would prevail had the RIAA not engaged in illegal price fixing and used their monopoly (oligopoly) power to artificially inflate profits.
    24
  7.  @andymeh499  seriously right? Even the branding seems cool.
    21
  8.  Nerdy old white Guy  Napster was shut down. It was illegal bc Napster was hosting the content on their own servers. We're using 'Napster' as shorthand for all the imitators that emerged right after (kazaa, emule, limewire, a revamped Napster, etc.) that improved on the model by facilitating sharing without hosting the material on their own servers. Since they were not hosting the actual material, the idea was that they were simply a medium for communication, and therefore not liable. Similar to like if you sell drugs over the phone, they can't arrest the phone company. This is at least the argument p2p companies were making at the time. The new imitators also frequently set up shop overseas in foreign jurisdictions making it difficult (but not impossible) for law enforcement to intervene.
    16
  9.  @sirashley2355  Sir, I promise you that if you buy property and don't have a tax fund police force to enforce the law, I personally will steal your shit. Pay taxes or pay me.
    15
  10. If you have to reference an outlier like Matt Hughes to make your point, you probably don't have a point.
    12
  11. You must not be familiar with Henry Cejudo.
    12
  12. The current opiod crisis is present in a bunch of conservative strongholds. Also, most major cities are liberal anyway, so hard to single out 'liberalism'. Particularly the cities with pleasant climates year round, that make outdoor living practical (eg: NYC doesn't have a public shit problem) Also, much of the current homelessness is the result of conservative scaling back of the social safety net including reduced funding for welfare, mental health services, lack of public healthcare, affordable housing initiatives, etc. Not to mention Republican led financial deregulation that has caused multiple financial crises in the past 30 years. If you were to remove the number of people who were made homeless due to lack of access to mental health services, or due to bankrupting themselves paying for a medical emergency, or due to losing their jobs or savings because of a financial crisis, you would probably not have a homelessness problem to begin with.
    11
  13. Uh.. guys I'm pretty sure if you ask virtually any women they will tell you they don't like being hit on in the streets. It's because they're thinking about the 90% of the time that it happens at an inconvenient time, with a terrible approach, by a guy who's like a 2 and batting way out of his league. That's a fairly hellish existence. Meanwhile you guys are thinking about the 10% of the time that it is done well. A Friday night in front of a nightclub when everyone's out to meet people, or a decent looking guy with a relevant comment at bookstore, etc. Regardless of what kind of guy you are, you should probably have some respect for the abysmal stats they're dealing with. Could you imagine if every time you went out a bunch of Brock Lesnar sized gay dudes kept trying to holler at you? Some aggressive and persistent, some creepy or angry when rejected. I think street game is fair game, but I'm not gonna lie to myself that there isn't a problem as the situation stands.
    9
  14.  @shawncox6719  "Fair" price refers to the price that reflects actual supply and demand. The price was unfair because the industry colluded to inflate it. This has nothing to do with the way they treat their artists. You're confusing 2 separate points.
    9
  15.  @lachyt5247  Hmm.. If that were real, I suppose it would be a problem. But that's not really the case is it? Why invent Boogeymen? YouTube's criteria aren't really arbitrary and are fairly well established at this point. Every now and then there are misunderstandings, but on the whole the JRE knew what was generally expected of them. They tailored their content accordingly, much as I'm sure they will tailor their content to avoid violating the standards of their new host. And let's be honest, Joe's revenue stream was actually fairly diversified across multiple YouTube channels, non-YouTube platforms, sponsors, and business activity. There was never any real risk of being de-platformed and the rare instance of individual video demonetizing was comparatively peanuts. Annoying? Yes. But not the existential threat you're making it out to be. $100 million dollars on the other hand is more money than Joe's ever seen in his entire life. The writing on the wall is very clear. Seems like you're just bending over backwards to avoid seeing it so you can convince yourself that Joe's actions are somehow vindications of your own personal anti-YouTube bias. Sorry, he didn't leave because of your politics he left because he's old & they offered him "fuck you" money.
    9
  16. That's a damn solid description.
    8
  17. Actually, this was one of the first times i felt like Joe was getting talked over.
    7
  18.  @Xplora213  I didn't respond to you because I didn't understand your point the first time and I don't understand it now. Something about your style of writing is impenetrable to me. I'm not sure what your conclusion is.
    6
  19.  @majesticmojo3823  he's gotta go to work some time.
    6
  20.  @ericmendieta455  BRO! dO YoU KnoW hOw LiTTLe a pICo iS?
