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Your posting somewhat matches the topic of the latest Tom Tomorrow "This Modern World":

Just BTW.
:^/

Here are the dots...

Courtney Love does a good job of connecting them.


The Tick - "Spoon!"

NEO - "There is no spoon."

Sep 1 2000: After the recent U.S. District Court ruling banning the distribution of DeCSS, the DVD-decrypting program, several mariachis decided to support the ruling by playing the DeCSS song on every wedding they're invited to.

Asked about the relationship between a DVD-decrypting program, and the traditional mexican music, they responded: "Well, there ees notheeng in common, but we decided to support our hacker amigos in their fight against the eevil gringo corporations".


Now, can we move on to some _real_ news?

I had something to say about this a couple of days ago. The new industry-sponsored Open Source Development Lab may be your answer. Why not try to get your stuff on the agenda there? As I understand it, this is an exact fit with the Lab's mandate.
--

The Artists Coalition would probably also like to hear from those of us that would actively support a voluntary, tip-based, just compensation system.

In addition to your congressional representive, you might want to cc: your notes to mine, Rick Boucher, who's one of the forces behind repealing the "work for hire" mess described in this salon article.

Finally, go visit fairtunes, mentioned a few weeks ago in this slashdot story.

crime pays when corporate pigs can't afford to put gas in their BMWs.

This article at Salon.com describes how the RIAA suceeded in getting "four little words" added to the copyright light via Congress, that would essentially give them full ownership of all music written by musicians under contract within the past 30 years. Until now, after 35 years, the musician could reclaim copyright ownership, if they wanted to peddle their music to another distributor.

Fortunately, according to the article, an observant pro-musician lobbyist discovered it, and after a huge uproar, negative media, and explaining things to congress, the RIAA has requested Congress to nullify the terms that negatively impact musicians.
-----
D. Fischer

This article at Salon.com describes how the RIAA suceeded in getting "four little words" added to the copyright light via Congress, that would essentially give them full ownership of all music written by musicians under contract within the past 30 years. Until now, after 35 years, the musician could reclaim copyright ownership, if they wanted to peddle their music to another distributor.

Fortunately, according to the article, an observant pro-musician lobbyist discovered it, and after a huge uproar, negative media, and explaining things to congress, the RIAA has requested Congress to nullify the terms that negatively impact musicians.
-----
D. Fischer

Four little words
How the record industry used a tiny legislative amendment to try to steal recording copyrights from artists -- forever.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert

Aug. 28, 2000

Four little words

Four little words
How the record industry used a tiny legislative amendment to try to steal recording copyrights from artists -- forever.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert

Aug. 28, 2000

Four little words

Since when is solaris an operating system written by college kids ? Perhaps someone got Solaris confused with the first Sun OS, BSD Unix, which was created at Berkeley. Bill Joy was in college when he helped create Sun in 1982...after he helped create BSD Unix.

The second is equally untrue: for a few decades America had fairly powerful anti-trust laws, but sadly Ronald Reagan repealed most of them. And furthermore, there are many areas where the DOJ cannot or does not intervene, because it has no jurisdiction or legal mandate.

Citation please? I know that Reagan changed the philosophy of antitrust enforcement at the DoJ (and Clinton changed it yet again), but I have never seen anything that suggests Reagan moved to have any anti-trust laws repealed. It seemes extremely unlikely because of the Democratic Congress Reagan was dealing with. They would have loved such a clear-cut big business vs. working people issue an an antitrust repeal would be.

There has also been a second, mostly unrelated, reason for a more laissez-faire drift in antitrust enforcement in recent years: a shift in the positions of the judiciary. Some of this is due to judges Reagan appointed, more is due to economic arguments that cast doubts on the effectiveness of antitrust regulation (especially because the economic counterarguments are more complex and harder to understand), and another contributing factor may be the "legal retreats" that many corporations run for federal judges (see this Salon article for more on them).

The point is, your experiences are no more or less real based on what caused them. As many societies have understood, certain plants and chemicals can be catalysts for certain kinds of profound experiences, just as music, love or prayer can.

Everything we see and eat and feel affects our mental state. The idea that your experiences are more "real" than someone's who realizes something while on lsd is just silly. What matters is the experience, not where it comes front.

An experience is an experience and a realization is a realziation. Nothing is any less profound because of how it brought about.

Many people have had there lives changed for the better by these things. They are not something to be taken lightly or belittled.

See Salon's recent article on spiritual use of substances.

The point is, your experiences are no more or less real based on what caused them. As many societies have understood, certain plants and chemicals can be catalysts for certain kinds of profound experiences, just as music, love or prayer can.

Everything we see and eat and feel affects our mental state. The idea that your experiences are more "real" than someone's who realizes something while on lsd is just silly. What matters is the experience, not where it comes front.

An experience is an experience and a realization is a realziation. Nothing is any less profound because of how it brought about.

Many people have had there lives changed for the better by these things. They are not something to be taken lightly or belittled.

See Salon's recent article on spiritual use of substances.

Yeah, I think the Betamax standard should apply here too. But let's assume it doesn't - and that the relevant precedent is the "swap meet" (Fonovisa) case cited here:

Of flea markets and file swapping

What would this mean?

Well, it'd suck to be Napster, as Napster's getting a commercial benefit (in terms of banner impressions and a database of requested downloads for marketing resale purposes) in exchange for running a "flea market" at which infringing materials are traded.

But what if the next Napster to be sued wasn't making a red cent off it? What if the "flea market" RIAA's trying to sue is being run by no one, and makes no money? What if there were no central server maintainers to sue?

What if there was no financial benefit to be had by anyone? IANAL, but would this not blow a WW-II-mine-sized hole in the Kursk of RIAA's "Napster Bad 'cuz Napster do contributory and vicarious infringement!" argument?

Wouldn't Patel's decision to apply the Fonivsa standard (as opposed to the Betamax standard), while nuking Napster, be a colossal foot-bullet for RIAA and MPAA, on the grounds that it might legitimize non-commercial file-sharing applications like Gnutella and Freenet?

