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Paul McCartney Goes After MP3.com
sarchasm writes, "Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney's publishing company MPL Communications is suing MP3.com. It's good to see that another poor starving artist is helping to fight the big bad MP3 movement. For more info, see the story on Yahoo.
"
I have found one use for MP3's and that is to record all of my music at home to bring into work, so I don't have to worry about losing my originals.
Unfortunately, MP3 is a rather poor media format. When one records tracks with any sort of complexity to the content, for example from Tori Amos, there are obvious digital artifacts and just plain weird stuff.
It is suitable for my purposes. But the idea that people are going to pay to obtain music in this format is ludicrous at best. It's not even the quality of a prerecorded cassette tape, and people have rejected those for years compared to the CD. My assumption in this regard seems to be born out by the fact that MP3.com is losing money, and has not shown any clear revenues to artists.
Again, this is not to say that there is no place for MP3 on the internet. I think it's a wonderful format for the recording artists to provide samples of their CD's. This has influenced a ton of purchases I have made from cdnow.com, which provides mp3 and realaudio samples of some music.
But the basic idea that there is a revolution here with regards to MP3 and the distribution of recorded music is a distortion of facts.
There is no revolution here. While MP3 is an interesting technology, and has it's place... what is constantly brought up by MP3 apologists is plain simple music piracy. It's the exact same thing that we used to do when I was in college with a cassette recorder.
It's not a question of the music industry "just not getting it". They "got it" when we were copying our tapes, and they "get it" today with MP3.
As it sits today the music industry is not a huge profit leader. For any given label, the profits of their top 20 artists help to support the publication of the remaining 1000 or so artists.
Now without further ado, the rebuttals to the weak arguments in support of 'piracy'.
I. There seem to be a number of slashdotters who have some belief that (p1) "information wants to be free". Can anyone clearly articulate why this is true? I have yet to see *ONE* good reason why this is the case. Saying that it p1 is true because information wants to be free is CIRCULAR. I'm sure you know what that means. Its absurd. LAst time I checked information didn't have an opinion on its freedom. OF course new break throughs in information theory that I am ignorant of might have changed this. Please, somone, please do tell me how you have a right to other's work. PLEASE I really want to know the logic behind this.
II. There are a certain number of slashdotters who see mp3s as ok because muscians don't deserve that much money. Who gave this group the right to decide who deserves what? Last time I checked, the majority obviously thinsk they do,l and they do so by deciding with their wallets. Actions speak louder than words. These people are obviously jealous that muscisions do a job they love while they are stuck in some job they hate. That is the only reason I can see for even posting this absurd argument.
III. There is another gruop of /.'ers who believe that the majority of muscisions supports mp3s and want to kill the RIAA. There have no been 2 posts to the contrary, I would really like to see a some real statistical research into the matter. Research that doccuments the income from various (randomly chosen) muscisians, so we can see where their income comes from (these /.ers would have us believe that cd-sales is a minimal sourc eof income, which really sounds absurd from what I know). That is why I think honest research is needed. Some of these /.'ers have changed their opinion now to label muscisans as greedy. How convienant. I don't want some anecdotal evidence from a /. musciain. So don't even think about replying to this comment with that. We all know how valid anecodates are. So unless you are going to point to a study from a reliable source, don't even both replying. Of course the argument can still be refuted, but at the moment, I don't see the point of wasting hte effort until someone meets my requirements.
IV. There is yet another group that justifies music through the fact that they do not have enough money to buy it and thus by stealing they are doing no harm. This is truely an absurd argument and arises from some idiotic notion of 'the man'. By the same reasoning my stealing from Macy's does really no harm, because I don't have the money to buy the clothes, the clothes cost nothing to produce (they are produced with child labor in most cases), and thus no one is harmed. YEA RIGHT!. Stealing is wrong because it is morally wrong. Even small children understand this. I don't understan how slashdotters can't realize this. I'm not going to justify why stealing is wrong here, there are many other sources that can do that far better than I can. This "no one" gets hurt mentality is idiotic. If you don't have to pay, neither does anyone else, and thus no one pays!. Then pepole do get hurt! I can't afford a BMW and I know this rich BMW dealership that could easily afford the loss of one BMW (I'll even 'pay' the costs of the raw materials ~ 5k if that). It doesn't mean I have the right to take it just becaue Im poor. Thats idiotic.
V. There is another group of slashdotters (they could be branded as a subgroup of I) that believe they are entitled to entertainment and thus have the right to download mp3s. Sorry! Please justify this principle of being entitled to others work! Its absurd. Besides that, the principle is psychologically absurd. Anyone whose taken psych 101 knows that. There is only 1 thing humans NEED, that is food. To a lesser extent there is a need to avoid pain and a need for reproduction. But entertainment is not a psychological neccesity. That is BULLSHIT.
