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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.
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.
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 --
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
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!
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).You are supposed to be a consumer, a black hole for goods, advertising and content. They only want to allocate enough upstream bandwidth for 10,000,000 buy buttons. Producing or sharing information is a subversive act and will not be tolerated.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
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.
________________________________
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
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.
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?!??
...The sooner Napster dies, the better; all napster does is make theft accessable to the terminally lame... (emphasis mine)
Translation: "I can't believe you people! When did freely sharing digital information go from something which took above-average computer skills and was thus Ok, to something which non-nerds could do?!??
"...The sooner Napster dies, the better; all napster does is make the power of the digital revolution available to everyone."
How pathetic.
Look, I'm not going to rehash the reasons why duplicating something is not a theft but a gift, and why the music distribution industry is so obviously antiquated by the existence of the Internet as to make propping them not just futile but actually against the interests of society.
Instead I'm going to relate a little anecdote. After I saw this ridiculous story posted to news.com early this morning, I went to www.metallica.com, which I correctly guessed was the official Metallica website, to see what the reaction there was--whether Metallica fans would be swayed more by their allegiance to the band or by their allegiance to common sense. (Well, mostly to see whether there were actually still Metallica fans...)
Unfortunately, when I got there I found that www.metallica.com's message boards are only available to "members". Ok, registration required, fair enough. Only one problem: to become a member, you need to pay them $25!!! Just to post in their message boards!!!!
And I thought to myself, wow--how could they possibly not get it any more??
See, Cid, ask yourself this: do you think that $25 message board is worth it? Of course not; indeed, it's almost guaranteed to be one of the worst message boards on the face of the Internet, because it will only consist of people who just paid $25 to post in a message board.
The point is this: elitism doesn't work anymore. On the Internet, everyone is equal, but everyone's power is additive. That's why Napster is so powerful--not because it does anything that hasn't been done before; like you said, it's pretty much just IRC and ftp tied together, automated, and made easy. But by virtue of being so easy, it gains critical mass, and it gains its own power; when the history of the end of the commodification of ideas is written, Napster will have no small part.
Meanwhile, you and Metallica and everyone else stuck with your outdated elitist worldview will sit on the side of the road and watch the world pass you by.
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.
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.
Digital revolution? Freely sharing digital information?? Just whose "information" do you think it is to share? This isn't mathematical equations or obvious development techniques. This is an artform not everyone can perform. They deserve to get paid for it.
Who died and made you Karl Marx? Just what makes digital media so special that it no longer is beholden to ownership by its originator. Since when did putting something in a digital format make it community property? Copying of digital media that is not yours to distribute IS theft. This isn't about common sense or freedom. This is about greed -- and not the band's greed. This is about the greed of music listeners who want, as always, something for nothing. It's about people who think it's their God-given right to enjoy the hard labor of others at no compensation and who rail against those who did the work for having the the "outright gaul" to expect that they be given something in exchange.
Music piracy is just flat out wrong. It's explotation of other people's hard effort. You think all information should be free? Well here's a piece of wisdom worth remembering: "You get what you pay for." Just try looking for good music on MP3.com sometime. I swear, I've only liked less than 10% of what I've listened to. These people have talent and want to be recognized for it. What the heck is so wrong about that?
Allegance or common sense? What rhetorical nonsense. Who's coming off as the elitist here? What Cid was saying was that back in the days before Napster, people had the conscience to realize that whay they were doing was wrong and illegal and made efforts to hide themselves. Nowdays with Napster and the growing predominance of piracy, people like you come out and say that it's their right to steal and that those who are trying to "protect their rights" to the music they own and made are they greedy ones.
I make my counterpoint thusly: who is the greedy one, the one who works hard and asks for compensation or the one who does nothing and demands the fruits of the first's labor?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").