Slashdot Mirror

"Sorry, the page you requested was not found." IE, 404. So to assuage the disappointment of those who went to the geocities page you gave a URL to, here's a shameless plug for some of my buds.

Here is an old page; their hosting ran out so it only links to the (loathed by slashdot) MySpace page (warning - music plays when the page loads). Here is a shitload of MP3s from them. Here are some more musician friends and here is a half dozen CDs worth of losslessly compressed music from them.

Free music, courtesy of my friends here in Springfield; I've known and partied with these guys for years. Posamist is playing the Illinois State Fair tonight at the Bud tent, if you're in central Illinois go on out.

Joe only sings and plays guitar. I think Jeff has a day job, not sure.

You can't even find ligitimate MP3s on Google.

Try to find this file. It's a song by my friends Posamist named "Silky Smooth".

Search for "posamist silky smooth" (no quotes) and you only get links to some old shit on K5 mentioning the song and band. You won't find the MP3, even though I linked to all their MP3s on my (Google indexed) blog September of last year.

Which is what the RIAA/MPAA want. A Yahoo search DOES return the file, it's the fourth result. What was that about Google not being evil again?

Instead of just complaining about DRM someone should suggest an alternative method. Let's face it the industry want to protect their products from piracy but obviously DRM isn't the best way to do this.

Flapping your arms isn't the best way to get to the moon, either. But here they are, flapping away. And they keep flapping and blame you for hindering their flight to the moon.

Trying to keep me from "breaking DRM" is like, in the words of the late great John Lennon, "trying to shovel smoke with a pitchfork in the wind." Like many someones here have said many times, making bits not copyable is like making water not wet.

Even if they could come up with a DRM scheme nobody could crack, I can still plug my CD player's headphone jack into my PC's Line In jack and resample the sucker with very little loss of quality; only on the highest end equipment (and young ears) will you be able to tell the difference between my sampled CD and the original.

Rip an MP3 from this sampled music and there will be no difference in quality whatever from one ripped from the original CD, no matter what the bitrate.

If DRM were actually possible with music you might have a point. But DRM isn't possible. All it takes is for one person to break the DRM (or sample the DRMed CD) and put it in his "share" folder.

If they want to defeat "piracy" they should (and I believe they do) understand that swapped MP3s create a demand for sales. The problem here isn't that they don't want you to share Britney's crap, they obviously know it boosts sales as every single study (except the RIAA's) has said so.

The problem is it boosts indie sales. They can keep Joe off the radio, they can keep him off of empty-v, but they can't keep him off the P2P without destroying/outlawing P2P itself.

There are as many file traders as ever, and they're trading more files than ever, but most of the indie file trading has leveled off.

It's the indies that require them to be against file trading. If they could control P2P like they do radio, they would have embraced the original Napster.

BTW, these guys and these guys want you to trade their files. And buy their CDs. But there's little chance you'll buy the CDs if you haven't heard of the bands, is there?

-mcgrew (non-MRC="miners", no coal here dudes)

You are correct. The MPAA is terrified of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning while the RIAA is terrified of my friends.

Which is why both organizations act as if file sharers are terrorists. What they're REALLY afraid of is competetion. You don't need a record label to make a record, and you don't need a movie studio to make a movie.

If I was in the established movie or music industries, I'd be scared shitless too.

My bible doesn't say anything about downloading MP3s, particularly legal files.

The Bible specifically says NOT to do what this virus does.

When you listen to what they say and see what they do, it indeed makes no sense. But if you realize that these are amoral liars it makes more sense; in fact, perfect sense.

They'll PAY to get radio play and risk huge fines for it. FM radio is higher quality than even a high bitrate MP3. KSHE in St. Louis still plays whole albums on Sunday night... hmmm. You can record ENTIRE ALBUMS, 7 each week.

The indie bands like this one can't get on the radio. There are only three ways for these guys to get known: live shows, P2P, and MySpace.

The RIAA labels don't give a shit if you download Metallica. They know fuill well that increases, rather than decreases, Metallica's sales.

However, if you spend ten bucks on that Posamist CD and another ten bucks on that Station CD, that's twenty bucks you don't have to spend on the Metallica CD.

The only reason for any band to want a major label is radio. P2P is radio for the indies, is it any wonder they want it stopped?

Don't be surprised when they try to stop MySpace.

-mcgrew

We love selling music and will gladly sell it for a fair price...

