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The Dark Side Of Napster
Julian Morrison writes, "An article on Salon shows the dark side of Napster (and implicitly, Gnutella and all the other clones). Artists say they can't make money from t-shirts and touring, and if sales of their CD drop on the auto-indexer, the label says goodbye. Can anyone come up with a distribution model that will work with the new tech rather than being swamped by it? " Also check out the recent Suck article about the "Zapster". Pretty funny.
You are the victim. RIAA is also the victim. So are the artists.
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Everyone's the victim *and* the antagonist(sp).
It is, of course, a question of morality. Who is wrong and who is right?
You mention the price of CD's but you are not buying CD's, you are buying music. Music that takes time and talent and money to produce and distribute.
Now I am not against Napster. I am against illegal copying (the word piracy isn't right, now is it?). Napster isn't at fault, it is simply a medium that human beings make the decision how to use. Not to you specifically, Palin, but anyone who wishes to answer: How have you decided to use Napster? Have you become the victim *and* the antagonist?
I am not someone who beleives in the law for the law's sake. But I know why we have law: to stop anarchy. You see, we don't pick and choose which laws we will follow because then we have undermined the purpose of law. If you think a law is unfair and unjust then, at least in my country, there are methods to challenge the law. This is why I am against illegal copying.
If you beleive that you are the greater victim then find the groups who beleive the same as you do. Boycott the industry seems to be the valid method of protest but that is the precise opposite of illegal copying, isn't it?
There are two methods of going about the issue: either you can formally protest or you can copy illegally and *then* justify your actions. If the later then you should at least acknowledge that no one has any God-born or natural right to gratis music. Either you want to pay fairly or you don't get the music.
The RIAA has caused nothing to happen. The only thing that has changed is that with Napster it becomes easier to copy music. Napster does a poor job of keeping honest people honest. People don't copy music illegally out of protest. Protest means boycott. No, people copy music illegaly because it is easy.
One of the worst traits of human morality is that people have hard time controlling their own actions.
(I should put this kind of disclaimer in my
The ideas in this post are my opinion only. No one said that I had to agree with you or that you had to agree with me. I will agree or disagree politely to you. I expect the same in return.
Thank you)
I like the quote right at the beginning of the article ``Artists should get paid for their work''. If that's so, then I have a lot of canned human feces I HAD BETTER GET PAID FOR. I call it art and I want my money! (Heh, one of the nicest things about shit is that there's an endless supply of it, if I get desperate enough I can use the RIAA website as a source for more.)
What is sad is that this may have been true before but the chances of this happening now that people have gotten used to being able to download music quicly, easily and for free on Napster are rather slim. People will keep using Napser, there's no way this is going to change without the disappearance of Napster and its clones or at least a fundamental change in the way they behave. Reasons why it's too late
No website distribution model will be faster easier or cheaper than Napster. So why should people switch to downloading music from several websites or officially sanctioned MP3 servers when they can just use Napster to get all the music they need.
Napster allows access to all sorts of music for free. Do not underestimate the power of free stuff. Most of my friends have stopped buying CDs and while I still buy them (I have over 150) I do it more from a guilty conscience (and because I can afford to) than due to any real need. And even then, if I ever find an affordable car MP3 player I doubt that I'll ever buy a CD again. I have seen this same sentiment echoed by journalist for magazines as prestigous as Fortune and Forbes when describing the new threat to the music industry.
Microcharging for individual songs only means that the record companies and artists get even less money. Now instead of 1 person buying a $16.00 CD or $5.00 single and making it available on the Net for Free, the song would have cost $0.50 or $1.00 and would still be available on the Net for free.
Napster and its clones have rocked the foundations of the music industry. MP3s may have begun the funeral dirge but it is Napster that began the nailing of the coffin shut. The reason the RIAA is so up in arms about Napster is because they also have realized the above points and know there is no viable distribution model that would not seriously reduce their income (Frankly I wouldn't mind if the Backstreet Boys & Britney Spears weren't millionaires). The only way they can defend what they feel is their right to selling overpriced music will be to lobby for legislation. Everything else they do is at best a holding action, while they keep trying to get more of our rights stolen...(maybe a proposed ban on CD burners or a music tax on them for all the music that will get stolen is in the works).
Napster is by no means anything "new". It's just popular at the moment. There have been other file-sharing systems in place for far, far longer than Napster has, such as IRC, the web, and ftp servers. The 3 terabytes of music you see listed on Napster when you log in is _nothing_ compared to the total volume of music available out there via other formats.
