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Napster, Gnutella, Bans, Lawsuits And More
It's been a busy week for Napster and Gnutella... mbell sent us an MSNBC story on Gnutella which gets a lot of stuff right, but spends more time proclaiming that it's all about kiddie porn to really give the point fair time.
the geek noted a wired bit about a San Diego ISP
banning Napster from their clients: this is because it's a "Server", not because it's controversial software tho, but it's at least nice to know your ISP is watching what you do. The thing that bothers me most is that accounts were threatened even tho they weren't exceeding bandwidth quotas. Seems harsh.
And finally
NeoMage pointed out that the once amazing (face it, Kill 'm All and Master of Puppets are amazing albums) Metallica has become the first 'big name' band to
sue Napster for copyright violations against the artists' music.
Metallica suing, Twisted Sister getting moral (re: John Rocker). What is this world coming to?
CigarBuff.
In what way were they original themselves? I smell the bitter stench of hypocrisy!
Rock and ROLLLLLLLL dood!
I don't agree with the policy itself, but to be fair.. the ISP in question, cox@home, did have a clause in their policy about servers not being allowed. @home in the Netherlands has this policy too...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
this has worked for me everywhere:
ssh to unix host in napster friendly network
tunnel socks thru ssh
tell napster you have socks5 on localhost
you might need to use a DNS server other than your ISP's too.
voila! instant policy subversion.
You mean "San Diago, Culifarnia, SUA", right? I hate it when the slashdot authors post the cities but not the state or country.
It's like you fools think everyone just automagically knows where "San Diago" is.
Metallica suing over (illegal) distribution of their music via the internet is...somewhat ironic. After all, Metallica first became known on the heavy metal scene due to the passing around and duplication of their tapes at concerts, clubs, etc.
pooptruck
The anonymity Gnutella provides may unfortunately promote such behavior, but the good outweighs the bad, he said: "The whole decentralized aspect of it ... There's no censorship at all. [emphasis added]
Hm, I wonder what the government and big businesses think about *that*. They can no longer keep us from viewing the things that they don't think we should look at... and they can't really track us down very easily if they find us viewing such "contraband"...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I felt the need to express my outrage at the whole sad Metallica situation myself. Sad, really.
Is it just me or does Napster have a EULA that states that you can not download or distribute ilegaly obtained mp3s? So, how is Metalica et all able to sue Napster?
.. when I read about Metallica suing Napster on that screen in the elevator before I read about it on Slashdot. /. beaten to the punch by an elevator. What's the world coming to? OT- anybody else have these advertising^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hnews screens in the elevators in your building? Ours is run by some firm called Captive. That's too cute.
How long before the cable ISP part of AOL/Time-Warner decides that napster, and any other file transfer software, is an illegal server. How convenient for the rest of AOL/Time-Warner, such as Warner Records.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I bought every Metallica cd, the box set ($90!), the DVD's, etc.
:~(
I will *NEVER* buy another Metallica item ever again. This is my protest against a band that are a bunch of sell outs
Fuck Metallica, Fuck RIAA, Fuck DMCA, Fuck MPAA, etc etc.
We must all join together in this if we are to get the benefits.
--
CodeRed, the lower user #. No relation to SirCam.
change from something people did furtively on IRC, to an absolute right of the people to have whatever they want, whenever they want? I guess when programs like Napster make it possible for any clueless newbie on cable or University ethernet to serve up mp3s to the masses, it becomes acceptable?
Seriously, just because it's easy to steal, doesn't make it right--at least have the decency to hide what you're doing, people. The quote from Lars comparing these people to looters was quite appropriate.
I haven't used Napster myself, but everyone I know who uses Napster uses it to trade illegal mp3s. I imagine the reason the San Diego ISP banned Napster users is not just the bandwidth issue, but that they don't want to be held liable for the illegal activity that takes place. Also, the users may not have been going over their bandwidth limit, but think of all the bandwidth they would save if they weren't shuffling mp3s back and forth over the network. The one thing I see happening is the unhappy people switching ISPs to one that will allow them to use Napster, which will affect this ISP's bottom line.
I figured it only would be a short amount of time before a band (that has money) came out and sued Napster. After all, the trading mp3s is affecting how much in royalties they get. The no-name bands don't really mind so much because it gets their name out there so they can sell concert tickets and band paraphenelia, but the bands that already have a name don't need the publicity.
I know one of my friends said that he can definitely tell the difference between the sound that mp3s and CDs, and he only listens to mp3s on his crappy computer speakers (I have a computer hooked up to my stereo), and buys the CDs to listen with his Bose speakers. I mostly just rip my CDs into mp3s so I have a tracklist of 800+ songs and don't have to switch CDs. I like having the CD on hand to listen to in the car.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Considering that Metallica is the only artist/group for whom I have found every song from any album I have searched for on Napster, this isn't that surprising.
At least most other artists' songs that are on there are singles/MTV hits so there is still incentive to go get the CD.
With all the strange laws and weird judgements getting passed (ISPs being liable for content in Germany & Britain) I hope Metallica doesn't win this case due to some fancy lawyer work and a sympathetic judge.
Also, does anyone know how Napster pays for all their lawyers? I still cannot figure out exactly what the company's revenue stream is, if you do, please satisfy my curiousity.
It seems pretty clear that censorship has done much more harm over the hears than porn. Killing censorship at the cost of enabling porn -- which never goes away anyhow -- is a good tradeoff. As for Metallica: ha! Who are they kidding? This will alienate whatever fan base they have left. Prediction: they'll be off the map within 6 months.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
The suit says students who use Napster "exhibit the moral fiber of common looters."
How much more of a generalization could you make? This is like saying "everyone who owns a crowbar is breaking into someones house every night". There *ARE* people who use Napster for legit reasons. There *IS* a lot of stuff on Napster that you can't FIND anywhere else, because Napster is the only place it's distributed. There are plenty of uses for Napster, trading copyrighted songs is just one of them.
(and before all you yell at me, I *KNOW* the majority of people on Napster use it for "illegit" purposes, but there *ARE* people who don't)
-- Dr. Eldarion --
If all the Napster freaks that cry, "but... but... I only use Napster for music from artists that allow this" actually so what they say, I'd expect to see a positive response to Metallica's suit.
Look everybody, finally it's not "the man" going after music pirates. At last, a group with the power -- and the balls -- to do stand up and something about this. Kudos to Metallica.
When you think about it, anything that opens a port for receiving on your PC is a server, right?
So, things like ICQ and Instant Messanger are servers - they should be banned by ISPs. Oh wait, that's different isn't it?
While we're at it, let's ban windows, because people might have file sharing turned on by accident - thus being a server - oh wait, they tend to turn a blind eye to that.
Well, they definitely shouldn't be playing internet playable games that open a port - oh hold on, they'll lose a bunch of customers that way. Can't do that.
I know, why don't we just pick and choose what defines the term server, as we see fit, when we see fit. That'll suit the ISPs just fine.
BlackNova Traders
... that ISP's are geared for users who download, with all the caching and all, and not upload.
Napster and GNUtella really use up ALL the bandwidth, and the ISP is suddenly faced with a overload in bandwidth. Suddenly they are forced to make good on their bandwidth promoises.
Just a thought.
I really don't understand why everyone is so upset about this. My opinion of MP3s aside, Metallica is being stolen from, thanks to Napster. And while I do think they're going after the wrong people, the carrier instead of the people doing the sharing, they have every right to do what they are doing. The money they make playing music, and selling recordings of that music, is their livelihood. And while they, and some other big name bands, could probably make a living just touring and selling merchandise, a lot of smaller bands can't.
The way I see it, there are two extremes here: the MP3 fanatics, who seem to want all music freely available, damn the artists, and the record labels, who want to be able to charge a fee every time you listen to something. In the first scenario, the artist gets screwed, in the second, the consumer does. There has to be a happy middle someplace.
Silly signature limit . . .
"Many users are unaware that Napster is a server," said Cox Cable representative Art Reynolds in an email. "It enables users to share files between computers directly which is in direct violation of the @Home acceptable use policy."
I can't share files? Does this mean I can't share data?!? Isn't that exactly the service they're trying to sell here? Hello?!?
http://kered.org
Are ISPs going to ban the use of a users OS choice?
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
Metallica doesn't own the record label. Fingers move faster than brain. My bad.
Suuuure it's because they are servers, yea right!
Does this mean FTP has to be passive mode too?
And what about X servers? (Which is used as a client?) And how about ident daemons? Those ISP's have no problem accessing OUR ident.d servers!
-Laugh-
This is all just an excuse to prevent 'future possible lawsuits' from happening.
Chew on this...
I rarely post, but I feel the need to do so now. I am a user of Cox@Home. They have really bad standards, as you can see. They don't let you run servers, which I understand, but technically if you follow their rules: You can't get on EFNet irc! Take a look at this motd on irc.home.com (yes, I realize there are other servers... but this is their own):
"**** We will be banning non-identd users effective 11/11/99 ****"
Is identd not a server? I know thats kinda stretching it, but they have all these weird rules. I am a user, who had read the agreement when I signed up, and I didn't learn until today that I had a 500mb upload a day limit! I Knew I had a 256kbit/s upload limit, but nothing like that. It's very odd, but I wish we had multiple cable companies here. *sigh* Pretty soon I'll wish I was back on my old 28.8 because freedom is very important.
@Home, the internet Gestapo...
Anonymous Coward
Oh, and if you are a Cox@Home user and want to block their scans. Download BlackIce Defender, and then block these 2 IP addresses:
24.0.94.130 (authorized-scan.security.home.net)
24.0.16.94 (lump.eos.home.net)
In a press release announcing the suit, publicists for the band and music companies even threw in a statement from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who said it is "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
Ahhh, yes the only way to enjoy art is to pay for it. Guess the idea of public art, street preformers, public art houses, and art accessability projects are bunk. Thanks for pointing this out Lars, otherwise I would have never have known that art is to be bought, and not enjoyed.
(mind you: I don't consider Metallica art, and I don't think the piracy of music is right. But making assine statements like Lars did deserive EVERYONES mocking laughter)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Censorship is when the government(the only real censor) denies you the opportunity to hear or see something. You are free to listen to Metallica without government intervention.
It's strange to see the music industry, long known for its "liberalism" when it comes to social issues, trying to stand in the gap when people try to end run them. It becomes surreal when the music industry applauds groups like "Rage Against the Machine" who may end up raging against the music machine. I guess anarchy is fine until they kick in YOUR window.
It is fun to watch. I wonder how many kids go to Confession and say "Forgive me Father, I downloaded a bunch of DCTalk MP3s".
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
This is in no way, shape, or form "ironic". A no-name band passing around copies of their own work to try to get some publicity is not the same as other people passing around a band's music without their permission. Give me a break.
http://gnutella.wego.com/
- Warning NOT to use v0.56 (due to "major problem which is causing the network to slow down massively"
- Promises to new Win32 and Unix versions soon.
- Source-Code is coming up RSN!
It's all there!
To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. ---Euripides
The guy wrote every tab himself from listening to the music.
Its not like writing tabs hurts cd sales, or even Music Book sales, as i have bought them all just for the proper music notation. (Tabs cannot properly express the music in its fullest).Ok, this is offtopic now, but....
Anyone running Linux/*BSD on cable, and still has telnet and ftp (etc.) still running AND on standard ports, needs to have his/her head examined.
As a project for my unix systems programming class, my partner and I are developing a system like GNUtella, but a litte more complicated and much more powerful. It is very difficult to block (eventually client/sever firewalling will not be enough) and promotes local sharing over remote sharing. It makes extensive use of local network broadcasts and rather than connecting hosts, it connects networks. The only real problem is that it can't do automatic network discovery (because that will open a can of spoofing worms WAY more than already exists). The specs (as much as I have written) are available on my website.
As a few of you very astute /.'ers might have noticed, I posted this a few times before, I'm hoping that someone slightly more knowledgable than I will come along and offer me some feedback! :)
How pompous, and what a reversal to what they used to be all about.
Read the article. Little Larsypoo talks about how his music is being traded like a commodity rather than being respected as *cough* art.
what? Metallica died after ...And justice for all 'nuff said
I see this statement a lot on Slashdot, and it's incorrect! People may feel they have a right to make money off of their work, but there exists no inherent right which should be upheld. There is a difference if someone asks you to do work, and you agree, or if you spontaneously produce something. There is nothing that says that people should suddenly pay for what you have produced. If this was not true, then unemployment would not exist, because people could make up some interesting assignments for themselves, and then force other people to pay them for it.
I personally have been using cox@home for about 5 or 6 months. They impose a limit of 3 ip's per household (maybe i'm crazy, but i sure as hell have 6 full systems set up that all want their network time). They will not offer us anymore IPs unless we switch to cox@work ....hmm...$900 install fee and about 300 a month...NO. I could however then setup my firewall (they discouraged it when i spoke to them over the phone and saw no use for it, but some tracing proved otherwise IMHO).
Ok, so they don't want us using napster or gnutella any longer, the isp almost got banned from Usenet, and thanks to all the spammers on @home, its next to impossible to find an IRC server that will let you on.
Soon we'll not be allowed to use AIM or ICQ due to network restrictions since we can't share files.
Anyone know a good cable ISP in the VA area that WILL let me use server software and such?
I'm gonna get moderated down for being harsh, but oh well.
It's a program that sends files over a network to any computer who simply sends a request. ICQ doesn't work like that. Apache and Napster do. The user doesn't have control (any more than a web server) over what gets sent - if it's in the directory that's available, Napster will send it when it is requested to do so. Period.
And the banning windows thing...hm. Not only does the ISP have nothing to do with that (Network Neighborhood doesn't exactly do anything with a 56k modem), but any method of file sharing is only available from the local network, not anyone with a net connection, as Napster and any web server are.
Not to flame or anything, but your sarcasm and completely reactionary outcry were totally unncessary. Before crying that the ISP is using arbitrary rules for what defines a server, why don't you try to find out what actually defines a server? I'm not claiming to know much about what a server is, but the definition I just kinda made up makes a lot more sense than anything you said.
I think the ISP has every right to ban Napster on the basis that it's a server. And there are no arbitrary definitions for differentiation.
Don't ask a question (illustrating your ignorance of the answer) then answer it in an arbitrary way.