I could go on and on, but I believe the aboe summarizes the major /. pro-piracy arguments. All are truely pathetic. Now I'm going to switch topics, because I'm really in an irritated mood, and going to rant on /. in general.
I am seriously getting sick of /. using the word 'geek'. WHAT KIND OF DAMN HYPOCRACY IS THIS? These so called 'geeks' use this word in the same exclusionary way that 'jocks' and 'cool' people use those terms. HYPOCRACY! Come on!. I really want to puke everytime I see this word, as some sort of generalization fo what the audience of /. is. Some sort of stereotype. UGH, please don't make me throw up. I'm a damn individual, not a stereotype. The hypocricay is even more evident when you see the ferveront anger /.ers display to non geeks (e.g. jocks, capatilists, theists, now muscisans, etc. etc. etc.). PLEASE someone save us from the hypocracy. I have been on slashdot since before the corporate buyouts, before moderation (censorship), and before users. This term geek has been used by /. for purely hypocritcial marketing purposes. Back in the day /. ran way mor etechnical articles, it is clear today articles dealign with social problems are by far in dominance. These types of articles promote the disgusting behaviour I mentioned above. These types of articles are in dominance because they bring in more viewers. Can we say hyporcarcy for the billionth time (and NO I CAN'T SPELL, but this is /. so thats ok). *Cough*Sell out*cough*. I have a right to rant, selling out is a cause of indignation. I will rant, it will fall on deaf ears,b ut thats ok, I feel obliged to rant. I'm serverely disgusted.
End of Rant.
Well... you've outright said you're not listening to _me_. I've been playing music for almost 20 years, I've paid money to take music business courses and educated myself about the reality of the situation and devoted some hard thought to what's really going on here but I'm coming out for mp3s so you're going to ignore it by default. I've been talking to an LA producer who likes my stuff and ought to be able to get some people listening to it, and _he_ doesn't bat an eyelash at this sort of thing, yet you strike up a noisy bad stance and expect to be taken as the voice of reason.
If you refuse to listen to my 'anecdotal evidence' even though I'm demonstrably a musician who happens to be a /.er, why on earth should I listen to you? I think you're trying to reduce a new situation to a series of easily defeatable strawmen. In doing so you're attacking MY resources. I really, _really_ don't appreciate your trying to kill off the only form of media that remains entirely within my control...
While this is generally true, that artists tend to have no control over their music after they sign a contract, in this case the article says that McCartney is the principal owner of MPL -- so it's his company that is filing suit.
So yes, in this case, it's fair to blame him.
Sit in limousine #74 and cry in his champagne?
It will be easier to take these anti-mp3 complaints seriously once we hear artists complaining who aren't already insanely rich! We're only hearing complaints from the people at the top of the food chain, who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Some people might toss around the phrase ``information wants to be free'' as some kind of moral statement, but I've always interpreted it more along the lines of ``nature abhors a vaccuum.'' Obviously neither information nor nature have any feelings on the matter; both phrases are anthropomorphisms that describe properties of the world.
Information, by being infinitely duplicable and not tied to a physical object, has the tendency to expand far and wide, just as gasses have a tendency to to fill a container.
It's possible that Maxwell's Demon can keep those pesky molecules in line, and it's possible that information can be tightly controlled and treated as a subject of property just like physical objects can be.
But it's not bloody likely.
In this case it isn't strictly a backup. It's a person making the music that they've purchased available to themselves from any location where they have access to a computer and the net. It's similar to making a cassette copy of a CD to play in your car, something that courts have already ruled legal. In this case you're making a digital copy on the MP3.com server so you can listen to it at work or some other place.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
We should get a bunch of people together and dress up like indians. Then we go dump all the REM CDs in Boston Harbor! That'll teach 'em!
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
(currently testing something about signatures here)
I don't have to prove you wrong, Patrick. I just have to read a history book from the British point of view rather than the relatively biased one put out by the Americans. :-)
No, I don't actually believe that, but a hell of a lot of British "subjects" (and people from Canada and the like) do. Some of them believe stuff that's even more detached from reality, that I won't go into here. My point? That any social phenomenon can be mischaracterized as "a bunch of selfish jerks who want something for nothing;" even the space program. Don't let them get you angry, because then it looks even more like what they're saying is true.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Yes, producing an intellectual or expressive work has a cost. Copyright says that the creator can derive an *unbounded* profit from a *fixed* amount of labor, for only the ongoing tiny cost of making copies. (And that particular cost is not one that is incurred if the users make their own copies; the copyright argument is based only one the cost of creation.)
I have a small ethical problem when someone derives unlimited control and profit for doing a small, fixed amount of work---or worse, having someone else do the work and then claiming ownership of it.
Copyright infringement is merely illegal. It is not unethical. At one point in U.S. history, it was illegal for a slave to run away. That didn't make it immoral. Copyright is the new form of slavery: intellectual slavery.