And dare I say, USENET and FTP?

So ha!

Beyond that, I agree that this argument is getting old and picayune. We've gotten horribly worked up about some trivial details in what, after all, was meant more to be a whimsical but thought-provoking analogy than an iron-clad argument.

I do happen to think I'm right on these details (especially that of whether Jupiter conducts meaningful surveys or misleading ones), but I do take your general point that one crucial difference is that while libraries don't change much from year to year, Napster and MP3 sharing in general may yet morph into something potentially dangerous for the music industry. Or rather, I believe (and hope) that they will turn out at least mildly dangerous for the record labels, while believing quite strongly that they will turn out to spur, rather than stifle, artistic creativity and the overall quality and quantity of music available for society. Of course I realize that the last point is anything but a sure thing, and that no one can predict exactly what will happen. It does make sense to point out that the arts have always survived the emergence of new technologies predicted to destroy them; whether those who have sought to control and profit off the work of artists will make the transition as well is happily less certain. MP3 might turn out disasterous for the record labels and maybe might impact the earnings of a few of the most successful musicians, but I have little doubt that it will not only spread the art of the average musician to a much wider audience, but make him or her more money as well. Still, it's too early to know for certain.

And with that, I think I'm done, unless you have anything else to say. I would like to point out that if you've just been arguing with me because I happened to say something in that Bush/Gore/Clinton/economics thread that, on reflection, sounded rather stuck up (the "look at my email addy" comment), well, I didn't mean it to sound that way and you've certainly wasted a lot of your time being mad at me. Course, you've wasted just as much of my time, so let's call it a draw. ;)

This book is fatally flawed because its mere existence shows that closed source will always win. This closed-source book on open-source software made it to the bookstores long before Andrew Leonard's open-source Free Software Project was even half done.
</FUD>

Seriously, though, while I expect Free For All and the Free Software Project to compared frequently they are completely different animals. Free For All is a reasonably good, relatively straightforward book about the history of open-source software. The Free Software Project is as much an experiment exploring how books might be written in the future as it is a book about the past.

What you mean to say, of course, is that I am necessarily more ignorant because I'm less ignorant than you in these matters.

No, what I mean to say is that your perspective is skewed because you have much more experience with the "early adopters"--who will go to such great lengths to get something for free that they will be very unlikely to pay for the legitimate product in addition--than you do with the "mainstream adopters"--who use MP3 for mainly fair uses and for whom Napster causes an increase rather than a decrease in legitimate music buying.

One thing I actually meant to stick in my previous reply which I forgot (as if it wasn't long enough already!) was the following statement (elsewhere in this thread) from jtregear, which confirmed what I'd only guessed when I started this thread: "First, I want to say that I've enjoyed reading this exchange very much. IAMTAL (I Am Married To A Librarian) and my wife and I have been discussing the similarities between Napster and libraries for a while now.... I also wanted to say that from my experience living with an avid reader and library patron, that dedicated library patrons NEVER buy books. My wife reads approximately four books a week and in the twenty years we have been married she has never bought a single book." The point, of course, is that with both libraries and Napster there is a "hardcore" community who use the library/Napster as a replacement for buying books/music; however, in both cases, the majority of users use the library/Napster to supplement their continuing purchases of books/music. Research shows that, in its current incarnation at least, Napster actually helps record sales; I would guess, based on the fact that most people read books only once but listen to a piece of music indefinitely, that the same cannot be said of libraries overall. While this sort of calculus is important in determining how we feel about a content sharing system, in the end it is only one piece of the puzzle: we not only allow but laud and publicly subsize libraries because most people feel that their function in bettering society outweighs the probable loss of income for authors and publishers. Indeed, publishers attempted to sue libraries out of existence with the same arguments the RIAA is currently making about Napster (just as the MPAA tried to sue VCR's out of existence 20 years ago). They lost, because their best interests were at odds with the best interests of society--and it is society, not publishers or even artists--for whom copyright law exists. In the case of Napster, which offers the same societal benefits as libraries and even has the side effect of increasing record sales, the choice is even easier--and thus we should expect Napster to be lauded (and subsidized??) even more than public libraries.

Now, you raise some interesting long-term questions about where all this is heading. I do obviously realize that as bandwidth increases, bitrates will go up and MP3 quality will get closer to CD quality. As I commented elsewhere in this thread, this in itself will have little effect on what is the primary limiter of MP3 sound quality for the vast majority of people: namely, that computers are simply not stereos. They are hideously electrically noisy environments, and even now with expensive computer speakers becoming more common, speaker quality is far inferior to that of real speakers, due to small size, poor listener placement (2 feet in front of the speakers), plastic housing, magnetic shielding, etc. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as Moore's Law for speakers, so speakers of any quality will continue to be big and wooden and expensive, and be designed to fill a large room with sound, not direct it at an individual 2 feet away. While it's concievable that some people will hook up real speakers to their computers to play MP3s--indeed, I've seen it done--the vast majority of people will use their computers as cheap sampling devices and leave their high-quality speakers connected to their real stereo. In any case, the reason I said downloading MP3s to burn to CD-R sounds worse than a tape is that there are two lossy conversions going on: wav->MP3->wav. (The last isn't technically "lossy" but involves a loss of actual quality just as any change of format does.)

If napster becomes common, the market for mp3s goes up. As the mp3 market grows, the prices of devices will come down. And so on and so on.

But you'll always get crappy sound quality from a cheap Rio, with or without 5 cent headphones. Just like you still get crappy sound quality from a Discman. Might Rio's cannibalize the market for Discmen? Sure, but as I doubt too many people have their Discman as their only CD player, it shouldn't hurt the market for CD's too much. If people do only own a Discman, they're getting ripped off, because they're paying for full CD quality and playing it back on a device that sounds worse than an 8-track player.

