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MP3.com Loses In Court
The Code Hog was among the first to write with the news that "CNBC is reporting that MP3.com lost its court case with RIAA; the court finding that MP3.com is infringing on 'thousands' of artists property." Alert readers like Szyzyg and SethJohnson contributed links to coverage on zdnet and on yahoo respectively.
On an aside note, the protocol MY.MP3.COM uses was analyzed and found to be secure by two computer scientists at Rice University. It was also criticized for being "too verbose", i.e. transferring too much private information (including a GUID, the ubiquitous MAC address). Go to http://www.cs.rice.edu/~dwallach/pub/beam-it.html to get the report in PS or PDF.
To all those fearing the outcome of the lawsuit against Napster: Don't forget there is still Gnutella (http://gnutella.wego.com) and FreeNet (http://freenet.sourceforge.net), as well as the Open Napster server (http://opennap.sourceforge.net). Other similar systems are CuteMX, IMesh, Hotline (with tracker servers that locate file servers, but no file pooling), Carracho, Scour.net, and Jungle Monkey. There are many similar projects in development, many of them distributed in nature.
A Napster server with 1-2 TB of MP3 probably doesn't require very much bandwidth, the most part is used for the filelists, but if these are properly synchronized and queued, this should be doable on a T1 or Cable connection.
I personally, as an ambitious MP3-"stealer", found Gnutella and the latest clients implementing its protocol to be highly usable. It is of course not entirely scalable, but subnets will provide a workaround for this problem. On normal days, the total files shared amount to the same quantity of the average Napster server.
The good thing is, because of Gnutella's distributed architecture, the only way to shut this one down is to shut down the Internet. There were millions of Napster users -- if Napster is criminalised, there will be millions of users of distributed systems like Gnutella. And you can't put millions in jail. (Well, maybe in America, but not in Europe.)
The sad thing about the downfall of MP3.COM is that it was very important for the artist community. But there will be others who will also do this job, and maybe even better. The other sad thing is that if the RIAA also wins the appeal, they get a lot of money. But hey, we will do our best to take that away from them again, eh?
-> "The net treats censorship as damage and routes around it". If you want to censor the net, you have to shut it down. Copyright is a form of censorship and the more it is enforced, the more this becomes clear.
-- ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICAIf you haven't read the RIAA's position on using computers to copy music, you'll be surprised at how they would answer questions about it. The text at this URL, http://www.riaa.com/tech/tech_ht.htm, was discussed on slashdot previously. It says, for example, "copying music onto a computer hard drive is not permitted". The same logic applies to making MP3s. What's really scary to me anbout this decision is that is seems to support the RIAAs extreme position on this.
No. The cases are very different. my.mp3.com was sued for infringement because of their database of RIAA recordings. Napster is being sued for contributory infringemnt for enabling others to share with each other.
http://www.riaa.com/about/ab_faq.htm why don't we let the RIAA know what we think. If you know what I mean...
I guess it only helps to confirm the theory that some people tend to fear new technologies rather then to embrace it. Oh well at there is always a chance for an appeal.
And hey, at least since MP3.com's stock plunged ~40% now is the time buy! One minor setback in the company doesn't mean it is going to bust. Sooner or later the stock price will soar and only the fools that didn't get in the opportunity now will be left out in the cold.
Fuck Ajit Pai
Heh.. I tried using beam-it quite a few times but I never got it to work (error 23 or 25). I have switched many different CD's but still to no avail.
I guess it's kind of hard to be infringing copyright if the software doesn't work quite that well, right?
Fuck Ajit Pai
If anything they should have offered you a job to work with their company or have thanked you for all the free advertising you gave them.
What's a succesful product if no one knows about it (any publicity is good publicity!).
Fuck Ajit Pai
All this hullabaloo over MP3s makes me glad I don't give a hoot about music. Go ahead, ask me to name the people or any song from the Back Street Boys or Limp Bizkit. I don't have any idea. But considering how people 'round here are so quick to throw the boycott threat around for patents, domain bullying, etc, why has no one called for a boycott of all these mainstream music groups that align with RIAA? If Alan Cox went and joined Microsoft, would we still love him?
Those who join evil entities like this become just as evil. So if Brittney or Metalica wish to have the "protection" of the RIAA, then they can sign away the entire MP3 community. I gather there are quite a lot of MP3 lovers, so a good boycott could register in their pocketbooks over time. Then maybe you can have more independent musicians getting popular from all this.
I was typing on this really old tandy keyboard that you pretty much have to punch keys down..
That explains all my mistakes like the is suppose to be they..
He was the one that said patented so I just played along..
The simply patented the name mp3 so that some one like the RIAA wouldn't come along and release some secure music format and name and patent it mp3..
The gif people are trying to force royalties on everyone that uses their product.. Thats why peopld don't like gifs..
- 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?"
Send the full purchase price of the CD.
If you only send $5, it looks like you're being cheap, even if the band's cut from the sale of a CD would actually be less than that. If you're serious about this, you need to send the full retail purchase price. If you go down to Best Buy or Tower Records or wherever and see a CD you want on sale for $18.95, then get a money order for $18.95, stick it in an envelope with a note explaining yourself, stamp it and drop it in a public mailbox somewhere. If 1% of all Slashdot readers did this, it'd make a pretty huge impact.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
magnetic recording.
FYI, magnetic recording (on wire) was invented in
Germany during WWII. Recording _tape_ was invented by
AMPEX in the USA. I'm a little fuzzy on it but IIRC AMPEX
founder was an employee of 3M first.
FWIW AMPEX also invented the VCR but dropped the ball on that one.
After all, the other tunes must be shit... They're not in the MTV rotation!
Need more proof? They're not getting airplay on the radio either!!
Please....
You think CD's are expensive now
You should have been around when vinyl ruled the earth.
$12 would have been a used CD with damage.
New CD's were $18-30 depending.
Vinyl LP's were about half that.
Recorded music has never been so inexpensive
I say make napster freeware....
Phew...Good thing you were here....
Oh, while yer at it answerman, what should we do about famine, disease and pestilence?
Someday the music industry will bring
its distribution channels up to date
but you'll still pay
Dude, the DJ isn't the business manager.
Commercial radio stations pay royalties.
Check with ASCAP or BMI
These are the people who (among other things) do the collection of royalties.
If the FCC issues you a license and you decide
on broadcasting music, you need to _arrange_ for
a waiver with the appropriate agencies.
You may be able to operate without an agreement,
as you say, since you are providing free promotion.
However that doesn't mean that ASCAP/BMI wouldn't come down hard on you over it,
given a reason.
No offense, but "some friends" really doesn't do anything for your case.
I was talking to some friends about VD and
they told me kerosene and a wire brush would cure it.
Would it have been legal for MP3.com to use something similar, where only the first person to upload a track would actually cause the bits to be transferred over the network?
__
what REALLY gets me is that arent all the artists on MP3.com up there voluntarily? like ive never found any 'commercial' mp3s on mp3.com! what the fuck is up w/ this??
-------------------------------------------
Well, if they own the music in the first place as well, could they give me a copy, since I own it too? :)
(I know, I know, duplicating something you already own and giving it to someone else who owns it too is called "stealing", not "giving", I'll get my terminology right one day...)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
What? That's the dumbest argument I ever heard!
If I had, say, a bad disk in a set, and I proved I had ownership of that disk and got someone (anyone!) to give me a replacement, did I break the law?
I paid for a license to use software, (listen to music, read a book, whatever) and I own something that should be bit-for-bit (dot-for-dot, word-for-word...) identical, so if I get that, *however* I get that, it shouldn't be a violation of that license.
Two people own the same intellectual property, and wish to trade copies. If the licenses at work doesn't allow that, there's something seriously foul about the whole system. IF that is the case, I encourage everyone to use Napster, Gnutella, and whatever the hell you want, and copy whatever you want, and give credit to whoever you want.
Why? Because even anarchy is better than a broken, unfair system. Copyright was created to encourage innovation on the part of the scientists and the artists and other *creative* people. If it is used only to keep the money and the power in the hands of a select few (non-scientists, non-artists, money-grubbing) people, I say distribute the IP to the masses.
It isn't any more creative, or more fair for the artists, it's just more equitable, and eventually when the few people who were at the top realize they have no power, they will have to find a system that works for the masses.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
>nsightful!?? Right now, at this moment, there are thousands of radio
>stations across the continent playing unencrytped MPEG's over the air
>from hard drive based automation systems. The format is not illegal.
>Don't make shit up just because you have some issue with mp3.com.
The point is that unlike mp3.com, radio stations *AREN'T* basically reselling the contents of the MP3's they don't own the rights to for pure profit. It has nothing to do with the unencrytped MP3 format which stands a snowball's chance in hell of being banned. In other words MP3.com the company was the problem, not the mp3 format.
>No, the point was...
>
>As for mp3.com itself not being illegal, those are shifting sands. Under the DMCA >and the WIPO provisions, the unencrypted MP3 format and tools for supporting >it may be deemed a "circumvention device", and thus illegal, if it can be shown >that there exist copyright-enforcing alternatives. And SDMI is on the way.
>
>Read the original post.
I did. The unencrypted MP3 format is in more more
danger than either a blank casset tape or a recordable cdrom.
On the other hand fly-by-night outfits like MP3.com that are out to make a fast buck by openly trying to resell this kind of stuff over the internet are in big trouble.
Don't confuse the two. They are not the same thing.
You can get busted for bootleging.
Hmm. Last I checked, profits were a lot more than "extra money". They cover the costs of raising capital in the first place and provide capital for tomorrow. Being highly profitable is actually quite socially responsible, in contrast to the money-losing dot-coms that are bleeding money away from other innovative or productive companies...
-Stu
How is this the downfall of MP3.COM? All they need to do is cease the illegal behavior, pay whatever fine is imposed, and if that fine permits financial solvency, then MP3.COM can adopt a more law-abiding business model.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
These laws won't be changed, because the people who make the laws take big fat checks from corporations and bodies like the RIAA.
This could have stopped. There was a good chance for that.
You morons out there who did not vote for McCain in the republican primaries are to blame for that situation continuing. Neither Bush nor Gore are going to do a damn thing about Campaign finance reform. And you can be damn sure no other candidate had even a chance at it. At least with McCain there was a chance.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
#1 - mymp3.com's model of authentication was not by any means airtight. There was nothing stopping a person from borrowing their brother's CD and putting it on their playlist - on the other hand, there's nothing stopping that same person from borrowing their brother's CD and ripping it - except CPU bandwidth and storage space.
#2 - scary concept: What if MP3.COM can't pay the fine? Does the RIAA own them? Does this mean that the RIAA then owns the artists signed with MP3.COM?
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I guess the RIAA is going to *get* that nickel after all.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I dont' understand. (I'm not an MP3.COM customer), why the hell didn't the consumers just rip their own MP3 copy off of their own legal CD? The software is free. . .
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Heh, I tried to bribe McCain by donating $1k to his campaign, but it was shut down before they billed my cc#.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
MP3.com, in order to populate that database, bought thousands of CDs. That gives them one (1) license to them, which is why they can have them in a database.
Now, if they were blasting them out on the internet to just anyone, that would obviously be a problem. But that's not what they're doing.
MP3.com sends a stream to only those people who already have their own license to the material. This is not distribution. How can you distribute something to me I already own? That's the main point. Its not broadcast, its narrowcast.
Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
It must be at least transferrable, or the Disc-go-round down on the corner would be illegal (and I think they already tried to shut them down).
And, like torpor, I'm just trying to get my head around this issue too.
MP3.com isn't really distributing copies of the music, any more than the radio station is distributing copies of the music. But unlike the radio stations, they're not broadcasting musice, either, they're narrowcasting it.
I think this is pretty grey, though in principle this seems to be good for everyone, with the possible exception that MPIAA feels like it should be the only one allowed to narrowcast its member's music.
Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
How is it illegal for you to act as an agent for someone who is merely pursing their fair use rights? You *had* the original tape in hand, right? And you only made one copy onto disk, right? So what's the big deal??
-russ
I know but, dont record companies also profit greatly ( and in the music industry, hits X magazine promotions X billboards X radio station payola X whatever it takes to get on MTV X etc.. = profits) from others work with *contractural* permission? (read: coercion)
No. Don't listen to one-hit wonders, and it won't be a problem.
I would love to know just how what MP3.com did was illegal. They were providing a service to their users, that is, encoding their CD's into MP3 (and this is quite legal). Similar services have existed in the physical world for a long time; why not the digital?
Yes, this service could theoretically be abused. MP3.com took all of the technologically possible precautions to ensure that this did not happen. Simply put, there is no technologically feasible way to verify ownership of these songs, short of (perhaps) having people actually mail in the CD to be converted, which would then be sent back along with the MP3's on a Zip disk or something similar. That would have been simply disastrous.