Copyright has an even lesser ethical basis than slavery, which already has zero. When a slave runs away, it can be argued that there is an economic loss. When an ``unauthorized'' copy is made, there is no loss to the original. The entire economic expenditure is suffered by the ``pirate'', who comes up with the target media and the machinery for reproduction. There is no backward effect to the master copies owned by the creator.
Copyright is not capitalism; it is a government enforced monopoly that was designed to promote science and the arts. Not to line the pockets of greedy culture merchants and giant, rich software companies.
Copyright needs to be reduced to only one or two rights; the attribution right to have your name carried with your creation, and the right not to have your name associated with a twisted version of your work.
These rights are really just common sense; someone who receives a copy of something should be given honest, correct information as to the true origin of that something.
So now the wolves have scented blood and are closing in for the kill; the RIAA and others are suing MP3.com for a service which is admittedly on shaky ground. Some say that if they win they could get billions of dollars in damages.
Could MP3.com be sued into bankrupcy? If so, we could see its assets (the domain name, roster of tracks, &c.) sold off, possibly bought up by (and subsumed into) one of the major music companies. Then we could see the situation of the new MP3.com being at the vanguard of phasing out the insecure MP3 format in favour of SDMI.
Now that would be a coup for the RIAA.
What if there was some way that you could buy the rights to the MP3s of a record?
There is. You buy the record.
You then have the right to possess and listen to tapes dubbed from that record, CDs sampled from that record, MP3s encoded from that record, or whatever other format you think is most convenient.
Well, we wouldn't want the guy to starve, would we?
Some people just need to realize that they have more to fear from becoming irrelevant than they do from MP3. The scary thing for these people is that MP3 speeds up the process.
TOo bad for them, I guess.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
But that really isn't an issue, is it? To use my.mp3.com, you are required to own the original CD - correct?
Sure, you can bypass this system by sharing logins or borrowing CDs - but you can do the exact same thing with a decent tape recorder. It's just another tool that people can abuse or use right. It's up to the person.
This isn't really a distribution method, although technically data is being shuffled around. By 'beaming' your CDs, you are essentially making a copy on a server for later retrieval. You already had the original music distributed to you in the form of a CD - the record company made their cut.
I just don't see the problem. It's almost like you and a friend own the exact same CD, and your friend makes a copy to tape and gives it to you. Now you have a CD and tape copy of the same data - what's the problem? You already payed the licensing rights for that music, no?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Why is that a problem? The only reason I can see a record company caring is that they want the original media to degrade to the point where I have to buy another copy. That hasn't been a problem, really, since CD audio hit the mainstream.
So why is it a problem if I make a digital backup for my own use? Why is it a problem if it lasts forever? If I can keep the original media forever, why shouldn't I keep the backup forever? In the computing world we'd be pissed if we couldn't make long-term backups - why should it be any different in this case? My backups are legal today, they should be just as legal 10 years from now.
Should the recording industry stop people from making CD burners (which many people to make their own mixes)? They make exact duplicates as well.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
What exactly is so questionable? I own a certain number of CDs - I 'beam' them to mp3.com's service, and then listen to them at my leisure. I have purchased a license to listen to the music, not the media - I am perfectly within my rights as a consumer.
This can be abused, sure. So can other types of media. Tape recorders, VCRs, TiVo, your hard-drive, your CD burner, etc. are every bit as 'guilty' as mp3.com's service is.
If the recording industry can do this to mp3.com, they'd _better_ be prepared to tell the consumer to his/her face that he/she cannot purchase a tape recorder.
And yes, they tried that once as well. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
---
I could be wrong, but a service that gives you access to your own songs seems unneccessary.
---
BTW, for some reason, this statement seems incredibly... Odd.
What is so unnecessary about a service that allows you to stream your own personally purchased music from elsewhere? I'd rather not carry my entire CD collection around with me. As long as I'm near _any_ high-speed internet connection, I'm good to go.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Fair enough. I pretty much agree with everything you've said. I personally gain much from the recording artists out there, and would love to see MP3s and successive technologies give more to those artists than the recording companies.
However, I still don't see where this applies to my.mp3.com. Like tape recorders, CD burners, etc. this service has the potential for abuse. With all of these technologies, it is very easy to abuse. Yes, this needs to be looked at. Yes, my.mp3.com should try hard to make this service secure.
But should they be sued? No. At least, not if they're not going to sue manufacturers of CD burners, tape recorders, and so on. My computer is capable of making recordings either from line-input or off of a CD - should the any member of the recording industry sue Apple next (guess what - they've already tried)?
