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Dr. Dre Might Sue Napster Users?
Chad Schmidt linked us to a ZD story where they suggest that Dr. Dre, following his suit against Napster, may go after users directly. I'm kinda torn, I mean, these users are committing theft by distributing MP3s, but there sure are a lot of them. On the other hand, this does open up a new and exciting revenue stream for music superstars who just aren't making as much money selling albums any more *grin*.
So is CmdrTaco saying that the people stealing Dr. Dre's intellectual property shouldn't be sued because there are a lot of them? Does that even make sense?
I'm guessing that:
-G's in da hood do not have Napster
-G's in da hood do not have the internet
-G's in da hood do not have computers
Therefore:
His core audience are not G's in da hood.
Again, I'm guessing that:
-Teenaged white males from prominent middle class families use Napster
Through inductive logic, I can infer that:
-Dr Dre writes music for teenaged white males
-Dr Dre likes teenaged white males
-Dr Dre will eventually open up an amusement park for young white males, resulting in one or more lawsuits alleging that he sexually molested them
-Dr Dre will lose all of his money as a result of his lawsuit against Napster
Thank You.
Doesn't really mean they are far-seeing, just that they see that people are ripping them off and want to get money for it.
The software industry couldn't stop piracy, and the music industry probably won't either. Only difference is that the music industry doesn't really seem to care about the law or human rights, just itself.
It can't sue Napster because Napster is only a tool, it can't go after the users because there are too many. They can't do anything and although it sounds wrong, they shouldn't be able to. Next thing you know they'll get a law passed so that software/hardware has to be installed monitoring for illegal music. Never mind the privacy or rights of people, all that matters is that they aren't getting the short end of the stick.
Instead they should be trying to find ways to cooperate with the consumer, and take away most of the incentive for piracy. You know there are people out there PAYING others $5+ for burned CDs. The RIAA could still make the as much, if not more money by lowering their prices.
In the past, the consumer hasn't had any such power over the music industry. The RIAA has basically had the ability to kick music fans around and do whatever it wants. Raise CD prices? Why not? Make CDs with one or two good songs and the rest with filler? Hey more money for us.
Theft is bad, but hey, the RIAA should learn to accept the facts, and play by the rules, even if others aren't. Sure they'll probably never beat the deal that piracy offers, but they can try. They have to understand that people buying CDs are music fans, not just money bags.
If the copyright holders are abusing the fans' love of music then they deserve to get a lesson. Problem is, it was never possible, until now. Of course, the RIAA fails to see that and thinks bullying people around and caging movements will bring music fans back to the happy, money dishing insignificants they were before.
I love them because I am _smack_ in the middle of the topic: I'm a musician, working hard and putting out a lot of innovative, professional, well-produced music, all on mp3 and in fact on mp3.com.
I hate them because no matter how strident I get, no matter how I rant and make people sick of hearing from me like a guitar toting RMS ( ;) ) there is always another person sounding off the same old lines: "mp3 is illegal because", "mp3 hurts artists", and now there's some "it won't last because eventually they'll just make mp3 illegal" and people are giving up on it, saying "we'll just use mp4 or something!"
No no nooooo! It may not be all that great a format, but the reason we have digital music so ubitiquously is that CD audio (also not that great a format) proliferated and was not constantly being 'upgraded'! Data formats are not _fashion_. There's an archival value to them and the last thing you want is to be churning them like fscking Excel binaryformats. Yes, CD Audio is lame, yes mp3 is lamer and lossy, but it's all relative- many Philips cassettes are lamer still, and those were an accepted format! mp3 needs to look forward to a life as long as CD audio. It's right at the quality point where it's a good general purpose format- and we've not even begun to see its potential. I have a fancy JPEG plugin I use on images- cost me a fair bit but it optimises Huffman coding and does other tricky hacks and the quality of its output rivals the average JPEG encoder at _half_ the file size. It's that good- and the same thing can be done with mp3, I'm sure of it. 128K will end up sounding a lot like 256K in a couple years... if the format is not killed through neglect.
I'm going to ask something from my fellow slashdotters (yah, you knew this was coming, hear me out): please go grab all the songs of mine that you can, at www.mp3.com/ChrisJ , and put them on Napster. OK? Please, as many of you as possible, do this. I do get a few nano-cents from each download but they do not charge _you_, and of course I get nothing from napster exchanges. But I have the capacity as the copyright holder and owner of my songs _and_ the mechanical recordings of them, to _permit_ such exchanges- and I think this is important, because all this noise is how mp3s and napster are all illegal and piracy and theft and a lot of bullshit like that, and I would really like to be able to prove beyond a doubt that the format and even Napster serve _some_ valid purpose, and again I OWN my music and I AM ALLOWED to permit people to trade it on napster! Dammit, it makes me angry to see corporate whores 'protecting my interests as an artist' by stomping on MY listeners or potential listeners and also cutting off MY access to media! It just really makes me angry, OK? They are NOT helping me by doing this, don't be confused about that. I am outright saying I _want_ my music distributed freely over the net and Napster, that I _want_ it to be like instant radio which is entirely promotional in nature and has no relation to micropayments and 'security' and crap like that, that I see tremendous utility in this and that I also have personal feelings of wanting to be ALLOWED to give my music to a person I haven't even met who happens to not have money for it right at the moment (I can sympathise- I myself am living on ramen and spaghettios this week), and... I don't have a RIGHT to take that position?
It's my damn music, not theirs. They have no right to restrict what I may do with it! _I_ am the creator here and owe them nothing.
I don't appreciate this 'to protect the artists' slant, especially when people unwittingly buy into it... the fact is, I am dead serious about trying to build a music/sound engineering career based on these new modes of distribution. I have done my homework, huge amounts of it, and frankly the existing industry is the most horribly harmful thing you could imagine- pretend it's like all software companies are divisions of Microsoft, and they control all commercial software of all types so you can't program unless you cut a deal with them on their terms. They own basically everything and have controlling interest in everything else and are very prone to stuff like looking at your work and then cutting you dead and paying somebody to knock off your program and saying 'see you in court'. It's like a music version of that, and keeps getting worse, until if you don't know the score you wouldn't believe it. I just can't go along with this at all- and it is these people who are trying to kill the new distribution model that _I_ could use to not need them!
Links:
Steve Albini: Some Of Your Friends Are Probably Already This Fucked
Bobby S. Fred: How The Game Works (Scam Indies)
This is serious.
So... when I say go grab all the songs at www.mp3.com/ChrisJ and put them on napster, when I point at the CDs I have up there (which are produced via some neat press-to-order tech mp3.com's invented) and beg people to buy them in support of what I am trying to do here... that is coming from someone who feels, very deeply, that all that could be TAKEN AWAY. Maybe sooner than you think! And maybe you won't give a rat's ass about some bozo musician in Vermont no longer having access to a format (mp3) and a dotcom (mp3.com) that will print up his CDs on an as-needed basis for only nonexclusive rights to the music... but I have to take it more seriously. If this was happening to programmers, slashdot would be up in arms- why does it seem debatable if it happens to musicians? It's the equivalent of programmers having to go to say Microsoft to be 'authorised' to practice their craft professionally. "Oh, you must not be a _real_ programmer, otherwise Microsoft would want to hire you, so therefore it's OK to get rid of gzip- only criminals use it and I heard there are viruses that are transported in gzipped form! Better get rid of tar too while we're at it. Then we can license RPM so that only authorised people are allowed to use it..."
furrfu, another huge rant. I'm sorry :) I swear, I meant to only write a bit. Please, while I still have an mp3.com that will press up CDs for me and give me half, BUY one- please, while I still have an mp3 format that I'm allowed to distribute my own music over the net with, USE it and listen to my stuff and (I hope!) enjoy it and share it with your friends? If that doesn't seem like enough you are _free_ to go buy another CD of mine to make up for the napsterring, I wouldn't dream of stopping you. But I simply cannot go along with coercion, so the end result might be that I am just plain silenced, the format I use stifled or co-opted, the site I distribute from killed through lawsuits (some of which are arguably valid- but they have every right to redistribute _my_ music and in fact they pay me small amounts to do so).