If napster were given carte blanche to ride over IP, other similar services and modifications could be made. You complain of corrupted files? Well there is no reason why a parallel database of checksums of "perfect" mp3s couldn't be stored. You would never have to waste your time with bad mp3s. If the courts would clear the way for napster, they would clear the way for corporate interests to make these things a reality.

Just a nitpick, really, but this is false. If (when) Napster wins this case, it will either be because 1) the music copying that goes on over Napster is individual-to-individual, and thus non-commercial, and thus legal under the AHRA or 2) the songs made available on Napster are chosen and by individuals, not Napster; thus, as Napster merely facilitates the transfer, it is legal so long as their system is "capable of significant noninfringing uses" (quotation taken from the Supreme Court's decision in the MPAA v. Betamax case). Neither of these defenses would likely be available for a company which offered the service of "perfect" MP3s (which cannot exist anyways, since even at the highest bitrates it's still a lossy codec). The first wouldn't hold water, because the party offering the file would be a company, and thus not noncommercial; the second wouldn't work either, because a court could then legitimately ask them not to offer just those songs which they don't have rights to, without impacting any noninfringing uses. As I noted before, I seriously doubt your notion of "MP3 clans" will ever regain much currency. "A democratic system/database of sorts" is a more plausible idea to me. Still, even a high quality MP3 is still lossy, and as I said the more important quality concern relates to hardware, not software.

But all this is besides the point. The content part of the book you get at the library is generally of the same quality as the one you get in the store (same print quality, etc.), assuming no one has underlined or highlighted it. People still pay for books (as you noted), because they generally want to compensate those who give them worthwhile services, and because of the added look-and-feel issues of owning a nice crisp new book. These same reasons will always remain for legitimately buying physical media, and it's not hard to imagine ways artists could "value-add" to their authorized sales of MP3s.

Getting warez may not be as easy as using Napster, but even amongst those who are entirely capable of finding whatever warez they want, the vast majority still purchase their software. People will pay for something if it's worth it to them. Most people don't steal, even though they could. And that's why most people buy music they've already downloaded off Napster--because it's the right thing to do. However, people still want the right to exercise fair uses of music, things like sampling and space-shifting. People also tend to believe that there's no moral problem with being able to listen to a lower quality version of a song that they like to have around for kicks but would never pay for. And they're right. Just like they were right to believe that making mix-tapes for friends was moral, even while the recording industry claimed it was theft. If I were the music industry, I would start reinforcing with people these moral issues, rather than trying to sue technology and loudly proclaiming that all "unauthorized" copying of music is "stealing." The first is obviously doomed to failure, but possibly not before taking away some basic civil rights. The second serves only to muddy the moral waters and make people believe that there is no moral difference between using MP3 to discover new music to buy and using it to replace music buying altogether.

Despite the much-accepted multimillion user figure of napster, only a fraction of this country is in the position to take advantage of the service. Only some 1.5 million people in the US had broadband last year.

First off, that number is very rapidly increasing. Second off, it doesn't include college students or businesses; while as I said earlier the demographics of Napster have changed such that college students are no longer the majority, they are still something like 40 or 45% of the user base, and most of them have broadband.

So how can a reasonable person be expected to take news that a nationwide increase in record sales as proof that napster can't hurt sales? How can you ignore similarly high growth in other similar sectors of the economy? How can you ignore the fact that napster is very new to most users?

Good points all. But I wasn't offering evidence of the record industry's record profits as proof in-and-of-itself that Napster helps record sales, but rather as evidence supporting the various targeted studies showing this effect. The point is that you're arguing that Napster will have such a large negative effect on record sales as to effectively shut down the record industry and prevent new songs from being recorded. (Or, is this your point? Have you stated your point??) To put it mildly, if this were the case then one doubts that the year in which the number of Napster users jumped from 0 to 20 million would be the year the record industry would record not just record profits, but record profit growth. (That's a lot of "records", huh.) My argument is not that Napster is good because it increases CD sales. My argument is that Napster is good in-and-of-itself, and would only be bad if it catastrophically decreased CD sales to the point where less new music was recorded. I think by now we have proven that the latter is emphatically not the case, especially because Napster serves as a conduit for more unsigned new music. And that's all we need to declare Napster an overall benefit to society.

[re: why my warez analogy doesn't apply to current Napster users] They used it because it's gotten that easy and convenient. I see no reason to believe that the rest of the CD buying population would be any different when, and if, the means reach them.

This is exactly the point. Warez kids generally have some money as well (or more to the point, don't even use a lot of what they warez, like Photoshop etc.). The point is that when a technology is new and difficult, only those who are willing to put in a lot of time and effort, those who care about the technology itself and the subculture that surrounds it, are the ones who use it. Thus these people tend to be the most hardcore users of the technology. And to justify the time and aggravation, they need to make sure the technology has a large impact in their lives--so they use it to take the much larger step of replacing CD buying.

When the technology becomes widespread, easy to use, and convenient, on the other hand, then normal people will start incorporating it into their everyday lives. Because it's now easy to use, they don't need to replace CD buying completely in order to get use out of it. (Also, Napster makes it much easier to try out new music you haven't heard of than it was in the days of IRC, difficult-to-use rippers, much smaller MP3 selection, and 14.4 modems.) Since they don't have all the time and effort invested in the technology, they don't need to give up the moral claim of compensating the artist in order to justify their small time and energy investment.

Put it another way: people who just want all their music for free, and want it bad enough to dismiss the moral problems with this, are the ones who got into MP3s 3, 4 years ago. People who just want to use MP3 for convenience and trying out new music (the vastly larger group) are going to wait until it's convenient and easy to find new music. Because you were involved in the MP3 scene years ago, you mistakenly believe that all people are like the first group, when instead 98% of people fit more in the second group. That's why Napster increases CD sales, not decreases them--and why it will increase them more as more and more people begin to use it.