I think the degradation issue is moot - my rights to the music I purchase don't expire in 10 years, and if I find a more viable means to back up my music, I have the right to use it. I think what people are saying is that the recording industry has the right to do whatever they wish to protect their intellectual property, _as long as_ it doesn't stomp on our rights as consumers. Suing a company that comes up with yet another mechanism to listen to your _already owned_ music is just petty.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
If musical recordings becomes fluid, and part of the atmosphere, then it will be as impossible to expect to make money off each copy of a recording as it would be to expect me to pay for everything that my eyes just chance upon: I don't pay architects for every building I see, or artists for every mural I look at. They make their money in advance, as a service.
>Oppressive taxes (stamp taxes, etc)
Yup, we got those, they're called CD prices, among other things.
>Lack of representation in the British parliament.
No customers control the RIAA or the MPAA, just some studio honchos and lawyers.
>Horrible diplomacy on the part of the British
'nuff said
>Heavy-handedness
Did you sleep through all the lawsuits?
So... by your definition it is a revolution indeed.
ICQ#2584116
-- d'arcy poirot
There have been conflicts in the past due to technology. The liner notes on one of my CDs (Duke Ellington at Carnegie Hall) makes a reference to a "strike" by ASCAP members in the 1940s over royalties from radio stations who were members of the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters). This resulted in the creation of BMI. I've never been able to find a good description of the conflict and its resolution.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The institution of Copyright also has costs, for the government and ultimately the citizen. The whole apparatus of copyright registration, investigation and prosecution of criminal copyright cases, courts to hear civil and criminal copyright cases, prison cells for people convicted of criminal infringement, is a substantial cost. If the end result is not a significant benefit to the public, then Copyright should be abolished.
Copyrights, patents and trademarks are not natural rights, although some people would disagree with that, they are legal inventions for the benefit of the public. Licenses and contracts will not be enforced by the courts if the result is judged to be against the public interest. I've seen real estate covenants that say that the property may not be sold to Blacks or Jews. They are a legitimate part of the deed but they will not be enforced by modern courts.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Paul, you'll be happy to know that I do not make use of the MP3.com service you are suing over. I have no need to, having already downloaded most of your songs with gnapster.
Finkployd
Vinyls' "LongPlay" seems more like a blip-vert!Compared to a half-full HDD or CD in MP3 format.
So I've started recording my LPs, and compressing them as 256kbps VBR MP3's so I can ENJOY THEM.
Sorry, I dont re-buy music I own unless the price is right.
I, and the world DIG your music Paul! My parents collected from your first trip over here. I now store the collective familys worth of LP's, 45's, and some tapes.
We have all sorts of Beatles, Wings, and George and Richards stuff, Even those cardboard Beatles head coat-hangers! We all saw Yellow Submarine in a movie theatre. (WAY more color depth on FILM TOO by the way.)
In fact WE PAID hundreds of dollars in these last 4 the DECADES. Those 60's dollars invested are worth some big bucks now, huh. Even your percentage, of the percentage is a lot of money now. Hmmmmm, who GOT most of that money?
Alas, You did'nt get 50% of WHAT WE PAID, DID YOU PAUL!!!? (You CAN NOW. If you sign with MP3.com...)
We dont want to listen to those scratchs and pops. I can only hope you'll save me the trouble of compressing every last LP myself, and sell multi-year sets of you bands music in MP3 format.
It would be a good idea to price it under ten dollars, and you dont need no stinking S.D.M.I. Paul...
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE PAUL!
...now go and make your lawyer quit his job!
If you need money, go with MP3, and you'll GET 50% of it THIS century!
Joe Torre - X - HardwareEngineer @ Amiga Inc & ZapMedia Amiga, AmigaDE, BeOS, Linuxz, QNX, Rebol, Windoze, ZME: So
This has been hashed and rehashed, but there are still two valid sides to this issue. MP3.com doesn't promote or condone piracy. Lots of people use MP3 to pirate, though, and artists are naturally (and rightfully) afraid of losing their works. This doesn't make going after MP3.com any less indefensible, though! If you want to go after pirates, there are plenty of laws against it already. Sue the pirates. It is silly to sue the makers of every device that makes piracy possible-- if we do that, we'd better make sure we get the inventors of pencils, paper, carving tools, paint and canvas, and so forth. Creation and archival tools will always have the side effect of being copying tools as well. Owning them is not a crime. Pirating is.
So Mr. McCartney's company's lawsuit is quite frivolous and misguided, but it *IS* a natural human response trying to protect what he has created. It is so much easier to go after a central source than individual pirates, and until that changes, companies will always go after people in the middle like MP3.com.
If you can think of an agreeable way to fix these types of situations so both sides are happy, do it and get rich. And soon, so I can quit worrying if my right to make backups is going to disappear.