    6
  21. Guys u don't have to say bye, just let yourselves out.
    6
  22. Nah the problem is dinosaurs like you not realizing you're extinct. You reek of insecurity.
    5
  23.  @heythere6983  hey, sorry i skipped your first comment because it's an incoherent mass of text with no paragraph breaks. In response to your 2nd: My initial post was an explanation of the causal factors and the hypocrisy in singling out a relatively benign criminal behavior while ignoring the more damaging criminality that provoked and supported it. This is different from justifying it. So, I'm not really sure what we're arguing about here. That said, my personal opinion is that Napster piracy was indeed probably justified given the criminal nature of the industry, the fact that in most cases you were not affecting artist royalties at all (or at best negligibly), and that in the long run it probably helped the artists & society at large in prompting innovation in content delivery, marginally better industry practices and a somewhat more level playing field for independent artists.
    5
  24.  @aristideregnier4883  Pretty sure this is not true and has been stated with no research. There's a ton of 'frictional' homeless for a variety of reasons. Eg: among women the number one cause of homelessness is domestic violence. For families, it's lack of affordable housing. Among men the numbers bumped up significantly after 2008 financial crisis. These are all populations who aren't just gonna immediately be like "oh well, time to shit in the street!"
    4
  25.  @nkznkz3800  Intrinsic nature as determined by you of course. Lol very convenient.
    4
  26.  @heidernheinreich4827  I'd rather not get wrapped up in an argument about our comparative bootlegging skill. You get the main point. You can sub in any example of a product for which cheap or free alternatives exists and the premium is mainly paid for streamlined, convenient, and consistent delivery.
    4
  27.  @MichaelJames-lz7ni  This is not true. Record sales revenue did not pay for production costs. Rather, the tiny portion of record sales revenue earmarked for the artist were used to pay production costs (and multiple other invented fees). The company's share was untouched. This was known as 'recoupment'. Many platinum artists did go bankrupt directly as a result of predatory recording contracts (TLC, Toni Braxton, etc.). Furthermore, it's extremely misleading to include examples like Madonna & Michael Jackson who are radical outliers, even among platinum artists (who are already outliers). This doesn't represent the prevailing reality. It's a bit like studying poverty but only looking at homeless people who won the powerball lottery twice. Finally, it's important to understand that even among these super-outliers better terms came as a result of contract renegotiation subsequent to their success. They lost a lot of money under the terms of their first contracts. The prevailing wisdom amongst managers, agents, and financial advisors was that in the absence of some miracle, the vast majority of artists (particularly debut & sophomore) should expect to realistically earn $0 from recording royalties after fees were deducted, and focus on merch, live shows, and capturing as much of the advance as they could. This was all the case before the invention of .mp3 Let me be clear: Unless you were already a multi-millionaire, there was no way in hell you would see a million dollars from selling 1 million records.
    4
  28.  @heythere6983   You have strong opinions. Unfortunately most people, the entire field of economics, the FCC & reality disagree with you. The fair price of music, is the price determined in the market by supply & demand. Not the price determined by a criminal conspiracy to artificially inflate it. It does not take millions to get a CD recorded. In 1999-2005 $500,000 was a great advance. Only a portion of this was used to produce and facilitate distribution of the CD. The dip in sales we are discussing on this thread is the one alleged to occur during the Napster days. This was before the proliferation of 360 deals. The current post-360 dip in CD sales is just because they're obsolete technology generally. 8-track sales are also down lol.
    4
  29.  @heythere6983  1) paragraph breaks 2) I don't know how much more specific I can get. The FCC determined that the RIAA colluded to illegally inflate the price of CDs. The subsequent punishment coincided with the advent of Napster and dwarfed the impact of Napster on record company revenue. 3) Promotional costs are paid for from the artist's royalties. Not from record company sales revenue. (Although a lot of the examples you are using are illegal) 4) While it was theoretically possible for an album to cost millions to produce at this time, it was extremely unlikely and this figure should not be used when discussing album production costs industry wide. In the same way it's theoretically possible for a car to cost $5 million, but this is not the figure we use when discussing car costs industry wide. The rest of your post are blatant subjective opinions and cannot be responded to.
    4
  30. Be honest though. Did anyone even run into any criticism of Tom Segura before this video? I don't think anyone who matters cared.
    3
  31. This actually isn't that bad. Character design overall looks alright. Kinda an average superhero team with a little indy influence. Honestly, if it wasn't for two cringey names, no one would've even looked twice. The New Warriors have always been something of a silly sideshow to test drive ideas. And Stan Lee has always been pretty supportive of progressive politics. Y'all need to stop being whiney bitches.