Now onto the Jupiter stuff. This is the last time I'm going to discuss this, as I'm getting tired of explaining a simple study to you. Let me first point out that if, as you say, the study doesn't mean what I say it does, the RIAA would have jumped all over it, just as Napster has jumped all over the RIAA's flawed "college music stores" study. The Napster legal filings are chock full of detailed refutations of the RIAA's one measly study and with evidence from the several independent studies which support their position. The RIAA's legal briefs tend to be silent on the issue...

Not even the press release claimed Napster causes an increase in purchases, that is entirely your imagination. If that is what they meant, they would have said so. Instead, they said "Napster Users Are 45 Percent More Likely to Increase Music Spending".

Yes. Exactly Napster users are 45% more likely to increase music spending than non-Napster users. People who use Napster are more likely than people who don't to be buying more CDs than they used to. Indeed, this goes directly to your point above that the strong economy might be responsible for the increase in music sales. Of course, it is to a very large extent. But correspondingly more of the increase in music sales comes from Napster users than non-users.

And the effect remains even after controlling for all relevant demographic factors. Yes, it's a correlation and not a proof of cause-and-effect, but you can never prove more than correlation. But while we can't see the methodology they used, if the study shows at all what the press release claims it does, then it appears to be about as close to cause-and-effect as one can expect to get.

Much like saying that there is a strong relationship between icecream consumption and drowning, while failing to mention that both are done almost exclusively during the summer.

No...it's like saying that icecream consumers are 45% more likely to drown than non-icecream consumers, even after controlling for factors like season, weather, swimming ability, proximity to a body of water, and previous rate of drowning before icecream was invented.

Although it is true, that they can make some random phone calls, I ask you to consider some of the difficulties.

Virtually every study starts out with random phone calls. It could be that Jupiter convened a focus group (in which case they would offer participants money), but they would still start out with random phone calls to seed the focus groups.

. First, unlike with most of these surveys, the market penetration is low--even lower if you only count regular usage.

20 million people is "low market penetration"?? Especially when you consider that this really means 20 million computers, not 20 million people, this represents and astounding market penetration. Indeed, last I'd heard there were "only" about 50 million households/individuals in America connected to the Internet. Obviously not all 20 million are American, but a large majority probably are.

Let's imagine they want a sample of, say 2k, napster users.

You don't need a sample nearly that high. 500 people is enough for a 5% margin of error on a yes/no question; I don't know the math, but with a quantitative question (how many CD's/month did you buy before/after Napster use), considerably fewer are needed to generate accurate results.

If you assume that less than 1% of the people who answer their phones are napster users, this means they've got to call roughly 20k people.

Based on the above, as many as 40% of American Internet connected PC's have a Napster account on them. After correcting for various factors (non-Americans, multiple accounts, people who haven't used it enough to qualify) I think 20% is a fair estimate. 1% is absurd.

All in all, we're looking at enough calls to get at most 1-2k respondants (including the non-Napster users group). Maybe a bit more so that they have enough data to control for various demographic concerns. Definitely not much larger than your average election poll, or your average study of this type.

Furthermore, whoever said the user is likely to be candid over the phone? Many people will lie about such issues. Many would also LIKE to believe they'd buy more--it is, after all, the partyline. Not so terribly different from what you'd get on IRC.

Most of the 20 million Napster users don't know there is a party line. It's too big a group for there to be such ingrained dogma that a significant number of people will lie over it.

Jupiter did not lie (based on the available facts, though they do depend on the internet's success....mmmm...motive).

That's ridiculous.

The press release is trying to imply that, with their data, napster users are still more willing than the rest of the population to buy RIAA's music [though they do conclude napster does not spell the end for RIAA, that is not supported].

No, it states (not implies) that Napster users are willing to buy more music than they personally did before they used Napster, to a greater degree than the rest of the population. Reading comprehension!

Though I can argue with even that conclusion, it is not necessary because it is really quite meaningless. The only thing fact that might be contested on its face is that income, wealth, age, etc. were not they deciding factor in the increases in the their survey. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, but I've yet to hear of a litmus test for music lovers, other than their historic purchases.

Their historic purchases were controlled for in the study! Reading comprehension!!

As regards the redeeming value of books vs. music conversation, I have to say I think it's getting a bit silly. But here goes anyways:

First and foremost, the issue is what society thinks.

We're miscommunicating here. My entire point was that society should value Napster as much as it does public libraries. I totally agree that society tends to have a knee-jerk bias towards books being more culturally or artistically redeeming than music, especially non-classical music. Part of my point was that this bias is not based in any meaningful distinction and that most knowledgable people would disagree with it, and thus that Napster ought to get as much respect as libraries do, in a fairer world.

You can argue intrinsic worth till you turn blue in the face, but you're not going to prove it to society unless you can back it up with tangibles. When you send kids to the library, they learn to read. When they learn to read and write, their brains develop. The better they can read, the better they can compete in school. Reading improves writing, which improves the ability to handle complex logic. All of these things have definite economic benefits for society.

In fact, one might even argue that, even if libraries were to have some nominally negative impact on the percentage of book sales, a more classically educated public is more economically fit and better able to compete globally. A strong economy would lead to a larger market in all likelihood.

Frankly, I think it's a bit chilling that you seem to think that culture is only socially relevant if it has a measurable positive economic impact! I'm pretty sure most of society agrees with me on this one. In any case, music theory comprehension has been shown to increase mathematical abilities, although it's arguable how much of an effect listening to pop music has on that. On the other hand, just like most of Napster sharing is pop music, most of what libraries check out is "nonredeemable" fiction purely for entertainment value. Sorry, but I doubt you're going to convince me that middle-aged women reading the latest Danielle Steele romance novel is going to enhance our global competitiveness. Yet libraries still manage to hold a cherished position in society.

And finally (phew!) we haven't even touched on the current nature of the recording industry, in which a small oligopoly of record labels controls nearly all of what music is produced, what is heard on the radio, what gets shelf space in stores, and which due to this chokehold on a musician's prospects for success, is able to get away with unconscionable contracts keeping the vast majority of the profits to themselves while keeping most artists--even successful ones--in debt for their entire recording careers. In case you haven't read it before, here's Courtney Love's enlightening speech on the subject. Frankly, after reading this I'm unhappy that Napster promotes CD sales. But thankfully, what Napster also does is loosen the major's grip on the industry, and offers an alternative model for new artists. This can only lead to fairer contracts for musicians choosing to stay within the system.