Please? Help me out. www.mp3.com/ChrisJ
Altough I realize I'm about to get flamed halfway to Mars, I simply have to point out that I've been covering this story for a week at The Swindle. Several pretty pointed editorial/stories are up for your review/consideration.
That much I know, but happy != corny, and neither does joyful. Most of us remember the song from the Flintstones, "...we'll have a gay old time." In that context, the British meaning of gay makes sense. Still doesn't shed any light on the earlier poster's use of the word though.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
gay == corny ???
Learn something new every day I guess.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Ok, Dr. Dre. I'll pay up the money I "owe" *you* when you pay James Brown for all of those samples.
ATTN lawyers:
I don't actually listen to Dr. Dre...no CDs, no MP3's...so put that pen down and go chase an ambulance or something.
If Napster users are using Napster to break laws, then I'm all for seeing them prosecuted -- and not Napster themselves.
So, this is a strike for common sense. How refreshing.
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It's highly unlikely that this will ever happen - certainly on any kind of large scale. Lawyers don't usually care too much for tort cases in which there is not the potential for a big payback.
So while Dr. Dre might make an example of a few people in an attempt to scare the others (which is pretty similar to how the govt. prosecutes hackers/crackers) but most of these people could never pay the damages. So why bother?
So everyone can keep on goin' like they're goin' and the odds are on their side. 'Course, I'd still much rather have the law on my side, and we should continue to work on that.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
But right now we have arbitrary dates. And any date other than 0 and forever is going to be arbitrary. It's merely important to decide (in the US anyway, where copyrights are totally artificial and exist for a specific purpose) what the least amount of time the copyright can exist which will still serve to motivate people to create stuff.
Notice that it has to be the LEAST amount of time. This is because the purpose (here in the US at least - copyrights vary in details as well as principle in various countries, when they even exist) is to get stuff into the public domain.
Copyrights, and the possibility of making money from your exclusive ability to distribute copies of the material* is the carrot. But it's not the point. It would be disasterous if all material were perpetually copyrighted. It would be impossible to stand on the shoulders of the people who came before you. Which is essential for progress in the arts and sciences. Just imagine if physicists couldn't discuss e=mc^2 without having to pay Einstein or his heirs. Clearly this would be bad.
* of course, copyrights to not extend to redistribution of the copies that were distributed by the copyright holder. So I can sell a used, copyrighted book. But I can't sell copies that I make of someone else's copyrighted book, even if the first copy was legal.
As for being unable to find a suitable use for some material until after the copyright expires, well, too bad. How would you determine when a suitable use has been found? How would you determine when to expire the copyright? There has to be one rule. I'm very sorry if your work isn't appreciated until after your death or whatever, but I can't see any other solution that wouldn't cause chaos.
No, you'r not depriving them of the material. You are, however, (for all practical purposes) depriving them of the ability to get compensation for work they did that you're benefitting from.
That's true. But as far as I can determine from looking through definitions (and the occassional jury instruction) on the net, theft includes depriving the owner of the property, which isn't the case. I agree that it should probably still be illegal, it's just not strictly theft. It's something similar.
But I sincerely doubt that we have copy protection because of this.
99.44% of the copy protection schemes _I've_ seen are aimed at casual people who don't realize that most copy protection infringes on the rights and fair use infringements that they have by virtue of owning a copy of a work. They tend to be ineffectual against anyone who's serious about copying it no matter what. Yet those are the sorts of people who ought to be stopped. The former group is, in my experience, rather sympathetic to the creator. However that doesn't mean that they should be unable to sell their copy of a work, or make a backup, or time/space-shift it, or other perfectly legal uses.
No, I think that many copyright holders who would engage in this sort of thing in this day and age are simply greedy. They're willing to take everything they can get, even if it is illegal &| unethical &| against the intent of copyright laws in the first place.
Please explain to me how exactly, without DeCSS, I am supposed to be able to access CSS-encrypted public domain materials? Yet many people who don't have any copyright at all still act as if they do. This sort of behavior is why we need a fundemental reformation of copyright law - so that legal users are not assaulted by overbearing copyright holders and illegal users can still be prosecuted.
You lose everything when you die. Does that mean you have no property at all?
Nope, it just means that you can't take it with you. With copyrights there's no practical way for someone to hold exclusive control over the material. Just the distribution of copies. As opposed to real property, where you control the thing, and can't lose control unless you lose the thing too. Unreal property is not exclusive.
I'm sorry to hear that you don't care about the US Constitution, if only because both my argument and the argument of the other side, in the US, are founded on the Constitution. There would not be copyrights or patents here without the power to grant them being in that document. And all laws which exercise that power (as very few specifics are mentioned in the Constitution - par for the course) must comply with it. If they don't, they're invalid, fair or not.
So it's really not possible to create a copyright law that's suitable for everyone. It's not widely recognized, AFAIK as a fundemental human right. In fact, I'd say the opposite is true. Throughout most of history works were created in the absence of copyright. The idea was absurd that you couldn't sing a song you heard someone else sing, just because they said so. Really, it still is - only when coupled with the incentive to create more material (this again is straight from the Constitution) is it at all justified. European laws are different from US laws, Taiwan has no such laws at all (and gets by okay) and I'm sure that they're different from laws in African countries or South American ones. YMMV.
As for fairness, I don't mind that someone wants to be able to reap the rewards of having created some new work. What I don't like is:
In the US at any rate, copyrights and patents are pretty dissimiliar. And I know the differences between them. But you're missing the point I was making. Copyrights are not (here) constitutionally permitted to be granted to any trivial novelty. They're reserved only for those works that promote 'the progress of the useful arts and sciences.' This is why the phone book is not copyrighted. (though there have been efforts to change this recently - the sort of thing I am opposed to)
I merely proposed that we abandon the foolish law we currently have, in which everything is copyrighted automatically, and for a *very* long time, and return to the more sensible method of only permitting copyrights for those works which pay to have it registered. Clearly this money could be spent both to increase the efficiency of the Copyright Office and, if the government was not being typically boneheaded, used to commission works that would go immediately into the public domain (where they benefit everyone)
So generally, I'd at least like to return (more or less) to the state of affairs that we had in the US prior to the Copyright Act of 1976.
Still, to get back to patents for a moment - why is it that you don't object to the rather short lifespan of patents? Wouldn't you consider that to be unfair? Someone could spend years developing something only to have the patent run out in less time than it took to create. Well, given as how it's better in general (including for the inventor, who surely is relying on the past inventions of others and the disclosure required by the patent office) for patents to be quite short, I say it's plenty fair. I'd just like to apply similar principles to copyrights.
If you're looking for a real boondoggle, that would be trademarks. That's just a nightmare.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
But the password is stored only within your noggin. You'd have to reveal what it is. This is *much* more like testimony (particularly if your password is something like 'I killed Col. Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick' ;) than a physical form of compulsion, like fingerprints or breath tests, or biometrics.
Of course, the police can only force you to talk in ways that don't comprimise yourself. AFAIK this is basically Name, Rank and Serial Number kind of stuff, and has a lot to do with determining other stuff (like are you drunk and slurring your speech) than it does testimony. Personally, if I end up getting arrested I'm smart enough to clam up until my lawyer arrives. When you're the suspect the cops are NEVER on your side.