~~~~~~~
I was with you on most of what you said, until this part. I just can't agree with on this statement. Let's take your list one at a time..
1) instructions on how to buy/make drugs
This information is already widely available on the internet as well as in libraries.
2) race hate manifestos
Again, this information is already widely available on the internet, libraries, flyers hanging in the supermarkets or on light posts or just about anywhere else.
3) terrorist propaganda
Yet Again, this information is already widely available.
4) anti-Christian diatribes
This one, I'm not sure I understand. Not everyone on the internet is Christian. In fact, not everyone on the internet believes in any sort of religion. So this argument is just not valid.
None of these things will cause any more damage then they have in the past. It's time people wake and up and realize that not everyone in the world believes the same thing as everyone else. The sooner people realize this, the sooner we can all get on with living our lives.
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
You have to think these guys are looking at Axel Rose now and thinking that could be them one day. Even Ozzie is starting to look like Grandpa Munster. I heard David Cassidy was going to cover "Sandman". It's over guys. Take what you can get at this point.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
The buzzing sound you hear is the sound of thousands of pedophiles worldwide saying to themselves, "Hey, I gotta get this Gnutella thing! Thanks, MSNBC!"
I confess : i haven't played with either Napster or Gnutella. Mostly because of lack of time, still I haven't used them
So what am I doing here in the first you might ask.
I'm not going to try to explain why the companies are so pissed about it. It's pretty much obvious and I think that one way ore another they won't succeed. It also happens that I think they are stupidly unsatiable. And this is what is going to bring them down.
I won't even comment what Metallica did : after all they aren't what they used to be (I liked them, I still do but not that much) - no flames please.
So, if I ignore all these things, my post will be offtopic, right ?
Well, perhaps : but I have something else to say that could be somewhat related. What is Gnutella anyway, but a distributed filesystem ? Ok, with some restrictions (you are not allowed to modify the file on the remote computer). Right now, it is very difficult to implement robust filesystems (and the existing ones have their flaws).
What if we could use the code of gnutella, napster etc. to create a robust NFS, that could insure data persistency in the same way gnutella does (quote from their site : f, say, New York was hit by Dr. Evil, GnutellaNet probably wouldn't even notice. So you lose your "Gnutella friends" in New York. Big deal. It's unlikely that New York is the only place where people share the recipe for strawberry-rhubarb pie. )
Think about it. A toy could become something really important.
Am I the only one that thinks Kill 'Em All isn't such a great album? With a few exceptions (e.g., Whiplash), it's really not up to much. Now Ride The Lightning, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
What surprised me is they're going to sue a couple colleges too, which means sueing ISPs can't be far behind, because in this case that is all the college is providing to the students.
And if you want a Unix-clone and can't find it on gnutella.wego.com, then you download gnotella as a tar.gz from here, or search on this php-form.
-- "Tradition is the illusion of permanence."
But they left out the fact that casette tapes are, at their core, a simple way of trading songs, including pirated copyrighted material, without requiring traders to communicate with any central location. Oh, and VCR tapes are, at their core, a simple way of trading TV shows and movies, including pirated copyrighted material, without requiring people to communicate with any central authority. And let's not forget floppy disks and CDs, which are, at their core, a simple way of trading files and programs, including pirated copyrighted material, without requiring any communication with a central location.
Am I being clear enough?
--Phil (And only recently did I finally see an actual jar of Nutella.)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
Has anyone here actually used it regularly? I've tried. You're lucky to see ~2000 hosts (which breaks often if someone leaves), and even when it lists that many hosts, searches are painfully slow and frequently broken. It doesn't hold a candle to napster as is. This recursive method may sound very interesting, in that you can theoretically put hundreds of thousands hosts together without centralization, but this also creates major problems with message propogation. Assuming you could even hold together a network of 20k users, and each of those users creates only creates 10 bytes a second (e.g., searches, etc), that means that in order for all of those users to have access to the rest of the network, each user would average about 200kilobytes/second, easily more than most users can afford. Even the original developer of gnutella didn't think it would scale past, what was it, 100 users (i forget exactly, but it wasn't terribly impressive). Add to this DoS programs and jerks, and you can kiss a smoothly working "network" goodbye.
Furthermore, I think the anonymity argument is sort of laughable. It is no more anonymous than napster if we assume that napster.com does not leak information, the file transfers are still host to host. RIAA, MPAA, etc. can still come after you. Nor will this thing, as a smoothly working network, manage to avoid network admins (assuming it doesn't fall under its own weight before then) forever. They might not be able to merely firewall a port or a host, but there is more than one way to skin a cat...
I have some respect for the author, but this thing is hardly going to change the world. I don't believe decentralization like this will ever become smooth enough and easy enough to use that most users (as opposed to "geeks", and those who make a point out of trying to pirate) will find it economical to pirate their stuff off the net. RIAA, MPAA, and all the interests they represent are here to stay, gnutella and its cousins won't even cause them to stumble.
Here is what I thought was the real kicker:
from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who said it is "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
Personally, I view 'commodity' as a type of goods exchanged for money. People on Napster are getting it free, right?
I cannot imagine that people would download the music for its value as a commodity. If I were to download it (no point, I have the CDs) it would be solely because I consider their music very moving pieces of art. Its the closest I can come to that feeling of seeing them live, in concert.
As far as I can guess, the only people making money (significant $$$) are Metallica, their label, and Ticketmaster. Unless someone can point to me that someone unauthorized is making a lot of money off of this (reducing "potential sales" doesn't count).
To Lars, James, Kirk, & Jason:
These "looters" are not commodity dealers...they're fans. Fans view your music as art. Some of the best sh*t out there! It won't ever be a commodity unless you sell out. When the line gets drawn in the sand, like it is now, we expect you to stand with us because you claim to be "just lucky fans who go up on stage and perform."
The day you alienate yourselves from your fans is the day Metallica dies. Simple as that.
Ok, sorry about the ranting...just not something I like see so early in the morning. Having your favorite band annouce to the whole world, "Hey! We've truly sold out and we support Da Man!" is not something that puts you in a good mood.
-Vel the Darkelord
Thank you.
//Frisco
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Alta-Vista quoteth:
DUH??? Hello? Anybody home?
What is that dope complaining about? People PIRATING their music, or record companies TRADING his "ART"????
Hey, dumbo, why don't you go to Wall-Marde, I hear they have a special on clues until Friday!!!!
--
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Of course, the early Megadeth (esp. Peace Sells) was the best.
I just returned from the supermarket with a few bottles of Evian spring water. Taking a long, cool chug of this refreshing beverage reminded me of the ongoing controversy about Napster and the spread of MP3 music online.
Back before the internet, music was a scarce commodity. Sure, you could walk over to your friend's house and tape his Floyd album, but for the most part, the supply of music was limited by the number of records, cassettes, and CD's a distributor could produce and send out to the world. The law of supply and demand ensured that each piece of music in existance would have some quantifiable worth.
Along comes the PC and the Internet. All of a sudden, humanity has a tool capable of making exact duplicates of artwork, documents and computer programs, and another tool capable of transmitting this informaton to anyone in the world. Limited only by the speed of light and the sophistication of their storage equipment, anyone could take a piece of scientific or artistic work and generate an infinite supply of it. Elementary economics, where the worth of a good is inversely proportional to its supply, still applies in the digital world. As a result of a near infinite supply, digital media now has close to zero worth, and record and film companies are slowly beginning to realize this. "The music and movie industry is doomed!" these huge corporate conglomerates shout, "With all these pirates stealing our music, artists no longer have incentive to produce!"
Why do I buy bottled water? Water is a resource of infinite supply in most of the industrialized world--it comes out of the tap in my kitchen! Yet, I don't predict the bottlers will go out of business any time soon. The water I get for free from my kitchen sink is so full of chemicals and impurities that I am willing to pay for the luxury of clean water. But by offering water that is fresh and clean, the companies that produce bottled water give extra value to an inherently worthless product.
To put to rest another tired argument, think about this: Am I stealing from bottling companies if I decide to use tap water to wash my dishes? Am I a water pirate? Of course not! The suggestion that I am stealing by making use of an infinite resource, whether it be tap water or the digital version of the Backstreet Boys' latest single, is absurd.
To all you starving artists out there, I am sorry to say it but the digital cat is out of the bag--you're going to have to learn to live with it. Give your customers some motivation to pay for your product, or find a new job--that is, after all, how business works. You need to first decide whether your art is Evian or tap water, before you decide whether or not it's worth selling.
________________________________
People may feel they have a right to make money off of their work, but there exists no inherent right which should be upheld.
No, we live in a capitalist society and this is one of the basic premises of this system. To work without the guarantee of being rewarded for it is functionally equivalent to slavery, no matter how it is dressed up. As such, by taking away the livelihoods of artists with such tools as Napster et al. you are doing the equivalent of forcing these artists into slavery.
If this was not true, then unemployment would not exist, because people could make up some interesting assignments for themselves, and then force other people to pay them for it.
Did I say that? No, what I said is that when someone produces something for which they have entered into a voluntary agreement with the consumer (i.e. you "agree" to buy album and pay the artist in return) then they have the right to make money from that. You can't just make up this agreement - it must be between two consenting parties.
I feel for the artists in many cases, I really do; I mean, I'm a musician too. And I understand that the crux of their argument is that if people appreciate their art, musicians should rightfully be compensated for their efforts. But in my own situation, Metallica isn't asking me to pay for the art, they're asking me to pay for the *media*. Does this change things? Hmm. All I know is that I don't feel so bad; I used to have a closet full of Metallica t-shirts, and I even bought two copies of "Puppets" back in the day because my tape player ate the first one. I think they've gotten enough money from me.
-brennan
Perhaps Cox@home would like to be extra nasty to all these Linux users, and ban the use of X servers...
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
BTW. A note to Metallica: Leave Napster alone, I have better things to do with my bandwidth.
Munky_v2
"Warning: You are logged into reality as root..."
Jay
Oh wonderful, now you're even trying to subvert the legitimate desire of an employer that his time and bandwidth be used for business purposes rather than trading child porn and mp3z? I think you might want to rethink this: what possible legitimate application could there be for a program that subverts firewalls. Ex hypothesi, if you're being blocked by a firewall, you're working on someone else's computer, and doing something with it that they don't want you to do.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I see a time when they will be used to distribute material that should not be allowed to propagate due to its dangerous nature (...) anti-Christian diatribes
Coming from Voltaire's country, I can just laugh at you. Sad little god fearing censor-happy monkey. Get a life. Jesus is a fraud.
I think he was also one of the heroes who stood alongside the great genious Frank Zappa, and testified before congress, when the Mothers Against The Arts (MATA a.k.a. PMRC) were trying to regulate music content.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Someone mentioned that the lawsuit filed by Metallica would be going after Napster, and anyone who downloaded any of their music (time for me to microwave some CD-Rs). Does this seem like scare tactics to anyone? How in the name of God is Metallica going to:
Prove that the users that initiated downloads of their music are still in possesion of the files? Are they going to seize every computer that has downloaded a Metallica song via Napster? Not friggin' likely.
And on the assumption that Metallica did somehow manage to win this lawsuit, how are they going to collect damages/punish people? Dock my tax return? Round us up and stick us in "re-education camps"? Again, not friggin' likely.
What this is going to boil down to, in all likelihood, is that either Metallica will win, and everyone will be slapped lightly on the wrist, and Napster will be shut down. Or, what's more likely, is that Metallica will lose the lawsuit, and start pressuring the ISPs, which will ban Napster for fear of having the crap sued out of them.
All in all, what is likely, is a mass-migration to Gnutella. Why? There are certain ports that ISPs are unlikely to ban -- FTP, Telnet, POP, WWW, Quake 2, Starcraft, etc. -- which would cripple their services. My understanding of Gnutella is that it uses the same protocol as WWW, and can be configured to run on any port. (I should code up a Mac port of it, now that I think about it.) How the hell can you stop that? If you're running a Gnutella servient (hybrid server-client), on the WWW port, it's going to look just like web traffic. No web = no Internet, at least as far as the everyday consumer is concerned.
Furthermore, with all the various methods for tunnelling through firewalls, etc., it begins to look more and more likely that distributed storage and distribution is going to continue unabated.
The corporatocracy under the guise of the "law" can metaphorically blow up as many bridges as it wants to -- we can keep building new ones.
blog |
Doesn't ICQ have a mini-web server that allows you to serve minimal HTML and graphics? Imagine if someone pulled this stunt on all the ICQ users on their network, you can just hear them screaming class-action from here.
As far as napster/gnutella, I think people are kidding themselves if they think these tools are not primarily delivery tools for illegal software and copyrighted audio. Sure, there are people using these tools in a legit way, but the majority of the people using them are not.
Should they be banned? I'm not sure, but I do know that burying our heads in the sand in regards to what people are REALLY using these tools for is ridiculous.
Think of it this way, sure, Back Orifice can be used as a great admin tool, but for the most part it's being used by people who want to commit illegal acts (i.e. 0wn1ng j00r b4wx). Will people piss and moan when their ISP blocks port 37337? Doubt it because it's not stopping their ability to pirate software and music.
I try to raise my son in a decent, God-fearing way
Moronic parenting. So you teach your child to fear God? Why not instead teach him to trust God, or love God? Even though I'm Atheist, that sounds so much better. And then, taking a next step, what's bothering you so much about your child being exposed to alternative views? And what kind of books are you going to disallow him to read? Voltaires'? Sades'? Nietsches'? What else?
change from something people did furtively on IRC, to an absolute right of the people to have whatever they want, whenever they want? I guess when programs like Napster make it possible for any clueless newbie on cable or University ethernet to serve up mp3s to the masses, it becomes acceptable?
I think that the biggest problem with piracy a tthe moment is that it's stopped being this thing that only a few select people do to a massive social occurance. Piracy groups have been around for at least two decades (probably longer) but never before have more than a handful of people even known of their existence. C'mon, did anyone here, before they used a computer, know that there were organized international groups who's main activity was the release distribution of software as soon as it comes out?
The internet has definately increased tenfold (if not more) the ammount of piracy in America and Western Europe. Before, people were restricted to copying a cassette or video from a friend, or a friend of a friend - it was usually no more than 2 degrees of separation. Now, with our incredibly far reaching distributed network bootleggers from Tiwan are finding clients in the USA. Professionally produced pirated CDs and movies are finding their way into smalltown America, not just the big cities (where they've been for years).