The big question is whether artists will be able to sell their recordings on their own over the Internet. You would probably argue that Napster makes this type of thing less likely, but I strongly disagree. Because of the math involved in typical record contracts, a band could sell only 1/10 as many albums as before and still come out ahead; Napster could and would provide a forum for new bands to get noticed and appreciated far easier than they could in the old model. Due to Napster's enhanced distribution model (well, and mostly cause it's free), perhaps 5-10 times as many people would download a particular musician's songs as would buy it under the old system. If only 1-2% of them actually paid for the song online or bought a CD direct from them, the artist would come out ahead!

But if Napster is shut down, this type of much needed reform in the music industry would probably get shut down with it. This, of course, is why the fight for Napster is so important morally. The fact that my library analogy is entirely correct is sort of beside the point--it just serves as a means to show that the RIAA's demonization of Napster is counter to commonly accepted principles of society.

Tarantellent.

Much better, isn't it?

If you don't get the joke (or even if you do), go read this extremely funny and informative article on branding/naming over at Salon.

Agilent doesn't mean anything! This was discussed on Slashdot a while ago, as a result of this lengthy Salon article. In a world where the snake-oil salesmen have rebranded themselves as "management consultants", these expensive corporate rebrandings are the corporate equivalent of the Emperor's new clothes. And as long as the senior management of these companies continue to listen to the nonsense spouted by the management consultants, we're going to see a lot more of these name changes. I wonder who long it will take until sanity and common sense prevail?

The old artilce on salon is the transcript of Courtney Love's speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference back in May. It's about who is the real pirate, technology or the industry, from an artist's point of view.

Nobody should deny you of your income, so why do you feel inspired to deprive hard working record companies and artists of their justified income?

The artists don't actually get any money.

Salon had a nice piece about that. It's fun reading.

I agree, this is the scariest thing I've heard (the the link, BTW). I have really hard time understanding that anybody would say such a thing, it is a fundamental free speech-right. Obviously, this is something that the defense should use against him in the appeals. It makes so extremely clear that Jack Valenti is a cynic, he is totally corrupt and has a sense of morality that is despicable. Whew....

Here is the actual text of the judge's decision:

acrobat format

Judge Kaplan argued that computer code is "a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive." He goes further: "society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances."

In other words, computer code is more than just speech, and as the courts have ruled since 1968, when laws "are limited to the noncommunicative aspect" of some form of conduct, they do not violate First Amendment protections.

This is a theme explored somewhat in a recent article in Salon (for which Mr. Garbus was interviewed, incidentally):

"... there is still no formalized legal definition for software. Is it a product subject to the same Uniform Commercial Code that would hold Maytag responsible if a washing machine electrocuted its user? Or because it can be repeatedly upgraded and changed, is it more like an ISP -- a service that's governed by the terms of a contract between its operator and user? Or is it speech, worthy of protection for its contribution to "an open exchange of ideas?" No single statute or decision spells this out."

While code certainly has an aspect that could be deemed speech worthy of protection (as Professor Touretsky movingly testified), it has nonexpressive aspects as well. That seems to be at the heart of Judge Kaplan's decision, and you will have to work hard to get around that on appeal.

Hence my questions to you:
1. What level of Constitutional protection does software or computer code deserve? Will you continue, in appeal, to take the hard line that computer code is purely speech?
2. I know this may be somewhat out of your purview as lawyers, but do you hold out any hope for legislative remedy? If so, how would you want Congress would alter the DMCA?
3. And, finally, what possible implications does Judge Kaplan's ruling have for other cases relating to the legal status of software, such as the storm brewing over business method patents on software?

Thanks for your time.

Yours,
Adam Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
Washington, D.C.

Judge Kaplan argued that computer code is "a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive." He goes further: "society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances."

In other words, computer code is more than just speech, and as the courts have ruled since 1968, when laws "are limited to the noncommunicative aspect" of some form of conduct, they do not violate First Amendment protections.

This is a theme explored somewhat in a recent article in Salon (for which Mr. Garbus was interviewed, incidentally):

"... there is still no formalized legal definition for software. Is it a product subject to the same Uniform Commercial Code that would hold Maytag responsible if a washing machine electrocuted its user? Or because it can be repeatedly upgraded and changed, is it more like an ISP -- a service that's governed by the terms of a contract between its operator and user? Or is it speech, worthy of protection for its contribution to "an open exchange of ideas?" No single statute or decision spells this out."

While code certainly has an aspect that could be deemed speech worthy of protection (as Professor Touretsky movingly testified), it has nonexpressive aspects as well. That seems to be at the heart of Judge Kaplan's decision, and you will have to work hard to get around that on appeal.

Hence my questions to you:
1. What level of Constitutional protection does software or computer code deserve? Will you continue, in appeal, to take the hard line that computer code is purely speech?
2. I know this may be somewhat out of your purview as lawyers, but do you hold out any hope for legislative remedy? If so, how would you want Congress would alter the DMCA?
3. And, finally, what possible implications does Judge Kaplan's ruling have for other cases relating to the legal status of software, such as the storm brewing over business method patents on software?

Thanks for your time.

Yours,
Adam Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
Washington, D.C.

See this Salon story.

Make me an offer.

This is post No. 250 or so in this thread, so there's little hope it will ever be read. But as Lando Calrissian said: Here goes nothing..

Lars (Metallica's drummer) did not do an U-Turn on the matter of downloadable music. His role in the whole affair has been distorted to such a disgusting degree that it pains me to even see his name mentioned in the same sentence as 'Napster'.

As Slashdot reported a month ago, in a Slashdot interview with the man HIMSELF, and not some public relations idiot, he states that it's all about control. Did you hear that?