Simply put, RIAA fears digital distribution because it means switching business models. No more would people have to pay for permission to listen to music. They would have to resort to a new business model, but one which is still quite lucrative (honestly, if every MP3 on the Net were legalized right now, I don't think the situation would change at all).
Musicians made money from their work long before RIAA existed. Long before CD's, tapes, or even records, it was still more than possible to make good money in music (of course, you had to actually have talent to do so; this immediately rules out the half of today's artists who are chosen merely for their looks). This is why RIAA fears MP3's because deep down, RIAA knows it's superfluous. RIAA and every company associated with it could disappear from the face of the planet right now and, although a lot of artists would have to get tech-savvy, in the end nothing would have to change.
And if you don't believe independent artists can make money, I point you to George Lucas (yes, he is an indie; probably the most successful one out there). It's not easy; it takes a lot of work and you have to be damn good at what you do, just as in any business where you go freelance. But it can be done, it is done, and isn't it all supposed to be about people working hard to advance their art anyway?
Assuming this judgment is upheld, the RIAA could claim billions of dollars in punitive damages, effectively bankrupting mp3.com, or leaving it open to a takeover. A settlement would have to be on the RIAA's terms, which could include provisions going beyond the ruling, and demands that mp3.com phase out the insecure MP3 format and embrace a proprietary, SDMI-enabled format. Either way, it looks bad.
...FALCO!
Don't confuse mp3.com's main service with the my.mp3.com service. The former does in fact sign "unsigned" artists and gives them a distribution channel. The latter provides online access to copyrighted MP3s provided they've figured out that you own them (via their Beam-It application).
It's a shame that the latter will almost surely end up resulting in the destruction of the former as they had a LOT of good artists there.
It's really easy to shut off Napster, filter out it's db servers subnet from their routers. You can run it all you want, but you won't ever find where any of the files live. I assume that the administrators of these institutions have actually done it, since they have been bitching about the bandwidth explosion already.
This in no way is ordering anybody to remove their own mp3s from their own personal collection.
This probably will also imply that Napster will likely lose. mp3 trading will go on. Its just gonna have to go underground, like all bootlegging.
Mp3 central storage will go a different route. As bandwidth increases to the "common person", individual broadcasting software will become more standard as part of the base o/s (things like icecast/shoutcast, etc...). In fact, MS already has plans for a windows-media-limited-edition-server to go as part of Windows ME (though the target is Real Networks, not shoutcast). With that setup, you can keep all your mp3s on a single box (that _you_ own), and play them wherever you happen to be at the time.
Yes, the RIAA is attacking "public" stations, but they can't patrol every box, every port, to find the "private" broadcasting and play-on-demand stations out there. Again, it'll go underground,
or it'll be completely legal, since its your copy being played for yourself, under fair usage (give or take the DMCA's vague definition of fair use).
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
When I'm looking for something new, I might still hit mp3.com. but i'm not looking for something new every day. Advertising-based sites are still (and likely will remain as such) only profitable on sites one has to hit multiple times every day (slashdot, yahoo, netcenter...). Since mp3.com can't deliver that kind of content anymore, mp3.com is going to lose the value of their advertising, and thus, their only income to their stockholder value.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Microsoft is the past creeping up on the present.
The MP3 issue (and no, I don't agree w/ Katz 100%, or even close) is still the past trying to take over the future. I think the MP3 issue is far more important.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Just playing the devil's advocate here...
How do you find out about these new albums that you want to buy? Heard a tune on the radio? Saw their video on MTV? Saw them in concert? Borrowed a CD from a friend? Ad in a magazine?
The fact is, unless you listen exclusively to independent artists and have an extensive network of friends in the independent music scene, you have heard about this band and/or album through some form of marketing - either directly through advertising, or indirectly through "hype" marketing (how else can you explain Spice Girls?). Who pays for marketing? The "moronic dinosaurs" known as the record labels.
<grumpy_old_man>Now, my personal opinion is that 99% of the so-called "popular" music out there these days is pure crap, and I'm sick and tired of marketing BS.</grumpy_old_man> But the fact is, the record company has invested in marketing and promoting - are you saying they don't deserve to reap some rewards from that investment?
Things are changing - with independent artists distributing MP3s, having their own web sites, and not having a label. But for the time being, if you want to "make it big" in the music business, you gotta play the labels' game. They provide a service (distribution and marketing), and shouldn't they be able to make a profit at that?
My solution: support local, independent artists. Go to your local clubs, see some of these up-and-coming bands (if you're in Saskatoon, SK go see Old Guard Road). Buy one of their CDs if you like them. If you don't like them, hey, you're in a club - keep drinking until the music sounds better. :-) Don't buy major label CDs, turn the radio off (or at least change to a community or college station). Change is coming, slowly but surely.
________________________
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
--
Density /does/ want to be pretty. If you should happen to be as think as two short planks you're not going to get real far in life unless you're nice to look at.
... with eskimo chains i tatto my brain all the way...
I look forward to the appeal.
A more apt analogy would be - if you own the CD, and she owns the CD, and she makes a backup copy - can she give you her backup copy?
Unless it is gasoline, in which case everyone will cry for the government to do something, including meddle in foriegn affairs.
... that some bands produce so much shite these days that the only way they can sell albums at all is by having their label spend huge amounts of money on advertising. Incidentally, some of them sued Napster.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Where was there money for My.MP3.com to be made? There is a banner, but I've never even noticed it until just now... :/ If they removed that, then there wouldn't be any revenue from the banners. MP3.com itself _may_ have attracted more attention, and perhaps even gained some additional customers, but I'm not sure the RIAA could prove that. Additionally, I have not given any money to My.MP3.com by using their beem-it software. I don't see how this is in any violation of the law. AFAICT it is a free service offered to me.
Time flies like an arrow;
Time flies like an arrow;
Fruit flies like a bananna
I don't think anyone should have the right to make any density ugly. Except your own personal density, maybe. But not density that could benefit the population at large by looking its best.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
MP3.com also provided access to free MP3 music that people could download without violating any copyright, and much of it was contributed by people who wanted to share freely, or become known. If they disappear because of this, who will take their place with MP3's, and provide up-and-coming musicians, college bands, and other not-so-well-known musicians a forum? Some of you may think the free music was not the best in the world, but personally, I have very little truck with the drek provided by regular record companies anyway. The *really* good, really artful music isn't getting played, anywhere. All we get is a bunch of drum-beaters with big hair who start their instruments on fire, or "gangstas" who stand behing a mike and tell us how "bad" they are. Wow-wee. All brought to you by the people who sued MP3.com. Thanks, guys--on both sides. What was the point?
Well, I guess this means I might as well upgrade my MIDI capabilities and hope that someone knows how to work with sound fonts and stuff besides a few techies with extra time on their hands.
And to think; I was just getting ready to upload some Jan Petersen Sweelinck organ music I rendered on an Ensoniq synthesizer to MP3.com, for all o' yall to share.
But then, I guess the people who were *stupid* enough to support MP3.COM with that CD copyright crap wouldn't care about reniassance music--any more than Sony would care to post my renditions to the public Internet for free, even though I want to give it away. No money in it for them, hmmm?
This whole business is absurd. It makes all of us techies look like fools, and it makes the so-called "music" of the 20th century look to me even more like sawdust than it did before.
And thanks to all you College kids who, instead of *supporting your local musicians by going to see them*, supported this lame-brain scheme that MP3.COM came up with. CD players are so ridiculously cheap--couldn't you just have taken some CD's with you? Now, because of this, you're probably going to do it, because otherwise you'll have to play the Internet like a juke-box.
And, finally, thanks to MP3.com executives, who pruved once again that allowing yourself to be under the power of gold will eventually lead you to ruin. Better earlier than later, I guess--you learn more quickly that way.
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
Have you all forgotten you're fighting for a PATENTED algorithm.
You're all hot and bothered about burning patented .gif files. Why are you using .mp3's?
Wake up, and use something else. MP3's sound like crap anyway.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
whats up wit dat. Perhaps I am mistaken, but i thought
mp3.com was that web page where artists sign with mp3.com intead of some record company...
and some of the songs are put up for free, and others you might have to pay for. If this is the case, where is the infringement?
I suspect i am confused, so please correct me. btw, i did not, and never will read the article.
On a side note, i wish i was natalie portman.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
No, it really wasn't a troll, although maybe I was a little harsh. I was just annoyed by the absolute arrogance of MP3 to not even ask how anyone else felt about them doing it. In a perfect world, my.mp3.com is an awesome idea. In the real world, though, it's so incredibly easy to get around its copyright protections that it's almost like having no protections. If they had approached some of the people whose music they'd be storing to work out a way to make it more pirate-proof, it would be hard to be nearly as annoyed at them.
I have absolutely no objection whatsoever to the service they run which allows bands to put their stuff up for free, and although I don't use it, I'm glad that there are places like mp3.com which are doing that.
Not trying to steer you away from mp3.com, but give some internet radio stations a try sometime -- I hate the local radio stations around here and get most of mine via the internet as well. Undergroundradio 3WK happens to be my current fave, with lots of great indie stuff, and is good if you have RealPlayer, although windowsmedia.com has loads of great internet radio stations if you own the Windows Media Player.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
What is that supposed to mean? I don't have to ask GM's permission to use my sedan off-road. I don't have to ask Microsoft's permission to compile Open Source software with Visual C++.
And obviously you don't need anyone's permission to create terrible analogies. Congratulations.
If you're stupid enough to think that "Intellectual Property" is actual, real property
You sound like a little kid who thinks that they're smarter than their parents and should be able to do whatever they want. In case you didn't notice, the law routinely disagrees with your position. And after reading your post in toto, I'm way more inclined to trust their intelligence than yours.
I bought it? Then it's mine and I don't need permission to use it legally.
No shit, Einstein. Now here's a clue for you: Distributing it freely isn't using it legally.
Yeah, viva la revolucion, dude. Death to the infidels, and stuff.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I disagree with the above on two counts: First, with an inkjet printer you very well could print up your own sleeves and liner notes. In fact, most pirate CDs for sale were created in just this way. Second, any advantage given by liner notes pales in comparison to the disadvantage of having to carry a stack of CDs around with you all the time. With .mp3s I can listen to my music from anywhere in the world (just a quick ftp to my home computer and voila!), rather than having to drive home and physically retrieve the music.
Jeremy
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Yeah? And
Hell, they might as well go the whole nine yards and outlaw bits and bytes.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Just curious, Zico, what was your opinion of mp3.com before they added the my.mp3.com service?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I say we revolt, an absolute ban on anything music related, no concerts, no cd purchases, nothing, we support those who endorse promotion and distribution via MP3 110%. We flat out copy, and trade EVERY mp3 possible, just to make a point, that they can't stop us. As a single entity MP3.com lost.. but as a group, all of us.. the 100's of thousands of mp3 supporters show that every time we buy a cd we feel cheated. MP3's are not about pirating it's about getting what WE as consumers want.
So I say, let them sue, let them try to stiffle our consumption of quality, let them think that they have intellectual property, let them continue to sue and take legal action, the fall of the few, will only strengthen the will and power of the many!!!
if the mp3's you want to listen to are already available online, why would you want to use an external site to simply link to them? i agree that would probably sheild them from the law they are currently up against, but such a service doesn't make any sense.
well, i rather liked that service (my.mp3.com) while it lasted.
anyway, now that they can't do that anymore, i wonder what they are going to do with the database they spent all that time creating? i'll volunteer to.. uh.. take the hard drives with all the mp3's.. =)
> I say make napster freeware and open source
> and then see if they can shut it down
And move the servers to North Korea as well
It's not an issue of setting a legal precedent as much as a political one. Yes, the legal complaints about the two cases are different, but all that the my.mp3.com lawsuit proved was that the RIAA had more push with the judge than mp3.com. Considering that judges chose to sell out consumers' rights to companies before makes it more likely for it to happen again. That's why Napster's going to be next.
Possession of a CD with intent of making an MP3 will get your ass bored in the neighborhood penitentiary REAL SOON. Yikes!
Time to stop buying that major label shit anyway!
I'll start setting something up. It looks like quite a few people would really be interested in this. And for those that want Metallica, we'll just send them over to "paylars.com" instead...
Email me if you want to help out:
paytheartists@paradigm.nu
Once I get a server set up and get this finalized I'll post something here and submit it to Rob.
I'm setting it up now...
http://www.paytheartists.org
Email me if you want to help out:
paytheartists@paradigm.nu
I don't buy this lie! I bought the disk and if I want to have a copy at work, a copy at home, and a copy in the car - it's my right to! Buy forking out the $17 to own the CD.. I was not buying a piece of cheap plastic, I was buying the rights to own the music for personal use. Granted, I can't start selling shrink-wrapped copies of it - but I can make multiple copies for my own personal use to listen to where I want to.