Well? What's stopping you? The Station's two CDs are each ten bucks, each a full 70 minutes of music that is head and shoulders above any of the shite your so-called "artists" put out, with full art and a ten page lyric sheet enclosed. You can get lossless compression files of a dozen or more of their live CDs for FREE.

Meanwhile you worthless dickweeds want thirty bucks for a forty year old Beatles album.

You and your labels are pathetic. Die already, and get the hell out of the way of the artists and listeners. Neither of us need you any more.

(BTW, Posamist's first CD is killer, and also only ten bucks, but there's only 50 minutes or so and no lyric sheet, although lyrics are at their web site. Still better than anything YOUR label produces, at a half the price or better! AND they give MP3s away on their site.)

It's pathetic when someone lies in such a baldface manner. When (if ever, unlikely imo) you really ARE willing to sell at a fair price your labels might stop dying.

-mcgrew

I was 100% with you until the last sentence.

Who wins? Nobody.

But yes, there WILL be winners -- the "content industry's" competetion. For example, friends of mine.

BTW, that movie Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning was well made, hilarious, FREE, and done by a bunch of geeks. I heartily encourage each and every one of you who hasn't seen it to DL it, it's well worth ethe effort.

These are the people that the **AA are really afraid of, not "pirates." Sony isn't afraid you'll DL Van Zandt(sp?), they're afraid you'll DL Posamist instead. I mean, you can sample Ronnie's stuff from the radio.

DRM is about keeping Star Wreck, Posamist, and The Station at bay.

Know thy enemy, your enemy does.

I haven't ever really understood what the RIAA hopes to achieve from all their lawsuits and extortion rackets

...
I download music from the internet quite frequently, if I like the song I have downloaded I will usually buy the album if I don't like it I delete it

This is exactly what they DON'T want. You see, if you go to the internet, whether P2P or the now outlawed internet "radio," you might be exposed to indie music; music the RIAA members don't want you to hear.

See, the indies use P2P to get the word out. You're not very likely to buy an album that you never heard a single song off of.

The RIAA labels have radio and empty-v, and they control both outlets. You're not very damned likely to hear this band on empty-v, although you might hear them on a college station.

At one time, the major labels controlled the studios, the media, and the retail outlets. They had no competetion.

It's not their music the RIAA doesn't want you downloading, it's their competetitors' music.

No, it isn't. The RIAA labels have no monopoly on music. My friends in Posamist are coming out with their first commercial CD next week (the first 4 were free; you can get MP3s at their web site). My other friends from The Station have 2 CDs out. Still more buds from Inspected By Twelve (don't know their URL, sorry) have a CD out as well.

In fact, the last two dozen CDs I've bought are from local bands; friends, acquaintences, and strangers. There are likely more non-RIAA CDs for sale than there are from the big four.

What they DO have a monopoly on is radio. THIS is what should be investigated.

-mcgrew

Yeah, you're one hell of a Christian, ain't ya? You're a damned liar, buddy. You worship money, not God.

Meanwhile, my heathen musician friends GIVE THEIR MUSIC AWAY!

One last note, fellow: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" (look it up).

WTF is a "licensed" MP3? Is the "license" in the ID3 tag or something?

Would you be able to upload these free (as in speech and beer) MP3s? This is a local band who publishes their own songs, Joe makes all his money making music (although Jeff has a daytime job). This is quality stuff, and this is one of hundreds if not thousands of indie bands who make their money performing and use the MP3s as a carrot to get you to their shows.

This is the kind of music MP3s and file sharing was made for - none of the RIAA's talentless, restricted, locked down pop drivel. Yet it seems from the (admittedly short on real details) article that you won't be able to share them, because there's no "license."

Google for "'free MP3s' Crawford'" for a link to Michael Crawford's list of thousands of MP3s teh artists want shared. Are any of these "properly licensed?"

And what about Public Domain works? A work in the public domain has and needs no license. Very few recordings made before the middle 1950s or early 1960s were copyrighted. Tape recorders were rare and expensive, particularly high fidelity mechines. Get an early LP or 45 RPM single and look: no copyright mark, but a patent number. The law at the time said that unless you sent your ten bucks and two copies to the Copyright office with the paperwork filled out properly that the work was Public Domain.

I have a copy of John Lee Hooker's Folk Blues from arouond 1949; no copyright mark on the record or cover. It's Public Domain. I've sampled it to CD and ripped the CDs to MP3. But it looks from TFA that these MP3s would be rejected.

Maybe I need more coffee, but I just don't get it. If anyone could enlighten me as to how this could benefit anybody I'd like to hear it.