    3
  32.  @kal-el_fan7422  Magical backpack with pocket dimension she can't control the contents of is pretty dope. Her build reminds me of any number of other chubby characters (Micro from the Punisher, Denise from Walking Dead, etc.). Also kinda cool since it: a) embodies the power type: chubby nerd who always has her backpack is a common archetype b) is realistic in a cool way. In the same way Peter Parker being broke and anxiety ridden humanized heroes by making them flawed. See? Not all characters have to make you horny to be compelling. "Internet gas" is immediately funny, but not a total write off since we literally only heard two words. And let's be real, there's a whole spectrum of silly super origins. I mean bitten by a radioactive spider was as silly & exploitative of a "futuristic technology" at the time, as "internet gas" is today. Yeah, it really does seem like you're not actually a comic fan, you're just looking for something to over-politicize. Sad.
    3
  33. @MidouBan I looked up the full size images on marvel's page and I actually have to agree. Most of the characters look kinda shitty and generic. THE GOOD: - B-negative is acceptable and the tie in with Michael Morbius is a cool idea. - the fat chick is fine. Her look matches the power, and the power is cool. - Safe space's power is a cool idea THE BAD - The twins and the Internet Guy need to be totally redesigned. - Two male characters look kinda gay and Snowflake is non-binary. This is a little too much on a single team. - The names are pretty bad. Overall though, considering it's the New Warriors, it's not as big a deal as people are making it. I mean this is the same team that produced skateboarding "Night Thrasher" during the skater kid/dark brooding hero era and disco outfitted Firestar in the late 70s/early 80s. Cringe is what these guys feed on.
    3
  34. @James Connor Nah, pretty much anyone who isn't uneducated or ignorant tends to push it. But some people are more tactful than others.
    3
  35. @James Connor I know. I'm saying in the US, Jewish people may be overrepresented in the demographic of highly educated people with cross-cultural experience & awareness.
    3
  36.  @juliusrage1987  Right, because you were a huge New Warriors fan before.
    3
  37.  @ShardTown  This is a reading comprehension failure on your part. I didn't say what you thought I said. Also, your numbers are way off. Jewish donations to the Democratic party are 50%. They also comprise 25% of Republican donations.
    3
  38. Didn't seem that bad. Backpack chick seemed alright. Character design of most seemed alright. Just the names of two were a bit stupid. Without the dumb names no one would've even looked twice. Pretty average superhero team, slighty indy influence.
    3
  39.  @woodlepuck3  NGT's tweet is like if every week I skull-fuck an elderly person to death and then turn and say "Hey, do you know how many Americans die from preventable obesity related illness every year? Don't waste your resources catching me.. you're responding to spectacle." Anyone with half a brain understands that NGT's tweet is first & foremost offensive to science, as it is logically invalid. It's a demonstration of both the "false equivalency" and "Tu quoqe (whataboutism)" logical fallacies. He's attempting to justify apathy to one issue merely due to the existence of another (tu quoqe/whataboutism). He then does a cross-issue comparison using only 1 variable (# of deaths/48hrs). He's purposely ignoring all the other critical variables to make an accurate comparison: different risk cohorts, different costs of response, different social benefit of the related activity from which the deaths arise (healthcare vs. gun use), etc. Hey, according to the one variable (# of deaths/48hrs), people driving is way worse than people molesting children. How many people died while molesting children in the last 48 hours? After this complete corruption of science, he proceeds to characterize very recent murders as "spectacle", unnecessarily trivializing the deaths. This is a borderline braindead level of insensitivity that could only be forgiven if you were presenting some kind of savant level genius argument. But you can't be stupid and insensitive.
    3
  40. In fairness, KKK and various other hate groups call themselves Christian organizations. And the US has started more wars in the past century than any other country. And European greed and aggression was responsible for the slave trade, colonization, and finally the deaths of like 100 million of their own people through two world wars. And Buddhist extremeists are currently engaged in ethnic cleansing campaigns. In this company, Islam doesn't really stand out.
    3
  41.  Vince Carter  Or raped in a for profit prison. Oh wait, that's the US.
    3
  42.  @MistorDi  I suppose it's probably better than being blown up along with thousands of other innocent people in an airstrike that doesnt have any particular target in the name of securing some oil rights for a private company owned by some already obscenely rich white guys because deep down they truly believe they should have all the money.
    3
  43.  @heidernheinreich4827  It would only be misleading if it weren't true. But we disagree on that point. It might help if i clarified that I'm not being 100% literal. 'Virtually' any film, within the 'first few' results (excluding obviously stuff that's still in theaters). Buy i think u know what i mean already.