Please don't look at this a 'another artist struggling against MP3's for his hard-earned money'. Paul McCartney is work about $900Million currently, it's not becuase of music he's written. He's invested heavily in other people music catalogs (i.e. Buddy Holly) and makes money from the publishing of and distribution of those songs. To put this even more into the arena of businessman and not artist, he does NOT own the writes to most of the Beatles songs, so music that he's most known for, he doesn't make squat from anymore. (Micheal Jackson owns most of the Beatles music catalog, anothter example of someone who has more of a bussiness then artist interest in MP3's)
So don't view Paul as someone who is defending the inspiration and sweat of the songs he wrote, he's as bad as the MPAA itself, only worried about the money he makes, or might NOT make from lost sales from MP3's
Then again, if I only had $900Million, I'd be worried about making ends meet too..
--knick
As much as I love free music, and Napster, and all the rest, I find it pretty hard to justify MP3.com's (a website that is REALLY trying to gain legitimacy) need for this service.
They provide legal MP3s, it's what they do... there's no reason for them to suddenly start providing access to questionably legal stock, especially without first asking the recording companies. Now, instead of giving access to the music of up-and-coming artists it's going to have to battle in court with the major labels over something that I really don't anybody needs or wants. I could be wrong, but a service that gives you access to your own songs seems unneccessary.
--
RumorsDaily
Basically ASCAP wasn't giving artists royalities from public performances of the artists songs (radioplay etc), and so BMI was made to give the artists those royalities.
I guess it was resolved when ASCAP saw people were moving to BMI and started doing the same.
(NOTE: This is from memory of a Pop Music of the 20th Century course I took 1.5years ago, so is probably wrong)
Paul McCartney is doing NOTHING to MP3.com. A company which owns the rights to much of his music is doing something to MP3.com. Artists may literally sell their songs and figuratively their souls to the record company, but power of attorney as well?
I wonder how much I could have gotten for selling the right to blame things on me to, say, Union Carbide. "We're not dumping PCBs naked into the environment, it's that bastard Phil who's doing it!"
"If it's his property he can do what he wants with it, IMO. (OTOH, I might pay for a lawyer to look through the covenant for some way to sneak around the requirements without violating them"
I hate this crap. Look it's his property but it's not his country. He has to obey the laws of the city, county, state and the country his property is located in. Just because it's your property that does not mean you can rape somebody on it does it?
But judge it's my property and I can do any drug I want to on it! Yea right.
War is necrophilia.
Sure, the users may have to prove they own the music, but does MP3.com have a CD for every MP3 in their database?
Yes, they do. They have actually gone out and purchased every CD that is available for their Beam-It service. They have hired people to rip the CDs, which they do almost 24 hours a day. So you might say that the record companies are actually getting a bonus, since MP3 has to buy the albums, as well as the end-user.
-- "God, Root, what is difference?" - Pitr, "User Friendly"
Oh, come on, it's not a movement, it's a bunch of people who want free music. And no, he's not a poor starving artist, but he's someone who's worked hard and put his stuff out into the world as a privilege, not a right, with the understanding that it's on his terms. He has every right to enforce those terms, as he created it and he didn't have to release it in the first place.
What does "wanting free music" have to do with MP3.com? The only "free music" they have on their site is the stuff that artists are intentionally letting people listen to for free. All the stuff on my.mp3.com you have to prove you own the CD FIRST.
Sure, you could borrow a friend's CD to feed it, but if you could do that, you could make a personal copy almost as easily.
-- "God, Root, what is difference?" - Pitr, "User Friendly"
The American revolution was nothing more then a bunch of freeloaders who didn't want to pay there taxies, after Britain spent hundreds of millions defending the country in the French and Indian war. Please, there was nothing 'movement like' about this revolt
.sig Instructions .sig here
There's a difference between people who think that paying some tarriff is too much for the price of tea, and the people who think that paying ANYTHING for a CD/cassette/8track/LP/(insert your favorite traditional music medium here) is too much.
The people who think that the RIAA and individual recording labels are big, bad and evil for opposing mp3s are just freeloaders, they're not even close to revolutionary. They want something for nothing. They're spoiled, and chances are, they've never actually released a product where they have tried to earn a profit from its sales.
_____________________
step one: place
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The American revolution was nothing more then a bunch of freeloaders who didn't want to pay there taxies, after Britain spent hundreds of millions defending the country in the French and Indian war. Please, there was nothing 'movement like' about this revolt.
I'm not sure if you're actually serious, or just trolling, but I'll risk responding to a troll to reply to this.
Although the motivation not to pay for the French and Indian War was present others factors were involved
In short, I suggest you find a history book and do some reading, as I can't see how you can logically support your conclusion.
Please prove me wrong and post a more complete support of your argument.
Patrick
Hosting for Creators: http://rpg-works.net
Forgive me, but what's the difference?
threadeds blog
"Mp3.com BLATENTLY ignored the copyrights on Mr. McCartney's works,"
If they wanted to blatently ignore the copyrights, why would they check that the user already possesses the album they want to listen to?