The RIAA is shitting themselves trying to stop MP3. They know that they have already lost the war, but they are trying to pick up some cash in the few remaining battles by suing everyone involved with MP3's. But, in the long run, they will lose. It is quite simple really:
Digital data and distribution will never work with the existing model of copyright.
Copyright was originally intended to protect publishers. But, now it is being used to hurt consumers. Companies are weilding the DMCA like a sword in the fight to have the best of all worlds. In the end, the only one who loses in the consumer.
You can't map a legal structure like law and copyright onto a free and open architecture like the Internet - it just doesn't work.
I can't wait until protocols like "FreeNet" and OpenNap takes over! Then, groups like the MPAA and the RIAA can blow me !!!!
Right. It appears there are two types of people in the world: the kind who think Beam-It is so illegal it's "laughable", as one poster put it, and the kind who think it's a perfectly harmless and reasonable thing to do.
Perhaps MP3.com needs to demonstrate that this service does not in any way encourage or enable illegal copying. I suppose you could argue that it discourages purchases; you no longer need separate copies for home, office, dorm, etc.
By the way, libraries have CDs, cassettes, and LPs that they let you borrow. How do they get away with this if MP3.com can't even let you listen to your own CDs?
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
The sound you hear is the RIAA sharpening their knives, while they turn their gaze to myplay.com.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
I disagree with the poster's point.
I own a rather nice Plextor CD-R, and a similarly nice Plextor CD-ROM. Using cdparanoia and cdrdao (both GPL), I can make as many copies of audio compact discs as I like. These duplicates will have significant error reduction applied to them, and the end result is a very good restoration that surpasses the quality of the original (often scratched) disc.
These copies are legal, bitwise-perfect or not, for my own use (I believe we all agree on this point, RIAA included).
I can also, legally, charge money for such duplication for the benefit of others. Suppose a friend has a disc which skips irrevocably at 5 minutes, 13 seconds. No law says that I cannot copy said disc for said friend, as a service, while charging whatever I like for said service and materials, be it 50 cents to cover my cost on the medium, or $600. Assuming that I report all income to the IRS, and abide by any applicable state/local sales tax laws, and do not retain unlicensed material, I can do whatever I want, including the pasting of paid advertising on the halls leading to the room with the CD-R drive in an attempt to generate cash flow.
Now, suppose someone asks me to dupe a scratched CD that I am already licensed to posess (in other words, I left the house one day, went to the music store, and bought a copy). Said scratched CD is so badly mangled, that even after stepping the Plextor reader down to 1x, cdparanoia can't do a thing for it. I walk across the room, pull my copy off of the shelf, and dupe it. Money changes hands, customer walks away with a perfect reproduction of the disc he once enjoyed, and his original licensed recording.
I did this just the other day, in fact. Some years ago, I bought a CD by a band named Prick after seeing them open for David Bowie (Look! Marketing worked!). A couple months after that, it fell off of the desk, caseless. In looking around to find it, I rolled a chair over it. For some reason, the now-smashed CD didn't play very well. When my girlfriend's birthday came up a week ago, one of the things I got for her was a Prick CD. A few days after that, I borrowed it and made a copy for myself to replace the one that I smashed. Made a nice color label for it, too, scanned from her copy and printed in crayon on an Alps. No animals were harmed in this process, no banks were robbed, the sky didn't turn red and nor did the seas boil. Is RIAA pissed? Interscope/Nothing Records? Is it either unfair or unjust for me to commit this action? I own a license for myself to own and make personal use of not a tangible item, but the music in question. If they disagree with my tactics in data restoration, I implore them to ask/subpeona Rob Malda/Slashdot/Andover/whoever the responsible party is for my email address and contact me. I will interpret any failure to do this as implied permission to continue.
[Careful readers will note that this practise deals neither with the Internet, nor distribution. I should point out that, as noted in an above post, RIAA vs. MP3.com doesn't, either.]
Kid-proof tablet..
RIAA's beef with the RIO was that it was:
a) digital
b) allowed/allows copying *back* to any computer without generational loss
c) did/does not limit such copying by means of SCMS, like MiniDisc, consumer DAT, DCC, or consumer standalone audio CD recorders as government-mandated on these items
d) did/does not include a tax on the media and/or player, to be collected by the Federal government and handed to RIAA (as all of the aforementioned formats do).
Diamond won that case by persuading a judge to believe that the Rio is solely intended as a playback device, not a digital audio recorder as RIAA would like to have proven.
SCMS exists as a tradeoff between consumers and the hardware folks, and the recording industry. It limits digital copies to the second generation (you can make a copy of an original, but it won't let you copy a copy). It is required by law on digital audio recorders (or at least those that talk SP/DIF, else some other system is required). Anecdotally, if copyright law were worded as to banish all fair-use duplication, SCMS would not be around. Instead, devices with digital IO would not exist today.
And I'm not joking in the slightest. If I'm doing something I believe to be legal and someone has a problem with it, I consider it their responsibility to let me know. Like speeding in a car. When one gets pulled over, discussions ensue. At times, the driver is not aware that he is speeding. I was stopped for going 55mph in a 45 zone, that I honestly thought was 55. The officer was very understanding, and issued a written warning. Guess what? I don't drive 55 through that area any longer, now that I've been made aware of the laws in place by the organization they concern most.
So, allow me to reiterate. I've stated my intent and some past doings in a public forum, which is most assuredly being watched by the powers that be. If RIAA doesn't like my behavior, they should let me know.
Kid-proof tablet..
In the winter issue of The Perl Journal, there is an article about how to stream mp3's through Apache using mod_perl. I haven't tried it yet, mostly because the mp3's need to be stored on the server, and my little box is running short on disk space.
No, it really wasn't a troll, although maybe I was a little harsh. I was just annoyed by the absolute arrogance of MP3 to not even ask how anyone else felt about them doing it.
What is that supposed to mean? I don't have to ask GM's permission to use my sedan off-road. I don't have to ask Microsoft's permission to compile Open Source software with Visual C++.
If you're stupid enough to think that "Intellectual Property" is actual, real property, then at least be consistent about it. I bought it? Then it's mine and I don't need permission to use it legally.
The smarter course would be to recognize that there is no such thing as "Intellectual Property". But I'm not holding my breath for that acknowledgement, not while non-thinkers run around praising the status quo as loudly as possible.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
You sound like a little kid who thinks that they're smarter than their parents and should be able to do whatever they want.
If you wanted an ad hominem debate, why didn't you say so from the beginning? You sound like a desperate curmudgeon who wants to paint the world with a single color to save his preconceived notions.
All of which is beside the point of logical argument, of course. But you already knew that, didn't you?
In case you didn't notice, the law routinely disagrees with your position. And after reading your post in toto, I'm way more inclined to trust their intelligence than yours.
If I hear you right, this issue has nothing to do with what you think for yourself; you're more inclined to leave the thinking to someone else, the one whose "intelligence" you trust the most.
Silly me, arguing with a muppet.
No shit, Einstein. Now here's a clue for you: Distributing it freely isn't using it legally.
my.mp3.com isn't distributing MP3 files freely. They're distributing them to owners of the IP in question. What, the finer points of the issue escaped you? Which part of the my.mp3.com business model did you miss?
Yeah, viva la revolucion, dude. Death to the infidels, and stuff.
So this is what passes for debate with you. What a privilege to match wits...
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
Radio stations pay roayalties for broadcasting music. MP3.com didn't feel like they needed to... oops...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Uh - if you stick fundz in a passbook account (you know - the thing that you used to use 20 years ago before ATM's - you get a non-zero rate of return without risk.
That's profit. Guaranteed return, without risk.
That should be illegal.
Fotunately, we have inflation. Lately, its been predictable (during the Carter Admin it wasn't).
Inflation is the cure for return without risk.
So: profit = reward for risking capital.
Without reward, who will face risk?
oversimplifications suck.
Generalized, sweeping oversimplifications imply (in my book) that you are simply a moron.
(which could be an oversimpification made by a moron).
Anyway, profits don't suck.
Recessions suck.
Depressions suck worse.
Centralized planning blows.
Can you imagine if Centralized Planning told you what distribution of Linux you could install?
.
All the content of mp3.com is copyrighted to mp3.com. I guess its more of a technocrat.net type thing, where the artist still has his own Copyright, or perhaps mp3.com is just bullshiting.
But anyway, they say that your not allowed to distribute the files you download of mp3...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
There are not really that many people out there who get most of their music from the Internet, are there?
:)
Only just about everyone I know... Well at ISU we mostly use the local Filesharing
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Actualy, Labels are Apt to pay radio stations for stuff, and when they do its a big scandal. Radio stations do not pay for music, who ever told you that was a crackhead.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
If you Borrow the CD, then you can rip the tracks. so what again, was the point of the suit? (Other then to fuck over MP3.com...)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The Judge would be able to give them any fine they want. The easiest thing would simply be to make mp3.com pay for all the licenses that they have, in other words, the pay $15 or whatever for each CD, or about 1.2 million dollars. Possibly even less. If you hit me with a car, and I sued you for a billion dollars, the judge shouldn't throw out the case, he should award me a fair amount of money.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It's rather like, if a company were to offer free downloads of the full 6-disc SuSE distro including all the non-freeware programs, for anyone running that edition of SuSE. SuSE and the companies whose non-free programs are included would probably get very upset and sue,
I can't believe this got a +5, I really can't.
It's not like that at all. They are providing download for people who already own the CDIt would be in the same ballpark as setting up local FTP server to install SuSE Linux on another computer. If you already owned a license for it, then why shouldn't you be able to? Why exactly are you not allowed to 'provide a service based on someone else's IP'? There are lots of windows contractors out there, the provide a service on Microsoft's IP, but only to people who own valid licenses.
Wal-Mart sells CDs, and they don't own the IP, Of course Wal-Mart has a contract with the labels, but what about small used CD shops? They actually have been sued, and the record companies lost miserably. There is no reason you can't do whatever you want with property you already own.
The Only possible reason that this could be illegal is if they didn't provide adequate protection for the IP. For example, if they didn't do enough to stop people from passing around my.mp3.com accounts.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Since when do you license to sell any physical object?
God, some people are so stupid.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Of course, you could also just rip the MP3s if you did that...
Basically what my.mp3.com did was eliminate the ripping process in getting an MP3...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
"But the fact is, the record company has invested in marketing and promoting - are you saying they don't deserve to reap some rewards from that investment?"
Nobody "deserves" to reap rewards just because they made an investment. If they invested smartly then they may well get rewards, but that is their *luck*, not their *right*. If somebody blindly keeps investing in technologies and methods that are becoming more outdated and obsolete as each day passes, they are going to lose money. Iridium is a good example of people who made a huge investment, and lost it all, just because of the difficulty in judging the market. It is cruel and harsh, but that is how capitalism works - they didn't "deserve" rewards just because they worked so hard.
One of the fundamental rules of business is that you have to learn to adapt your business model to fit new technologies and methods. If you are inflexible in this regard, your business will stagnate and die. This is unfortunately exactly what the record industry is doing - they are trying to fight new methods in order to fit their current business model. The only way for them to stay alive in the long term is to adopt their business model to fit the new methods. Eventually they will realise this (possibly after hiring some "new blood") and change their ways.
My main problem with the record industry at the moment is that you are normally forced to buy in the region of a dozen songs for each song that you actually want. This is a deliberate tactic to rip people off. I want to be able to pay only for the songs I want.
I don't think I own any CDs that have only "one good song". In fact, I rarely skip ANY songs when listening to a CD. If you're continually buying CDs with only a couple "good songs".. well.. who the hell are you listening to? Or do you only like something if it has video and radio airplay?
I've never had a problem grabbing CD singles of recently released songs, and even singles up to a year old can be found at any decent store.
Adam
my.mp3.com will only add songs after it sees the CD in your computer. This makes this ruling particularly bad since mp3.com actually tried to make sure users owned the CDs they had on my.mp3.com. The courts will probably see Napster as even worse than mp3.com...
The guy is either a troll or a fuckwit. Either way the quality of any political discussion here has gone to shit over time. Uninformed cunters are bad enough, but when the moderators mod them up the point of no return from trash has clearly passed. If taco or rob or whofuckingever had made /. wait till you had clocked up 40 page views before you could mod then the standard may have stood up. As it is, fuck it, it's just truth free, biased, bigoted, elitist, self motivated bull shit.
The current karma whoring trend seems to be the 'stand back and say "actually the corporate fucks are right "'. Fortunately I won't be around for the next trend.