People's greed coupled with the internet is causing artist to lose control of their work. Just look at how a bootleg copy of Nas' album in '99 was stolen and distributed online. The artist was forced to re-record an entire album (which was worse than the bootleg) causing paying fans to lose out because of the delay.
The truth is this. Most people still get their music by buying CDs or MCs just as most people watch movies by renting DVDs or video tapes. Internet piracy is hurting those people and the artist they support by causing the people who buy legaly to pay more and the artist to get less. I'm all for changing the system, using the internet for distribution, bla bla bla but right now hard working artist are losing out because of piracy and that's the bottom line.
Jay
-- polish ccs mirror
Doesn't ICQ respond to file requests if you let it?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
It is a fact that people in this world believe different things than you or I. We can all sit on our high horses and scream how wrong they are and they will suffer from their beliefs. Yet, I am afraid that is not a wise choice. What I suggest is believe what you want to and let believe what I want to. I may disagree with you and you with me, but so what? I'm not out their to try and change everybody to my way of thinking. Even if I could do that, I wouldn't, for the simple fact that the world become boring. There would no room for discussion on anything. No new view points would come about. You may be happy with this sort of thing, but not I.
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
Sorta like when you share a drive in Windows?
And the banning windows thing...hm. Not only does the ISP have nothing to do with that (Network Neighborhood doesn't exactly do anything with a 56k modem)
Oh, but Napster does? I fail to see the difference...
but any method of file sharing is only available from the local network, not anyone with a net connection, as Napster and any web server are.
Depends on your ISP - if they don't block the ports, your drive sure as hell is available to anyone with a net connection. Remember the whole Quake coder / GPL violator thing? Some guy just walked right onto his desktop, got the code, then trashed his system.
I think the ISP has every right to ban Napster on the basis that it's a server.
I agree with you there - if you knew up front that your ISP banned servers, well - there you go. Of course you could still use it in client mode, and not share any files...
And there are no arbitrary definitions for differentiation.
Ah, but I think there are. ISPs should not be able to say "no servers" and then pick and choose which programs to crack down on. They need better definitions if they're gonna write this stuff into contracts. "Server" to me means a program which sends information to a remote host that requests it. By that definition, ping is illegal, and so is mIRC (identd), and file and printer sharing under windows sure as hell is...
Well, anyway... whatever. I'm just glad I have a real ISP that trusts me with an IP, charges me for the bandwidth that I use, and stays out of my way.
---
Thank You.
//Frisco
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
l. operate a Web, http, FTP, email, chat, nntp, game, Gateway or proxy server from home;
m. use a VPN (virtual private network) or VPN tunneling protocol;
This means Napster and Gnutella folks!If you fall for their high-speeed access schtick and sign up, does that make you a COX-sucker?
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
"We can establish laws forcing the media to be unbiased, with stiff fines for every act of leftist propaganda they commit."
What about rightist propaganda? You did say 'unbiased'.
---------------
Fire Your Boss!
I can't believe you people! When did music piracy go from something done late at night on IRC and ICQ or by passing CD-Rs around at an underground party, to a god-given constitutional right?!??
This is not censorship, this is not about how Metallica has sold out to The Man, it's about a bunch of annoying little \/\/4R3Z d00dZ and their inablility to either stay within the law or stay out of sight. The sooner Napster dies, the better; all napster does is make theft accessable to the terminally lame, and give the government(s) more reason to monitor and control the internet.
If you want to fight the good fight for rights online, try to pick a fight that doesn't involve somebody's right to be a thief. (the DMCA, openDVD, and UTICTA spring to mind)
0 1 - just my two bits
Interesting nick, but an imprecise argument. Since it is THEIR creative work, they are not obligated to release it for free. They may, if they choose, release it under completely insane terms ranging from the wildly generous (artists pay "customers" to distribute CDs at no purchase cost) to extreme (to buy one of their CDs, you basically have to take out a second mortgage). Metallica chose to sell their music. That's their decision. There is no "right" for them to profit, because their is no obligation for anybody else to receive the music and pay for it. However, there is no right for anybody else to accept the music *without* paying, except under terms that Metallica has agreed do. You are only obligated to pay if you obtain the recording, so if nobody wants it, they aren't entitled to a profit.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
Thank you.
//Frisco
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Metallica's response doesn't surprise me in the least. They sold out a _long_ time ago. Honestly, just about everything they've done in the past 8 years sickens me to no end, especially considering they were once the poster boys of the underground, anti-establishment movement.
Fuck it all and fucking no regrets. Long live Napster and Gnutella.
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
I had thought that most ISP's were safe against being sued for things sent over thier network because they were considered a common carrier.
But if you ban one thing (like hosts), and even worse, ban only particular subsets of possible hosts, doesn't that mean you are no longer a common carrier, and therefore liable for network content? I always wondered about this for ISP's that have a no server rule.
It seems like you either monitor nothing, or everything...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
not that I know or care in this particular case if these 2 albums were amazing or not. it's about the way of saying it that I'm complaining.
'Been caught stealing...
once, when I was five....
I enjoy stealing. It's as simple as that. It's just a simple fact.'
A better band than Metallica will ever be.
Thank you.
//Frisco
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
[christ, I never have points when I need 'em]
you're right on...the poster above doesn't seem to realize that different groups can distribute their are in different ways. if you're going against the wishes of a group that's against piracy...well, that's that.
-lev
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
Enter Napster -
Snag a file little one
don't forget, my son
to download every one
Download sin, download Fins
Download just for grins
Till the lawsuit comes
Browse with one eye open
Gripping your lawyer tight
Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
Off to Napster lawsuit land
Something's wrong, I just might
Lose some moolah tonight
'Cause you're downloading sound bites
Dreams of power, dreams of ire
Dreams of songs on a wire
And of our Grammies past
Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your 'rm *' tight
Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
Off to Napster lawsuit land
Now I lay me down to sleep
Pray the Lord my songs to keep
If they're downloaded before I wake
Pray the Lord my cut to take
Hush little Napster, don't send a byte
And don't issue a disk write
If you can kill with a hand saw
Then shouldn't they be against the law
Exit light
Enter night
Old hair-band
Exit light
Enter night
Freedom banned
We're off to Napster lawsuit land
Well lemme tell me one thing, it's lacking in Europe as well, and even more so. Get a clue. As for blaspheming, I do it all the time. And I reserve my right to do it.
Yeah, but that's more of a peer-to-peer connection that is negotiated on the fly, isn't it? I would think a server is a service that listens to a known port and allows anonymous connections from clients and sends requested data. I know there may be problems with this 'definition' but it makes sense in my mind.
.mp3, right? I have MediaoneExpress and I'm subject to the server ban. I've never been hassled about http, ftp or quake services I've run over my connection. I don't have gigs of pr0n, warez or .mp3 that I'm making available, but I have a 10 Mb limit on my personal web space, so I use http and ftp to supplement when I have video clips or other non-sense that I want to link from my pages at prople.ce.mediaone.net I fire up a dedicated Q3A server once in a while when the regulars I play with can't find a decent server on the net. We play on my box for a while than I shut it off (yes, I have a tremendous advantage so I play with machinegun only and drop to 25% handicap).
servers:
http - listens on 80 and responds to requests for html pages and related content
ftp - listens on 21 and responds for requests for files
quake dedicated - listens on port 27960 and permits connections for multiplayer games hosted on a dedicated server.
clients:
navigator - connets to http servers
CuteFTP - connects to ftp servers
quake game - connects to dedicated game servers
ICQ - connects to other ICQ clients for direct communication
and then which is napster? It listens to a known port and responds to client requests for
I've never heard a peep out of Mediaone about this. We don't have a upstream cap, either. M1 seems to have adequately planned for bandwidth. The server clause in the subscription agreement seems to be there to fall back on if someone really creates a problem.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I disagree. What part of a musical composition is not a creation ? The original purpose of IP was to protect the rights of someone to control property that has no physical component. Music is an obvious example in that the artist has, usually, put a lot of effort into developing the sequence of notes, chords, sounds and lyrics that come together in a pleasing fashion. I would say that if someone has put that effort into it then they have a right to sell it to people just as if they had built a house. They don't, however, have a right to force someone to buy it just as that person doesn;t have a right to simply take it away from them.
If someone managed to duplicate the exact same arangement of notes, chords etc without any reference to the original work then they should also have a right to it but I fail to see why anyone should have a right to it simpl because it is easily copyable and has no physical component - thats like saying that everyone has the talent to generate every piece of music ever created ..
Anyway, I'm beginning to ramble - I forget if I had a point
J
I am not a Frog. I am a Free Womble!
The music industry applauds "Rage Against The Machine" because they improve their profits. The band's social message is simply a tool to brand and market them -- just like Britney Spears' bellybutton, Shania Twain's cleavage, or N'Synch's pretty-boy looks.
Rage Against The Machine is a calculated effort to appeal to a particular demographic -- frustrated, aggressive adolescent males. Despite their Marxist message, their CDs, concerts, and T-shirts cost at least as much as everyone else's. They measure CD sales just as much as everyone else. If you set up a website to give away MP3s of their music, their record company would sue you like everyone else.
It's marketing. Don't believe the hype.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
It's all about the various "me"'s around here, apparently. Why don't you all just let the musicians decide how to distribute their music? Ooooh, I know. Because they won't do it for free. Yes, musicians get screwed by labels. But the general mentality around here is that since labels are screwing the artists, so should the consumers. What great fans you are.
Who's it going to take to stand up and say Napster isn't all that good for the artists for anyone to listen? First the Labels stood up and said it. Then the RIAA said it. Now the artists are coming forward and saying it. No one's listening. However small amount it is, the artists do get paid by the labels for each CD they sell. Napster fans would rather believe that they make no money and instead that money comes from touring and t-shirt sales... No. Once a band is reasonably large, but not huge, tours are loss leaders to generate more record sales... Small bands make money on shows, as do huge ones, but for the ones stuck firmly in the middle, it's just not the case.
I really don't think that Napster helps unknown bands get coverage... How? One can't do a search for a band they haven't heard of. Nor can one search for a song they haven't heard of. They can only search for things they already know exist.
Let me be straight here. I think MP3's are a great way for consumers to do things like store their music collection on their own, personal, hard drives at work and other places. But I think they're aweful from the standpoint of the musician... They've already decided how they want to distribute their music. They also decided they'ed like to try to make some money from it. That's why they signed up with a label in the first place.
I'm glad metallica's doing this... I only wish that more and more bands would stand up for THEIR RIGHTS, which Napster fans are currently trampelling on.
>Of course their music's a commodity.
No it isn't. Gold is a commodity. Water is a commodity. RAM is a commodity.
A commodity means that it is INTERCHANGEABLE no matter where it originates from (company or location).
So Gold/Water/RAM is effectivly the same and interchangeable if it originates from Russia, the USA or Japan.
A group's music is not a commodity because it is not interchangeable. Metallica's music is different from the BackStreets Boys.
The fact that you can buy it from alot of places means nothing. Microsoft's software is not a commodity but I can buy it in any software store.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Have you actually ever logged into Napster?
If yes, can you now tell me with a straight face that it is NOT used primarily (like 99.9999%) for the purpose of illegally trading copyright material? Are you the same people that would then have a shit-fit if any company stepped outside of the boundaries of using GPL software? Yeah, I thought so.
Sheesh
Until a couple of years ago I loved these guys. I still hang on to their albums, and get all warm and fuzzy when someone bothers to play them on the radio, but this is really sad. Ulrich must be having trouble on the down payment for his fourth Spanish Villa. Market woes drag him down. So he goes for his fans to get the cash flowing back in. Fuck him. Fuck them all. I've had the black album from the day it came out, but now, I want to watch it burn. I want all of these albums to roast. I want a whole bonfire of metallica albums, big enough to see from L.A.
... . . .
Metallica can't possible suffer from this kind of attention. They can only get stronger. The only ones Metallica screws are its fans, if there are any left. Screw you, you glam rock alternative pansies. There's fifty bands lined up to take your spot, and it's about time they do.
...
... it'll set a fascinating precedent:
Napster is as much responsible for music piracy as Memorex are (for selling magnetic media).
Perhaps we'll see Metallica suing Sony for selling blank minidiscs next?
--
Why are bands and artists who have only produced junk in the last few years always the first to sue? Paul McCartney and Metallica both haven't released anything worthwhile in years, yet they call for bans. They should hope that someone still listens to their stuff, not try to prohibit it. Desperate old fools.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
--Colbey
I've just been reading through that msnbc news article - this piece of journalalism is crap. Its only designed to do one thing and that is to scare the reader into thinking that this program is evil.
All it takes is to try and associate the words "child porn" and is designed to live of your fears. From reading this article I would think that this tool is going to be used to distibute child pornography and other such stuff - what bollocks. I bet less than 0.001% of material tranferred using this program will be of this sort of material.
I am getting really tired of bad scare tactics journalism. It only encourgages ignorance and unfounded fear, two trates that we could highly do without.
And anyway the technology to copy material from one place to another without having to go through a central server has long existed before this came out.
The music industry became possible because of technology, and now technology is bringing about its end.
I'm not crying. Music will continue. It may go back to being performed by people who love their art, so you may end up having a whole lot more variety. Some agents and ad execs may have to find other work. Live concerts may flourish.
I'm not crying for their industry.
Imagine if pub and coffee house owners had forced the record and radio industries to never develop in the first place. . .
Thank you.
//Frisco
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Another problem ISPs face is the fact that all of their bandwidth is oversold. For each X bandwidth they have, they have sold out 6X bandwidth to customers. The ratio of 6x is generally accepted as the safe amount. Some go higher, some go lower. But, they couldn't make any money if they had to get a full T1 coming in for every one that they sold. Basically, not everyone is using the full amount all the time. People just browsing use very little bandwidth, and that bandwidth is only when they hit a new page.
So, when something like Napster comes along and suddenly the clients are using incredible amounts of bandwidth, they have to do something to stop it. Otherwise, they'd have to provide 1:1 bandwidth, and there would be no profit in that.
A more reasonable way to stop this is to prevent incoming traffic from initiating communication on the Napster port. This is very simple. On Cisco, you can use the 'established' flag on access lists. I don't know about other platforms. Basically, the ISP customers would be allowed to initiate Napster communication, but incoming traffic cannot initiate. This works by not allowing incoming 'SYN' packets.