Yes, another argument against relying totally on biometric passwords, folks.
I think I mentioned this, but Kevin Mitnick, everyone's favorite hacker, is currently in just this kind of situation right now. Though he's served his time, the government would like nothing more than to put him BACK in prision. So they're refusing to release the evidence they confiscated (hard disks in this case) until he tells them how to decrypt it so that they can look through it and try to get him again. Mitnick obviously isn't telling, he's stuck with the same judge that wouldn't let him use a telephone for fears that he could cause World War III, and it's a stalemate. Hopefully it'll go to the Supremes who will, one hopes, side with Mitnick on this one.
(I am well aware that Mitnick is scum - but he has a very valid point in this situation so I'm on his side)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I doubt if that would stand up in court. The act of installing Napster on your computer, and even moreso, telling it where to find the MP3s on your computer, would most certainly be considered distribution. If not, they would fix that quickly.
There used to be a loophole along these same lines for narcotics. Drug dealers would carry a cell phone, make a deal, and then just go leave the drugs inside their unlocked car in the parking lot. Even if the cops found the knew about the deal and found the car/drugs, they couldn't bring charges against the dealer for anything more than posession, which is a way smaller offense than trafficking (a felony). I gather they patched that hole pretty quickly too.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Have you ever copied and entire book at the library? Of course not. Maybe my analogy sucked too - the point is that Napster makes it far, far easier to copy entire works in seconds. I just downloaded Chronic 2001 - the WHOLE thing - in like 2 minutes. As far as I'm concerned, if you've got the panache to actually go make 400+ photocopies of an entire book, well then you're entitled to it. Aside from the fact that at a nickel a pop you'd have paid for it anyways. Look, as much as I hate to say this, I Am Not A Lawyer (C)(TM)(R). I'm not well versed in copyright law. Just from my personal experience, it seems that exceptions to copyright law have always been made where there is no real financial threat to the bearer. That's the litmus test. AHRA allows us to make degraded, but full and fast copies, of copyrighted audio, on the premise that if we liked it enough we would get annoyed by the quality and go buy it. DAT & Minidisc have SCMS built in to ensure that we would only make copies for personal use, thereby not costing artists a cent in lost sales when we go copy it for 50 other people. The networks got injunctions for copyright violation against DirecTV on the grounds that rebroadcasting a national signal outside of its local area was costing them money. AFAICT it always goes back to money. I don't think I need to tell anyone here that MP3s stand to cost a lot of people a lot of money. Ripping off library books has never been a problem as stated above. If it were, I'm sure something would be done.
:) Hadn't heard of one of those for books.
I'm sure the fact that the artists & labels have a massive, rich, tempestuous, greedy, and very vocal trade group can't help either
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
No one knows. That particular scenario falls in a really, really gray area of the law; there's not much precedent for it. We will find out pretty soon though since this is exactly what my.mp3.com does and exactly what RIAA is suing them for. The case will have its day in court, and the decision can either stifle a lot of progress on the internet or open the floodgates for an entire new paradigm of artistic enjoyment. I'm praying, of course, that this is legal.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Libraries don't make copies of books. Copiers do. This is why you see copyright notices posted over many copiers - that's where copyright law is physically broken. The act of checking out a book and reading it is no different than listening to a CD. But the act of copying that book does violate copywright, much like the act of copying music on Napster does.
Napster, by combining the archival and copying functions into one easy-to-use package, certainly makes its users (not Napster, Inc., though) libel for copyright damages. The fact is that if you don't ever install Napster, run it, and allow it to search your hard drive for music, then all subsequent distribution of copyrighted material would never occur. That alone makes the serving computer break copyright law.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
All valid points. Personally I think the whole argument is moot considering the idiot government would just go after both parties involved and get it over with :)
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Let's face it, be it a musician, writer, etc. these people are getting 10% of what we pay. Where does all of that money go? Personally, I'd rather have it go directly to the artists, not to these corporations.
So would I. But removing copyright laws would lower the artists profits to 0. 10% is better than 0.
There are not more distribution costs, it's called the internet. We don't need extensive advertising if content can roam around freely. That's whay the entertainment groups are scared of: losing their monopoly on distribution of content.
You still need some amount of advertising so people know about it. While the distribution costs are lower, having content "roam around freely" would just mean that the content creators won't get paid for their work at all. And please don't bring up the tired old "they can make money off of performances" argument. Many content creators simply can't perform. And if the content they create is good, and others benefit from it, shouldn't that be good enough? Why do some people think content should always take the role of "loss leader"?
We need a system where content creators can get paid fairly for the effort they put into creation. The current system is far from perfect, but it's better than one with no copyright laws. With no copyright, the situation would only be worse.
With statutory damages under 17 U.S.C. section 504(c), Dr. Dre can get a minimum of $500 from you for each of his copyrighted works that you copy. The maximum goes up to $100,000 if you willfully violated the copyright. The actual damages will be set by what the judge considers "just." That could be anything, but it will be a lot more than 16.6 cents!!
Whether the Dr. Dre needs the money or not, people ARE stealing when they copy music they didn't buy.
But even so I don't see how suing is really going to work unless it instills fear in the vast majority of the users.
/ZL
Good thing I signed up under a pseudonym (not gonna say which one...that'd be stupid). Go ahead and try to prove I was ever on napster. Then try to prove that I did anything illegal. Then try to find me. Then try to find ALL of us.
This is all pretty stupid. Napster is a marketer's wet dream. Free promotion...massively parallel word-of-mouth memetic delivery system. If music industry marketing was a virus, Napster would be e-bola. One can easily break the MTV barier to entry in the relevant market through Napster chat. I've bought CD's because I heard some of the songs on them on Napster. The end users never reliably get whole ablums, and if so, it can take weeks or months (if that's the case, then buying the cd is much more convenient).
It's all acedemic anyway. Gnutella and Freenet will become hydras of free speech and information sharing. When faced with a tsunami, it's better to surf it than to stand against it.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
supposedly complain about people pirating their albums but I don't think they really know where the money comes from. Selling so many albums doesn't make the artist very much money compared to their other cash cows. The licensing fees for putting their name/logo on t-shirts and underwear and selling out concert venues is the real money maker. The record companies are really pissed because they think mp3s will keep someone's album from making the top100 chart and therefore not give them any free advertising. If you go after napster for giving the ability to share files then you'll also have to go after NFS, Microsoft, Winamp, Xing and a host of others. Napster lets you share mp3s but then so does Microsoft's file and print sharing or an NFS server. It's assanine, MP3s aren't even of really great quality they are about as good as a decent cassette recording. If I want quality I'll buy a CD, if I want a convienient way to listen to songs I'll use mp3s.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
No one, I repeat, NO ONE, is FORCING you to buy any album multiple times. YOU do it because YOU want to.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
these users are committing theft by distributing MP3s
Stupid question: is there anything wrong with having a lot of legally ripped MP3s (for own personal use) happen to appear on a server?
Isn't it the people who download them that are committing theft?
Suppose I want to share my entire hard disk (something I often do on the LAN at work, for convenience). Am I breaking the law if this allows people to make pirate copies of whatever software or music I legally have on my disk? That is, am I responsible for taking active steps to protect the stuff I own/have a license to use? What if I "don't realize" I'm sharing them?
You're completely right in your rambling agains copyright violation and your view of the hippocracy (sp?) on slashdot about that, but I think you ask the wrong question:
Now eventually when everyone and their mother has broadband and has access to cheap MP3 players (or other digital sound dplayers), where will the music industry as it currently exists be?