Screw you guys. I'm going to kuro, techcrat, and advog.
three. dollar. crack.
--
+&x
>>They were distributing copyrighted material
>> without a license. Even if they were sure that
>>the users alreay owned the CD's, the legality
>>is still very questionable.
'Questionable' - not illegal. There is a real grey area here about to potential to be a 'proxy' for copywrited material. Since u have proved that u are a legal owner/licensee of the material, who is being deprived? and of what? We'll see what the courts have to say (please let this be an appealable ruling).
>>And with the availability of free ripping
>>software, the usefulness of such a service is
>>also rather questionable.
huh? That doesn't parse. I've registered about half of my CD collection with my.mp3.com (about 1400 tracks now). All CD's i have *bought*. I have a dsl line at home, and a T3 at work. I now have an instant 1400 track jukebox for anywhere that i can get an ethernet port. Why should i have to use 'free ripping software'? That would require me to
a)waste additional hard disk space to store the data again
b)waste EVEN more hard disk space to store the data anywhere that i want it (am i supposed to rip it for the office and for home?).
my.mp3.com ROCKS and doesn't hurt the industry. It only helps them. But this case isn't about copyright, it's about CONTROL.
If i can't use the CD's that i've purchased in a way that's convenient for me, i might as well just poach everything off napster......
>>I think you don't get it. The RIAA doesn't
:)
>>care if you listen to the CDs you already
>>bought at all, that's not why they make them.
Nope - i get it very well
If i can buy a CD and listen to it anywhere (a la my.mp3.com) I will. I belive in supporting the artist in the same way I expect to get a paycheck every week for my work.
There is no way i'm going to haul around trucks of disks between, work, home, wherever-i-happen-to-be-on-any-given-day.
If i can have the freedom to use the music that I *bought*, then great. If i can't, well then i just might as well use Napster and poach it all.
Although they use Real Audio and not mp3, http://www.spinner.com plays mainstream (and not-so mainstream) artists. It has a plethora of categories and I find it the only "radio" I can stand listening to.
I tried to use sonicnet.com's "me music," but they unfortunately decided my Linux machine was a Macintosh and thus not supported. blah. if (OS != windows) { OS = MacOS; }. When will this logic cease?
Wal-Mart sells CDs, which they bought wholesale from the record labels, and therefore they have license to distribute it.
My.MP3.com distributes the music without permission from the record labels to do so. Yes, the listeners are entitled to that music and they could not be sued (IANAL), but MP3.com is being sued for the distributing without permission.
You can sell a CD you acquired, but if you copy it first then sell it, you're breaking the law.
Napster is an entirely different issue. Napster is a network, which allows users of the network to connect to each other and download stuff. Napster itself doesn't host songs on its own "site" like MP3.com's MP3 Anywhere or whatever it was called, was doing. So, it's very likely that Napster will be ruled some form of "common carrier" and therefore not liable for what its users do amongst themselves, since its network has a legitimate use in allowing users to distribute non-copyrighted sound files. To make Napster police its network to decide what is and is not copyright infringement would put an undue burden on Napster and similar networks, and is not what a judge would order. In fact, if a network does police itself, then it would become liable--but if it just provides an open service, it can be considered a common carrier. Just my 2 pence...
First, IANAL, but I have read quite a few laws and court decisions...
It would be sooo nice if the case were that simple; however, Napster is not just a common carrier, since they also provided the software Napster Music Community. Although it would seem like the First Amendment would guarantee Napster the right to make and distribute whatever software they like, a Supreme Court decision in the mid-60s (Brandenberg v. Ohio) has set a precedent that could help the RIAA in a rather major way...
Basically, the decision stated that a work that could aide or incite illegal activity, with the author's knowledge and intent to cause such activity, is not protected by the First Amendment. Napster will be unable to argue that they were unaware that their software could be used for trading illegal MP3s. Since this is a civil case it will probably be up to Napster to prove that they didn't intend to help people trade pirate music, rather than the RIAA needing to prove the opposite.
Basically, the big 3 'trading' programs (Napster, Gnutella, and Hotline) are all on extremely shaky legal ground, and any lawsuits brought against them have considerable merit, especially if the authors don't build in "safeguards" to protect themselves. Napster is the most defendable, but that really doesn't say very much (Gnutella and Hotline are almost guaranteed to crumble if a lawsuit is ever brought against them).
AOL can claim (and rightfully so) that their intent was to provide an internet service. The fact that MP3s reside on their service is an unexpected byproduct.
Napster, OTOH, was created with the intent to trade MP3s. Claiming that you are creating MP3 trading software incognizant of the rather obvious possibilities for unscrupulous people to abuse the network to trade legal MP3s is impossible. Napster created their software fully aware that it could aide and incite people to pirate music. There is a very large legal difference between the two, and if Napster didn't do absolutely everything within its power to safeguard against illegal transactions, they could be in some serious trouble.
I wonder how the RIAA convinced the judge that the files on the CDs owned by the MP3.com customers were in anyway different than the files on MP3.com's CDs.
Bits is bits is bits. A CD is a means of transporting a set of specifically ordered bits. Is there really any difference between these files? Aren't they essentially all the same file? (Is there any difference between the base DNA in your toes vs. your ears?)
If I deposit money into the bank, in a sense digitizing that cash, and then I pay for something with a digital check, the exact cash I deposited is not being used to cover the check. Could we now insist that marked bills be used to cover our debts?
This ruling sets a bad precedent for the distribution of digital files. It also supports my belief that digital files are inherently worthless due to a complete absence of scarcity. If it's digital, it can exist everywhere, and if it's worth having, it will (and probably should) exist everywhere. The RIAA is trying to insist that the songs on CDs are somehow different than the songs on copies of the same CDs.
Files will not stay on their birth media. I tossed my CD player months ago and don't miss it. 75 minutes of music per disk is a silly, archaic waste of space. One whole wall of my apartment is wasted by the storage of a few hundred CDs. Averaging 1 megabyte per minute for a decent sounding MP3, my entire 15 year old CD collection could fit comfortably on one $200 hard drive. Digital files shouldn't be tied to anything physical.
I'm surprised that the movie industry isn't paying more attention to this. Their day is coming too, it's only a matter of time before technology allows us to move files the size of DVDs with the ease we now move CD-sized files.
I also believe that if CDs were cheaper, there wouldn't be so much of an issue. I've bought CDs because of MP3s I found through Napster, but only when they were for sale at a steep discount (less than $11 each). Otherwise they are just too damned expensive.
With the dmca, the riaa, and the mpaa suing everyone on the planet it has to stop. Dont they make enough freaking money as it is? If this isnt
nipped in the bud NOW our freedoms as consumers are going to go the way of the dodo.
I think a couple things need to happen to start
to change things.
1. Setup a website that starts a major Internet petition declaring that until these lawsuits stop
NOONE on this list will buy one audio cd or movie.
Highly publicize it!
2. Send this petition to every single artist, executive, congressman, news agency that exists.
By snail mail if necessary.
Make this bullshit well know to the american people and most will cry foul. We need to turn
americas sheep into wolves.
Malice95
Ok I speak as one of a few who know personally someone working at MP3.com. Danm but I so want them to succeed as they represent a change in the attitudes and desires of a community.
Going after MP3, Napster and other 'format' related vendors is like going after Sony for inventing the Tape Recorder and Magnetic Tape. The RIAA is basically syndicating the intolerance of a few major players who dont want to see any one else playing in their sandbox.
Well Damnit thats it!
I am buying a RIO tommorow. Im going after MP3 format 100% and f**k em if RIAA can't stand to see the possibilities.
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.
Handguns are popular precisely because they have the ability to kill stuff...
I agree. Then we'll just let the capitalist pigs try to steal the music from us! Comrades, we will all be safe in that impenetrable vanguard of pure socialism.
Can't they sell off the mp3.com main service and artist contracts to another firm, to protect it from the lawsuit?
... they can license the use of mp3.com's main service for a 2 year period and let the shell go bankrupt while the core business survives.
Then, if something goes down, it's just the Beam-It part
Will in Seattle
It's hard to sue millions of Gnutella servers, which pop up and disappear at random. And there's no profit source to get money from.
[note - actually, the MP3.com loss means my ARTD ArtistDirect stock is going to skyrocket - but I still think what MP3.com did was right]
Will in Seattle
Yep, the same thing induced me to buy one a couple of months ago that without instant gratification I would not have. And now that people know it can be done, I'm sure we're not the only ones that would prefer not to drag ourselves to a meatspace music store to buy a CD.
And I, for one, won't be buying into any bullshit locked music formats.
Uh, dude--Napster isn't non-profit. At least not intentionally.
This is too much. I am sick and tired of seeing how legal battles such as that against MS, Napster, mp3.com, etc. are staring to change the way we will be allowed to process and store information. Legal or not, who can really change the Internet for the better through the legal system?
No one.
We all know that these people are in it only for the money, so I second another article that suggests we not purchase (or download or have anything to do with) music from artists attempting to, in reasonable eyes, block communication in its free form.
These regressive hypocrites can not get what they want anyway.
I know you all agree.
"There are three distinct types of people- those who can count, and those who can't."
Not true. (I work for a radio station...)
Radio stations pay enormous sums to the record companies for the rights to broadcast the songs. The amounts are based on the revenue taken in by the radio station. In a top 10 market, the music fees can be tens or even hundreds of thousands per year.
This is how they get "exposure" by extorting money from radio stations.
I have no sympathy for RIAA, ASCAP, BMI or any other organization that refuses to adapt to the new media. They either need to get on the internet train or be run over by it.
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
mp3.com only set itself up for this -- it was a good idea, but in the hands of hackers, or even people who have friends who have cd's, the system becomes immediately flawed. Unfortunately, there were no good workarounds -- the system they had is probably most secure system of it's type. There's very little way of otherwise authenciating that a user owns a CD then to get it's ID number (what those things are called, I'm not sure, but each CD has a unique one, as that is how CDDB distributes it's information). Only two options could make the system more secure:
1. Give EACH cd created it's own ID number. The privacy junkies would scream bloody murder, and there would be hundreds of engineers trying to work on a way of developing a system of making it so each CD has a unique #, but each could be tracked as a common album by this number.
2. Have mp3.com require people to send in their recepits, proving that they purchased the CD. Not likely at all, considering the manpower at mp3.com's end to manage every submission. Plus, waiting 2 weeks to be able to listen to songs online isn't that great either.
The battlefield needs to turn quickly from whether or not is legal to distribute music to whether or not is legal to own mp3s if you already own the album. This case COULD set a precedent that no home user is allowed to rip mp3s, if so, expect mp3.com to go straight after Fraunhofer to be "liable" for the creation of all mp3s to date.
If we can win the argument that we are allowed to have mp3s recorded from albums in our personal album collection, then we can win the argument that we are allowed to distribute these, as long as both parties own a copy of the CD, cassette, LP, wave file, etc. The RIAA isn't dumb, they know how to systematically eliminate mp3s. This first step against mp3.com basically makes possesion of mp3s from albums we own illegal. Because of this, there's very little way that mp3s will EVER see legality, and suddenly, MANY personal items such as the Rio, the VAIO Music Clip, and the Nomad illegal as well).
Or maybe I'm just being a little too pessimistic...
That's a great shame. I think that Napster is an awful program and some way should be found to stop it, whereas mymp3.com was actually useful and (at least in spirit) legal.
/. world...
Just think of Napster for a minute: tens of thousands of people are copying illegal MP3s with a program designed for the purpose. How can anyone actually use this program and still feel morally in the right (I don't mean morally in a religious sense here, just in a life philosophy way)? OK, some artists/record companies make too much money out of us. But that still isn't really an excuse.
Can we *please* have some sensible discussion on Napster. It's *not* about free speech guys, it's about people saving money on CDs and thus cheating artists out of the money they deserve for writing the stuff in the first place.
This post isn't meant to be inflammatory, just trying to bring some realism back into the
- Oliver. "exp(i*Pi)+1=0" - Euler
Look, can we stop hiding behind the smokescreen of "well, it *could* be used legally"? We all know what Napster is for. I know I'm quoting others here, but:
1. If you use Napster, it is extremely likely (>99.99%) that you are trading in illegal MP3s.
2. How the hell are you supposed to search for unknown music with a title search? Come on: if you're reading this, name me 5 unsigned bands whose music is on Napster, and whose music you can't get perfectly easily (probably more easily) from mp3.com, or other providers of that nature.
The amount of legal use Napster gets is vanishingly small - I think we can all accept that. As such, we should stop all this crap about it technically being legal, and start condemning it for being what it is: a tool specifically designed for illegal copying.