CONTROL

He doesn't care about the record companies. He hates them as much as everybody else, yeah, even the much-quoted Courtney Love.

As Morpheus famously stated, The Matrix is about control. Record companies, the RIAA, and the MPAA as well, if you want to open that can of worms, are about control. They want to regulate YOUR access to music that they didn't even create. They want to regulate the ARTIST'S means of getting their music to you. They want to CONTROL both the artists and the consumer.

I once worked in a record store - and you know those overpriced CDs you complain about? We sold them for about $13-$14. How much did we pay to the distributors, which in turn were often owned by the same record companies that produced those records? About $12-$13. We were lucky to make little over a dollar per CD sold. That was the price, we couldn't do anything about it - even buying in bulk didn't lower our prices significantly. And from that measly dollar profit, multiplied by however many CDs we sold, of course, the store owner had to pay the people working there (let's say $7/hour, plus the tax on that he/I have to pay, of course), the rent for the store, cost for maintaining the store, utilities, etc. Even CDNOW doesn't sell normal 'newer' CDs much cheaper than your usual store; whereas books can be discounted heavily, CDs are a different matter altogether.

Why? Because the record companies have control over the industry. Mainstream music is tied up by four or five major labels; if you don't get signed to one of them, you have no mainstream chance, your CD will never be distributed to millions of storeshelves all over the country, and the nation's eyeballs will instead be attached to Britney Spear's bellybutton on her next trashy CD, because that's who the record labels are pushing right now.

And now to Lars: Read his interview. What he doesn't want is for others to have control over Metallica's music. Yeah, it's free - but free as in beer does not mean free as in speech! Any student of RMS and ESR should understand it - there's a major difference in attitudes. Freedom to listen/use/whatever software or music doesn't make it free. Music on Napster isn't free - to be honest, it's controlled by Napster's databases. If Napster's VC-controlled bosses decide to introduce a monthly flat fee for using Napster, say, $5... would you do it? Hell, most people would. For five bucks, you can download as much as you want. [of course, with all the other current alternatives popping up, this becomes less and less attractive]. But the fatc of the matter is that Napster's estimated 20 million users would probably go for it - which would, even after fraud, etc, is counted in, account for a multi-million dollar business per month. Why? Because Napster has control over the distribution of that music. That's what Lars doesn't want, that's what they didn't do too much about it when it was just websites and ftp sites, and that's why Napster is a thorn in the eyes of some musicians as well as some record companies: Yeah, sure, the record companies hate the notion of being made obsolete by any little record store with a fast internet connection and a CD burner. Wouldn't you like to come to a store and pick up those CDs for $2 instead of $12? We could burn them for you, at a cost of less than $0.40, and still make more profit than we do now.. and lots of people would go for it, simply for convenience's sake. Many end consumers would simply just download the hit single they heard on the radio, in CD quality, or just get a compilation CD of current hit singles, anyway.

Frightening thoughts for the record companies. Unpleasant thoughts for Lars Ulrich.. because other people are still controlling the distribution channels. And Metallica, like anybody else, were dirt poor for a LONG time. Even now, they don't have as much money as lots of people think: Remember Courtney's rant? The record companies are pocketing 90%++ of the money made of a CD. You're lucky to get less than $1 per CD sold, and then about 40% of that goes to taxes. Etc.

Lars and Metallica distribute some music on their own website. Good for them. They control the music. I think that's the best thing I've heard so far. And once Metallica have finished their record agreements (and you can be CERTAIN that right now Metallica HAVE to produce a certain number of records for their current label or they will get sued like Prince, George Michael, and the Smashing Pumpkins got sued by THEIR record labels), they can start distribuing their own music any way they want.

More power to them, I say. The sooner we get the power to control music away from the record labels, and to the artists themselves, the sooner the entire cultural landscape will change.

Alex T-B
St Andrews

Not to mention: Police ignoring criminal activities in order to arrest demonstrators and "keeping the peace", according to some reports.

The idea of "network effects" creating a de facto monopoly for Microsoft is one that economists such as Hal Varian try to teach us. It seems that no matter if GNU/Linux or another UNIX is techically superior, Microsoft as a monopolist hogs market share.

This is interesting in light of a recent report from China at Salon magazine. Even though Linux is free and the government officially supports it, Microsoft still has a huge market share in China. There might be a couple of reasons for this. One is that "everybody else uses Microsoft" and the network effects become predominant. Another is that the pirates actually make money marketing copies of Microsoft products, even though the price is very cheap--they don't make money marketing Linux, it seems.

So there is a puzzling problem here: nobody can make and sell better software than Microsoft's, and even stealing it helps Microsoft by promoting their market share, because of the network effects.

Consequently, Microsoft has no incentive to open source code, to port to non-Microsoft platforms, or to spend money to increase market share at all, since they own the market already.

Therefore, the only way Microsoft would port to Linux any applications would be if it thought it could make a little money in a new market, similar to the way it writes applications for Apple computers. And it would not hurt if a small Israeli company would do all the work and take the risks for the big company, which can then come in and pick up the marbles whenever it wants to.

The result--short of an enforced breakup of the company by the courts--seems to me bad in any case for GNU/Linux and Free Software. The dominance of this big company with closed, proprietary code and environments, would be harmful to the movement to empower users and small companies. It would just be another dinosaur that squashes new growth by thrashing around adding features and diseases. There is no chance for Microsoft to learn this lesson unless some asteroid like a Supreme Court decision lands on the back of this monster.

There are some good French alt-rock groups, Autour de Lucie to name one. Also, hip-hop works pretty well in French. I concede that I have not heard the French equivalent of Zeppelin or the Sabbath.

It's like a mantra, I swear - "a third party vote is a wasted vote". The media push two candidates, the parties push two candidates, and pretty soon we all believe there are only two candidates.