You take existing copyright law, show how it can easily be circumvented by using digital media and argue that this is bad because it will destroy the music industry.
Let's not talk about changing the current situation by suing and enforcing current law or even tightening existing law in order to set legality against possibilty and social reality. Let's not bitch about the possible death of an industry which would become obsolet by technological advances.
Let's ask ourself: Why should I care for the record industry? What advantages/disadvanteges may we face without them?
Nobody of the "bookwriters guild" thought about suing Gutenberg, nobody considered to put the makers of the early automobiles into jail because otherwise the coach industry would get out of business.
I am aware that my examples lack the fact that Gutenberg/automobile makers didn't violate existing laws (AFAIK), but also nobody thought about proposing laws making their business illegal.
OTOH there are many examples in every country about laws being changed/abandoned because they just didn't fit the social reality anymore (women rights come to mind, the whole recent radio hubbub in the US).
So just because a business is at risk I don't see why it's mandatory to keep the status quo at all costs.
The crime (when there is a crime) is on the part of people who use the software improperly, not the people that write it or provide an infrastructure where you can run it.
Unfortunately for the RIAA, MPAA, etc., the costs of prosecuting the actual lawbreakers would be exhorbitant, and in any case much more expensive per trip to court than the cost of the goods pirated by a single individual, if they did go after individuals.
They may sue or press charges against a few individuals to set an example, but for the most part they will continue to try to criminalize the code and the infrastructure, so they can get everything shut down with just a few lawsuits. If they squash some legitimate uses and/or undercut your freedom of speech on the internet as a side effect, well, tough shit.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> ABCNEWS said the same thing about Dre being sued by LucasFilm for THXs use.
Maybe he needs the money to pay what he owes Lucas?
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> The artists get screwed over by the label. Then the label spends its cash on attorneys.
Once again demonstrating what we all already knew, namely that the labels are useless middlemen.
I propose that we simplify the system, and modify Napster so that it transfers a nickle from you bank account to a lawyer's bank account for every tune you download.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Good point, but it still seems suicidal for a musician to sue their fans!
I have a growing suspicion that the growing rank of has-been musicians pressing Napster suits are being put up to it by their labels: "Want us to sign you for three more records that won't sell like the newer acts? No way...unless maybe you wanted to help us with this Napsta thing."
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Artists can't just go to the bank and get a loan to make an album because that's not the type of risk that banks can handle.
.coms ?
Worse even than
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Prove I never bought the CD. If you can't prove that, there is no case. The onus is not on me to prove that I did. The onus is on you to prove I didn't. I am not required to keep around receipts. What if My mp3's are my 'backup copies', and my originals were destroyed or stolen?
Funny. the digital home recording act expressly says that you cannot be proesecuted for copyright infringement for noncommercial copying. Therefore, it's not copyright infringement, as you have the right to do so.
Just because the song is listed doesn't mean the user actually has it or is actually allowing it to be shared. How many downloads don't work?
And if they download it themselves, aren't they breaking the law too?
It's simple. Rap is dying.. so the industry is using washed up rap stars to sue people, just in case they lose. That way, the artist looks bad 'boo hoo' and not the industry.
I am certainly not a lawyer, nor an expert. But if we forget for a moment about the common assumptions of what is illegal and not, it would appear that the home recording act EXPRESSLY ALLOWS for individuals to make as many copies as they want, and do whatever they want with, music, so long as it's in a non-commercial fashion.
It's legal to have the MP3's if you own the album, right?
Actually, I believe one of our more recent "loves" (DMCA) will tell you otherwise.
Actually, no, you're wrong. The standard CDs are not encrypted in any way and so do not fall under DMCA. Under the "fair use" provisions it's completely legal to make copies for your personal use, including in different formats such as MP3. It's only the distribution that's illegal.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I have never "given" an mp3 file to anyone. When I search Napster for non-copyrighted songs (such as Home On The Range and other public domain classics) other users have the ability to TAKE files off my hard drive. It is legal for me to have those files on my hard drive because I own the CD, but may be illegal for someone else to have them. I don't know that SuP3rFr3ak doesn't own The Chronic when he downloads "Nothin but a G Thing" off my computer. Am I resposible for enforcing copyright laws? I hope not.
-B
>> One at a time? After the first few hundred, others might take notice.
There are a few hundred Dr. Dre fans?!
On the one hand, I can see how they want credit (and compensation) for their work. But, when music becomes only about the money, it loses integrity as a form of art. We have had the technology to make popular art (music, music videos, films, cartoons, etc..) available on demand for years now. Constantly we are bombarded by hype telling us that in the future, we can just push a button and be able to watch or listen to whatever we want. I'm telling you that the technology to do that is available right now, but you're not going to see it go mainstream any time soon. Why? Because music or video on demand would allow people to easily capture the song or show or video or whatever and redistribute it without the original artist getting credit or royalties.
Imagine if MTV puts online all of their videos, in their entirity. Then, puts ads on the page that the videos are on to make money at providing the videos. As soon as they do that, I can save whatever video I want, and email it to my friends or put it on my web site or put it on napster. Then, no one has any reason to go to MTV.com to see the video, and the revenue is lost. Since companies can't control the distribution (like they do through conventional media) they simply refuse to go on-line and sue anyone who they feel puts them on-line illegally.
So, I'm highly skeptical of any artist who tries to sue anyone because their stuff is put on-line. It blurs the line between art and strictly business. I know what a copyright is, and I believe in their proper use. But, just because something is the law, doesn't make it right.
I think that the artist sueing are looking at mp3s the wrong way. mp3 is more akin to radio than CD.
Do people who listen to mp3s buy less CDs? I have yet to see any studies that say so. If anything, my music-related spending habits have increased since I became interested in mp3.
mp3 is a cheap, effective way to share music in a medium-quality format. They have three major uses for me
This lawyer (Howard King) seems to have convinced Metallica and Dr. Dre that people are exchanging mp3s to get free musing and avoiding the purchase of CDs. He may even believe this himself. I have yet to see any study either way, but my life experience indicates that this is definitely not the case. The only people who lost out in the above scenarios are musicians whse work I considered, but did not find worth the money.
Everbody nowadays got something to say,
But all that comes out when they open their lips,
is a bunch gibberish,
what the motha fuck is that,
they forgot about Dre.
at least he's showing no sense at all by sueing his fans. There will be only one winner in all of this, see if you can pick his name from this quote...
"If it turns out that there are people who have huge hard drives and actually are downloading copyrighted materials and transmitting (them) on the Internet, we may very well go after them because they are engaged in theft," said Dr. Dre attorney Howard King.
The suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, follows a similar suit by heavy-metal group Metallica. Both suits were filed by King.
--
+&x
Check out HNN for some other info on this. Turns out Dr. Dre is being sued by Lucas over use of the THX sound at the start of his latest work even though he was explicitly NOT given permission to.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
"Lucas is suing him for using the THX sound effect on his album. He apparently *asked* to use it, but was denied (and used it anyway)."
After Lucas told him no, did he go and download it off of Napster?
Have you ever actually been on an mp3 channel on irc?
Yes.
Just have someone join one, and log the client activity. Most of the fileservers nowadays announce to the channel the files that they are transferring to whom...
Most actually don't, they however do report what mp3 the server's machine is currently playing. SpR I know does, and reports only on timeout what mp3 it was sending to a user, or if that user was the last user finished downloading. I haven't seen sdfind release any info like that, or that borg script.
This would all change overnight if there were even threats of this happening.