It's illegal for anyone except a bonafide locksmith to own certain lockpicking tools, even though you might want to own those tools to get into your own house if you've forgotten your key. Why should Napster be any different?
- Oliver. "exp(i*Pi)+1=0" - Euler
--
Most people seem to be concentrating on the distribution issue, which doesn't seem to be much of an issue in this case. Actually, I was trying to make more of a point that people should put more thought into becoming active against the RIAA on this subject. I wasn't too concerned about it before, but now that they're actually trying to use it as an offense, I'm more concerned that it will set a precident, and it'll make it easier for the govmnt to enforce the laws against us little people.
--
Argh. Or did they settle out of court because Rio promised to implement SDMI? I can't find a clear history of the suit and any counter-suits anywhere...
--
- These copies are legal, bitwise-perfect or not, for my own use (I believe we all agree on this point, RIAA included).
That's not how I interpret the law currently. The argument used in the RIAA vs. Rio case was that the Rio was a device for copying songs (eg. from the computer to the Rio, or from CD to the Rio). I'm not sure what the verdict was (I think it was either that Rio won, because it's a playback device, not a recording one, or they settled out of court), but I beleive the law regarding copying still stands.See my other posts here and here that back up my argument more. It's my humble (non-lawyer) opinion that RIAA's suit against MP3.com rests on the fact that MP3.com copied their physical CDs to the computer and stored them in MP3 format.
I'm sure you're joking? As you're probably aware, there are a multitude of sites on the 'net that serve illegal MP3s and have been doing so for several months, without being shut down by the RIAA. "Getting away with it" doesn't necesarily imply permission by RIAA or legallity.
--
It would be nice to deliver a political message (like this one) with the mp3s that collage students are pirating. We need to be thinking about how to win these people (who really only pirate to get free shit) over to the political cause of "fair use," reasonable copyright expiration, and reduced intelectual property restrictions.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I imagine most actual bands and musicians would want their works transmitted freely over the net
HELLO! have you not realized all of the artists out there slamming napster??? two have even filed law suits! Most artists do not want their work being given to everyone for free, every time someone steals a song by getting it from napster the artist loses money. I can't count the number of times i'v been in a chat room where i see someone who says "I don't even buy CD's anymore, i just get everything from napster and burn it to a CD." This is exactly why artists are scared. if they don't sell CD's they don't make any money! and the problem gets worse every day! This ruling is a great victory for artists and is a sign of things to come, napster will lose their law suit, they are grosly neglegent as to how their software can be used. We all know they made their software specificly to fill a nitch. Instead of policing their own network for illegal files, they simply say that they don't consider themselves responsible for what is on it. They did that from the very begining. They knew exactly what it would be used for. I just hope that while they are at it, the artists manage send a few of the people running large MP3 databases on napaster off to jail where they belong
- it could make it difficult to legally transfer your property from one device to another.
This is damned scary. I can't even begin to count the number of mix tapes I traded with my friends throughout high school and college. Or the tapes I made of MY cds so I could listen to the music I BOUGHT in the car...
I imagine most actual bands and musicians would want their works transmitted freely over the net.
We do.
Here's a quote I think sums up how I feel about this whole mess:
"I know all the sites that have my bootlegs and all my MP3s. Actually, I don't give a flying fuck."
--- David Bowie
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Been there, done that. Sending money through the mail is a bad idea, but a check works. The trick is tracking down an address where you're certain the artist will get the check. For most bands, a fan club address will work, but MAKE SURE it's run by the band or someone who knows them.
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
Ok, this is way off topic, but I really cannot understand why everyone is convinced that campaign finance reform is such a wonderful thing for democracy. Aside from being a blatant violation of freedom of speech (bills that McCain supports would make it illegal to criticize candidates by name, among other things), think about who it really helps. Incumbents have tons of advantages that challengers can't match: free media publicity, better recognition, free mail, etc. If you could enforce spending limits (and you can't), the beneficiaries would only be the current officeholders.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
If i can have the freedom to use the music that I *bought*, then great. If i can't, well then i just might as well use Napster and poach it all.
This is perhaps the best statement of the moral standpoint of people like me. I have no problem buying music, although most contemporary music is crap so I end up buying mostly Bob Dylan and classical. I can deal with the fact that the studios are more interested in selling lots of copies of unoffensive, vapid music than they are in encouraging truly creative artists. That's fine. But by god, if they think for one second that I will sit by and tolerate their futile attempts to halt piracy at the expense of restricting my right to make use of my legal music, they are wrong. They are as wrong as the British were when they thought there was no way the colonists would ever reject King George, no matter how badly they were treated. RIAA is perverting the legal system to make it illegal for me to access music I paid for, and I will not stand for it! To introduce technical measures to control piracy is one thing, but to make something that is my right illegal is evil. I will not subsidize, encourage, assist, or condone evil, and anyone who does is my enemy, and the enemy of anyone who believes in property rights as sacred.
Walt
It's about the next tech transistion in recording. The recorded content industry made a ton of money selling people their record collections all over again in the form of CD's. And moral or not, they want to do the same thing all over again for whatever is next (mp3's included.) MyMP3.com challenged that. And that's why the RIAA wants it stopped.
Given that the recording industry pretty much owns the government (look at how they managed to get a completely absurd extension to the length of copyright), I'd expect a change in law real soon now...
[I'm writing my congress-critter, are you?]
Freenet, Gnutella, and many clones are totally anonymous. These allow for totally illegal sharing, and if they (music industry) close down the few legal sites, my.mp3.com being one, they are shooting their only saviors in the head.All that will be left will be the growing underground of illegal sharing.
But fortunately or unfortunatley depending on which side you are on in this, stupidity is fatal on the Internet.
- I like pudding.
Have you read any of the hundred posts above you?
- I like pudding.
How can it be possible for a jury to not be allowed to nullify? According to my understanding of the law, a judge must accept a jury's "Not Guilty" verdict. Though the jurors may choose to explain themselves, they cannot be required to do so. Therefore, the jury could just decide to hand in a "Not Guilty" verdict for any reason they so choose, including reasonable doubt, a high-priced lawyer on the defense team, and/or nullification.
Go out and find artists selling their music themselves and buy from them. I do that for a few of them. This way I know THEY are getting the money - ALL of it. Also one of them even suggests you make MP3 copies of the CD as a "backup". I have refused to buy CD's from the typical channels as well as buying, renting videos/DVD's due to the DeCSS bullsh*t! As far as I am concerned the MPAA and the RIAA can go F*ck themselves!
Gabriel/TSS!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Sue all the phuckin services you want, its not going to stop us...
Attack the creators of technology that enable the common public to share their common intrests, its not going to stop us...
Go after your listener base, the only reason for your existence, its not going to stop us...
You're only hurting yourself Mr. Artist, in the end, you dont decide, in this world, WE DO!
We will continue to use the services as they are offered, and defend them to the utter end...
We will further push the limits of technology to facilitate the sharing of intrests and expresion, and defend it to the utter end...
We, your fan base will destroy your career, to your utter demise...
We will continue, no matter the threat, lawsuit, or ruling...
In the end, you hurt, Not us
~~~ They call me Little John, but don't let the name fool you...in real life I'm very big.
No, it won't work that way. Me and a friend tried it.
He logged into my account. He started playing one of my discs.
Then I logged into my account. When he tried to go to the next track, or to another disc, a recorded audio message came up instead says (paraphrased):
"we're sorry, you are trying to access your music from a machine that is no longer logged in".
He re-logged in. Then I got the message on going to the next track.
So unless you don't plan on using them, it's not very effective to give your friends your account info. So in effect, I can "LEND" my collection to someone, which would be legal but...
I've still got the original CDs. So now he's got the my.mp3.com copy of my discs, and I've got the real things!
So, here's a piracy scheme for you:
I create an account with a username "For Bob". I upload all my disks to that account, and give the username/password to Bob. Now he has a complete copy of my collection. I can now make another account for Sue, and Joe, and Dave...........
And that's actually easier than emailing hundreds or thousands of MP3 files all over the place.
I love my.mp3.com. It's a cool idea. But there are plenty of possible abuses of it. Does that make it illegal? I wouldn't think so. The technology, used as intended doesn't violate the idea that I have a right to use that IP where ever I go.
I just signed up for My.mp3.com, and first of all, it's pretty cool. Took about 5 minutes to add 20 discs to my "online" collection.
To access my newly stored music, I just log into my.mp3.com, enter my username and password, and then I can get to my music.
What if I give my friend my username and password. He can then access my music. But is that legal?
Note that is does attempt to prevent an account from being logged in from two places at once.
Actually, it is very different from loaning out your CD. You see, if you loan your CD to me, you cannot listen to the music while It is on loan.
You see, fair use is based on the premise that you cannot use the IP on more instances that you are entitled to.
EXAMPLE: It's legal to make a tape copy of your CD to listen to while in the car. However, your roommate cannot listen to the CD back in the dorm while you are listining to the tape in the car. If he listens to it while you are in class, that's OK. If he listens to it while you listen to another tape, or to the radio, that's OK. But if he's listining to the CD in your room, and you are listining to the copy at the same time, you are no longer excercising fair use and have crossed the line into the illegal.
why did this get modded flamebait?
No more questionable than the same user making a mp3 copy to play on their Rio. The fact that it is downloadable by owning users from the Internet does not change this at all. It simply makes owned works more available everywhere to their owners/licensees. In priniciple this is a simple extension of the right to make a copy for your own use. The court would only have a case if non-owners can get at the material. This ruling shows a clear lack of understanding of the internet and computer technology in general and what it makes possible.
I would imagine that this case and the DeCSS case are somewhat similiar, in that the MPAA is trying to block sites from 'linking' to the illegal software. If the MPAA loses that battle, isn't that basically saying it's OK for napster? Is there a difference?
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Period. Control of information distribution ("Recording"), as a high-profit industry, is obsolete. Welcome to the not-quite-21st century. Support local bands around the country, and make it very clear that the support will end upon their signing with an RIAA member.
The main logic I see from people who buy from signed artists is "I like the band" or "I like the band's music."
That makes as much sense as the woman who gives "I love him." as an excuse to not prosecute the boyfriend who beats the shit out of her each night.
People, get some fortitude, and quit being so selfish. That's right, selfish. The RIAA is a pimp cartel. They absolutely depend on being the only ones that can distribute music to the serf^H^H^H^Hpublic market of people so self-centered they would prefer to be ripped off.
Every single dollar you spend on an album or bit of "merchandise" supports the enemy. Period. Don't do it, and be loud about not doing it.
But... does my.mp3.com have rights to the MP3s in its database? To run it that way, they need to have those mp3's on their own systems.
Which, if they're unlicensed, could perhaps be the world's largest collection of unlicensed music... I can see why this might make lawyers *very* twitchy, even if the CD ownership check were 100% foolproof.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Obviously if this verdict holds up through the appeal process, this will be the end of the my.mp3.com service. What types of do-it-yourself alternatives are there? Obviously we have Nullsoft's Shoutcast service, but that isn't really a viable alternative to the my.mp3.com service in that you can only really "tune in" to your pre-defined playlist and can't manually select the tracks to stream from a remote location (without using some sort of VNC remote control software). I'd really like to see something with a web interface that allowed you to set up a server on your home computer, for instance, which would serve up a list of available mp3 tracks, and you select a track of group of tracks from a browser in your office, and stream the mp3s in that way. Anyone know of anything like this that wouldn't require me to become a perl guru?
It could be argued that listening to a song which you have already purchased is fair use --e.g. whether I make an MP3 at home or download one from someone else, the fact remains that I have paid the label and the artist for the right to listen to that song.
This is far from over, and it should be clear that the RIAA is in the wrong.
Gnutella and Hotline are almost guaranteed to crumble if a lawsuit is ever brought against them...
How exactly is Gnutella going to crumble? Source is already widely available, there's no centralized server and the system itself makes it next to impossible to determine who's looking for what.
--
The shareholder is always right.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Distinctly grey? Now that's an oxymoron for you.
Well, now there is precidence and we will all have to hope active rulings are made as apposed to passive now.
-- From my Best Friend (Written to me over ICQ): "i was gonna go to a party...but i had to reinstall windows"
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Scuse me, but AOL also distributes the software needed to get onto their network... and there are literally thousands of mp3s floating around on AOL, including no less than 10 mp3 dedicated chat rooms each night. Yet, AOL will be the first to duck behind the DMCA... so where's the difference to Napster?
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
Let's hope the courts come to their senses and see that no laws were actually broken, otherwise my music (shameless plug for Anonymity) will have to find a new home.
Addlepated - punk & metal
Even better... go read the boards over at raging bull or siliconinvestor... common post titles: "we're all doomed", or "MPPP is dead" or "another ones bites the dust".