Now, I'm not sure whether Napster works over TCP or UDP. With UDP, it becomes more tricky. I'd assume you'd have to use bandwidth quotas for that type of traffic. This can be controlled directionally and on a per port basis. Give the client enough bandwidth to send out 'ACK's, but not enough to actually send out MP3s.
How is this flamebait? Metallica still is a good band. S&M kicks ass and James Hetfield has the best voice in hard rock/metal. Someone mark this as underrated please.
My other
Yeah, I did it, finally replied to the idiots who write. The piece about gnutella was just so wrong I couldn't stand it. Here it is for your review. I don't recommend anyone respond in kind. I was pissed.
/DO/ know what that is, right? I doubt it since you're so ready to point out that something cannot be censored. I'd suggest hopping onto gnutella and doing a search on "constitution". If that doesn't work, try some of the search engines. However, I'm sure the big, bad internet scares you so go to the Library and look it up!
I read all of two paragraphs of your disgusting story before wanting to run to the nearest latrine and puke. It is a DISGRAGE to the industry of reporting that your story (as in fantasy) got any consideration for print at all! Kiddie porn trading, oh that will get the readers. But let's not let the facts get in the way. In less than 24 hours it was posted on a web site and "reverse engineered." Glaring flaw #1. It was distributed under the GPL which means the source was included. No need for reverse engineering at all.
Let's continue the read, shall we?
Ooo, here's a good one. A 15-minute session with a "security expert" named... Redone! Red 1, get it? You know, most respectable security experts I know don't hide behind some pseudonym. That's only in Hollywood.
Wow, no way to censor it. This from someone in an industry that is given protection by the First Amendment. You
Continuing on we see a claim that the strings "groupsex", "porn movies", "young naked", "pre teen" and "teen sex" are "almost as common as searches for pirated music."
What, was that because you got onto a private network with your "expert" and he typed them in and then logged off? The times I've been on gnutella I've not seen those strings. EVER. Not once. Not once in 15 minutes. Not once in 150 minutes. NOT EVER. If it were, as you claimed, so rife with people looking for kiddie porn then clearly a casual glance, much less the broader scrutiny of a curious geek, would see something that was "almost as common as searches for pirated music."
Only near the end, after more hype, fear, uncertainty and doubt is planted firmly in the reader's mind do you even come CLOSE to giving a balanced story. Only after you have gotten all of the copy-selling evil out of the way do you tack on, as an afterthought, the good points of the technology.
You call yourself a journalist? Disgusting.
-- Grey d'Miyu, not just another pretty color.
"The Bible is Truth, because it says so in the Bible"
Now how's that for an oxymoron?
---------------
Fire Your Boss!
oh dear me! i knew after the black album that metallica was on the way down, and by the time "Load" came around, i could no longer call myself a metallica fan, but this!
FUCKING SELLOUTS!!!!!! FUCK BOB ROCK, CAUSE IT'S ALL HIS FAULT!!!!!!
i pine and weep for the carefree, riley days of Cliff Burton, RIP.
>To put to rest another tired argument, think about this: Am I stealing from bottling companies if I decide to use tap water to wash my dishes?
Nope, because you have a legal right to the water. Either you have paid for the water in the pipes through taxes or paid at the store for the bottled water.
>Am I a water pirate? Of course not!
Thats because you have paid for both of them. You would be a water pirate if you illegally hooked up a pipe to the cities water supply or walked out of the store with the bottled water.
>The suggestion that I am stealing by making use of an infinite resource,
Its not that you are using a resource, its that its illegal. There are a large number of stores which have lax security, shouldn't I make use of this infinite resource?
> whether it be tap water or the digital version of the Backstreet Boys' latest single, is absurd.
When did you pay for the single? If you asked the record companies and anyone who worked on the single if you were stealing, what would the say?
This is NOT a strong argument and I have no idea why this was moderated up. Crappy moderaters, don't just count the number of lines in an article, read it!
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
The Metallica item only provides further evidence for my theory that any time a rock band releases an album featuring accompaniment by a symphony orchestra, it is a sure sign that they have run out of actual ideas and vitality and are just in it to prod the cash cow along for another couple of years.
To me, Metallica's actions only demonstrate exactly how boring and corporate they have become. We need more outspoken musicians like Chuck D to come forward and say that Napster is GOOD because it provides free PR and exposure, and makes life difficult for has-beens and no-talent musicians who would rather grow fat on royalties than work (and create) for a living like the rest of us.
I'd like to see artists start putting stickers on CD covers reading "Yes! It Works With Napster!"
(For what it's worth, I was a Metallica fan from way back -- I have most everything up until "And Justice For All" on vinyl. I started to lose interest when they entered their adult contemporary metal phase, and it's all been downhill since then as far as I'm concerned).
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Now tell me, do you trust Big Company X to do what is best for you? Do you trust that the government is benevolent? The old adage, "Knowledge is power," is likely even more true now. If we don't set up a system guaranteeing our ability to communicate without hinderance or control, we will end up intellectually bound by others. I personally am not willing to quietly allow someone else control what I know, what I can know, and what I can say.
A brief look at history will show that when someone is given power over others without some kind of accountability, it is only a matter of time before they abuse that power. It may be premature, but at this point I am willing to put my foot down now and say, "No, you will not get that power over me."
I have no doubt that GNUtella, FreeNet, and Antioch will be used to carry some of the most disgusting and heinous media known to man, and there is nothing I'd like more than to find the person responsible for such data and break every bone in his body, but I am not willing to sacrifice my own freedoms for that cause.
Look at the way that governments and corporations have raped the populus when given the chance. From the monarchies and churches of the middle ages to the massive industrial giants today, they have all had power over the commoners, and abused it countless times. I believe it is better for a few individuals to abuse their rights rather than have thousands of individuals be abused by their lack of.
You can make the choice for yourself, but I've made mine.
Like I said in there, let the musicians decide how they their music is distributed. Support the ones who have values you like. Chuck D's that way. Quite a few other artists release their music on the internet.
But when someone steps forward and says they don't want something done to their work, abide by their wishes. Otherwise, why can't I just go over your house and take whatever I'd like? I mean, i want it, so isn't my right to have what i want? No, it isn't, when what i want is someone else's. Then you have to ask permission to borrow it, or buy whatever they're interested in selling to you.
It's all about people retaining control over their works... Kinda like the oh-so valuable GPL which is talked about all around here... Yes, it equates to free software... But the developers make a consciounscious decision to GPL their work... I don't see any GPL advocates distributing Photoshop, Windows 2000, or any other copyrighted software under the guise that "software should be free", unless they're just warez kids. Imagine the backlash that would happen here if companies started distributing Linux w/o source? That backlash has happened somewhere else, because in this case it's many of the Napster users that are ignoring the artists rights
Sorry, the above post is not correct.
The simplest definition for a server is:
"A server is something that responds to a client's requests." Calling something a server only makes sense when you are using something like a "client/server" metaphor. A "file server" is a specific kind of server which might behave in the way you describe.
In any case, it is certainly correct to say that any computer on the internet is a server of some fashion. The TCP/IP uses a peer to peer metaphor in which each peer could be described as a server and a client at the same time.
Saying a server is a something that will send a file to any computer that simply requests it does not capture what a server is.
The previous definition does not work because it is possible to make a server which does not send files but sends something else.. it could be messages, it could be signals, it could be absolutely anything.
Saying something is a server because it makes no distinction between "anyone" and a limited a set of computers also makes no sense. It is a simple matter to construct a server which only sends messages to a limited set of locations.
--
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
You really expect us to equate infringing on the rights of IP creators, to protesting against the governments limitations on the use of crypto?
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who said it is "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
uhmm.. HELLO? have you been to sam goody lately? your albums are 17$! people get mp3s because they LIKE LISTENING TO MUSIC. there is no other reason. it's the music industry who treats your art like a commodity.
<3x, kevin
I agree with your major points, but I find your example of "bottled water" an interesting one.
Are you _really_ paying for "cleaner" water, or are you paying for the _perception_ that the water is cleaner? Most municipal water supplies are treated before they are piped out, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that your tap water and your Evian are equally clean.
I know when I buy bottled water, it's usually for convience - it's already cold, it's portable, it doesn't spill, I'm thirsty NOW, dammit, and I can't find a public water fountain - not because I think it's somehow superior in quality.
Which indeed serves only to strengthen your argument and analogy. Water bottlers sell conveniance, not product. Same with record companies.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I guess the only country you'd be happy in would be a place like Afghanistan. They are true god fearers. Also, FYI, there is nothing new to this phenomenon in Europe. During the French revolution for instance, churches were transformed into "Temple of Reason", and the churches' belongings seized and given back to the state.
And BTW it's interesting to notice how courageous you are by posting as an AC.
ok this is maybe an utopia but I 've been thinking about a way to pay artists and keep nusic free in the last few weeks.There must be a legal way to make this happen... for instance, if there were a web site with commercial mp3s to download, it could live with advertising and give the ads money to the most downloaded artists? so artists would be paid, users would download all day for free and most of all, music companies would be useless. the problem is that it would maybe be difficult for a web site to survive while giving all (or part of) the money earned with advertising, but if that kind of thing happened I would be pleased to be part of it and help it for free. (sorry for my english)
This topic of napster is driving me up a wall. What napster provides is esentially a search of links to files on other individuals computers, which in and of itself is completely legal. They do primarily the same thing that mp3.lycos.com or a quick multimedia search for MP3's at AltaVista would do as well. Now it may provide an easier way of doing this by making much of the process transparent, but it is in no way different. Why not sue these other companies for providing links to the information? Because linking is LEGAL . And once Napster proves to the courts that they are not hosting any copywritten material on their servers, they have simply a database that is similar to the ones above, the RIAA and the other ignorant bands may get it through their thick skulls that they can't get companies like napster for this.
Thank you.
//Frisco
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
begin sarcasm() {
Well, I heard about this new Gnutella and just HAD to try it out. Afterall, I read this in the article on MSNBC and ZDNET. Here is what I read.
1)According to the article, Gnutella is this incredible tool that you can download at wego.gnutella.com. They talk about how its virtually ANONYMOUS and cannot be stopped. They ALSO said that it was FREE. Man, I gotta try this out. I followed the link and VOILA, there it was and it ran just by d-clicking on it! (talk about 'User Friendly'. I barely even know how to turn a computer ON!)
2) I read on ZDNET that the 'Mighty Met' (Metallica) is SUING this program called Napster because you can get their songs w/o paying them. Since Gnutella is supposed to be better than Napster (ie. according to the article, its anonymous and unstoppable), I will try it out. I searched for 'Metallica' and voila (again), I see about 5000 Metallica songs. HEY! METALLICA IS RIGHT! I WOULD SUE TOO!! (tee hee)
Subpoint a) btw.. as a side note, Southwestern Bell (www.swbell.com) is offering FREE DSL installation and equipment for only 40 dollars a month! They said that it will get 'audio' and 'video' 100 times faster. Boy I could use that!
anyway...
3) I click on 'Metallica - Fade to Black.mp3' and I got it at 50K/Sec! That rocks!
So, now I am sitting back, listening to Metallica as I ponder this whole situation...
I wonder if Madonna should sue also! Lets find out....
end sarcasm(); }
Mutliply the crap above by 1,000,000. You sure can learn a lot from the media.
++Om
P.S. Save the programming corrections and suggestions for this post. Please.. in the name of all that is Holy.
I use Napster to download songs that I don't own. It's stealing. Do I care? Not really. Record companies make enough money that I don't feel guilty about it.
Does that make it right? No, not at all.
If the record companies want to prevent piracy, it's up to them to make it harder. As long as it's easy, I'm gonna do it.
HOWEVER, if piracy ever got bad enough that artists could no longer afford to produce music, I would stop. I don't think that's gonna happen, though. As someone said in an earlier post, way more people have the equipment to copy a CD to a casssette tape than have the equipment to make/listen to MP3s, and yet, more CDs were sold last year than ever. If cassette tapes haven't killed the music industry, MP3s never will, either.
My point is, steal while you can, because one way or the other, Napster is gonna go away. Something else will pick up the slack, but it will never be as easy to download MP3s as it is right now.
a couple things
San Mateo, Calif.-based Napster already is the target of a suit by the Recording Industry Association of America, which claims that Napster violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a new law that bars devices that could be used to circumvent copyrights.
Don't you love laws that place ridiculous limits on what the market wants. Or tell it what it wants. The DMCA (at least major parts of it) is baad, baad I tell you.
And then our friend Lars. (who I mean no personal affront to, and am basing this opinion on the story.) Sorry man, you can't have it both ways. (and actually reading it again he may have been taken out of context, it says "publicists for the band and music companies even threw in a statement from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich."[possibly while stoned, I'm looking at you Cypress Hill])
the quote
Lars Ulrich, who said it is "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
and then followed it up with.
"From a business standpoint, this is about piracy -- aka taking something that doesn't belong to you -- and that is morally and legally wrong."
From an art standpoint, this is about art, using and appreciating something that someone created to reflect an interesting aspect of life, sharing an infinite resource with your fellow travelers.
You're either a businessman or an artist, but never the 'twain shall meet. (in a purely definitive senses)
--
+&x
But since you seem unwilling to stake your name to your claims, you are discounted in my impressionable, leftist dominated mind. But that porn site I stumbled across earlier, that is etched in my mind forever...
sometimes napster doesn't like some free socks servers; in this case, use the socks5 wrapper you can get at nec or something similar.
Rip[ing off the loyalties of these so-called artists is obviously illegal, but what this highlights is something very different, if Napster can do this for free, why should you pay over the odds for the same product, has metallica or any other band thought of giving Mp3 versions of their album for a much lesser price, let them sue, do i really wanna pay $10 or whatever so that some dumb-ass can buy himself another merc, get high on cocaine or whatever, what they need is a **reality-check**, just remember when people had to pay for browsers, yet people who want to are quite happy to pay for the goods, it's illegal so what, were ripping off artists of their hard earned royalties, yet right, most of them haven't done a hard day labour in their life, the market is changing, the problem is they rather throw money at it than face it, but believe me it won't be that long before the whole music industry changes, and if they take napster down, another one will crop up.