-- iCEBaLM
Yes, but most ircd's (I think) report to you the filename before it's sent. Say you send something to johndoe on irc.madeup.net. Your irc client will send the initilization quest to irc.madeup.net and irc.madeup.net will send the request to JohnDoe. If JohnDoe accepts, then the Direct Client to Client connection is made...
:)
:P
1. This is true, however the ircd doesn't log it
2. The status of the connection (whether the file was actually transfered) is not sent through the irc server through CTCP.
Anyways, I tihnk it would be a waste to log it anyway... I'm a musician, I'd hate to have my work pirated, but hell... atleast then I'd have SOME fans
Then remove the economic incentive to pirate your music, sell them as mp3's for $0.50 a pop on your website, then get free advertizing by submitting an article to slashdot about it.
-- iCEBaLM
should Adobe and Microsoft and all those other companies try to shut down Internet Relay Chat? Should they sue the companies and individuals that make IRC clients? NO. They should go after the people distributing the copyrighted material. And yes, I'm sure it would be quite easy for lawyers to come in and shutdown the larger purveyors of the mp3's. I'll be there are server logs somewhere... hell, traceroute.
Last time I checked, the ircd's didn't log the actuall chat/ctcp traffic going through the servers, it would be a huge waste of disk space anyways. File transfers on IRC have no servers, they are established through DCC, Direct Client Connetcion, they don't go through the IRC server, enjoy trying to find logs for those.
It's totally impossible to do, really.
-- iCEBaLM
is his doctorate in again?
For thouse of us that are tring to nail spamers we know just how hard this can be sometimes. I suspect their attys will find a suspect or two and try to make a an example of them.
Copyright is dead - it just ain't stopped moving yet, and it's death throes might well hurt a lot of people.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Make stuff that people like, and they'll find a way to support you so you can make more of it.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Post-copyright, what reasonable motivation would you have to do so? The only reason to keep your source secret is so you can sell binaries - those who are giving away sourceless binaries today (e.g., Be) still have for-sale binaries based on the code base.
But post-copyright, selling binaries makes no sense. One guy gets your modified fetchmail, and it's available for free to the world from his FTP server an hour later. Your monetary gain: $0.
People who understand free software (which, we hope, will soon be everyone) are pissed at you, and wonder what dastardly code you're hiding. Your reputation gain: mucho minus.
The purpose of the GPL is to protect our ability to use, distribute, and modify software. The only threats to the first two are the copyright laws themselves, so removing them doesn't harm the GPL in that way. Social pressure and market forces will suffice to preserve the third.
(IMHO, of course; RMS may disagree.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
People have, and always will, write programs (and songs, and stories, and poems) without getting paid to do so.
New-school: in addition to the above, you could be hired to write an open-source application, or you could write a custom job on contract. See CoSource or SourceExchange for two models of how you can get paid to write free software.
Many large and interesting software projects being written today could be open sourced without much economic impact, because they're custom-made. For example, my current contract is hacking for TRW on EDOS, a NASA project. Giving NASA the source wouldn't really make a difference, since they're expected to be the only user. (Heck, they might be getting it now - I'm just the hired help, I don't know the details.)
There are also secondary ways to make a buck. You can sell support, manuals, and the like; and I think that in the future we'll actually see mechandizing and endorsements start to play a role. Hell, if Microsoft can sell a "Windows 95" blend of coffee (I'm not making this up), why not "Jolt: Official Cola of Red Hat Linux"?
Which is why I've been saying that while making and giving away copies should be unrestricted, selling copies or other profit-making off a work might require that a royalty be paid to the author. I think that song performance royalties are a good model to start from - I can perform any song anywhere (as if anyone could stop me), but if I'm getting paid I (really the venue owner, usually) owe the artist a cut via BMI or ASCAP.
But strictly, that's not a copyright issue, since anyone would still have the right to make copies of the work. We're talking about something new, a "salesright" if you will, which is more practical and more ethically palatable.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Libraries store thousands of books worth of copyrighted material. Worse yet, they advertise themselves as a library to the public, telling people where to find copyrighted books. This allows the general public to visit, borrow books, and make complete copies if they wish...
--
Okay:
1. Don't be a homophobe
2. You are lame as hell
3. Don't post as an AC without good reason
4. You are an asshole
--GnrcMan--
WTF? No, that was a comical response.
You'd think that, if these people were getting into a lawsuit, they'd at least know what they're suing.
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
nah.. you'll just be rich.
//rdj
P.S. You wouldn't happen to have Dre and Metallica's email-address would you? I'd be happy to send them some of your music so you canb sue them for illegal possession of music..
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
No! don't kill jarjar! Just maim him.. and have him make regular appearances in ep. 2 with lines like:
- AARRggHH!!
- Not the face!
- nnnnnngggghhh, these ropes are cutting into my wrists
- but without a tongue I can't tal...AAAAAArr*bubble*
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
It just means you're paying for content you're not allowed to have. If I buy a simple compact cassette, I am also paying for the music that's not on it. so I borrow a friend's cd, and copy the music that I already payed for. I now have music, I payed for it, and I can change the medium by recording it to my HD. Pretty sure the RIAA will object to this, but that's not my problem. All recordcompanies are full of shit. When the cd was introduced in the Netherlands, the recordcompanies said they'd lower the price of cd's to about fl 25. This never happened, ofcourse.. cd's are still at fl 40. To add insult to injury grey import is not allowed any more. grey import allowed recordstores to buy their cd's in foreign countries, where cd's are cheaper. The artists had their cut, since these were official cd's. the only one NOT benefitting was the recordcompanies. bunch of moneygrabbing bastards...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I don't care if there is now a new route for people to get into the music arena without having to bow down to the music giants.
/. sides with napster, yeah, I guess I can sort of see some logic there. but when dre sues users who are _stealing_ what he sells and you people complain, I really have to wonder. would you like it if I stole your livelihood? I doubt it.
I don't care if people who steal mp3s are more likely to buy records.
I don't care if dre hasnt done anything since the chronic.
I care that when you copy and distribute his mp3s, you are breaking the law and you are stealing his art. when napster complains that they aren't directly breaking the law and
No, artists such as Dr. Dre tour to promote an album. The tour is, in almost all cases, a break-even AT BEST. People don't make money off tours except in ridiculous cases like maybe Michael Jackson or Floyd or something. Ever notice that bands tour whn they release a new disc? Did you think that was conincidence?
whether or not you have moral qualms is really none of anyone's business. the topic at hand isnt whether napster users are going to hell, its about whether they're goign to court. f your morality, you still have to deal with the laws in applicable situations.
This lawsuit seems to support my fear. If this story makes the front page of newspapers tomorrow, will high-bandwidth users and others with limited choice of internet providers (college students?) stop using napster?
--
The shareholder is always right.
"Their only response was (to say that) the songs aren't on their servers, and if (Young) will send a letter under penalty of perjury identifying specific songs and users that they would restrict those users," King said.
What's so comical about that? It's Napster explaining how their program works. I'm sorry you find it so funny Dr. Dre that you were completely off base on how you thought Napster works, but the truth is you can't go after Napster for something they're not responsible for. They even provided a solution to ban the users who are pirating his MP3's.
<signature>
"No food or beverage in computer lab". Hmm. I think they mean to say "Don't Spill".
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
This is the point I made both times I submitted this story. Of course, the story was declined both times.
By the way, that would only work if you just downloaded the song and never let anyone else download it.
At least he's showing a slight bit more sense by realizing who's committing the crime (rather than merely insisting that his songs be removed from Napster's "servers"...).
Whether or not going after the individual users is doable in any sort of (economically intelligent) way is a different matter.
-----
Alright, I'm tired of hearing the same old arguement over and over again, so here's the reasons I use Napster now instead of buying CDs (I own several hundred CDs btw).