The only difference with Napster is that there is now a company behind. A perfect target the RIAA to file suit against. Which, ironically, only serves to fuel Napster's popularity. RIAA says "Napster lets you download pirated music for free! It's bad!" Your average college student would probably stop listening at "free".
Then there's the real blunder that the RIAA made. RIAA launched an all out war against the MP3 format. Not the software that makes it, not the people who use it, the format itself. And in so doing, they doomed any chance they had to use it, or for that matter any other compressed media format, for distribution. Why? Because adopting such a format would be the highest form of hypocrisy. While shouting down from the heavens and condemning the online distribution of music, they'd be asking their artists to use the same formats to distribute the music.
And you wonder why you've never seen more than fluff and hype about the RIAA's SDMI initiative?
The RIAA had a chance to capitalize on the MP3 movement. Instead, they did the last thing they should've done. Look at what the my.mp3.com service is offering now! The RIAA could have _easily_ offered up such a service, with the support of the artists. And by adding the ability to buy a new album online relatively inexpensively, you've just made a service that people will not only want, but one people will _use_.
The RIAA's only goal here is to stave off their current business model. They missed the proverbial boat when they slammed down on the mp3 format. Now they're trying to do too little, too late.
The problems that have led up to the current MP3 "scene" are pretty obvious when you stop to look at them. People have access to both the blank media and the neccesary hardware to imprint on said media. You can pick up a CD-RW drive for under 200 bucks now, if you're willing to get an older, slower model. Blank CD-Rs, the same material used in commercial CDs, sell for less than 50 cents each in bulk quantities of 500 or more. I think the RIAA would probably manage to get bulk rates that are even lower, wouldn't you?
Yet commercial CDs sell for between 10 to 20 dollars. What exactly is it that we're paying for with that 2000% to 4000% markup? The shiny cellophane wrapping? The stupid adhesive plastic strip along the edge? The cheap (as in quality) plastic case? Or maybe it's that flimsy booklet inside, printed on poor paper stock and as often than not containing no lyrics.
The RIAA probably asks itself how this could happen. I'm sure the artists are asking their labels that very same question. And the answer is simple:
You made it happen.
Overpriced CDs that don't contain a full CD's worth of music, wrapped in poor quality containers makes for a helluva lot of profit for the RIAA labels, a steady stream of royalties for the artists, and an overall poor quality product for the consumer. After nearly a decade and a half of this abuse, the consumers are finally fed up with it, and they're saying "No"in perhaps the best way that they can. With their wallets.
I suggest a modification to napster that records and caclculates totals on the searches that are being done on napster.
Then, you can publish a list of the 100 most requested songs on napster!
That would be a much better indicator of what songs and people are popular than album sales, because certain types of music does not lend itself to sales of albums, though it may be popular.
Im sure you would find that some songs and bands become popular only on the internet that are not popular on the radio (yet).
It would be interesting to see proof of smaller name bands becoming popular due to Mp3 distribution. It would be a good demonstration to those who have doubts as to Mp3's power to make your band more popular.
I know of many bands that I had never heard of that I discovered due to napster and now I love. I have gone to see several of them live. (they probably make more money from me paying for tickets to see them live than from me buying any album of theirs)
What happens if we attempt to produce a new file sharing system for things like free software, patches, and all the other things currently distributed via anon FTP, HTTP, etc. Are we going to have problems with the RIAA and other copyright owners attempting to block this? A system that allows non-centralised mirroring with signing to ensure file validity and integrity would be a Good Thing. It would make Internet resources more accessable and more fault tolerant. There would be more mirrors, which would tend to be more local and less loaded.
The problem is that if this system is built and then flooded with illegally copied material then copyright holders are going to start throwing lawsuits about. This is likely to stifle innovation. Is there a way we can come up with a distributed file sharing system and make it explicitly clear that it's for the distribution of legal material, without getting sued, resorting to the "it's not our fault what people do with" argument, all without resticting peoples freedom to use it, and hence it's use?
Colin Scott
Colin Scott If you build it, they will be dumb...
The fact of the matter is that Napster is the first method of trading mp3s in a way that is sufficiently convenient to allow for average (and even highly capable individuals such as myself) computer users to download mp3s. Being a long time mp3 user and one of the original founders of #mp3 (undernet, amongst others), I can tell you that IRC, FTP, HTTP, and other decentralized systems are highly flawed, too much so for the vast majority of mp3 users today. The problem with these services is that they're either merely providing indexing, or they're archiving. Archiving clearly exposes them to liability, and thus will never withstand an all out legal attack. Indexing (although likely not immune from litigation) is plagued with problems of broken links, full ftp servers, slow systems, etc.