-I can only program my video,ahh, I am not a gook, but a joook -The World is a theatre of the absurd
These systems are not anonymous havens for paedophiles. The data packets are unencrypted, and the protocol is (for Gnutella) HTTP. A request for a file is sent in plain text with the name of that file. Anyone serving/receiving child pornography using these tools is not anonymous, their packets can be sniffed anywhere along the line. But those who want to control the flow of information always bring child porn into the euation. They know it elicits near-universal horror, on the back of which they can get more power than they would otherwise have got. One day we'll have strong encryption on all IP. It would have been nice if it weren't that way, but it's the control freaks, the censors and the capitalists who have made it happen, not a few sad old pervs.
Please. What a load of crap. Free press means letting the press be free, i.e., not forcing it to do anything. That means allowing anyone to publish anything, regardles of who they are, or what they are saying.
You don't really seem to understand the word "free" in this context. It means free as in uninhibited.
Lars, aren't music sales and promotion already commoditizing your art?
BH
Fools! They laughed at me at the Sorbonne...!
I'm a god-fearing Atheist. I don't belive in the Judeo-Christian god, but I'm scared he does in fact exist.
And a paranoid luddite? You seem to have a lot going on for you. I pity your children. BTW, ever read Voltaire? Or even just heard about him? That'd be a good start for you if you're really interested in seeing the truth.
Oh, hell, where is the "+1 Ironic" choice for moderators?
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
This is like, the seventh article mentioning Gnutella specifically in the last two months.
Can somebody please explain to me why this product is so different and so much more important than all the other napster clients available, especially considering its the source code isn't very accessible?
http://www.talknerdy.org
The phrase "sell out" as used in the context you're not familiar with is to migrate from a music format that is considered 'hardcore' (aka: non-mainstream) to a format that appeals to the more general populace.
/. off of a Win2K box. After all, they're running on the platform they want to run it on, how could that be construed as selling out?
Jason once said, "Yeah, we're sellouts. Every night, at every concert."
The difference is mixture of the crowd that shows up now. The concert I went to in Minneapolis just recently was not what I'd consider up to par with their previous gigs. Sure, it was sold out and they really catered to the crowd which are good things. But I partly went to the concert knowing that I'd feel, for one night, that I'd fit in. Be amongst kindred spirits. I was shocked to find out that I was actually a minority and felt slightly uncomfortable in the midst of the '90210' crowd.
Its kind of like having CT & Hemos announce that they have the personal integrity and desire to run
-Vel
Check out gnutella.wego.com for details.
(I've haven't tried the old version yet, so I don't know if it will help or not.)
Mike
Just goes to show that when you have lots of money, live in nice houses and drive nice cars, you forget all about your roots. One of the main reasons Metallica became big, was through the distribution of bootleg tapes and videos, they seem to have forgetten about all this. Anyway Fuck Em' All, maybe this is all hype for their next album Re-Re-Load with The Unforgiven III.
Oh, come down out of your ivory tower. Metallica has as much right to sue Napster for copyright infringement as the guy who's suing the english ISP for a less than flattering posting. None. Zilch. Zip. Napster isn't doing anything except allowing people to share files. By your logic, Metallica should also be suing MS because, hey I could setup a global share and share all my mp3's, right? But that isn't MS's fault is it? It's my fault. Let me say that again. MY fault. A philosophy of personal responsibility that escapes most people these days. It's always someone elses fault. Maybe their record sales suck because the band sucks. But no, it must be Napster's fault. What a freakin' joke. I hope they lose badly, loudly, publicly and in complete humiliation.
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have" - Thomas Jeffeson
I just thought I'd post a link to a neat little article I wrote on how to set up an Offsite Napster Gateway... Pretty simple technique (yes I know there are other ways to do this)
Check it out here.
Dave
I think one of the great things about Napster is that it has spawned a new (or at least underexploited) way of thinking about networking and a whole new set of tools that deemphasize centralization. The cat's out of the bag. Gnutella, which should be far and away more resistant to lawsuits since it lacks a central authority/server/choke point, is, I think, going to end up being an absolute nightmare for authorities trying to keep track of who's giving what to whom and when and how (gotta track those taxes!) since it can be easily set up and taken down without anyone being the wiser. Works for me.
A server is a program that sits and waits for requests.
This could be something like Apache, where the request looks like
Or something like ICQ where the request looks like Or even something like the X Window System where the request looks likeA restriction on "servers" by an ISP is a restriction on what programs you can run on your computer. Agreeing to such a thing is just moronic.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
If Napster wanted to reduce it's accountability for it's users actions, it should go through more verification steps to be sure that users are who they say they are. After their ID has been trully verified, they could then make up whatever handle they'ed like to use. If for some reason or another, a user is suspected of trading in pirated songs, then that user could be physically tracked down and forced to show that they have the right to possess said songs.
Much as i don't like BeamIt, mainly because it does tend to grind my network to a halt, at least it attempts to verify which songs users should have access to.
Since Napsters network is based entirely on trading MP3's (at least until Wrapster gets integrated into the Napster clients), Napster should either be more forceful in stating and enforcing copyright laws, or simply cease and desist the running of their servers. Mp3.com figured out a way to verify user's rights to given songs... Napster should too. Otherwise they should stop. It's just not fair to the artists.
That's a great question! We should go ask AOL why they have a button in AOL Instant Messenger that essentially says
If the record companies really wanted to try to
put a dent into napster, et al, I wonder why they don't just start polluting the datastream?
You download a file ostensibly containing Metallica's "Seek and Destroy", and you get instead a lecture on the evils of piracy.
Put enough noise out there and it will be too annoying for most people to use. Why hasn't this happened already, is what I'm wondering.
Bang the head that doesn't bang!
FLASH: Once legendary heavy-metal band Metallica officially announced yesterday that they were discontinuing their focus on music and will instead focus exclusively on being shills to the almighty dollar. "This really started when we did that Bob Segar cover," band member Lars Ulrich said. "But we figured that for us to continue to rake in the dough, we really need to focus. I mean, that song sucked, didn't it? But those idiots bought it, and the stations played it, and we still made a shitload of money. But making original music is just too difficult for the band these days. So the music is out."
Executives at Columbia House were ecstatic over the news, proclaliming that, according to their official press release, "this is a validation of all we have been doing to the consumers over the past thirty-odd years. Money, not music, is what this business is about. BUSINESS. Repeat: BUSINESS. Money over music, yes sir, that's what rock and roll is all about." The press release went on to explain how exactly their corporate strategy would lead to the eventual domination of the world, in preparation for the aliens.
Legendary songwriter and former Beatles front-man John Lennon came down from heaven to personally vent his frustration. "Y'know, there was a time when music was meant to spread a message of love and skepticism of prevailing views. Now, with these so-called rock bands like Metallica tossing lawsuits around I rue the future of our musical heritage. Oh, and I miss you Yoko! Hurry up and die!"
Some random pundit exclaimed in reaction to the situation: "This is just another example of the breakdown of the moral fiber of America. What about the children?" When asked to elaborate he burst into flames.
(C) 2000 The Associated Press
- Rev
All these lawsuit geared toward software manufacturers really makes me wonder if audio cassette manufacturers were ever sued. I mean, they basically do the same exact thing that napster does. It allowed people to take sound from their radio and record it onto tape.
Sure, the method was prehistoric in comparison with today's technology, but isn't the concept just the same?
How about the dual cassette player? What was it's ONLY purpose? To listen to dual tapes simultaneously? I think not..
Get a clue people and catch up to technology or else you'll get left behind.
NPR's All Things Considered show ran a story yesterday concerning a lawsuit by some retailers over Sony selling their artist's CD's directly via the Web. The interesting part for this discussion was the mention that Sony and BMG have plans to begin offering an online service to pay for downloads of music. The audio feeds for the story are here: 14.4, or 28.8 and up.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
When are teh "Artist" gonna pull their head outta their collective asses and realize that they are loosing millons to the companys that are trying to "protect" them. I can not believe in this time of technological capacity that most of them don't just tell the Recording Industry to FU*# OFF!!!!!
If I was writing music for the masses, I would do just that. If it became a commodity, that would be sweet. That would mean I was popular. I could make a ton of money from playing live and selling my "junk" to my fans. And people that really wanted to Get my songs could pay me directly instead of going through this idiotic middleman system we have now. Were an artisit gets a miniscule amount of what the actual product costs.
The real victems here are the artist, but the perpitrator is not the consumer, but the Record
Industry, and it's death grip on all things loaud and musical.
Woooaaaaaa! I thought you said you were a female?!?!?! Sorry I ain't into that!!!!
In the end, they're your children, and nobody is going to raid your house and steal them away because of how you propose to deal with this issue. Most likely, this conflict will not be resolved through talking like this. If you explain yourself and the other person is not swayed, get on with your life.
Except, of course, for the trolls, for whom resolution isn't even a goal.
Ahhh, yes the only way to enjoy art is to pay for it. Guess the idea of public art, street preformers, public art houses, and art accessability projects are bunk. Thanks for pointing this out Lars, otherwise I would have never have known that art is to be bought, and not enjoyed
Excellent point. Till now, performing art has enjoyed the special distinction of being an unending source of revenue for the artist, or at least, the artist's contract-holders. While non-performing artists have generally been rewarded with lump-sum payments for their work from collectors, museums, etc, deriving only a small part of their income from licensing of prints, photographic reproductions and so on.
I don't see that the fine arts world is any the worse for this, and we certainly don't seem to be short of artists. Should we now admit that what is happening is a fundamental, unstoppable, change in the way the business of music is done?
As a musician myself, I don't see that these changes are bad. What is really being torn down is the system of manufacturing stars - entirely a creation of the music industry. If there is an endless supply of bands just as talented as metallica, and believe me, there is, then what you'll see is the recording industry no longer being able to control the vast bulk of the supply of music by limiting the number of newly minted stars. What's going to happen? Obviously, once the chokehold on supply is broken, prices will fall. That's exactly what's happening, although in all the confusion, it's sometimes hard to see that.
What we're really seeing here is the beginning of a real flowering of art for art's sake, in much the same way as the current exponential growth of code hacking for code hacking's sake. It's not necessary to drive a Benz to be a functioning member of society as a musician. There are still many ways to be paid for the work, and to be paid well for great work, but one of them - the one that supports the recording industry's monopoly on talent and supply - is coming to an end.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
But the most glaring point for me was the idea that art can only be obtained with money. Rather stupid.
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Yeah, I actually know the lawyer who sued Judas Priest on a first-name basis.
Supposedly there were "subliminal messages" on the album that our brains could decode despite the fact that they were backwards.
For example, one of the court exhibits was a five-second clip of music played backwards: it sounded like "goggit gooooogy" which, according to the prosecution, was clearly "commit suicide"
This kind of lawsuit, though, doesn't really have anything to do with Napster or copyrights. In fact, it doesn't really have anything to do with anything.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Anyway, the reason Creed is so cool is that you can actually download some of their tabs from their site. Check it out here. Of course, that's not the only reason they're so cool, but it's definitely a start. I don't know their stance on MP3, but they've got Liquid Audio up on their site so perhaps they'd be more open to it than Metallica (who, at this point, are so uncool it hurts).
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
I think part of the frustration of the cd purchasers is that they are paying for something that is now easily distributed but still costs $20. I support the legal angle of listen to what you own, but couldn't the issue be sidestepped by upgrading the quality platform from cd to dvd, that way the customer has a product whose value is not equivelent to say 60 megs of mp3 space on their computer. There would be a much higher motivation to purchace better sounding products and the value would be retained. I realize that at that point we'd all have to buy new music players, but we didn't complain when tapes went out of style.
That just made my day. (:
Let's sue the inventors of the HTTP protocol! There are tons of mp3s and warez and porn being accessed through it. Let's also get the inventors of the FTP protocol. What the heck, let's also get the inventors of the Internet! And VCR and tape recorder manufacturers! People can pirate videos and record conversations without permission! And what about those people who will check out a book from the library and write down the info from it? They never bought the book, and are stealing the information! We should get all those paper and pencil manufacturers. That'll put a stop to that!
Don't they see that's what they are doing? Napster is simply a protocol and a network. The users of Napster are the ones carrying the mp3s. I'd be willing to bet that any mp3 you can find on Napster would also be on a website or FTP server somewhere.
Because of mp3s and Napster, I have bought 7 CDs that I previously would not have considered even looking at. One example is Portal Theory. I still can't find them in any stores, just Amazon.com. Had they not given out 2 mp3s to listen to, I would never have heard of them.
I think these people just need to relax. The bands are getting more fans and many more potential buyers. Sure there are a few who will never buy CDs again. However, there are many of us who decide we want to listen to their music in the car or while we're walking some place. Sure there are Diamond Rios, but CDs are just easier at times.
Charge a low flat rate, capped at so many meg in a day (say, $20.00 for 100 Mb), anything over that charge $0.25/Mb - so we (as responsible adults - although in today's society, that might be an oxymoronic phrase) can pay for the bandwidth we use (gee, just like the ISP's - what a concept!).
I would be willing to do this if it would let me run a server in my home.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I remember back when I was in high school (about 10 years ago) that somewhere in asia someone had developed a music vending machine. You pay your $10 and pick out a certain number of songs. 20 Minutes later your CD pops out. With JUST THE SONGS THAT YOU WANT.
The record companies didn't like this idea. If you want 10 songs from 5 different artists, you have to buy 5 CDs to get them all. They wanted to get the ($15*5) instead of the ($2*5) from you.
If the record companies hadn't fought sensible and fair music distribution models then, they wouldn't have to deal with Napster, Gnutella and Hotline now.
They killed DAT. They'd love to have killed CD-R. They're quaking in their boots over Gnutella because it can't be stopped.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Gee, I thought you could actually log in with a real account name. That would be, uh, non-anonymous, wouldn't it?
How about telnet -- is that a server by your definition? Of course not -- it's not anonymous.
Ii think you had better rethink your redefinition.
--
Infuriate left and right
Alot of you are complaining about Metallica's greed, when all you want is a handout. Where I live, I hear allot of people complaining about not getting what they want for free. And, of course, anybody that has 2 cents in their pocket better fork it over...
One guy I overheard was especially pleased with his state of financial affairs:
"...I'b work for de gubbmint!"