First, I'm into trance, a form of eletronic music, that I can't seem to buy ANYWHERE, not even online. Sure I can find some albums every once and awhile, but most of the time the stores have never heard of what I'm looking for, can't get it, or it will take weeks to get, etc...
Second, in the electronic music spectrum, there's alot of stuff I don't like. I used to try buying CDs, then find out they were junk. Waste of money. Sure, I'd buy CDs of artists I liked that I could actually get ahold of, but I'm listening to alot of bootlegs and things from Europe that can't be purchased, at least in the USA...
Third, I'm poor. Now more than ever, it's difficult being a college student. I couldn't buy albums at all (maybe a couple a year) if I even wanted to. I'm sure alot of other people feel the same way. Most of the people who are pirating on Napster (including me) I bet would not buy the album of the person they were pirating anyway, either because they don't like it that much, it's just something novelty they wanted, or they're too poor to go out and actually buy it. You can argue then that the person should not have that recording, but the artist still is not losing money anyways and perhaps smaller ones gain from sharing their music to people who would have never heard it otherwise.
Fourth, everywhere I look, record sales are booming. They're having no problems pushing CDs, even though they're generally $3 - $5 more than 5 - 10 years ago when I was in my teen popular artist CD buying phase.
The only thing I can find in my local record stores are asshole employees, limited selection (plenty of the MTV crap), and high prices. I could buy online, but it's more of the same except the salesperson is taken out and replaced by phony reviews.
I'm glad Napster exists, it has opened me up to music I would not have found otherwise and allows me to get my hands on things I wouldn't be able to get my hands on.
The problem with Napster is that your download directory is always open to other Napster users, regardless of anything. The only way to keep people from downloading stuff from your machine is to be sure to notice people trying to connect and disconnect them before they DL anything. This is very difficult to do, and it's the reason I don't use Napster for anything.
Take care,
Steve
========
Stephen C. VanDahm
However, just because you own a CD doesn't necessarily mean you can store a copy of the same song made from someone else's CD.
This will get shaken out if the RIAA vs. MP3.com thing doesn't get settled out of court.
Best regards,
SEAL
And your point is?
Just because he is ACCUSED of committing copyright infringement of a Lucas sound effect does not mean that he should ignore people stealing and distributing his copyrighted music. Though its ironic that both suits were filed on the same day, one suit does not invalidate the other.
Hypothetical example: If the Free Software Foundation was being sued by someone for copyright infringement (perhaps they accidentally included code that they shouldn't have in a distribution), would it be hypocritical for them to sue a company like Microsoft it they believed that Microsoft was using copyrighted free software code in a closed source product?
Sig goes here
Hmmm...Dre has gone from beating the crap out of women he doesn't like to suing Napster and it users. I'm sorry but since Dre doesn't seem to see anything wrong with hitting women, I really don't see anything wrong with pirating his music.
I have a friend who was editing a scholalry journal at a major midwestern University. Universal Studios attempted to bar them from even printing the name of one of their films and its characters, despite the fact that the journal made clear that 1) it was a non-profit, scholarly journal and 2) the article itself was a critical piece. Despite the fact that the usage was clearly within the throw of Fair Use, Universal made a big we-can-afford-to-drag-you-into-litigation-that-wil l-bankcrupt-you stink. The little journal had to actually drag in lawyers (luckily some relatives were willing to do a little pro bono) in order to be permitted to do something which was well within their rights.
Although I can't speak for this particular case (I've never listened to this album), I do knwo that it's common for those with deep pockets to attempt to trample on the artistic freedoms of sample artists (see, for example, the way U2 tore Negativeland a new asshole several years back)
(PS, if my understanding of Fair Use is totally FUBAR, please step forward and straighten me out-- e-mail or post below or post here. Thanks.)
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
Technology has rendered the entire distribution system for recorded music unnecessary. Unfortunately, disassembling it will be painful for all involved -- lost jobs, lost revenue, obsolete equipment. These legal skirmishes are part of the change mechanism. Some slowing change, some promoting it. In five years we'll all be saying "Remember ..."
Allright. How do they know that it was *ME* that downloaded the song? It could have been my sister, my dad, my grandma, my friend using my computer, my puppy who was playing with the mouse, etc. They can't prove that *I* downloaded a thing... So how will they pin the blame on actual people rather than just IP addy's?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
Does anyone else find it kind of ironic how as more and more people make a big fuss about Napster, the more exposure to the public it gets? The people suing are kind of kicking themselves in the ass with this...
;)
I was sitting around at school the other day and happened to overhear a conversation between a couple students where one had first heard about Napster through the news of it getting sued... They're getting some free advertising
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
It would be interesting to see how this would be a completely different issue if Napster allowed for trading of any kind of file, period. Sure, 99% of the byte traffic would still be MP3s, but technically, Napster would just be promoting the free exchange of information . . . and making it easier.
Going after individual users is probably the right thing for Dre to do, much as I hate to say it. Napster should not be getting sued over this; neither should universities who simply didn't prevent students from engaging in activity they already knew was illegal. If I get injured in a car crash, I'm not going to sue the construction crew who paved the highway. It's not their fault the guy was driving drunk, any more than it's the universities' fault their students are violating copyright law -- or, to be perfectly honest, Napster's fault that people are using their software. Trading MP3s is illegal; everyone knows that. It's not less illegal to trade MP3s via Napster, the same way it's not less illegal to mug someone if you use a gun. And yet we don't stop companies from manufacturing guns. So, the users know what they're getting themselves into.
Their best defense, which isn't really a defense, is that there are a f*cking lot of them, and suing them all is terribly impractical, if not impossible. (I think this is what Rob meant to say when he posted the article.)
Not that taking down Napster will be a tremendous blow to the software piracy industry. There was a pretty lively trade in MP3s before Napster, and it'll continue when they're gone. Personally, I just deny anonymous access to my FTP server, and give accounts out to people I know and trust. There could be a pretty healthy trade in any sort of illegal software if a whole bunch of people set up a network of such servers. Remember BBSes?
I suspect that the real tragedy for Dre is not that people are using Napster to listen to his music without paying for it -- radio? burned CDs? cassette tapes? retail theft? -- but the discovery that so many people don't like his songs enough to pay nearly 20 bucks for them. Again, speaking for myself, I still buy CDs if I really like the song, and I have quite a few tracks both on CD and in MP3 format. I spend more money on music now than I did before MP3, probably because now I can listen to a few tracks of my own choosing before I buy the album.
In any case, none of this is the real issue, and lawsuits like this are pathetic attempts to postpone the inevitable. For better or for worse, ethical or unethical, Napster or no Napster, MP3 is now effectively ineradicable. Dre and Metallica should get over it and start adapting. The rest of the industry is busy doing just that.
[We Have No Product] [The Swindle
...suing Iomega because their Zip disks and Zip drives help facilitate MP3 trading?
Bunch o' clueless dumbfucks...
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
I'm not a huge fan of Limp Bizkit, but they're supporting Napster (well, Napster is sponsering their summer tour). What a concept, putting your fans before the possibility of profit.
kwsNI
If Dr. Dre went after everyone that downloaded his music it would really make no sense. It's like snipping off an inch or two of a weed instead of pulling it out of the ground completely. If he wants to go after anyone it should the distributors of the mp3s. Then again, that's Napster... and countless web sites, FTP sites, and "private" underground distributions that none of us have knowledge of. MP3s are here to stay... unless some sort of huge filter was added into the Internet backbone that deleted them. Mmm.. imagine the lag. That would certainly clear up the problem, though. Well, not really. Two hours after being implemented everyone would figure out what happened and rename their mp3s to something else. It's like prohibition. I say it again. MP3s are here to stay! Give in, artists, or be left in the dust! Sorta how when the Patterns industry went from human cutters to robotics arms... The companies that didn't convert and didn't "endorse computers" are no longer. Smarten up, stupid. -Tom
Sounds like a lot of work for a little gain to me.