    3
  44.  @dianevrules  The clauses I liked the most were: 1) Free samples: The full retail price of the number of CDs given away as free samples to facilitate distribution was deducted from the artist's royalties. Wtf? 2) Breakage: A set amount was deducted from the artist's royalties to pay for CDs that broke in transit. Obviously CDs almost never broke in transit. But old school records frequently did. So they applied the % break rate of records to CDs and then charged the artist for that amount of hypothetically broken CDs. Both of these were pretty much industry standard contract clauses. The same cartel that used monopoly power to set prices used monopsony power to establish terrible compensation rates for artists.
    3
  45.  @ThemFuzzyMonsters  Your analogy is flawed. If Mcdonalds raises the price too high, consumers will go to another restaurant or buy groceries. Thus they would be forced to drop their prices. So consumers do set the prices at Mcdonalds. That is the fair market price. The rate at which McDonald's is happy to sell and consumers are happy to buy. This situation is more like if Mcdonalds illegally colluded with all food suppliers to simultaneously raise the price of food. Then consumers would not have the option to shop around and Mcdonalds could raise their prices beyond the fair market price.
    3
  46.  @ThemFuzzyMonsters    I was trying to simplify things for you. Read my comment more carefully. I already addressed supplier costs. When I said "the price at which producers are happy to sell and consumers are happy to buy" I mean, the price at which producers cover their costs. The point where supply and demand intersects, is the fair market price. Obviously, this is not a debatable point. Your analogy was flawed because it didn't take into account illegal price setting through cartel behavior. I disagree with your new itunes analogy because I'm not aware of any evidence of illegal collusion between various streaming providers. This might just be standard monopoly/oligopoly market dynamics, or a number of other possibilities. (Ie: the compensation rates for artists are wildly different across different streaming platforms, doesn't seem like they're coordinating).
    3
  47.  @ThemFuzzyMonsters  Of course you blow them all out the water by offering me your whole $0.02 lol They probably think ur a madman
    3
  48.  @unnamed776-m9h  This is well beyond my field of expertise. I understand contract terms and economics, but I have no idea what it takes to make a star. I wouldn't feel comfortable giving much advice in this regard. That said, I can suggest generally: 1) Keep costs down 2) Perform often 3) Focus on establishing a living wage through your work before thinking about being a star. Being a star is a unicorn/winning the lotto type thing. If you can earn a living wage from your art, you're already ahead of most people. 4) Find visual artists that can help you with branding. A cheap way to do this is to find senior year visual arts students. 5) Read any contract carefully. Do not sign anything on the spot. Always ask politely for time to review. No exceptions. 6) Seek the assistance of pro-bono lawyers. Organizations like Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts provide these services at little to no cost. 7) Try to minimize the duration of any contact you sign. Preferably 3 albums, although this is often difficult to get them to agree to. More than 5 is too much. 8) Treat the enterprise as a small business. 9) Get health insurance, establish a savings & retirement fund, go to the dentist and brush your teeth. These sound silly, but little things like this derail entire careers. An unchecked cavity can become a career ending disaster when you find out an infection has spread and you need $10,000 to treat. Now you have to get an exhausting job and are trapped in a cycle of debt that is difficult to break free from. 10. If you get signed, treat your advance like the only money you'll get, because its the only thing guaranteed.
    3
  49.  @992ras  Bro I have difficulty understanding you. You seem to be a bit all over the place. In addition, I suspect English is not your first language. In any case, my OP was an analysis of the industry in the 90s. My views on the current situation are well summed up in @GarethK.Music's post, as well as comments I made earlier in the thread that i prefer not to repeat.
    3
  50.  @composerdave68   There is a perverse hypocrisy in lamenting the artist's plight by singling out the relatively benign effect of illegal downloads, while remaining completely silent regarding the far greater theft perpetrated by the industry itself. Pointing out that hypocrisy is different from arguing that it is okay to steal (which I never did). Personally I'm inclined to leave it to each individual to contemplate the philosophical question as to whether it is moral to steal from thieves. "If the prices were out of line with the market, then the market would have faltered on its own" That's correct in a competitive marketplace. However when a criminal conspiracy establishes a cartel to control prices and eliminate competitors, then consumers are no longer able to vote with their wallets and 'out of line' prices can be perpetuated indefinitely without the market faltering. That's why this is illegal. The RIAA conspired to cause a market failure that would profit themselves. In this sense Napster emerged as an attempt by the market to repair itself by breaking the monopoly's stranglehold on the market.
    3