"You rob someone, you go to jail. Plain and simple. And don't give me the line about 'I download mp3s to see if I want to buy the album'. The same thing is said about software piracy, which is no less a crime. And it is still false. Do you think all the drunken college kids are going to pay for their 'Limp Bizkit' or 'Jay-Z' albums?"
Yes, but that's not at issue here. Your failure to bother even reading the article is obvious. What is at issue here is using other peoples copies of albums that you already own.
Man.... Will you people please stop seeding the discussion forums?
I'm not saying I agree with Mr. McCartney nor his record studio, but this seems like a case where the record studio may have a chance. MP3.com made a bad move, without even consulting the studios. Sure, the users may have to prove they own the music, but does MP3.com have a CD for every MP3 in their database? MP3.com has been toying with the RIAA, too, adding a mad-lib to the letter that the RIAA sent them (which I must say was hilarious). If this doesn't work for McCartney, I forsee many more lawsuits after MP3.com...
Its like having a huge warez site, with a message at the front saying "You can only download these backups if you own the original software." Why does everyone suddenly change their stance when it becomes music rather than software?
:o)
Surely the record label / publisher / artist is well within their rights to stop mp3.com from distributing their works if there is a strong possibility that an illegal act is occurring? No, Mr McCartney doesn't need the money, nor does his label, but enforcing their legal rights is, if you'll pardon the expression, their right in this society. After all, we all have the right to free speech to criticise them at every turn, don't we?
Game dev and music blog
It is funny how much moral outrage one can pour into this mp3 theft issue. The technology exists. People will copy music. Just like piracy on audio tapes, it will not be prosecuted because it is not feasible to do so. Neither side has a moral vantage point. What the music industry needs is some good old fashioned propaganda ... All they need to do is convince people that only dirty unshaven hax0rs listen to poor quality mp3s ... if you care about audio quality, go buy a delux (insert n adjectives here) CD.
demitraides.
"Elvis Presley aint got no soul. Bo Diddley is rock and roll. You may dig on the Rolling Stones. But they aint come up with that shit on they own." -Mos Def "Rock and Roll"
My god! Where have we gone? We pay our artists more than we pay our doctors or scientists, more than the people who run the country and take care of us... There was a time when only the rich could afford the arts... OOPS, i guess it's not over yet.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
McCartney may or may not be taking an active role in this, but in effect he is hurting me, something I do not appreciate. I have not ever downloaded a _single_ thing off 'My Mp3.com' (their commercial-music mirroring service). I _upload_ to mp3.com (links siggified, knowing that slashdot gets royally sick of hearing the same plea 27 times in a row!) and get over 100 megs of web hosting for my music at no charge, in exchange for giving only _nonexclusive_ rights to 'em. McCartney is looking to take this away from me- though I doubt he's even thought it through.
Part of the reason I even picked mp3.com for this, knowing that they are the focal point for these attacks, is because I want to be in a position to take part in a sort of judo-like attack back at the RIAA and these other attackers. If they manage to harm the _original_ part of mp3.com significantly (I really don't care about My Mp3.com) then they are harming me and a _lot_ of other musician types, many of whom take the music mirroring concept a lot more seriously than I do. Can you say 'class action suit'? I knew you could... If these litigous idiots manage to hurt MY ACCESS to media as an independent artist (christ, I'm not even asking for equal time for promotion, or whatever- it's fine if I just sit there on mp3.com having to fend for myself to get publicity- I'm talking about losing access, about building a web presence that gets harmed through a lawsuit to a _separate_ part of the site!) then I will seriously want to be part of a retaliatory lawsuit.
Go ahead and get them to kill the commercial music mirroring, Paul- I can see the argument that this is important and the wave of the future, but it's clearly also a very daring attempt to redefine the law by acting on what it 'should' mean.
But all this defending of the faith is mostly the protecting of a music machine that built _you_, Paul- they have been selling _your_ music for 30 years and more, and have increasingly little interest in making any new 'product'. And maybe you, personally, have had ENOUGH from that work done 30 years ago. You're trying to still be paid to this day from work you did literally before I was born. Record some new songs if you want new money- I personally have no problem with your insisting that every note is commerce and must be bought and paid for- my problem is when your actions begin to step on my ability to have access to media (I'm thinking of the mp3 format in general here, and the mp3.com site in particular as a 'prime location' due to the domain name and size of it).
I hope this all ends up with My Mp3.com either dead or not- but the mp3.com _I_ use still alive. In some ways the mp3.com guy reminds me of Malcolm McLaren, though I know he's not really that clever. If your band can't get a gig- get them arrested. If the band isn't even popular enough to get arrested- get yourself, the manager, arrested! And so he is.
I just hope it stirs up curiosity about what mp3.com used to be- it's incredibly insulting if mp3.com, with tens of thousands of bands and songs of all different quality levels, is treated as just an illegal pirating website for _industry_ music. Putting that spin on it is _amazingly_ insulting.