And if he does succed, can this eventualy lead to game companies searching peoples homes for CD-Rs of thier product? Now while I can't stand software piracy, invasion of privacy dosen't sound good for those people that have a few copies of their buds games. (you know who you are, you pirating bastards...just making games more expensive for the rest of us)
------------------
"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." -- Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615, during the trial of Galileo
What new revenue stream does Napster open?
The stream of revenue from lawsuits. It's a joke.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
The risk of an adverse judgment is that if there is a ruling against the label or artist, it can be used against them later.
In reading the source article, they still threaten the universities if they allow access to napster. Maybe Napster should sue these people for intentional interference.
Fight Spammers!
Well, categorizing her as anything is iffy. She makes her own style, that's why I like her.
On the other hand, i's a little circular to say that country is bad, because all the good stuff isn't really country, because country is bad.
When I say country, I do include Mary Chapin, and james taylor, and Kathea Mattea, and all the other great poet-singers.
Judge Pag, the Learned, Impartial, and Very Relaxed
It's legal to have the MP3's if you own the album, right?
Actually, I believe one of our more recent "loves" (DMCA) will tell you otherwise.
Hmm, I've seen some of his videos. I'd like to say right now that I'd rather not be a victim of a drive-by for downloading his music.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The fundamental issue here is not about money, it's about intellectual property rights. While Napster has some sound ideas behind the concept, it's also a very effective tool for raping these IP rights.
Artists have all the justification in the world to be pissed about the situation, but because they are fighting a network here. What makes it even harder on them, this network has adopted a damaging model of behavior (distributing unauthorized content without permission) and there is no alternative healthy model provided (distributing authorized content with permission). There is no easy way for people to do the Right Thing with MP3's because the music industry has largely tried to sweep the whole thing under the carpet, fearing the consequences.
This is a war that isn't lost or won on arguments based on finance. This is a war of ethics, that's why Metallica and other "opinion leaders" in the music industry are making a valid point: Violating intellectual property rights is wrong. Stealing is bad. Don't steal, ok?
We want to do business with the music industry. We want to support the artists. We want our MP3s and we want the innovation and inspiration to be rewarded.
The music industry must find a model for digital media distribution that works, a model that provides similar conveniences with all the financial and ethical bits in the right places. The way to beat Napster is to make a better Napster, and make it serve the industry that we all want to continue to do business with.
If the music industry continues to ignore the Internet and digital media, to fight it instead of working with it, they have already lost.
Any Warner-AOL/BMG/Sony guys out there? Here's a clue: HIRE the Napster guys.
--
Jouni Mannonen
3D Evangelist
Jouni Mannonen | Game Designer, Consultant
How's this: I only wanted 2 Dr. Dre songs but his monopolistic recording company bundled these other songs with the pacakge and is forcing consumers to pay extra for something they don't want.
Or, I'm protesting his illegal use of Lucasfilm's THX deep note by downloading and listening to his songs, though I would never buy his albums he believes I'm huring him. This may be illegal but it is a crime of protest and passion, if you find me guilty 10,000 angry Star Wars fans will tear this courthouse down and string Dre like the hypocrite he is.
You should be paying mefor MY services! I'm giving the record industry a free wake up call. Their ancient CD format and pricing schemes will not be tolerated any longer. Viva compressed formats, rewritable digital media, and cheap music.
Screw Dre, he probably realized what Lucas is gonna take from him and is gonna make it back by suing you and me. Exactly what part of the gangsta-rap tradition involves copyright protection when the whole genre evolved from ripping off hooks and melodies of other artists and *talking* over it.
Where's Suge Knight when Dre really needs him?
1. Napster put advertising into their program.
2. Allow only MP3s that have a certain signature that can be used to positively identify the artist.
3. Allow MP3s to be freely traded. Each time a particular MP3 file is downloaded to completion, the transaction is recorded, and advertising revenue from #1 is used to pay the artist.
So the idea is that Napster than can be used to trade music freely, the artists get paid, the users don't pay anything. It's sponsored music trading. 4. Possibly restrict the MP3s to be under a certain bit-rate.
Problems: 1. How to do the advertising.
2. Must modify all MP3s to add "signature".
3. Omnipresent user profiling possibilities.
4. How much do the artists get paid?
If Napster just capitulates a little bit and allow something like this, or partially so, then maybe, just maybe, there wouldn't be all these people suing. Then we wouldn't have a site to Pay Lars.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
If they're getting a cut from every digital recording device sold in order to compensate for losses due to copyright infringement, why isn't it legal to distribute copies? After all, you're compensating them for it. That recording device tax is one of the shadier things I've heard of them doing. There's gotta be some way to invalidate it. It just seems completely illogical.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
No, you'r not depriving them of the material. You are, however, (for all practical purposes) depriving them of the ability to get compensation for work they did that you're benefitting from.
Funny, my dictionary explicitly mentions "intangible property". Anyway, while copyright infringement is "theft" in a sense, it isn't theft of the data. It's theft of the creator's right to profit from their work.
If someone creates some "content", they should be able to ask whatever price they want for it. If you want it, pay the price. If you don't like the price, go elsewhere. Your rights aren't being infringed any more than they would be if the person hadn't come up with the content in the first place. Obtaining a copy of the content without the (explicit or implicit) consent of the creator hurts content creators because it sginificantly reduces their chance to get a return on their investment. It's partly because of people who think it's okay to violate copyright that we have to put up with crap like copy protection, SDMI, and DMCA.
You lose everything when you die. Does that mean you have no property at all?
To be honest, I could care less what is or isn't "Constitutional". I'm not an American. What I do care about is what is fair. Is it fair that someone spends a great deal of effort developing something in the hopes that they can make a living off of it, and instead they get nothing while others benefit from their work? I don't think so.
Copyrights are very different from patents. If someone has a copyright on some content, you're not deprived of anything. If you don't want to pay to use their content, you can freely develop your own. Your rights are the same as if the content was never created in the first place.
With patents it's different. If someone patents something, and you independently develop the same thing, you're in trouble. So when a patent is granted, the "rights" of non-patent holders have been reduced. If you have a patent on "Kangarooskicizers", I am no longer allowed to develop one, even if I don't look at your design. With copyrights it's different. If you copyright a piece of software called "Kangarooski Office", I can make a virtually identical piece of software, as long as I don't actually copy your code.
So in the case of copyrights, the things I can do if I don't want to license from you are the same as if you'd never developed the thing in the first place. In the case of patents, I actually lose my right to develop a "kangarooskicizer", even if I don't know that you've already developed such a thing.
If While I do agree that copyrights shouldn't last forever, I think that arbitrary timeouts (in programming, or in life) are a Bad Thing. What if someone spends 20 years developing something? What if someone spends some time developing some content, but isn't able to find a suitable use for it until 15 years later? I'm not sure how best to resolve this, but I don't think an arbitrary time limit is the right answer.
No, you'r not depriving them of the material. You are, however, (for all practical purposes) depriving them of the ability to get compensation for work they did that you're benefitting from.
Funny, my dictionary explicitly mentions "intangible property". Anyway, while copyright infringement is "theft" in a sense, it isn't theft of the data. It's theft of the creator's right to profit from their work.