It's quite funny if you don't own any! =)
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
'Questionable' - not illegal. There is a real grey area here about to potential to be a 'proxy' for copywrited material. Since u have proved that u are a legal owner/licensee of the material, who is being deprived? and of what? We'll see what the courts have to say (please let this be an appealable ruling).
You were right yesterday... there was a gray area. But now theres not, the facts of law have come in. Sorry bub, I'm with you on the issue... but now its officially against the law! (Even though my bets are on $1 damages or something similar)
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Not a bad idea, except that I think the RIAA actually wants to see legalized MP3's fade into the night. Without companies acting as agents to assist people pursue their fair use*, the only thing left will be dirty, low-life music pirates! That's right, PIRATES. Storming the high seas and information highways and byways, waylaying unsuspecting artists of their gold and raping and pillaging helpless villages full of recording industry execs...
At least that will be the impression that they give once every trace of respectability is gone from music online. Remember noone ever got fired for buying a CD! FUD!
Anyway, my point is that they want us to pirate, at first. Sure they will lose some market share at first (after all they lost -15 billion-qaud-zillion last year alone), however once they convince every ISP out there that it's better to cease, desist and start harrassing their users rather than face a bag full of lawyers then it's pretty much curtains for everyone. Especially the independant artists that rely on the internet to get distrobution (even if there aren't that many now, why take the chance?)
Perhaps instead we should start grinding our own FUD-gears now. I already put up that picture off the paylars site here at work where napster and gnutella have been deemed inappropriate(read:will get your ass fired), and I think there are other things that we can do as a community to help. Take some of the posts here and Jon Katzize them, make a flyer and pass it out, especially at the Universities and all. It's probably too late to get napster re-legitimized, and perhaps it's actually better that way, however I think that the recording industry is doing more than going after pirates here. I think they want to paint everyone who ever listened to music on computer speakers with a beard, a peg-leg and a damn parrot on their shoulder.
The music industry is ignoring this potentially lucrative market for one reason: they have no control over the Internet. And that's what they want, complete and total control of Orwellian proportions over us. If Napster is taken down, it will be replaced very quickly. But not because we all want to be pirates (I believe most people would actually prefer to pay for the songs they listen to) but because the current structure of the music industry is simply too oppressive to bear.
The key is not to attack piracy, becuase piracy will always exist. Music piracy online has existed long before Napster, and will continue to exist afterward. What the music industry needs to do is make buying music easy and fair enough to make piracy not worth the trouble. And I think they will have to give up their position as a cartel in order to acheive this, which is why they probably won't even consider it, sadly.
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Radio stations are exempt from record royalties. This came up a few weeks ago when talking about web based radio stations to some friends of mine. If you broadcast music over the web, then you have to pay royalties. Record companies want radio stations to play more of their music so they can sell records so they don't require the radio stations to pay royalties. They're not worried that you'll tape stuff of of the radio instead of buying it because receptions is not good enough unless you live next door to the transmitter.
How so? As another poster has said, uploading your own copy of the song would be a pointless waste of bandwidth. It's just data. They know I have a copy and therefore can legally listen to it. What does it matter if I listen to my copy or their copy, as long as I legally own a copy? The two copies are indistinguishable...it's just data!
Right. And if I wanted to photocopy my book and store that in a vault somewhere just in case my house burned down, I could do that. I have a license to the info in that book, do I not? I paid for it. The fact that most people do not "back up" hard copy isn't an issue. You can back up digital data (if I had a book-on-CD, I could back that up in case the CD broke, right?), and that's why the music industry is screaming. They are thinking of all the replacement sales they'll lose because we no longer need physical media.
Technology is outgrowing conventional media. The world/industry needs to learn to cope with that. We live in the Information Age -- it's the information that's important, not how you access it.
Constitutionally Correct
You should go talk to the judge presiding over this case. What you're saying makes so much sense the judge would have to be a moron not to agree. Wish I'd said it as eloquently in my reply.
Constitutionally Correct
It's not a case over whether or not you have a right to listen to MP3's of your own CD's. You *do* have a right to do that
*no*, you do not have a right to have mp3's PERIOD. I can't find the exact text right now, but I remember reading on the RIAA site their explanation of the Home Recording Act, and it said you are not allowed to copy your cd's to mp3's. The reason you could copy your cd's to tapes is because the RIAA gets a cut of each blank tape sold (same with blank videotapes), so when you buy the tape, you are essentially buying the right to copy. But they don't have anything like that for computers or hard drives, so mp3's are illegal - not that I agree with this, but that's the law right now.
I disagree with this post. Do you really think Yale and the other schools are really cracking down on users of Napster, I highly doubt it. I challenge the RIAA, you, or anyone to proved these school are Napster free. I gaurantee you they are not. I am a student at the University of Kentucky, and students here run everything under the sun, regardless of "policy", because we all know most sysadm, while maybe clean at school, have most of the large warez collections. You think they are going to crack down on studetns, I think not.
mp3.com is history, given that each willful copyright infraction can cost a violator upwards of $100,000. I'd seriously consider liquidating my MPPP stock right about now.
Somebody much more proficient in programming than myself should take it upon himself to take some Icecast code, screw with it somehow, and clone my.mp3.com
Thousands of college students on our t3's, running some variant of some free OS, streaming to our workplaces, our friends' houses....
ahhh
>This is exactly why artists are scared. if they don't sell CD's they don't make any money!
/would/ buy their cd...then I do.
don't make any money...hmmm
I wonder what happens to the $15-$50 I pay for tickets to shows/concerts? How about the $20 I pay for a shirt?
If I like a band enough where I actually
you're making some incredibly idiotic statements here...
The RIAA quite intentionally avoided the question of whether mp3.com has the right to send you a song you already own.
Instead, they focused on the creation of the database: did mp3.com, the company, have the right to encode a bunch of CDs to use for commercial gain? This is a totally different point from you as an individual encoding a bunch of a CDs - you're just doing it for yourself. If you're doing it for commercial gain (and, by definition, almost anything a company does is for commercial gain), then, under US copyright law, you've got to compensate the rights holders. That's all the case was about, and it has no ramifications for any other online music services - liquidaudio.com, emusic.com, musicmaker.com or even napster.com. None of them were so willfully STUPID as to go and make a commercial database of songs they haven't licensed the rights to. The shareholder lawsuits alone on such poor thinking should keep as all entertained for years...
One of the cases used against MP3.com, for example, is that of Kinko's copying a book. If you buy a book, and buy a photocopier, it is within your rights to make a copy of that book, as long as you don't make any money on it. However, if you take that same book down to Kinko's, and PAY Kinko's to make a copy, you have just crossed the line. Kinko's made money on the deal, which means that legally they have to have a contract with the author to distribute royalties. Absent such a contract, Kinko's has violated copyright law. It's the same thing with mp3.com - by using the songs in a commercial context, they are required to seek licenses from the original rights holders. They didn't, and hence are liable for copyright infringement, even though their service went through backflips to prevent hackability (and, from a technical standpoint, I think they did a pretty good job, there). Should've saved some money on programmers, though, and paid a good copyright lawyer to tell them if it was legal, first.
It's not like this is some new "Net Act" that's untested in court...what they did violated the essential basis of US copyright law, and precedents on it go back more than 100 years. That's why the judge agreed to the summary judgement - he thought it was so completely obvious they broke the law that it wasn't even worth going to trial. Again, how a publically traded company could make such a boneheaded error is completely beyond me. What a train wreck!
Oddly enough that same image is used in china as a pro-government propaganda. It shows its the military being passive and understanding to the people. "look, see, we are nice, we didnt just run over this guy in our tank!!!"
no
I can't say that I've every used the mymp3.com feature, but from my visits to mp3.com, I've never *noticed* any copyrighted material for free. Has anyone here used this feature of mp3.com, and/or have you noticed PIRATED materials there? I was under the impression that the whole point of the company was to provide the little non-copyrighted artists and avenue for distribution.
-Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
it was both DK and Circle Jerks who pulled this prank.
The text on the B-Side of DK's In God We Trust read, "home made tapes have caused sales to go down in the record industry. We left this side blank so you could do your part."
I don't know what the Circle Jerks cassette reads....
sig not found
the average schmo kid probably just listens to MP3s to make purchase decisions, and then spends money on the real CD.
as for hauling around a stack of cds...gesus! that wasn't the point i was making. i was trying to say that there is still something damn romantic about coming home with some music from a shop and sitting down with the sleeves and thumbing through the pages while the first chords come rumbling forth from the speakers...it's just a part of the experience that d'loading "forgot about dre" and being able to play the song immediately just doesn't have. there's no chill there, most of the time....
as for ftp for remote listening, see above: not everyone can do that kind of thing. just wait, my friend, that hi-speed access that you enjoy for free at UCSD will be pricey as hell when you get out of school.
sig not found
Which is pretty much the kind of crap the Record Companies tried to pull in the 80's, when the Walkman came out. "If you tape music, you'll be tempted to pass it around, and that's bad for the artists (read: bad for our bottom line)"
Of course, that really didn't happen. The Music Industry is just pissy about these things because they can't control them. There are not really that many people out there who get most of their music from the Internet, are there? I mean, how could NSync sell 2.6 million copies of their CD if that were the case? What is the advantage???
Answer: Actual CDs/Tapes/Vinyl from the Companies will always have a serious advantage over Internet-related transmission methods: the Album Art/Liner Notes/etc. You can't very well download and print up your own sleeves for each Disc you get....
So, it's hard to understand why the record companies have their collective panties in a wad. If it were about the artists' copyrights, you'd think they'd at least pay those artists properly and not treat them like shit. If it's about profits, then they are just being tight-asses over revenue losses that they probably can't accurately project.
And if they really are concerned about falling profits, maybe they should stop releasing utter shite.
sig not found
When will people learn that a restriction on the free flow of infomation will always lead to a totalaterian state, and the only way to have "Life, liberty, and the persuit of happyness" is to allow (*not* mandate) the free flow of infomation.
Shawn Poulsen (Fruan)
"On Slashdot, many obvious things are insightful." - Annonymous Coward, 2000/7/9
Now that we are licking our wounds from being lynched by the jack-booted RIAA, it's time to take a stand.
/independent/ dealers or Ebay.
Here's what I am doing:
+ Boycotting all shrink wrapped commercial recorded media. My last CD I will buy until the RIAA backs off will be today.
+ Buy used CD's if I am jonesing for mass-market music from
+ Supporting my local starving musicians. I find the unsigned artists to put out better music because they don't have the industry to rest on.
+ Help my local bands distribute their music in MP3 format.
+ Use Gnutella. It can be found at gnutella.wego.com
+ Setup a firewall and 512bit PGP my disks.
Also I would entertain a World LogOff Day were the Open Source community boycotts the Internet for 24 hours.
If design is not Bauhaus, it is Baroque.
Not from what I've seen of it. Their argument has nothing to do with sharing copyrighted material, nor does my.mp3.com. The system does not, apparently, permit sharing of music -- only access to the music you have specifically archived. MP3.com's argument is, then, that it constitutes fair use for a person to access music they have already bought.
Sadly, that issue is completely moot and not even tangently related. The reason MP3.com got in trouble is because it doesn't have the right to archive and distribute this music, even for/to people who already own it. I don't see this as MP3.com's attempt at fulfilling a greater good -- just a rather short-sighted and flawed view of the main copyright issue.
At least, that's my take on it...
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
Distribution falls well outside of both sets. It is, thus, technically illegal for somoene to give you a backup copy of something you both own. Backups must be made for your own use. But this is, in large part, a technicality. I strongly doubt anyone will ever get in trouble for something as minor as that -- there would be nothing to gain from acknowledging such minor infringements. However, when you get into large scale redistribution you most certainly have a difficulty.
As with 99% of everyone else pretending to be authorative on this matter, IANAL, so this is just from my limited understanding of the issues. Take these assertions with a salt mine...
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
Couldn't they claim that the user transmits the information they want encoded to them by quantum teleportation using the CD as the shared "secret" key? Thus encoding only information that belongs to the user rather than an identical but illegal copy.
I have seen several comments saying things like "Napster is gonna be next." I just don't see this happening. For reasons that have already been explored many many times Napster, in my mind, is reasonably safe. All transfers are between users, nothing goes through Napster. They can continue to claim as they have been that they aren't doing anything wrong, which they aren't. Napster doesn't pirate MP3s, people pirate MP3s. Also considering the reason MP3.com lost was because they had the content on their servers it should be even more readily apparent that Napster will not have similar legal problems.
I've always wondered why nobody points out that the computer itself is a tool for piracy. Probably the same reason nobody points out the simple ways to defeat napster and it's ilk... never know who is listening!