Guess who pays his way...
Long live communism, Huh?
I have no problem with ISPs limiting bandwidth. If you incur actual costs to the ISP for extremely high usage, then (assuming it's in the EULA or they've warned you) it's reasonable for them to pass those charges along to you.
I also have no problem with ISPs saying that I can't transmit illegal content. This is an obvious and redundant rule anyway.
I DO have a problem with ISPs saying that I can't put up a server. ISP's use this in an attempt to limit upstream bandwidth. If they put a limit on total upstream bandwidth usage, then why should they dictate that I can't serve? There is no good reason.
The problem is that ISPs are enforcing BOTH bandwidth usage limits and server bans at the same time. There is a good reason to use one or the other. They both are intended to serve the same purpose (limit bandwidth) but target different user profiles. One method may seem more restrictive than the other to a user. It depends on the profile of the user as to which one seems more restrictive.
What I see is a trend to enforce BOTH rules. When I signed up for DSL service 26 months ago, the usage policy stated that they have the rights to impose extra bandwidth charges to a user if the user is notified and given 30 days to either accept the new charges or discontinue service. Serving was not mentioned at all in the agreement. I asked the company representative that was signing me up over the phone, and she explicitly said that no, there were no serving restrictions.
Now the posted usage policy states specific upstream/downstream bandwidth limits per month, and it states that NO servers are allowed. This seems to be the norm now, at least in my neck of the woods. The local cable company (the only real competition) has a similarly restrictive policy.
I still serve. I run an low-usage FTP server that I use to transfer files between the office and home, and to a small circle of friends. I also serve a specific set of 12 mp3s from my favorite band via my FTP server and Napster. The mp3s I serve are completely legal. The band has given permission to distribute these specific 12 mp3s. Rather enlightened of them, isn't it? Here's my shameless plug for them--a wonderful fan page: www.screeming.com
Fortunately for me, my ISP hasn't done anything about my serving..yet. But whether they choose to enforce it or not is not the point. The point is that they should not be allowed to dictate how I use the system. If all ISPs have the same policy in place, then we have no recourse. It won't do any good to switch providers because they all have the same policy. Sure, I can subscribe to a third party web server or FTP server, but what if the server I want to run doesn't fall within this category?
Tell your ISP that usage restrictions are unacceptable. If you're signing up for service, ask about serving restrictions. Tell them you don't like it. The people who sign you up for service DO often pass along comments. If you're switching ISPs, always let your old ISP know why you're canceling.
Chris Marta
I would have written that more like:
Anyone running Linux/*BSD on cable, and still has telnet and ftp (etc.) still running ESPECIALLY if on the standard ports, without some kind of filtering needs to have his/her head examined.
Even those who have them turned on but on different ports without some protection should have their head examined; they're practicing security through obscurity, which we all know is an oxymoron.
Other than that, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Then we have the entire debate about the cranio-rectal inversion of people who run "The Other OS (TM)" on a Cable line.
Your points on everything are well taken - it seems like every day I hear something bad about the @home service. Unfortunately, where I live, it is the only thing I can get (and I am holding out on it unless it is the ONLY thing). As far as your IP number issue, can't you set up some form of an IPMasq system (add a firewall on top of it, as added protection). If they discourage this kind of thing, tell them you have sensitive information on your system, like tax returns, credit info, etc - that you would prefer that the world didn't see (whether you actually do or don't isn't the point). If they still discourage you, set it up anyway. If they cancel the service, tell them to screw themselves - you have a right to protect your own machines and information (they claim that right for their network - why shouldn't you be able to claim that right for yours?).
I see the whole issue of not being able to run servers and having multiple machines in a home network only becoming a bigger issue with @home - the problem is their flat rate - if they would allow you to do whatever the hell you wanted to with the connection, and just be a common carrier, and charge you for bandwith - this wouldn't be an issue.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
> In fact, I think most Slashdotters listen to
> pretty shitty music... Except for Cowboy Neal,
> who likes the Grateful Dead.
I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. I always hear people worshipping the Dead, talking about how awesome Jerry Garcia was, etc. I've listened to their stuff. I don't see what's so impressive about it. Help me out here.
(No offense meant to the people who like their music... I'm just wondering what the attraction is.)
--LordEq
I'm all for giving artists money for their work. But I'm at a complete loss as to why I should pay some bloated corporation money to distribute product when I simply don't need their distribution services anymore. It was hard enough to justify when there were physical pieces to move around, but with MP3, etc. I really don't need a record company to get the music from the artists to me. Keep in mind that only a buck or two at most from each CD actually goes to the artists- the rest ends up in the pockets of retailers and record labels. Who needs 'em?
(yuck, AOL)
--Ben
Didn't Dave Mustaine sue Metallica for stealing his music. Not to mention Garage Days was a huge legal battle for Metallica, as every artist that they covered on that album sued them. Hmmm... hypocrites.
From the Wired article:
Metallica is no stranger to referring to legal issues in its work -- the band's album "And Justice For All" was nominated for a Grammy in 1995.
You've got to be kidding me. I can't believe they said that.
Feel free to remind your employer of this on Monday.
Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org.
Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org.
I love all the old metallica stuff but most of their new shit sucks. Metallica got it's start as an underground band and word got spread about them by people that copied tapes and gave them away. That's a quote from an MTV special on metallica the quote is also by Lars Ulrich. They got their start from people trading bootleg songs.
I'm hoping this is a moved urged by RIAA lawers. I still like a few of metallica's new songs, not many but a few. I hope that they drop the lawsuite because If they don't I'll quit buying their new albums completely and I won't feel guilty about pirating the one or two good songs that show up on a 2 cd album. This from a band that said that they would not change their music to become popular because they believed in what they did.
I'm going to send several emails explaining my position on this lawsuite, I hope everyone else does as well.
I might expect this from some pop band but not metallica.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
I got one of the Cox @Home snotty emails about running a server and told to knock it off under the threat of losing my account. What makes this interesting is that I had installed a hardware firewall to block all connection attempts from the WAN. Their nebulous email also muttered something about exceeding a 500 mb (per month)upload cap. I wrote to them and said, "what the hell?". Well, I came to discover that their incompetent staff had coded their server probe software to assume Napster was running if they couldn't get a connection! So anyone running a firewall like me got one of these "you are in violation ..." messages. Their email inbox must have melted under the flames they got, since a short time later, a veeerry apologetic email was sent saying in effect, "Oops. We didn't mean it. Stop hitting us. Have a nice day." What's even more ironic is that Napster was once of the featured download offerings from Cox @Home the week prior to all this. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. By the way, Napster works just dandy inside a firewall. If you tell the install that a firewall is in place, it does something differently. I presume that its configured so that the Napster server tells your machine to initiate the transfer instead of waiting for an outside connection to do so, but I haven't confirmed this.
Who is Voltaire?
Nevermind. I'll fire up emacs and talk with the shrink, he's smarter than you.
Ah, but if I'm paying for my Internet Service, and its my ISP's firewall that's blocking me, I'm not working on their computer. Using their routers, and bandwith, yes, but I'm also paying for the use of it.
SSH gives the ability to subvert firewalls, quite well, I might add. If I have a shell account on a machine outside the firewall, I can use ssh to set up a connection from inside the firewall, and have it redirect a port or 4. If I use the right redirections, I can use ssh back in across that connection to gain access to my email, or even to do real work from outside the company. I did this quite a bit while in school with my former employer (and no, its not the reason they're my former employer either). ssh subverts firewalls, does that mean it has no legitimate purpose? Of course not. How many of you use ssh instead of rsh or telnet to remotely log in to another system. I use it almost exclusively.
I do believe you're 100% correct about employer's time/bandwidth. We have jobs to do while at work, and I'm sure that very few people here have a job description that includes scouring the Internet for kiddie pr0n, unless of course that is your job because you're an enforcer of some sort.
But if I pay my ISP for bandwidth, that bandwidth is mine for the duration of my connection. Any filtering whatsoever (via blocking access to "unapproved" sites), and the ISP should lose their Service Provider status, and be relegated to the realms of Content Providers.
(for slightly younger geeks than I) That said, my fav hard rock band has long been Rush. They put out most of their best stuff in the late 70's/early 80's, but they still consistently rock. They are the ultimate geek band in my opinion - there is no other hard rock band that can compare in terms of musicianship and intelligent lyrics. They've been around for 27 years, and I can tell you with confidence that they will never become a corporate sellout. If you've never experienced them, try Hemispheres. Music that will put just about any new hard rock to shame.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
I'm not su sure this would be considered an oxymoron. More like a proof by self-reference.
Commodore Sloat
See for yourself -- looks like someone decided to counterattack.
I'm not sure if suing Napster is valid for what they want, but I don't understand the anti-Metallica sentiment in a lot of these posts.
My (or your) feelings concerning the record industry are irrelevent. This is an issue of how an artist views their work. You can't make decisions for others, or their work. Right now, the law supports this:
1) If you want to give your art away, and say "Freely distribute my creation", that's fine.
2) You can convince someone that they're better off giving their art away, that's fine.
3) If you want to force someone else to give their art away (Napster), that's wrong.
These add up to respect for every individual in the process... and allows changing the system by communication and example, and not forcing your practices on others.
That is what Napster community is: forcing artists to follow the free distribution view, not their own. And that's wrong.
I'm not against the model of artists giving their art away, and I don't love the music industry companies, but I'm against the concept that it's ok to do it regardless of what they want.
What's the problem?
"Wolf" www.mp3.com/ChrisJ
Please PUT this on Napster, if possible with a name or metadata like "Wolf (on napster by personal request of the artist Chris Johnson!)". I'm on a Mac so I can't make spammy filenames like that :) and napster doesn't actually help me at all because people downloading stuff off mp3.com directly helps me- but that doesn't matter because I want to help _Napster_. If someone could do that, or could do that with all my stuff both there and at mp3.com/RFW, that's over 170 megs of mp3s that are specifically on Napster by personal request of the artist. It may hurt my chart rankings over at mp3.com if nobody ever has to go there again ( ;) ) but I don't care. I _really_ would like to personally ask that stuff of mine be put on Napster so that I can say "Hey- I am a musician and I _want_ Napster! I _asked_ for my stuff to be there. Are you trying to cut off my avenue of distribution?" and have that be a SERIOUS ARGUMENT. Nobody has a right to cut off my avenues of LEGAL distribution just because the medium is being used for other purposes.
So _please_ would someone grab all my stuff and put it on Napster? Hell, if it helps I'll ask somebody in writing. Does anybody know if it might help for me to ask someone in writing, just to authoritatively establish that at least one working artist legally and legitimately WANTS their stuff on Napster and requested that it be there? It seems to me that could help blow a hole in the "It's just plain illegal!" concept. It's just a tool...
I call for every one to juarez as many copies of metalica mp3 as possible this weekend.
Burn them on cds, hand them out to strangers. Put them up on ftp sites. Open a web site, Run a Gnutella server and offer nothing BUT Metallica.
Yes folks, lets use this medium and show Lars, the many times victim of Hoof-In-Mouth syndrome, just what we think of him tossing about the ire and angst at the fanbase.
If you do pass around meatllica Juarez, pleasse, be nice, only pass around the good albums. Passing around loaded or the symphonic craps is just plain rude.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Gawd I hate quoting movies, but this one seems appropriate.
"You want to call America the land of the free. Lets see you acknowledge a man center-stage advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."
-- Michael Douglas -- The American President
Of course, I'm sure that the movie was too leftist for you, but the point is there. Free speech means all speech, not just what happens to agree with your point of view. Unfortunately, this is quite rapidly becoming SOP in the US. I'm quite certain that there are people in this country who would go to a KKK rally, be offended by what they hear, and try to sue over it. Is it offensive, I think so, but no one forced you to listen. Thankfully, the right to speak does not include the right to be heard, or there'd be a lot of door-to-door religion sales folk who had their right to speak summarily terminated.
I'm not sure which one of our colonial patriots said it, but:
"I do not agree with what you say, sir, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Call me Leftist, Liberal, or whatever else you want, but if you don't like the way something is being done, I see you having two choices: get out, but don't let the door hit your ass when you go, or get off your ass and do something about it. Just don't expect a Constitutional amendment to end "the radical leftists who inhibit the free operation of the media" to come easily. Sadly, we have people such as yourself who would rather bitch about what you perceive to be a problem (granted, I think that morals are missing from our society, as well, but it is not the place of the government to mandate them); there is nothing stopping you from printing your own flyers, newspaper, or whatever (getting a news program on TV or radio is admittedly somewhat difficult). See, I'd acknowledge you advocating at the top of your lungs. Why can't things work the other way?
As for your statement about the Constitution, I'm not sure what Constitution you're reading, but mine says nothing about accurate Christian information. Quite the opposite, mine says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". Your day may come, not in my lifetime, but it may come.
Going slightly off-topic, for a moment, I am a Christian. Do I support school prayer? Not if we mandate it as some people would lead us to believe. But if, when I were in high school, a teacher or administrator told me I couldn't pray before lunch, or before a sports game, because its not allowed in school, they'd have their ass in court so fast it'd make their head spin, not only on the grounds that they're violating my right to the free exercise of my religion, but also that they would be effectively establishing Atheism (with any necessary apologies to the Atheists out there who may disagree with me)
The once mighty fair-use could apply to fan sites, could it not? Or have we lost it entirely? There exist many fan sites with annotated and commented lyrics, I won't list any here (the RIAA can do it's own damn searches). Are these legal? Seveeral sites also seem to have endorsement of the musicians, who check in every once in a while. Who holds the copyright: the writer, singer, band, ASCAP/BMI company (e.g. "Creeping Death Music"), recording company or Harry Fox?
I don't think the legality of lyric sites is quite so black-and-white.
Yeah, just like there might be legimate reasons for walking around in KKK garb (e.g., hood and mask). But don't expect me to attack the guy who gets his house burnt down for verbally assaulting the dress. Metallica _is_ getting looted of their IP, they have a right to be pissed off. If you want to yell at someone, perhaps you should yell at 99.999999% of Napster, who uses it illegally. Furthermore, if you can use a service which is used almost exclusively by "looters", I think you should be able to stomach just verbal assaults.
Thus, the creator has the right to control their own work.