If someone creates some "content", they should be able to ask whatever price they want for it. If you want it, pay the price. If you don't like the price, go elsewhere. Your rights aren't being infringed any more than they would be if the person hadn't come up with the content in the first place. Obtaining a copy of the content without the (explicit or implicit) consent of the creator hurts content creators because it sginificantly reduces their chance to get a return on their investment. It's partly because of people who think it's okay to violate copyright that we have to put up with crap like copy protection, SDMI, and DMCA.
You lose everything when you die. Does that mean you have no property at all?
To be honest, I could care less what is or isn't "Constitutional". I'm not an American. What I do care about is what is fair. Is it fair that someone spends a great deal of effort developing something in the hopes that they can make a living off of it, and instead they get nothing while others benefit from their work? I don't think so.
Copyrights are very different from patents. If someone has a copyright on some content, you're not deprived of anything. If you don't want to pay to use their content, you can freely develop your own. Your rights are the same as if the content was never created in the first place.
With patents it's different. If someone patents something, and you independently develop the same thing, you're in trouble. So when a patent is granted, the "rights" of non-patent holders have been reduced. If you have a patent on "Kangarooskicizers", I am no longer allowed to develop one, even if I don't look at your design. With copyrights it's different. If you copyright a piece of software called "Kangarooski Office", I can make a virtually identical piece of software, as long as I don't actually copy your code.
So in the case of copyrights, the things I can do if I don't want to license from you are the same as if you'd never developed the thing in the first place. In the case of patents, I actually lose my right to develop a "kangarooskicizer", even if I don't know that you've already developed such a thing.
does he want my 16.6 cents for the two songs I've downloaded? What else could he sue me for?
Depending on the state, he may be able to receive up to 5 times actual damages. You're looking at a possible judgement of 83 cents. Don't panic, you can probably settle the case for half a dollar.
Their argument is that they get a cut from each digital recording device sold to address piracy, and computers don't count as digital recording devices. Thus, since they don't get money when you buy a computer, it's illegal to copy digital music to your computer.
*shrug* I am not a lawyer, but I play one on TV.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yep, that's right. This is the last time I ever pirate one of their songs!
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
I keep arguing this point with my wife. :) There is nothing illegal about Napster. It trades files across the net. That's not illegal.
:-)
However, 99.9% of said files are copyrighted material. Trading these files is illegal. Makes perfect sense to me - go after the (ab)users, not the tool.
"Napster doesn't pirate music, people pirate music."
---
According to this C|NET article (last paragraph), Lucas is suing him for using the THX sound effect on his album. He apparently *asked* to use it, but was denied (and used it anyway).
Hypocrite!
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Now we just need to get Garth Brooks to sue Napster. Then we'll have the 3 lamest "forms of music" all lined up like idiots trying to stuff a genie back in his bottle.
On the other hand, do country music listeners even know what 'nturnet is?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
If he actually decides to sue you, would it not be just as easy to go out and buy whatever albums have the offending songs on them? It's legal to have the MP3's if you own the album, right? Then they would have to somehow prove that you didn't own the album at the time of download...
everyone that's gotten warez off of an IRC channel, raise your hand!
now, is that the fault of IRC, the IRC client you happen to be using, or the explicit fault of the users that happen to be pirating copyrighted software?
should Adobe and Microsoft and all those other companies try to shut down Internet Relay Chat? Should they sue the companies and individuals that make IRC clients? NO. They should go after the people distributing the copyrighted material. And yes, I'm sure it would be quite easy for lawyers to come in and shutdown the larger purveyors of the mp3's. I'll be there are server logs somewhere... hell, traceroute.
anyway, this is clearly illegal, but showing how idiotic lawyers, media, Dr. Dre, and the RIAA are, they're going after the wrong problem, and they're going after the symptom. This won't SOLVE anything. People will just find another way to get around paying $18 for a cd where you only really want 1 or 2 of the songs and the rest are crap. Until the music industry get's it's collective head out of its @ss, more applications are going to be created, more secret (or not so secret) trading grounds will pop up, and burners will become more and more popular.
Actually he's released an album that has gone quadruple platinum which is more than Eminem's (triple platinum).
This is not about "piracy" at all in my mind. Sure there are plenty people downloading copyrighted music out there, but there are also plenty of people taping stuff off the radio. CD sales are up despite napster and despite CD-R availability, and studies have shown that the people who copy music are also more likely the people buying more records.
If it isn't about piracy what is it about? Up until the arrival of MP3s there was very little way for the average Joe to get digital copies of original copies without considerable cost. The report you link to is a red herring (it is from before MP3s when copying meant burning CDs or dubbing tapes and even then in 1989 it was inconclusive).
Dr. Dre, the RIAA and Metallica have shown themselves to be more technologically savvy and able to spot trends than most of the people posting to this thread. In a few years broadband will be ubiqituos and devices that play/record digital music will be cheap. Already my roomate and I who are music fans and probably own a combined total of 200 CDs, have almost stopped purchasing CDs. Between his portable MiniDisc player, my computer that always has Napster open, our entertainment center and my car Minidisc player we have myriad ways to listen to digital quality music we downloaded off Napster for free. This weekend, every song we saw on MTV or heard at the club on Saturday has been downloaded of Napster and is enjoyed by myself and my roomate in digital surround sound at no cost. In a few years, once DSL-like access is as common as 56k modem dialup and Minidisc players cost as much as Walkmans(sp?), the average person (not the music fanatic who MUST have that perfect digital sound) will see no reason to pay for music.
Now I am against paying $18 for a CD that contains only 1 or 2 songs I'll like as much as the next person but even I realize where this will eventually lead. I recently downloaded "Living la vida loca" which from an MTV special I saw cost $900,000 in production costs to create a video for. The reason I downloaded the song was because of the rather cool video. Now eventually when everyone and their mother has broadband and has access to cheap MP3 players (or other digital sound dplayers), where will the music industry as it currently exists be? The answer is Shit Outta luck. I have thought about different ways that the music industry can thrive in a digital world and none come to mind because no matter what the music industry comes up with it
- cannot prevent people from simple taking their content and giving it away for free like people do with Napster (just for fun once I tagged a music file with my initials to see how many people would copy it after having it up on Napster for a month, currently I get at least 50 hits anytime I search for it).
cannot use encryption as a panacea because it will broken.Given the above reasons, even if the music industry was going to embrace digital distribution just as they did CDs, it will take the elimination of competition that seeks to commoditize product that is expensive to promote, produce and market.
What I would really like to see on slashdot instead of the typical bitching and moaning by music pirates (of which I admit to being) who feel it is their right to disrespect the rights of copyright holders to save themselves a buck (of course, these same people would scream copyright violation if MSFT used GPL code in the next edition of Windows without open sourcing windows or if slashdot puts insignificant snippets of their rants and ravings in a book to help enlighten people). Instead I would like to see proposals for how the music industry can still make money in a digital. After all the music industry is in a life threatening situation and thus all their actions are understandable when placed in that light.
This isn't about piracy at all - it's about an industry that is afraid to change with the times. Get over yourself, Dre, and take a hint from your buddy Chuck D: the reason the industry is scared of napster is because it gives small unknown artists the power of distribution without having their work extorted by music industry gatekeepers!
What is that supposed to mean? How have is Napster giving artists the power of distribution. When last I checked Metallica and Dr. Dre were artists and they seem to be suing Napster for taking that right of distribution from them and giving it to cheapskates like me who will probably never contribute to the welfare of Dr. Dre, Metallica or any other artists whose music I steal and redistribute.
PS: Why doesn't slashdot talk about the artists that support Napster? Such as the fact that Napster will be sponsoring Limp Bizkit's next tour which by the way will be free.