Add Paul McCartney to the list of 'legacy artists'... If that limey dork thinks I'm shelling out cash to replace my boxed set of japanese remastered european releases of Beatle's albums on vinyl he's horribly wrong. (not that I can find CD or MP3 copies of said work...)
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
I use MP3.com. They do not use illegal MP3. The artist has to give them the MP3 before they will post it. MP3.com is not an illegal website. The old Scour.net was. --Mel is my hero
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
They certainly *do* have the right to profit from other's work, and without permission. As makers of hardware and software media players know. which is all my.mp3.com was. this is part of the effort to own the hardware and media player market (in the cracker sense), just like CSS licenseing.
There is still a crucial difference. While a radio station has a license to broadcast the music from the record companies, there is no guarantee one way or another if the radio listeners legally own a copy of the music they'll here on the radio. That is just not the point of radio. Radio's point is to broadcast to the public. My.MP3.com, on the other hand, is designed only to broadcast the music to customers who already purchased the music. Thus, while the RIAA could claim damagaes against a radio station broadcasting without a license, the RIAA has already received it's money from EVERY user of My.MP3.com many times over (since each user has already purchased their CDs, and many people will end up with copies of the same CD due to overlapping tastes). I think I'll listen to white or pink noise from now on.
MP3 takes the position that they are holding your copy for you. This would only be correct if you had ripped it yourself, encoded it to mp3, and uploaded it to your private storage area. However, the service doesn't start with your bits, it starts with -their- bits, off of their CD collection. So you aren't getting a copy of -your- CD, that only you can access. You are getting pirated copies of their CD, shared.
The distinction of where the bits came from makes all the difference, despite the fact that the bits are identical to the ones from your CD.
If they had made you do the rip, uploaded it, and then had s/w that did a bitwise compare to existing data and collapsed/compressed them to save space, they would be far closer to clearly legal.
As it is now, they are at the least guilty of statutory infringement, with set penalties, and the infringement is obviously willful. If you don't get the point that thinking what you did was fair use is no defense, check out CoS vs. Henson (search for scientology and henson in the engine of your choice).
I think MP3 may be morally and techno-evolutionarily correct, but they seem quite likely to get nailed to the wall and bankrupted on this one. IMO.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
In the British Common Law, on which the U.S.A.'s and Canada's, and most other U.K. colonies' legal systems are based, it is perfectly legal for a judge or jury to refuse to convict for a crime if they believe that the law that was broken is unjust or unreasonable.
This is why, for example, the death penalty, a.k.a. deportation to Australia, ceased to be applied to minor crimes in Britain. Not because Parliament suddenly went all humane, but because juries all over the U.K. refused to convict anyone of theft, minor frauds, etc. Eventually, they forced the government to change the laws to something more reasonable. The same should be applicable in the U.S., what we need is better informed judges.
Now, here's a really crazy bit, applying in Canada, I don't know about the U.S. in this respect: While it is legal for juries to refuse to convict if they believe the law in question is inhumane, it is illegel for lawyers & judges to inform jurors of those rights. In other words, the ignorance of juries of the laws related to their execution of their sworn duties is entrenched in law.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
I'm treating this like it's not a troll, by the way. mp3.com is quickly becoming the best site to ever happen to me. I haven't checked out the beam-it thing, or the my.mp3.com thing, but I listen to all of the totally legal mp3's they have all day. I hate radio. I live in a pretty big city, and all the radio here sucks tremendous ass. Sometimes the local college AM station has very cool shows on, but I've found so much music that doesn't insult my tastes there (buried underneath the mounds of crappy music :). I think it's the best thing to happen to music in a long time, since it gives normal people access to an audience that they would have never been able to reach. I hope that finding doesn't wreck them too hard.
The mob had it right. If lawyers got in the way they simply warned them. If that didnt work a broken arm or leg or some cement shoes and a trip to the east river were enough to solve the problem. I think perhaps we should switch tactics.
Happily, there is an alternative solution on the Internet: we need to focus more firepower on better distribution technology--technology that makes users virtually impossible to track down, let alone crack down upon. It's the only thing that can protect consumer interests in the long-term.
Gnutella is a start. I look forward to greater sophistication and variety in programs of its genre.
What more can I say.
"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. Man I'm glad I only have a 2gb hard drive, otherwise I'd be in trouble
...that headline would just about round out all the hits our freedoms are taking today.
I will not buy another CD.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
The Lawyers come marching one by one. Hurahh... Hurahh... (Singing)
There's an important subtlety here. Although MP3.com got nailed for copyright violation, they've not yet been assessed damages, and it isn't clear what damages could be assessed against them. Although their storage system was illegal, a consumer was required to provide evidence that he or she had the right to access a given item in the conglomerate store before he or she could access it.
IANAL -- but doesn't that mean that the total lost revenue and lost profit to the record companies is 0?
I say go around aand tell everyone all the crap that organizations like hte RIAA and MPAA are doing. Just bitching about it on this messageboard isn't gonna do shit! You all that come here are the educated people who are aware of what really goes on, but 99% of Americans are stupid shit and couldn't care less. You know what they say, "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."
That's a good idea if thousands of people actually do it. Ummm, okay, you first.
Kind of reminds me of that guy standing in front of the tank at Tianenmen (sp?), okay, not quite as dire, but still, one small, brave step for democracy...
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
It's not a case over whether or not you have a right to listen to MP3's of your own CD's. You *do* have a right to do that.
Well, you certainly should have the right to. Whether you can do it legally is another matter.
The RIAA is a lobbying group, protecting a huge, monied, entrenched interest. It would be totally unfair and completely irrational to argue that someone shouldn't be able to make digital copies of music that they bought to listen to by themselves, but that is what they claim.
If you don't believe me, read their claim:
Second, again for your personal use, you can make some digital copies of music, depending on the type of digital recorder used. For example, digitally copying music is generally allowed with mini-disc recorders, digital audio tape (DAT) recorders, digital cassette tape recorders and some (but not all) compact disc recorders (or CD-R recorders). As a general rule for CD-Rs, if the CD-R recorder is a stand-alone machine designed to copy primarily audio, rather than data or video, then the copying is allowed. If the CD-R recorder is a computer component, or a computer peripheral device designed to be a multi-purpose recorder (in other words, if it will record data and video as well as audio), then copying is not allowed.
And if you don't believe they actually said that, here's where you can find it.
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
I can see where you are coming from. It doesn't seem fair, and probably on some level isn't. I'm not a lawyer, but there are legitimate arguments against even this system:
First, the system, though it might "bend over backwards", can't determine whether the possessor of a particular CD is the rightful owner of that CD. It has been pointed out in other posts that all the scan shows is that at one moment you had a CD--it could have been yours, but it could also have been your friend's, or a library's, and so on.
Second, it's not clear that when you bought a CD you bought the right to alternate representations of the data on it. Those MP3's that they are distributing are not CD images, they are derived works. To make a somewhat strained analogy: Suppose I own a copy of The Gulag Archipelago in the original Russian. Do I have the right to receive, with no payment to the author, a translation of the same book into English? Do I have the right to distribute, with no payment to the author, such a translation? Do I have such a right, as part of a commercial venture?
There are problems with this analogy, but the core thing problem is the same: in both the case of the book and MyMP3, one might argue that the "translation" is the same as the original, but one might equally argue that they are not the same. And I think the law will favor the holder of the copyright in cases like this.
The tricky thing about so many of these arguments is that this is not simply the case of people being prevented from making "fair use" of their CDs. The RIAA is not suing people for making MP3's for their own use. This is about a company selling a service that produces derived content from the intellectual property of others, without their consent.
If you want to trade pirated MP3's, sure, use Gnutella. But, if you want to make the notion of pirated MP3's a thing of the past, support artists and companies that are embracing new technologies and business models. As a start, try going to MP3.com, instead of MyMP3, and support the artists there. At least, until MP3.com is bankrupted by this lawsuit.
If two people upload the same file (mp3 or otherwise), you store both of the files, but your special "compression algorithm" recognizes that they are exactly the same and "compresses" the files to slightly more than the size of one of them.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
if the artists on there weren't so crud then maybe u would have a point
http://www.staticengine.com/news.html
"fake CD device, with all the data mp3.com's is looking to verify" - the algorithm makes random checks of a CDs data. Spoofing would require some other technique than simply saving and delivering only the expected data.
"you then have access to those mp3s from anywhere you go (or you can just download the mp3s)." - Once authenticated, you have access to the streaming MP3 file of that particular CD. You are not empowered to download tracks in MP3 format that are suitable for redistribution. Of course, there are ways to save the streamed file, but there are much easier ways to get those files than spoofing the CD checker and saving the streamed MP3. MyMP3 didn't make that any easier than what was already possible -- in fact it was less convenient to use as a piracy tool. The more likely threat, from the view of the RIAA, was simply the sharing of CDs to gain access to streaming MP3s rather than buying the music. Lost sale? So they say, but I don't buy it. The truth is, regardless of profit loss or gain, RIAA wanted to enforce its licensing rights, as the representative of the industry (which includes the artists) and ensure it received its fair share of profits.
"As unfair as it might seem, I'm not so sure that RIAA is necessarily being greedy or overzealous here." - blasphemy for a Slashdotter where "music wants to be free" but I agree with this. Vilifying an industry that's trying to maintain its tried and true (and legal) revenue stream isn't logical. They are in the business of making money...making it for their investors, their executives, their engineers, producers, public relations, promoters, agents, distributors, and...oh yeah...the performers and writers too.
As long as I'm posting, might as well spout:
A few decades ago, the "music industry" feared the sale of recorded music thinking it would kill the primary source of revenue -- the live performance. Today that seems laughable. Not that long ago, the industry fought to keep analog recording out of the consumers' bill of rights because of its perceived impact on unit sales. Eventually, and with the help of the Audio Home Recording Act, the RIAA gave up its opposition to analog copying since the method degrades each generation and, uh, they get a royalty for blank media sold to compensate them (now THAT chaps my ass).
The point is I think the cataclysm of change is happening right now, and law suits like this are just Pyrrhic, evidence of the industry trying to maintain the status quo for fear of finding a new business model -- which is an inevitability. In 10 years we'll look back on the quaint physical distribution, point-of-sale model and chuckle at our primitiveness. And there will still be an industry making gobs of money from the consumer's appetite for music. They might be different people from those currently finding a livelihood from music and that's why the fight for the status quo is so engaged.
I may not like MP3c CEO Robertson's hubris (and I'd sue the corporate law team that led them down this fool's path if they were culpable), but I like MP3.Com. BeamIt was a peripheral oddity that didn't fit their core vision. Why they'd risk it all for MyMP3 is a mystery -- well, maybe not. The rap against MP3.Com is it doesn't host the popular music people seem to want. MyMP3 got them into that arena in a derivative way. The RIAA wanted its license. Robertson thought he had a glimmer of legal standing to not have to pay the standard fees, thinking he could get the rights for cheap. The RIAA didn't budge. Now, you can bet the RIAA will twist the knife.
Mambo dogface in the banana patch
Are they on crack? Well duh, if some judge agrees with them, then of course mp3.com is illegal; the whole broadcasting/whose-copy-is-it/database-compilation junk is moot; they "broke the law" the instant they burned their cds. But come on, is RIAA just making up stuff here? What about all the US-made products that are specifically marketed to assist in burning cds, like that CreativeLabs model of SBLive that specifically advertises mp3 tools all over its site, or RealPlayer Jukebox, or the other mp3 tools? Are they all covering their ass by explicitly stating they are assuming that users would only use it for their own Intellectual Property?
tune
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
1. Allow user accounts where people can upload their mp3s (but so that only they can access them). Other sites already do this and they aren't being sued. Fair use.
2. Allow people to listen to their OWN mp3s through streaming instead of downloading them. Someone convince me that that step itself is illegal. That simply ain't a broadcast.
3. Allow people to upload their mp3s using a client software that would also enable them to burn their cds and make the mp3s before uploading. Fair use, just bundling other legal technology.
4. Here's the kicker - my.mp3.com notices that there are several thousand byte-identical copies of that Santana tune on their server... and to save disk space, start going through and deleting SOME of these copies, replacing them with links to other already existing copies.
Get it? That's essentially what they are saying is illegal. 'ln -s'. The users aren't listening to THEIR fair use copies, they're listening to someone else's. THAT's the precedent here.
The rest of the technology is irrelevant and not illegal by itself. They've already done the link. Updating the client to check the server and see if it's necessary to do the upload is just an added feature. Refusing to accept new submissions and only allowing links to the ones that already exist on the server isn't illegal either. The practice they are criminalizing is that we can't use a copy that someone else made of something we've licensed ourself, EVEN IF IT IS BIT-IDENTICAL. How many other companies and applications are breaking this law?