I used to feel that I shouldn't vote because I couldn't (didn't want to) keep up with all the back-and-forth maneuvering that goes on with the media and the parties. But it's possible to read up on the parties and the candidates. You can even find out where your views on the issues fall on the political map and compare it to the candidates. There are some really brilliant thinkers in the various newsgroups, unfiltered by corporate sponsorthink. Granted, some of the contributors are a taco short of a combo plate, but hey, at least we don't have to let the TV think for us anymore. We can also count on Salon to provide good coverage of the issues and candidates. It doesn't take much time at all to become informed enough to make a confident vote.

There are really no excuses left. Get informed and vote.

As much as we all want to believe that Eidos sinking money into Ion instead of LGlass caused the latter's death, it simply isn't so.
Salon has an earlier article where Geoff Keighley points out the basic truth: "Looking Glass folded because it wasn't making money".
We all want brilliant games like Tthief and System Shock to make millions, but they don't. Games like Soldier of Fortune and Who Wants to be a Millionare do.

While Eidos didn't help Looking Glass as much as they probably could have, it didn't make economic sense for them to keep a studio whose games were low to negative profit ventures. (I'm not saying sinking $30 million into Daikatana was, but Eidos bad decisions are the reason they themselves are in financial difficulty now.)

Basically, it comes down to this: We can't blame Ion Storm for Looking Glass' demise. (although they may contribute to the possible death of Eidos) We can only blame a market where Barbie Fashion Designer and Bland Genre Clone® are the only things to make large profits.

"First off, I'd like to ask just how much credibility does one have who writes "to" as "2" and "be" as "b"."

About as much credibility as Salvador Dali, a man who never painted a scene *I* recognized...

"Obviously, this is just another disgruntled musician denouncing the very agency which protects him. Just look at what he did with his title, he became "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince" just to show his disdain for the RIAA. Yet he fails to realize that without them, he would have no fame or fortune."

Heh. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Have you even read Courtney Love's breakdown of the numbers? I think he shows a lot of courage by speaking up. Normally it's the people that know what side their bread is buttered on that keep their traps shut. Do you think three kids in a VW that call themselves the Turnipheads are going to get this coverage?

"Instead of speaking out against the RIAA, he needs to grow up and realize just how much they've done for him."

I think that maturity is taking in life experiences and acting on them with integrity. What do you think?

My .02
Quux26

yeah, but isnt she really stupid?

Well, I don't think so (although it's been alleged-not-proven that her fine rant in Salon may have been lifted from another person's work). For one thing, she didn't OD or kill herself, and for another, I liked her performance as Althea Flynt in a recent movie.

If she isn't stupid, what's the problem? I think it's her webmaster being swamped with mail, and perhaps mistaking mine for spam even though it referenced holemusic.com and Courtney Love's rant repeatedly. At this point, I've given up on her webmaster and hope to get through to her by luck and persistence and other means.

When I first read the rant in Salon (which has another...um...int eresting article about gold in general, not e-gold!!! ) I felt her scream for a person to person payment system between the lines, and e-gold -- imperfect as it presently is -- fills the bill much better than the theoretical stuff the media loves to hype so much, despite absent fundamentals. *sigh* Anyway, my point is that I don't think she's stupid, and I'll refrain from comment about her webmaster. :)
JMR

I was never a fan of the music, image, acting abilities, or miscellaneous talents of Miss Love, but after reading her music industry manifesto I have a whole new opinion. Give it a read........she's no slouch.

As for your joke about Kurt Cobain's death.........grow up.

With more and more artists coming out not necessarily for Napster but decidedly against the RIAA and with the RIAA claiming in court that they are protecting the artists of the labels, one can see there is a fallacy in their argument. RIAA is realizing it is lacking allies in their widespread attacks. I kind of hope what we are seeing are death spasms, but I know that isn't the case.

Right now, the RIAA needs to be able to present a unified front of artists, even though it represents the record labels. But their lawyers know that in general the best way to get sympathy is by having the artist claim to be hurt. The one thing that seems to be genuinely true through this whole mess is each side wants to see the artist succeed. Well, then let's cut out the middleman, the record label, and let the artist do the business end. The artist can hire a marketing firm and such to get themselves known.

I believe it would reshape the industry, create more jobs, and strengthen the role of the artist in our society. It might also cure cancer, but I can't be sure of that.

Maybe, if anything good does come out of the Napster debacle, it will be the record labels and the artists come to some core agreements on compensation.

What I would really like to see is all the recording artists go on strike. But that isn't going to happen, too many artists seek fame and the joy of making the music over money.

there is an excellent transcription of a speech made by courtney love about this very topic i found here. i found it was very interesting reading, and made some points about intellectual property which also pertains to the DeCSS case . . . . just a thought.

the article is here

I wonder what changed their minds.

Could it be, could it possibly be, that they are cringing from the public exposure they are getting by alienating their own artists? Maybe when Courtney Love got up in front of God and Everybody and told people that the recording industry was nothing but a bunch of bloodsucking scumbags and decided to dump their promotional and distribution machine in favor of her own website that they actually went shopping for some very expensive guy with a ponytail who actually had a f***ing clue?

Honestly, I don't understand it. If I were the RIAA and I'd gotten away with getting such a completely disgusting abuse of copyright law passed, I'd wave it in everyone's face and scream: "look, the American People don't care anymore! they let me do whatever I want! I can steal and plunder and pretty soon I'm gonna move on to raping and pillaging!".

But some of their big time acts must have (somehow) gotten their message across. Some mentioned in the written statement are Don Henley and Sheryl Crow. Sounds like some really big cash cows were threatening to go the way of Ms. Love and defect. I'd like more information on the "Artists' Coalition" mentioned in the article. It's yet more proof that the RIAA is not to be confused with the interests of recording artists, nor their profits.

The best part is Hillary won't even admit she lost:

RIAA insisted that nothing had changed and, in a written statement, RIAA President Hilary Rosen reiterated that position.