You are assuming that popular artists make a lot of money, and less popular artists make a little money, and things like MP3 will take money out of all of their pockets proportionally.
That's wrong.
The reality is that a handful of superstars make a lot of money, and all other artists make exactly nothing.
Small artists stand to benefit from free internet distribution of their music because it will get their music heard, since now they can go around the profit-sucking middlemen in the record labels.
This is not about artists losing money, this is about lawyers losing money.
Paul McCartney is NOT suing MP3.com. Be careful; there's a very big difference between an artist and said artist's label.
You know what's interesting? Many record labels have taken up arms against MP3.com and the like. But I have yet to see a single actual artist take a stance against it. Every artist I've seen who's had anything to say about the matter has been in favor of the format.
Guess it goes to show you who really stands to lose here. The recording companies screwed up big time when it comes to digital music. If they'd gotten in on the ground floor, found real ways to market music online, they would have flown. But they didn't, and technology is simply passing them by as it evolves. I suppose it's kind of sad, to see companies fighting to stay alive, when the only people to blame for their problems are themselves.
The American revolution was nothing more then a bunch of freeloaders who didn't want to pay there taxies, after Britain spent hundreds of millions defending the country in the French and Indian war. Please, there was nothing 'movement like' about this revolt.
Ok, so people want free music without paying for it, and there doing it in mass. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. It's illegal to pirate music, but then most revolutionary ideas are when they go against the fiber of the current entrenched power. Will ultimately harm the music industry? Probably. Will it harm the quality of music? Who knows? Even so, Marxism ended up being detrimental, but you could hardly not call that 'movement'.
In any event, the MP3 'situation' is definitely destabilizing the music industry right now, it is an agent of powerful change, and could have long lasting effects. Despite how you might feel about there motives and objectives, it is a movement.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
And, in turn he owns most of the company. I'm sure he knows whats going on here...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Give me a break. There's nothing "movement-like" about mp3s.
flame(on);
"You say you want a revolution, well, you know.."
Oh dear. Looks like Mr. McCartney is now staring his revolution in the face, and he doesn't like what he sees. Counter-culture hippy turned lawsuit-throwing mogul. Like he's one to talk about "musicians rights"..He doesn't even own his own work anymore! His entire body of work from 1960-1970 is owned by Michael Jackson! Sheesh!
Saying McCartney isn't going after MP3.com is like saying Bill Gates didn't try to undermine Netscape--he just happened to be the one who owned the company! Gimmie a break.
Welcome to the 00's, Mr. McCartney. The cat's already out of the bag, and a hundred lawsuits wont put the cat back in it.
flame(off);
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
...except in Paul's case, it's often not music that he's written. Paul Macartney and Michael Jackson are two of the largest owners of publishing. Paul doesn't even own the Beatles songs - Jackson does. So this is a lot more complex than a poor artist protesting about being ripped off, this is the owner of a business that his done it's fair share of artist-screwing, protesting to preserve the status quo.
The idea that music could be "owned" is a recent concept, probably no older than the Victorian era with sheet music sales. The idea didn't really take hold until the invention of the phonograph, when a few performers could become massively popular.
Two trends have been the result of recorded music:
At one point, every family had at least one musician. Most middle-class homes had a piano; virtually no home was so poor that it didn't have at least one instrument, and someone to play it. But the popularity of heavily promoted popular music has had a devestating effect on home-made music. Too many people see making music as a brass ring - that you make music in hope of making a huge pile of money. The vast majority will not, and forget the main reason to make music - pleasure.
All these carefully orchestrated pleas from carefully chosen artists ignore one fact: the same digital revolution that has made "piracy" possible has made it amazingly cheap to record music. "Project studios" are within the reach of most anyone, and the equipment, including professional quality microphones, has gotten cheaper and cheaper. Recording your own music can now be considered a "hobby".
Cream does rise. Talented artists produce followings, and the internet can enable you to become known outside of your city. But we have been programmed by the recording industry to believe that anyone who plays in only one area is a failure, that success only exists on the country-wide or global scale. But every dollar spent on the massive world-wide tour by the platinium-selling artist is one less that could be spent supporting locally generated music.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
The development of recorded music, which really became an important industry in the mid 40's (even though the first phonographic tubes were credited to Edison's lab in the 1880's, I think) changed the way we understand music in such a dramatic way, it's almost unimaginable to us now. Before that time, the popular music industry consisted of songwriters who would write and sell sheet music: musicians would buy the music and perform locally. Once a musician bought the sheet music, they would pay a royalty for public performance, but home performance was, of course, unlimiited. This practice goes back at least to the 19th century (as did the practice of paying off performers to promote songs.) Musical works in the US were protected by copyright from 1831, The music was preformed locally: that meant that one hit song could provide a modest but real living for a large number of local musicians (remember them?). Radio often consisted of live performances of music, and the same royalty practices would eventually apply to radio. The definition of the recording of a performance as being another performance, and thus something to which the artist had rights, grew out of a series of court cases involving radio and TV broadcast.