In other words, given the nature of the internet (human nature, of course, being contained within), there IS a need for psuedo-centralization such as napster (indexing is definetly centralized, and mp3s are effectively centralized and assured in that the listing, downloading, uploading, etc is controlled by the software). Furthermore, any service/software which is sufficiently effective is apt to be sufficiently centralized to be held accountable and to be sued. I, also, highly doubt that services like napster will stand up in the legal system. Thus, I would not say it is "impossible" for artists/labels to effectively control their music.
Artists need some way to profit from their work. Even if only a small fraction goes to the artist, it's better than none. By freeloading you're doing nothing to encourage the production or distribution of "quality" music. While the system may be "unfair", and while you're free to disagree with it, it does not make intellectual property null and void. It exists for a reason, you, as a consumer, have a simple choice: Accept conditions and buy it, or not.
That being said, I'm (obviously) not completely innocent of downloading non-free mp3s myself. However, I've never attempted to justify outright freeloading in the name of "fairness" (nor anything else for that matter). Furthermore, I tend to restrict my mp3s downloads (or ripping) to CDs that I either already own (so I can listen to them exclusively at home on my computer plugged into my hi-fi--I find this the best way to browse and listen while doing computer work), or songs that I likely would never buy in a store (allows me to sample and discover songs, if I find something I really like, I will generally purchase it). In other words, on songs that I do not yet "own", mp3 enables me to listen to a diverse swath of music, which i'd _never_ buy if I had to purchase the CD on which each song belogs. Once i discover something I really like, I will buy it, for the sake of convenience if nothing else (so I can listen to it elsewhere besides my computer), and to get all the other songs (which even napster frequently lacks--one other reason to keep up enforcement).
None the less, intellectual property is intellectual property--I do not have a right to do so. They are perfectly entitled to make reasonable efforts to enforce their rights, especially since they can't trust the general public to go out and buy their CDs in a way that does not discourage future production.
...straight from here. Not that I'd call out Salon for pandering or anything, you do need two sides to have a debate.
I can tell you exactly which artists will be most against napster, and that Creed guy is a perfect example. They are in a class affectionately known as One-Hit-Wonders. There is no doubt they would be against, or at least their agents would be against, Napster, since their entire body of useful work consists of about 3 minutes of music (coupled with 15 of fame).
Now before I get into long, winding arguments again, let me make this clear, I think we do need some form of intellectual copyright protection. HOWEVER, given the nature of the Internet and the nature of digital media, our current model for IP is laughable. The only way to enforce it would be to make what I do about once a week, (surf Napster for bands I just heard of), illegal. I am not a big fan of making ridiculously simple and common actions illegal. You shouldn't be forced to limit your choices in a "free" country.
The RIAA is running scared, expect FUD in large helpings, be prepared to see the word pirate thrown around like it's assumed to be the correct word. . It's not. I am not a pirate. Pirates steal things. Listening is not stealing. This is what happens in a capitalistic society when a billion dollar industry is made obsolete overnight. They don't wanna believe it, they don't wanna change, and dammit all the people that are taking their money are "evil pirates" (since they have a *right* to that money, since they convinced a generation of artists to sign over their life's work (for life+50 years, no less))
Copyright should protect the authors of original works to profit from them. If you want to look at it realisticaly, Napster TOTALLY DESTROYS the *real* pirates, those that SELL other artists works. Laws won't be enough to convince people that having 982,345 songs at your fingertips is somehow wrong. But what we can do, if we can keep this argument objective, is create an environment where people respect the copyrights of another because of the willingness of the original author to share. By enforcing these types of values, we can make it a moral decision that the only person who should be paid for a CD is the artist, not some pirater (be they corporate or independant). Personally I prefer a society that uses values to protect the rights or artists, rather than a government that enforces the rights of corporations at the point of a gun.
We are not immoral pirates, dammit, we like music!!
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+&x
One of the main things that people do with mp3's is put them on CD's. This is cause most people don't have that many extra GigaBytes of space on their hard drive.
/.). This not only doesn't solve the problem but it condones the mp3 pirating industry. People are more likely to get the newest songs and make a mix CD with no regret because they feel that the bands are being compensated.
Canadian law has put a Tax on blank CD's and tapes (here at
I wouldn't be surprised if sales go down in canada this next year. It's not because of the mp3 distributer software, but because of the government's actions have encouraged pirating.
People forget that napster isn't the only way to get mp3's, therefore I don't think it's a direct cause from napster or these kinds of software.