--

I read Love's speech and I don't find it at all convincing, sure whoever wrote it made some interesting points, but I'm skeptical about rock stars talking about backend code and VC's. Love also bitches about digital music, not just MP3s, yet only a couple of Hole releases are available on vinyl.

Hole is a mainstream alterna-girl band, backed by a big record company and is marketed as being "rebellious." Its their job to keep stirring the pot. To keep teenagers paying $18 a cd to listen music that does its best to diss the "man", while very obviously and ironically lining the the pockets of big business.

I'm sure anyone in the music industry has critical opinions about the way things are running, but its one thing to express your opinion and another to have an insincere, carefully worded speech perfectly suited for internet distribution to keep the kiddies convinced that though Love's been in many mainstream movies and a media gatabout, she's still queen of the subculture.

This is the real issue in all of the Napster debates. The gouging of the consumer is what is really driving the online sharing of music, I think. It's pretty apparent that most of the industry claims that the higher prices are due to promotion costs are bogus.

I think there is also something of a reversal of causality in your documentation of political blinders and free markets. It's precisely because I see the political blinders in the technology culture that surrounds us (Quiz: Where would you rather create a start-up, in Chechnya/Sierra Leone or in Northern California where the roads are good and the food and pharmaceutical supply is untainted and bandits don't lurk around corners on Skyline Boulevard and houses mostly won't fall down after they are built and work-study exists and libraries are free and the Arpanet/Internet had 20 years of slow, commercial-free development? All due to the fine invisible hand of government ...) that I ask the questions I do and take the positions I hold

>>>>"Having such a trigger-happy moron at the head of a very powerful country is suicide"

i've yet to see anything in him that makes him either, you're such a troll.

A clip from a Salon article, dated Jan. 13, 2000:

"During his tenure, 112 men and one woman have been executed. That's nearly 20 percent of the 600 people who have been executed in the United States since 1976."

Keep in mind that he hasn't just seen 20% of death traffic, but he's seen it all in his tenure, which means his state's death rate is pretty high. While he didn't push the red button, he chose not to push the "disable red button" button. Every time. Which, for me, is functionally the same.

Of course, they've slowed down now that election time is getting closer, and the majority of the country doesn't like to think about the government killing anyone, even horrible criminals.

FWIW, I'm actually in support of the death penalty, I just think that the president should not be for it. :)

You forgot to mention the quotes from the defense attorney and ACLU legal director. Let me refresh your memory.

"I think it's highly unlikely, the kinds of things that have been described," Philadelphia ACLU legal director Stefan Presser said Thursday.

Philadelphia defense attorney Jules Epstein called the cells "Dickensian, but not unconstitutional."

And while we're at it, where did you get the info about being held more than 48 hours withoug a phone call? I saw nary a mention of it on the Salon.com story.

I dont have the link, but there was an article on Salon.com about the protesters who were being held more than 48 hours without a phone call allowed, most of them had not been fed, and half of the cell blocks had the water turned off, so they could not use the toilets. One of the 'protestors' arrested was a jogger who happened to get caught in the crowd.

Something changed in America after the WTO riots. Somehow the police think they have carte blanche to treat citizens like animals for utilizing their right of free assembly and free speech. I can't see the difference between how China is treating members of the Falun Gong and whats happening in Philadelphia (and what did happen) in Seattle.

We argue and fight for our online rights, but those online rights wont mean anything if we cant use those same rights in public, in the 'real' world.

I'm sure that they would just frame you for something similar if they happened to get inadmissible evidence.

"Scott, Ann and Milo were transporting the other 16 people in their van to the scene of an area to protest. Kendall and I were going to be support people for the group. Kendall and I were supposed to rendezvous with the group at the Greyhound bus station at 3:00 p.m., at which point we would go to the scene of the protest (two blocks away) and perform the action we had planned. The group never showed up.

Finally, at 3:30 p.m., Kendall got a phone call on his cell phone. It was Scott. He told Kendall that 15 Philadelphia State Police officers had surrounded his van and arrested everyone in it. The 19 had not committed any crimes or actions of any kind. They were not anticipating arrest."

"Despite denials by the Philadelphia police to some Green Party members from Houston and me, Scott has confirmed the civil and human rights abuse stories. He says none of the prisoners were given food for 14 hours. He says they never had bathroom breaks. He was told by jail guards that an ACLU lawyer came to represent the arrested activists at their arraignment hearings, but that he was not allowed to meet with any of the arrested activists.

Scott says that asthmatics and diabetics were not allowed to have their medicines. He told me that one diabetic woman became sick and passed out from not having had her medicine, and that the arrested activists had to chant for several hours before the nurse finally came to check on her."

"But whatever the number is, the reports from the inside are not good. For at least ten hours there was no food, at one point the guards had suspended bathroom ?privileges?[MS '?' for "'" retained], the legal team representing those arrested had very little access to their clients, and many of those held were told that their lawyers were not coming to see them when in fact the real story was that the authorities were not telling the legal team who was being held where. On top of this, there are reports of police and guard violence against people in custody, and at least one woman was seen being dragged naked and bleeding. Several people have been held in isolation, including those identified as organizers, and are being given more serious charges. The medical needs of some of the arrestees are not being met, including the withholding of asthma inhalers and medication for hypoglycemia."

"Valocchi [a journalist arrested while covering the protests], still wearing a red jailhouse wristband, said he did not get food for 24 hours, and did not get access to a telephone for 48 hours, even though he cooperated fully with police. In all, he was held for 49 hours. "I hear my girlfriend's been looking for me for like three days," he said. He also said there was one man in a cell near him "vomiting profusely for at least an hour before he got any medical attention. And when he did, that medical attention was a cup of juice and a sugar pill."

Valocchi said he was not the only innocent bystander thrown into jail. "There was a jogger who got yanked in. He was just a scared mama's boy in running shoes and a security shirt. I heard him on the phone with his mom, and he sounded completely terrified, telling his mom they were treating us like pigs."

"As a journalist, I've always been a big defender of the Philadelphia Police Department in general," he said. "But no more. They were completely out of control." "