.sig kinda explains my viewpoint on the whole control issue. The Law can say we have a right to fly, but that doesn't make my bones any lighter. We, now, are faced with the problem of what exactly control is. My solution is to protect the right to profit from protected works, seeing as how distrubution and reproduction have become zero (direct) value operations (at least for digital media). I think our IP/copyright laws need a serious reworking or we're going to run into even more serious problems.
Well, my
And no I don't think anyone should be forced to share their code, or their music, but if everyone takes on the attitude that closed code (or music) is bad, we'd get there eventually. I must admit here that code and music are different, the GPL as it stands would NOT work for music.
--
+&x
Hmmm... you state that most of their song-text is anti-establishment... and you might have a case if their only album was ...and justice for all.
But they do have other albums out, and I don't think that anti-establishment is a prevelant theme on any of them.
However, I agree. The quote is awful, and I hope it is severely out of context. I am not even sure what the quote is referring too, when it was spoken, and who it was spoken too. It looks like elektra is using the quote, and it isn't something that lars spoke to the press.
It has been years since I have been to a concert of theirs, but the one I saw in 91 they actually had a bootleggers section
Also, I'd like to mention that recording music in a studio generally isn't free.
--Scott
But your entire argument relies on that intellectual property laws are right, I'm not so sure they are. This was what I was arguing about, that paying them for writing songs for me is right, but paying them to make a copy (or to let me make a copy) non-exclusively of work they have already done doesn't feel so right.
Given the fact that those trafficking the MP3s and recipients of the MP3s are most likely not owners of the Metallica albums, Metallica has every right to sue. Their copyright has been infringed, and it is almost certain that if brought to trial they would win.
That being said, Metallica is suing the wrong people. The universities are not, per se, doing the trading, and I doubt they would allow it if they could stop it, since it eats so much bandwidth. Metallica should sue the traders of MP3s, who are the ones infringing the copyright, and Napster, since they could probably be found guilty of creating a program with the direct intent to break the (US Copyright) Law.
Rather than sue the universities, who are probably strapped for cash anyway, they should sue those who are actually breaking the law.
The problem with MP3s is that people think that since they are files on their computer, and they're being used for personal use, that trading them is legal. Title 17 of the US Code contradicts this belief. It says that the creator of the copyrighted material owns the copyright, unless they give it to someone else. IIRC, there was a court case that showed that copying copyrighted material was legal, if done for personal use AND NOT redistributed.
Therefore, if I own a Metallica (or any other band) cd, I can rip it, but not redistribute it.
Now, I know there are those of you shouting "Hey hipocrite! Get that log out of your eye before you call me a crook!". Well, I have ONLY MP3s ripped from my own CDs or obtained from artists who have explicitly put their work on the net. The only possible MP3s I have that could be questionable are the Budweiser Frogs, but if someone shows me those are illegal, then I will either buy the CD or get rid of them.
But physical and intellectual property are fundamentally different, why should they be treated as exactly the same? When you pay for a house, you have paid for raw materials, and several months of labor from a team of workers. When you pay for a copy of a piece of music, you pay for the insignificant amount of labor from a CD press, or if you buy an mp3, the bandwidth from the server. It would be interesting to see how much money the architect, and his managers, of a mass-produced house design receive for each such house produced, and then compare that to the money an artist, and his managers, receive for a CD.
In a press release announcing the suit, publicists for the band and music companies even threw in a statement from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who said it is "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
Pardon me, but WTF?! I've always known that Lars Ulrich is kind of a dolt, but this is got to be one of the dumbest things I've heard in a long time. I'll ignore the fact that blowing your own horn about your music being "art" is a little pretentious, even though I would probably agree that it is art. But if Lars Ulrich is "sickened" by his "art" being treated as a commodity, why are they even selling their albums in the first place? It would be hard to argue that a Metallica CD is not a commodity.
An artist, if you take money out of the equation (which I know is a BIG "if"), produces art for others' and/or his own enjoyment -- the business aspect is secondary. The fact is that Metallica are artists at some level, but when all is said and done, they are making a product first and foremost. As long as they are selling their "art," they are pushing a product, not an art.
Your total: $0.02
www.poak.net
Sorry. This is a troll. Christian != good.
Me = Atheist
Never committed adultery
(Swaggart, Reed = xtian and = adulterers)
Me = Atheist
Never stole
(Baker, Robertson = xtian = theif)
Me = Atheist
Never killed
(Crusaders/Inquisitors = xitans = murderers)
Me = Atheist
Never dishonored mother or father ever
(how 'bout GW = xtian = called his mother "stupid" and he is xtian)
Shall I go on. Wonderful morals, these xtians. Hope my son or daughter does a damned sight better than these closed-minded ignorant cracker hypoctires.
thanks.
/rant
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
There is no question what Napster was designed for. It's a tool for trading around MP3s, the vast majority of which have always been of the illegal sort. Saying that they shouldn't be held responsible for the content on their service is like saying that silencers and radar detectors shouldn't be illegal (in the states where they are). There is no question that it is a tool designed and used for copyright infringement. Just because there is a slight chance that it could potentially be being used for good doesn't invalidate the fact that it widely encourages and seems designed for piracy.
Oh, and by the way, welcome to the mutability of the English language. You won't see most people griping about the use of "artificial" in negative connotations despite the fact that 300 years ago it was a term of high praise.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The quote from Lars comparing these people to looters was quite appropriate.
Lars didn't make that quote - it was taken from the text of the lawsuit. The quote Lars gave was the either incredibly stupid or brilliantly subversive line about treating art as a commodity.
Basically your reasoning seems to boil down the same way that others have gone around here. Might makes right.
Because technology has empowered you with the ability to copy freely whatever you don't feel like paying for, you seem to think there is a natural law that says you must use that power with no restrictions.
It just ain't so. Just because you can steal my IP doesn't mean that you have the right and the responsibility to do so.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
IP, as in Intellectual Property.
Nuclear Bombs are a technolgy, that is an alternative to other forms of combat. But it's not socially acceptable.
Just because a new technology exists, doesn't mean that it's moral that you use it.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
> I'll fire up emacs and talk with the shrink, he's smarter than you.
Now I have practically unlimited respect for Richard Stallman, but there's no way emacs is smarter than my G 80md. (I held back for a while, G, so you'd have a clear stage from which to lay down yo rap.) Not only is he a philosopher but he's also an artist and you being French it ought to come natural for you to respect an artist. A troll artist that is!
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
I just think all the stuff about ISP monitoring and strict regulations on DSL is crazy! I use a local ISP for my DSL service here in Lincoln, Nebraska, (Internet Nebraska), and they don't have any regulations on what you do with the service. The only potential issue is data transfer, with a limit of 1 gig up and 1 gig down each month (and a very modest fee if you go over). Running servers? Heck, I'm on a static IP plan and they'll do DNS entries for me the same day! They don't care what you do! And, talk about customer service! When I was having difficulty setting up my Linux box initially, I posted a question on a newsgroup, and one of their guys who happened to be reading the post called me at home to help! Just like the old mom-n-pop stores of yesteryear, only in the information world! If we could get more like them.....
I've already got the whole thing off Napster and it isn't even out yet. It's good to see the big boys wading in and trying to stop this threat to their entire industry's source of income.
If you're such a big fan, then why do even care about them going after Napster? You've already bought all their albums, right? Oh, well, I guess that you should shut up then.
If you see such a problem with Napster, why are you using it to grab entire albums? Oh well, I guess you should shut up then.
More rationally: the recording industry made similar claims about the threat to their its survival when AM radio became popular in the 30s. But it soon became their biggest marketing tool. Maybe something similar is happening with Napster: I know that I've bought more CDs as a result of downloading MP3s. Whtether this is true for everybody or even most people, I wouldn't even guess, but (back to the parallel) there were always some people taping songs off the radio anyway.
In any case, I suspect most people who listen to a lot of music would willingly pay the artist royalties. The problem is that that amounts to around a dollar an album. The rest goes into marketing, manufacturing, and record company profits. With a more direct form of distribution (a la Napster), those should all be gone (well, I can only hope that I won't have to see anymore bloody Jessica Simpson ads...)
\Brian
I like Lars' quote in the article that Metallica doesn't want their music "traded like a commodity, instead of the art that it is." LOL...I guess that doesn't apply to their record company, eh? I can just see Warner only making a single press of one of their albums available. "We aren't in it for the money, we're in it for the art."
fuck!! Metallica fuck'em all in 80's now is sad to see the actual stuff and actual vision of "money". Anyway, Metallica was gods and never die!!! METAL UP YOUR ASS!!!!!
- Slayer_X
http://www.slayerx.org/
Lima
It's about time that the consumer started questioning the 'no servers' rules that @home puts in it's contract.
Saying 'stay within bandwidth constraints' is fine, it's impartial, but saying 'no servers' means that, technically, everyone running mirc + identd is breaking the rules.
Inf act, anyone running windows 2000 with telnet server on is breaking the rules.
Anyone running a quake or tribes or UT server is breaking the rules.
Foo.
I'll stick with Cradle of Filth now, at least they still have an anti-establishment attitude, instead of running into court at the first opportunity.
James Hetfield, suck my dick.
Love, an ex-Metallica fan
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
In a press release announcing the suit, publicists for the band and music companies even threw in a statement from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who said it is "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is." In my opinion Mettalica is to Art what Ripple is to fine wine .Hey Lars your an idiot, people tape songs off the raido all the time you going to sue them next .Metallica is now nothing more than lame corperate rock band that uses lawsuits to to make up for there lack of talent . Metallica's lawsuit aganst Napster is lame . But then again Metallica is lame. Do the world a favor retire !!!!
I see a time when they will be used to distribute material that should not be allowed to propagate due to its dangerous nature - instructions on how to buy/make drugs, race hate manifestos, terrorist propaganda and anti-Christian diatribes.
Let them be so used. The way to fight lies is with the truth, not with a muzzle. Why? Because the truth is a surgical weapon. A muzzle can be used indiscriminately against truth and lies, with the sole effect of destroying debate entirely. But truth can be used against only lies.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
"It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
But aren't Metallica the ones who began treating their music like a commodity by SELLING their CDs for a sizeable profit and doing the same with concert tickets. Not only are Metallica on very questionable legal ground with this, but they are extremely hypocritical.
I always thought Metallica was over-rated-Judas-Priest-wannabes, but now I know it!!
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
I don't think I ever read a quote from musicians before that made me feel like siding utterly against them.
What a self-centred money-grabbing bigot. Art is the last thing on his mind.
Roll on MP3, Napster, and sons-of-Napster, and may the artists eat dirt if that's typical of the way they feel about their relationship with their audience.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Lets see who can we sue ISP's for letting people transmit Harddrive Manufacturers for creating a tool to store mp3's Processor Chip makers for creating a means to copy mp3's Software Writers, MPEG ppls, who? They have all contributed in some way to the proliferation of illegal mp3's. It should be all or nothing for the RIAA. They are a stupid bunch of capitialist pigs who don't even realise what they are trying to sue. Don't get me started on DVD's sueing someone in another country using the DMCA law. C'Mon work with technology not against it.
The same Metallica that subtitled their Garage Days album (a pretty cool collection of cover songs) "The 9.98 EP", so the kids wouldn't get ripped off by the record store? My, how allegiences change with success... although given Lars' quote, I doubt that the actual members of Metallica have the slightest clue what Napster is. Ah well, it brings me much sorrow to add Metallica to the 'ol boycott list. -mati
First of all, what is Napster? It is a way to TRADE a file format called MP3, or Mpeg layer 3. And what is an MP3 exactly? It's not a pirated file by default, its just a regular file format like txt or jpeg. Metallica suing Napster is like me suing the creators of the Internet, ARPANET. Napster has this big bad reputation of being leaders of legal piracy, but all they want to do is distribute a form of media. Lastly, Metallica seems to think that being the leader of the heavy metal music industry means taking peoples' money as opposed to having people listening to their music. On a side note, I personally know several local bands in my area that would be more than thrilled to have their music distributed on Napster.
-Múñk¥D-
The college I go to has banned ICQ, along with just about everything else. When I go back in the fall, I'm going to have to dream up some sort of work-around.
========
Stephen C. VanDahm
Thanks for the correction. Nonetheless, regardless of who said it, it is (or at least at one time was) codified by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Yes, I personally am not the one who defines it. However, 99.99% of the content on both "networks" is illegal. With both "networks" the users who use it have a tendency to take more than their share of bandwidth--there simply isn't enough to go around, even with today's relatively moderate usage. Thus, many universities have already taken steps to shut down those "networks." It is not as if I've just arbitrarily pulled this out of my ass and declared that because I don't think napster is a legimimate use, all universities will act on this. They have. They will. They have every incentive to continue.
First, neither promote learning, you know it as well as I do. The most you can argue is that they entertain, but do not forget that they do so illegally. Second, The admins jobs is whatever the powers that be say it is. They are not obligated to entertain you--certainly on everyone else's dollar. Third, the students don't subsidize their jobs. The admins work for the school, not for the students. Damn few students even pay, it is their parents', the state, or some other organization 9 times out of 10. Which is a very important distinction, because if every student were to be allowed unrestricted access to napster (and the like), the uplinks would have to scale as well, the costs would increase, and the bandwidth bill per student could easily be 50+ bucks a month for every student. The people who are actually footing the bill (e.g., parents) may not accept this...
With all due respect, people like you are always running around with their head in their hands screaming the world is about to ____end______! People, like me, just fundamentally understand that things are generally the way they are for a reason, real change is pretty damn rare. I've listened to all the arguments. Hell, I've even been using mp3s longer than 99.99% of the users and advocates (being one of the original founders of #mp3) And you know what? I do not see any compelling argument for thinking this "prediction" is going to be any different. RIAA, MPAA, and company will survive. They may adapt a little (e.g., target digital downloadable music), but the labels will still provide value for the mainstream artists (almost by definition). Artists will continue to sign almost exclusively with the major labels (with similar contracts). The labels will continue to set the prices. Thus, the companies that makeup RIAA will continue to profit like they always have.
In any case, time will prove me right. By that time, maybe you will have come a bit more center after your Xth failed prediction of impending doom or cataclysmic change. No offense, and good night.
I agree, gnutella right now is full of flaws. And it won't change the world. But decentralized networking is such a cool idea it makes EE students in networking like me drool.