With the advent of recorded media - i.e., performances - available as saleable objects, the production of music completely changed. Rather than a large number of local performances and productions, it was much more profitable to resell the same performance over and over again. Thus was born the era of the "pop star;" a musician who would get much, much richer than the composers and songwriters on whom he relied, whose single 'performance' would be renumerated again with each purchase of the media, and again with each public playing of that media. Obviously, most of today's music stars are the beneficiaries of this system: local performance is just an adjunct to the business of creating and distributing media.
This has created a chiaroscuro of winners and losers: for one thing, mediated mass appeal became much more important than before; local musicians often struggled, as did those who relied on serious music audiences (classical and serious music was and is sustained by performance attendance, as well as by public and private grants and academia.) Paul McCartney, obviously, was a Big Winner, as was the whole industry involved in the production and distribution of little pieces of plastic. Some niche musicians were able to distribute their audience much farther than they would have been able to before the development of reel-to-reel, LP's, CD's, etc, so sub-genres of music (folk, punk, goth, trance, industrial, etc.) could thrive, as long as they could find a popular audience - and sometimes a symbiotic relationship with the manufacturers of youth cultures would develop.
The engine of technology is about to exhaust this model, however, and there is no going back. Music is again going to be a service, not a commodity. Some people will thrive in this environment: artists who manage to create live experiences which draw audiences, composers who get grants to create complex works and get them performed, or who have academic careers; musicians who are paid to produce music for games, film, and theatre, and amateur composers and musicians who are motivated by a passion for the music, who then might find themselves with an unexpected audience (ever hear of Daniel Johnston?) The people who will lose are largely those who were winning in the old system. It would be blithe to paint them as spoiled whiners who deserve to suffer now: many of them were talented, creative people whose output might suffer in a post-commodity musical millieu, and some types of music will frankly get less money than before. Also, there will probably be new opportunities for vultures and parasites, for agents and headhunters and plaigarisim lawsuits. But, thanks to the distributed and grassroots aspect of the new technologies, the cat is solidly out of the bag. It's just a matter of how long it will take before enough people are sharing music digitally, that the old industry infrastructure simply collapses.
This is reminiscient of something the RIAA tried to pull about 8 years ago. I used to work in an independent music store and suddenly we got the word from all the big music distributors (Sony, BMG, Uni, Polygram, etc) that they would be pulling ad support for stores that continued to sell used CD's. Their reasoning was bizarre to say the least, claiming that we couldn't resell a CD we bought from a customer because the artist wasn't receiving any royalties. They even lined up Garth Brooks as the industry mouthpiece to say he didn't like it that music stores were profiting from something he created, never mind that he'd already received royalties on that CD once.
Anyone who has ever worked at a music store knows that the profit margins are pretty slim. New product from a company like Sony cost about $9 per and to compete with places like Best Buy we had to resell it around $12. A used CD on the other hand we could buy for around $3.50 and sell for $8.50. Needless to say, we definitely emphasized the used CD part of our business. Eventually NARM (National Association of Music Retailers) got their collective sh*t together and protested and the RIAA eventually dropped it. And poor Garth continued to sell 5 million units every year.
This case will be a little different because NARM will believe they stand to lose as much as the RIAA if mp3's are still distributed. It just sounds like Paul is the designated industry voice in this case, most likely because it will appeal to the people in their 40's and 50's who have more control over what's going on, at least in the legal area.
The whole controversy over mp3's is a smokescreen anyway, just the RIAA wanting control over how music is distributed. The bulk of what you'll find on the Napster is top 40 radio crud that will still sell no matter what. Sure kids'll download a few Britney Spears singles but she isn't going to be missing any of the money. The bands who are really hurting for money, the ones that barely get by anyway, won't miss it either. Bands like that tour and sell T-Shirts. Plus, I've searched the Napster numerous times for bands like Fugazi and I might run across one or two tracks at the most despite the fact that they've sold tens of millions of CD's over the past 15 years. People who like the independent/local bands will continue to buy their product because they want to support them. When the used CD thing happened, I asked a member of a band that was on a major label what he thought and he said to go ahead and buy the used CD because he'll never see any of the money anyway.
Less popular bands are essentially indentured servants to whatever label they are on anyway. The record company might give you a million dollar contract (over 4 or 5 albums, no less) but then they'll want you to make a video and go on tour and guess what, they charge you for that and takeit out of your royalties. Then when it comes time to record your next album, they'll make you pay for the studio time out of your contract as well.
Face it, the RIAA doesn't give a crap about the artist unless the arist is a "radio-friendly unit-shifter" (thanks for the term, Nirvana). They just want to control how the music is distributed.