Supposing the clients will be able to figure out who has fast connections and who has slow ones, the faster ones can become "central" with slower clients clustered concentrically around them, with decreasing speed.
Along the same lines, faster servers might recieve a file index from slower machines, and would cache this to prevent more message propogration. Essentially, faster machines would take on the responsibility of handling search queries.
Further, if they add good support for private networks you can really see how powerful it could be. If you have a couple hundred people in a group forming a private, key or password protected network, there are no problems with spammers, flooders, etc; no abuse in general.
All this makes me which I were a better programmer so I could do it myself.
Man. Can you believe it? Metallica sued Napster:
("From a business standpoint, this is about piracy -- aka taking something that doesn't belong to you -- and that is morally and legally wrong.")
Well Mr Lars, I've got news for you. I bought Killem All. I bought Ride the Lightning. I bought Master of Puppets, and I bought the rest too. AND, I bought the albums, the tapes, the import 12"s, the picture disks, the concert tickets, the T-shirts, and the CD's. Hell I saw Cliff Burton before he died even, in an age when most "Metallica fans" would say "who?". Well guess what. No more buddy. You can kiss my ass Lars-sell out- Ulrich.
You can't burn the fans like the this and expect to go unscathed. Ya, know, I may have some mp3's, but I buy the CD's if I like the music. And I buy concert tickets and vinyl and...aww you get the point. ANd I use napster for a hell of a lot of legal file distrubution as well. You gonna shut down Xerox for someone making illegal photocopies of a book? If so you stifle technology my friend. Lars Ulrich- sell out to the record executives and a threat to technology. Fire up the encoders and let those MP3's fly!
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
This is not the responsibility of napster. The IP address of the person who illegally offers copyrighted material is known. The path that should be followed from there is to go to the ISP for closure on the identity behind that IP address. With a court order, ISPs should and will disclose this information to the authorities. It has been like this for every situation where illegal activities took place, be it warez, cracking or MP3.
The biggest problem in this case are hungry ISPs who will hapilly accept people on their servers within five minutes after filling in a false ID. But that is really their problem at that point. Napster is nothing more than an IRC network with bells and whistles: It's a transit system. To make it even more interesting, the actual transfers of the illegal material is direct IP-to-IP, not going through napster's systems, like DCC on irc. This makes their service akin to offering links to possibly illegal material. Are you going to sue roadbuilders if you get hit by a drunk driver?
Pi
Another possibility is the ugly nasty bad PR they'd get from dragging a 19 year old college student into court.
I, too, certainly do find this recursive networking model interesting, just as I find the notion of various DoS attacks and its possible (or impossible) defense to it. Assuming gnutella is overhauled, it would be quite apppropriate for a relatively small group (e.g., 200 users) warez or mp3 group. As for stopping abuse and ramping up privacy (e.g., keeping RIAA from logging ips), the larger the "network" gets, and the less well they know each other, the harder it will be to keep it together. For those who think "well then everyone can just form small networks", one caveat: In order for these networks to survive they need to maintain strict privacy and use a relatively complex protocol. I do not believe that even 95% of music listeners have the requisite computers skills or the intelligence necessary for efficiently keeping themselves connected to a "network" which offers what they need. Thus, I still am quite confident of RIAA's ability to endure Gnutella and all its cousins. Not that you said anything to the contrary, but I'm sure some one will.... :)
I can dig all that, but the only sticking point to me is they need to figure the number of people who are downloading music that would actually BUY it if it wasn't available online. THAT's the number of real sales they're losing, and I'm sure it's a smaller number than they think. It's like pirating 3D Studio - if the program costs $3k and a student pirates it, is AutoDesk really losing money? Well no - it just wouldn't be bought.
I think a lot of people will grab stuff to check out because it's free, but wouldn't actually get to the point of buying a CD in the store. For those people Metallica isn't losing anything.
And personally I never much liked 'em, so I wouldn't take their stuff free or not.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I think what caused the confusion was that one of the early American founders was known to quote it. Samuel Johnson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, one of them, I think.
What the fuck ever, how does that contribute to ending disease, ending tyranny, ending hunger?
They don't contribute. They are parasites on the hard workers - the construction workers, the sewer system fixers, the welders and carpenters. Feed all the hard working ones the message that essentially their lives are lame and insignificant compared to the esteemed glory of those who make noise with a gee-tar.
Mattel-ica, Mutt-licka, Modalkuh:
Fuck 'em all (all four of them) and fuck'n no regrets.
Anybody want to buy some metallica CDs, cheap? I don't want them anymore. They were so cool with all their intensity, hunger, and look on life, back in the day. Now they are a bunch of whining shit-boys. I don't want anything to do with such hypocritical weenies. Dick-sucking butt-bandits, all of them!
My poor little brain is still trying to sort out 'natural rights', logic, and self-interest.
But there is one incontrovertible fact that I can point out: Copyrights are not forever.
Copyrights used to only last for 56 years, and that was only if you remembered to renew it on the 28th year. But the media industry has managed to get law after law passed, extending copyrights all the way out to 90 years. It's even worse for stuff made since 1978, which will be copyrighted for the life of the creator PLUS 70/95/120 years. See this.
Now for the logic: WHY? Why aren't copyrights forever? They must have had a reason? What were those reasons? What ARE the 'natural rights' that apply to IP?
The only reason most people consider 'copyrights' to be unalienable is that, well, how often do you seen one expire? And so we've become used to the idea that IP is a God given right that an individual can posess.
Notice I'm not arguing one way or the other. I haven't researched this, I don't think many of us have. We're all familiar with the results of the development of human thought on a myriad of things over a few thousand years of human history, but we've never taken part in the development of one! How long ago have we had something so fundamental to re-consider? Our ideas and opinions are going to be warped by the status-quo of recent history, by what we're used to, and by self interest...
I'd like to find out, what *are* all of the historical thoughts on the subject of the posession of IP. Why were the first copyright laws set up the way they were, with such short terms.
Yes, we're almost getting into the area of philosophy. We're going to be considering *utility*, what is best for mankind, the rights of society, etc...
This could be kind of interesting. Unfortunately, it took hundreds of years for all our other 'fundamental' ideas to gel, and I doubt our society is so advanced as to do any better with this one. We'd better get used to the idea that it might take a while before things get 'officially' straightened out... Especially with all the powerful corporations running around, and all the average shmoe's making the decisions in the legislative bodies. You know, maybe 50, 100 years.
Of course this time it might be a little different. This time, we, the people, have the net. And we can route it around 'damage' as we see fit.
Of course, who are we to think we have all the philisophical issues sorted out?
PS: Don't whine at me for my spelling of unalienable/inalienable - do you know how long it took me to track down the right spelling? I was stuck on inalieable and unalleable for agesPPS: Gosh it's such a shame a good post like this will be buried in a day old article.
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That's exactly what I was thinking when I heard about this. Music bootlegging is nothing new, people dub tapes all the time, CD-R burners have even given people the ability to totally duplicate compact discs should they so decide to violate copyright law. I've never heard of anyone suggesting something so ridiculous as to sue audio cassette manufacturers, despite that the majority of tapes sold are probably used for unauthorized music reproduction. (But then, this may have something to do with media manufacturers being owned by or sleeping with record companies...)
Of course, I'm sure record companies, in hindsight, wish they could have prevented recordable media solutions from emerging. I suspect the playback-only nature of compact disc technology may have been more appealing to record company execs than the quality benefits; even now CD audio burning equipment is still expensive compared to players.
Napster does of course, pose a somewhat new twist to this, since you no longer have to rely on a buddy to get a bootleg, you can get your musicz (hey! I coined a new l33t-speak word! w00t!) from thousands of strangers on the internet. This obviously scares the hell out of the record industry, so they're going to try to kill it dead before it becomes a mainstream phenomenon.
Of course, siccing the lawyers on one small company is going to be worthless in the long run. We all know that any of dozens of similars programs like Gnutella can replace Napster with startling speed. Maybe if the industry spent time innovating a GOOD on-demand commercial digital content distribution system (buzzwords are as much fun as Legos, you can link them together and build amusing toys!) and less time trying to bully such threats, they could actually enjoy the benefits of technology. But then, that might actually force them to make any such music very affordable, (to be able to compete with illegal systems) meaning they might not be able to pocket as large a share of their artists' money.
(Thank you for reading, I'm sure there's no way this got mod'ed up this far down.)
My problem is not one of lack of imagination; I've been using mp3's longer than most anyone (4+ years ago). However, I do not, I can not, fool myself into thinking that these theoretical 'learning benefits' are sufficient reason to effectively make intellectual property null and void. I, unlike you (as long as you wish to make blanket statements), know what it takes to create new and innovative things. Having seen, and been behind, many hi-tech startups, I understand risk and reward quite well. The principles behind protecting music are much the same. The artists need to get paid for their work. The people who bring their work to the masses need to get paid. To make a long story short, IP is necessary. Although I do not lose anything when when the artists get robbed of their IP, I am too intellectually honest to make up some bullshit excuse that I am 'learning'. Nor do I think most college kids can make such a claim. Damn few are incapable of rubbing together the money to buy an extensive CD collection if they are truely motivated. If they're not motivated, they'll probably never make anything of themselves anyways.
Furthermore, it is ironic that you are saying that these kids need expensive IP based music, while advocating its destruction for all intents and purposes. Why can't these kids just go to mp3.com, or what have you, and get 'free' music? What? I didn't hear you! There isn't enough good free music? Has mp3.com, or any other organization which distributes free music, truely improved this in the past few years? Interesting view point you have there. You basically want to have your cake and eat it too. You purport IP protected music to be necessary to learn, but IP is not necessary? How are these would-be artists going to learn in the future in a world with no effective IP protection?
This position is even more futile when you take into account the fact that we are not even talking about 'ideas' here. We are talking about byte-for-byte copies of a singer's performance (e.g., song, voice(s), instruments, etc.). It is hard to argue they are obstructing anyone by not allowing you to get an exact copy of their work. In other words, if their music did not exist (read: No IP, no music) you would have nothing to copy at all, and if their music does exist (read: IP, music) you just can't pirate an exact digital copy. You can, however, still: buy it, listen to it on the radio, take notes on its composition, emulate its sound, etc., etc., etc.
You may enjoy not paying for music. Although, I lose nothing when the artists lose, I am just too intellectually honest to try to justify this behavior with absurd excuses. In any case, the issue here was the school's take on this. The fact of the matter is that a great many schools have already taken steps against it.
Ahem, no. I've know many admin's too, in both corporate and educational institutions. The mere fact that some of them may participate in piracy does not mean they're willing to risk their necks over it. Very few institutions have the excess capacity to accomodate every student regularly trading mp3s. Perhaps you should talk to some of your admin friends again, and ask them how much their network slowed down when even a small fraction of students were using napster, et.al.
Umm, you don't understand. I have no direct stake in this other than my intellectual honesty. You, on the other hand, have committed yourself to a dream. A dream which you believe will profit you. I'm being pragmatic here...
And my statements are categorically different from yours, how? You say I am too committed to the status quo. I say you're too committed to committed to unrealistic change. They're flip sides of the coin. I'm not saying you're "scared", I'm saying you're eagerly anticipating change without thinking it through. Deal with it.
I, for one, am not worried. To reiterate, I: a) Realize the need for Intellectual property b) know RIAA is not so easily toppled. Does this concern me any more than it should you? No.
In a press release announcing the suit, publicists for the band and music companies even threw in a statement from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who said it is... "sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is." I sure would hate to think anyone was getting to appreciate it without the band's consent. Chump.
Another part of the problem is that the "single" is effectively dead in the US. Sure, bands release singles - but only to radio stations. In many (most?) cases, if I hear a single on the radio that I want to buy, I'm forced to buy the entire album. Again, the record companies would prefer you to spend $15 rather than $4, but the average consumer (especially teenagers, who a great deal of the record industry marketing is aimed at) can't afford to keep spending money like that to get a load of tracks they don't want.
They don't want Napster running because it's a server? So just turn sharing off or use a Napster clone that doesn't have the server functions built in. And anyway, how are they supposed to know if you're running it anyway? Set it on a different port and don't let a ton of people download from you.
--Baelmix
My immediate supervisors knew I did this. The guy who ran the firewall, however, didn't; he definitely would not have approved. In fact, I had planned to do my own VPN over ssh, but left that company for one with less concern about remote access to the network, and got a PPTP account (and stock options [publicly traded so they were worth something] and more money). I never did get VPN-over-ssh set up and thoroughly documented, which was what the original "experiment" was intended for, anyway.
I couldn't agree more. How about when the radio/album version of a song is different than the single? So you buy the single, expecting the same song that you saw on MTV or heard on the radio, only to find out that you NOW must buy the complete album to get the song that you want.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
...which is, as they say, bliss. I don't think that by hiding something from a child until they are grown, leaving it for them to figure out without having had any reference to it in their formative years, is really helping them. It's more like keeping them in the dark and leaving large swaths of their "map" of reality undrawn. So when they encounter the things you've hidden from them they will have no basis whatsoever to understand them.
I was sold on Metallica from the start. Bought all their shit. Loved them, 'cos they were different. But what I don't get is WHY THE HELL IS EVERYONE CONFUSED ABOUT METALLICA SELLING OUT, or becoming posers?? Remember WAAAY back then, when they said they would NEVER MAKE A VIDEO?? Then what did they do? ONE. The video. Then they made a bunch of videos, and even looong videos that were like documentaries. And let's face it, with the exception of a couple songs, their black album was NOT true metallica. And then out comes Load and Reload, what the hell is that shit? And what is up with the short hair? The cool headbanging was a big part of the fun. SO, as far as suing Napster, Metallica can fuck themselves. Remember when stereos came out with DUAL CASSETTE DECKS>>?? Why was that? So you could fuckin record someone else's tape for about $1. It was illegal to sell the copy, but don't stereos STILL have DUAL DECKS>>?? And I remember that most the time, I ended up buying the real tape anyway. Why? It sounded better, and looked a whole lot cooler. Same thing. And they might do away with Napster, but then they'd have to do away with the Internet. What is going to stop the MP3 transfers via ICQ, email, etc., you name it?? Plus, I think they can make more than enough money from magazines, posters, collectibles, concert tix, promotions, ANYTHING. So here's to you Metallica: METAL UP YOUR OWN ASS!!!