I think we should launch a campaign to save 'ln -s'. SAVE ln -s !!!!
tune
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
The one difference between my.mp3.com's scenario and yours is that on my.mp3.com, the users aren't listening to the mp3s that THEY encoded. They're listening to someone ELSE's fair use copies (yes, the mp3s themselves are mp3.com's fair use copies). It's a stupid distinction and a really dangerous precedent. Basically meaning we don't have a right to use a backup copy of IP that we've licensed, if we weren't the ones that made the actual copy. tune
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
Saying "information wants to be free" is like saying "density wants to pretty".
Amazing the conversations that have resulted from it :)
--Lucabrasi
From the piracy button page: "The association's position on piracy is clear: The recording industry will not, and cannot, tolerate the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of recorded music. "
Might I make a glossary?
Recorded music: Music that is recorded. i.e. on an Audio Tape, computer, CD, etc.
Unauthorized reproduction: Making copies of these recordings that are not sanctioned by the RIAA.
[Unauthorized] Distrobution: Giving these copies, or master recordings, to comrades.
Ok, now for a revealed meaning of this statement.
"We control the music. Don't do anything unless we approve."
Damn, I guess I have to stop humming and singing in the shower.
Whenever I curse now, the 4 letter words I will use are: MPAA, RIAA, and the normal F---.
"It's the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed" --William S. Bourroughs
I find it sort of odd that mp3.com is being sued when scour.com has got to be the easiest way to download any mp3 (all illegal of course). Obviously, the argument they would make is that they don't actually have the mp3s on their servers, they only provide the links, which might stand up in court. However, scour.net is partnered with idrive.com and has features where you download the mp3s to an i-drive, so it seems like i-drive could easily be sued.
Mp3.com does have applicable licences (ASCAP, etc.) that allow them to play licensed music, just as any restaurant, bar, or store has to have to do the same. Don't remember the link, but I *do* remember reading it.
-(())
IANAL, and I certainly wasn't one back in 1986. My action was to write a very rude letter back to Microdeal calling them hypocrites, but to back down none-the-less.
Actually, another incident involved my copying MY OWN GAME onto disk for my brother - who, as kids are, wanted his own copy of the game (and I didn't want him rooting through my disk collection with his grubby hands ;)
Somehow the manufacturers of that game - Quickbeam Sofware - got wind of my activities and phoned my parents who idiotically admitted to it. They then demanded FULL PAYMENT for all 3 of the "fair use" copies I had made. And my parents coughed up.
The finer points of the law become largely irrelevant when you're on the wrong end of a court action.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
They probably got in early on some internet startups and are now basking in Hawaii. Life's like that ;)
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
It isnt Mp3.com's fault if people could be using its services illegaly when it is perfectly possible that a person could use the service perfectly legitimately. when i buy a cd i own that cd, and i am allowed to make at least one copy lawfully. what if i want to make that copy and store it in some other place other than my home. so like if my home burned down i wouldnt have anything left but i would have my cd collection! oh well
"Alcohol, cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" -Homer Simpson
So really it's all a legal technicality. Asking where something 'came from' in computer terms is just fiddling the words. When I move an MP3 from my C: drive to my D: drive, I'm creating a totally new set of 1's and 0's on the D: drive, and deleting the original set of 1's and 0's on the C: drive.
Same with my.mp3.com. I suppose I could put in a CD that I own, and actually upload it to them. In which case all the little 1's and 0's on that CD would be read, and a signal would go out through my modem that tells my.mp3.com what 1's and 0's to create brand new on their servers. Then later if I wanted to listen to that "same" song, their server would read those same 1's and 0's that were created new on their end and stream them back to me, where they would be read, used, and discarded.
In this instance, there's one individual copy on my CD, another on my.mp3's servers, and another that is created, read, and then destroyed by my computer as it is 'streamed'. (or possibly goes into a cache somewhere, but that's just technicalities)
So is it not EXACTLY the same if I have a CD, send them just the beam-it code, which tells them which set of 1's and 0's on their computers I can have access to, and then stream it from there. There are still the three copies. Information on a computer doesn't 'come from' anywhere. It is created in the memory brand new on that computer when it is put there.
But of course, I suppose that's just not the issue in this case. Here in america, we have higher ideals than mucking about in technicalities. We worship the almighty dollar!
-Mad Dreamer
Yes, Someone PLEASE setup a website like this!! I would be happy as hell to go become a registered member of the "Fuck the RIAA and Give the bands the appreciation they deserve" Group. This is how it could work. People "Sign-up". They recieve letters about new independent (or signed bands) via e-mail and PIRATE the HELL out of their songs. If you like them, Rate them on the website and send them about 5 bucks. Sure would be a hell of alot cheaper than a 15 dollar CD at the record store... And the bands would benefit more. It would also be a good way to weed out all of the crap that the major lables force onto the public.. LIKE THAT MACY GRAY BITCH!.. ANyways.. Let me know when the site is up!
well do they expect us now to buy their shitty 14 song cds with one good song on it for 12 dollars? I say make napster freeware and open source and then see if they cab shut it down... does anyone else find it difficult to find rgeur favorite song on single without having to buy 55 minutes of filler?
Somehow the manufacturers of that game -- Quickbeam Sofware -- got wind of my activities and phoned my parents who idiotically admitted to it. They then demanded FULL PAYMENT for all 3 of the "fair use" copies I had made. And my parents coughed up.
Hold on a moment...! Did your brother spread word of this round his school? How in the world did this software company find out? How did they get your phone number?
I guess you can tell this upsets me. That software company took it too far! If I were one of your parents, I would have told them that it's none of their business. I sure hope your parents didn't reprimand you too badly.
It seems to me you live in Britain ("...at a cost of only 50p per game"). I often get the idea that copyright is enforced much more strongly in your country than in North America, and that copyright holders tend to be much more defensive about their copyrights.
Regardless of the merits of the case, the resulting Fear Uncertainty and Doubt should do wonders for my Cinram stock -- even though CD and DVD sales have been increasing each year DESPITE the 'horrors' of MP3.
I tell you what, I want to be a judge, so that I can be so blatantly blind to the truth about anything that I can overlook the fact that with figures like that, it is very clear that the RIAA is not after the difference between right and wrong, and that they are going for MONEY, and lots of it.
Aren't there laws against lawsuits like this? Suing your neighbor for 2 million for their dog doo on your yard. Any decent judge in the world would throw that out, why is this any different? The RIAA is certainly throwing around loads of dog doo, aren't they?
I already removed all of the Metallica (one of my favorite bands) from my hard drive, as I don't want to support them, or their work since their frivolous lawsuit against Napster.
When will big business realize one very key point of our world: YOU CAN'T UN-INVENT SOMETHING!
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
Sure. It's not legal to distribute this stunk freely...But the question, my dear ZicoKnows, is is that law a good law? Are these laws good laws? Is the system a good system? Not the American system, but the current human system? It's a system bent on ridiculous traditions and heirarchy. Madonna, Brittany(Shitney?)Spears, etc etc, are all multimillioniares - for doing what? Singing? I agree that singing should have a place in society, but why should it be valued so highly? The entire human system needs a rethink and overhaul. Mark this is as flamebait if you will, but nothing I've said here is inaccurate. Thanks.
no sig
I'm in fact encouraging the judge to do this, or another "compromise" solution like mp3.com handing over a portion of its advertising revenue for the site. The judge can be contacted here:
Hon. Jed S. RAKOFF
United States District Judge
United States Courthouse
500 Pearl Street, Room 1340
New York, New York 10007-1312
(212) 805-0401
Deputy (212) 805-0129
Courtroom 14B
I'm not sure if it will do any good, of course, but they say it never hurt to snail mail Congress... By the way, the RIAA can also be written to here:
The Recording Industry Association of America, Inc.
1330 Connecticut Ave., NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
So why not have an MP3 format that securely maintains one copy of itself, which can only be accessed by one user at a time and not duplicated, only moved?
They pay big bucks for the radio frequency maybe. Just like mp3.com pays big bucks for bandwidth. I sersiously doubt radio stations have to pay for the Singles that they play. Its only in the record company's best interests to give music away to radio stations. If not, then they deserve to be pirated.
I find what radio is doing is no different than what mp3.com is doing. Just another distribution media.
Negligable. If this (possible) senario unfolds, then the mp3.com artists (like me) would probably just jump ship to another similar service (can you say riffage.com?). So I for one am not too concerned. This does not mean that I am not pissed off. Oh well, I'm an optimist, things will turn out for us in the end.
- Josh "Yoshi" Steiner
---
Xiphoid Process Records - http://xiphoidprocess.com
San Francisco based electronic music.
got drum'n'bass?
http://mp3.com/vitriolix
Methinks the US gummint has more money available them Microsoft - after all, if we're capable of having a debt in the trillions of dollars and not be worried about paying it off...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I don't think it's at all unfair to close this service down, since MP3.com can keep offering downloads of songs it *does* have a right to offer, such as from artists who've given permission, have contracts with them for downloads, etc. This was a very limited part of MP3.com's services which was ruled a violation.
A few months back when this started brewing, I recall that an analysis of the my.mp3.com system was conducted. Auditors found that the mp3.com system was *very* good at determining if the CD you had in your possession was a bona fide release -- not some MP3 burn, even direct from the original album.
In fact, the protocol was so careful that people were complaining it was overly careful, to the point of privacy advocates saying the system was too nosy. A lot of commentary around this said "well, this can only help mp3.com's chances in court".
It's a shame it didn't. Perhaps they have some hope on appeal. I really like the service. I'm pretty brutal on CDs (don't know what my problem is, but they just get scratched for me), and having access to albums from home and work is fantastic.
No sig is worth reading.
How can you be baffled? MP3.com has a copy of your tunes. They did not pay for that copy, If there was no other aspect to the case, handing over that copy to MP3.com constitutes infringement of the copyright. And the rationalization that the Big artists are compensated enough for their work is bogus too. It's their music, they signed the contract with the record company, the company is responsible to defend the artist (and themselves) against infringing on the LEGAL RIGHTS of the copyright holder.
quote quote It's rather like, if a company were to offer free downloads of the full 6-disc SuSE distro including all the non-freeware programs, for anyone running that edition of SuSE. SuSE and the companies whose non-free programs are included would probably get very upset and sue, end quote I can't believe this got a +5, I really can't. end quote It's got a +4, Flamebait now thanks to me. :)
You know you want to give me -1 Troll
It is about time that these websites housing illegal mp3's got sued. Napster is next on the hitlist. Can't wait to see the outcome of this lawsuit.
How many albums of the Beatles White album have been sold as a record, a tape, and a CD? How big a difference would it be if people only bought this album once?
This could be true today with digital media, and the people selling this media don't like it! $
Hmm, does that mean that since playing copyrighted music on crappy speakers heavily modifies the original sound, are you breaking copyright law???!!!
Soy el plátano! No tengo gusto de monos!
If the above poster fails to pay me US$1,000,000 by the end of Saturday, April 29, 2000, I will interpret this act of nonpayment to mean that he fully intends to dance on Hollywood Boulevard wearing a tutu while chanting, "I want to be a fireman! I want to be a fireman!"
Perhaps you should "implore" them through a legimimate channel...
Soy el plátano! No tengo gusto de monos!
Although I believe that MP3.com has always walked the fine line between legitimacy and illegitimacy, I honestly don't see the crime they committed.
Taken from this article on Wired:
The lawsuit brought by the RIAA and filed in the Southern District of New York claims that MP3.com created an illegal database of 45,000 CDs, which the company purchased and uploaded on to MP3.com's servers. The suit sought to shut down the service.
What's wrong with that? Does this mean that I have been breaking the law by converting my own 100s of CDs to MP3 format for my own convenience? The last I heard, this was no more illegal than dubbing a CD onto cassette to play in my non-CD equipped car. (If it is illegal, I didn't just post the previous paragraph)
Easily as outrageous, from the same article:
The RIAA suit asked the court to award $150,000 in damages per song streamed, which could cost MP3.com billions of dollars in back penalties.
Where did they get that math from? Do they honestly believe that every song streamed is then transmitted to tens of thousands of people?
Of course, IANAL, but at least I have a little common sense.
-Tommy
------
"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
Just to be a pain in the ass I'd have to say that converting the digital signal into an analog one is a MODIFICATION of the original content.
And I looked, and behold, the pokemon all spontaneously combusted.
most of the discussion is though irrelevant as what they are/were doing is very plainly illegal by IP/copyright law. however, i just want to note that i both agree and disagree with some of what you say.
yes this will hurt mp3.com in the business world. this was going to be their big claim. the owner went and regged God only knows how many domains on themes of my, beam-it, and their ilk. last i looked it was 100+ domains under his various identities (search for old slashdot articles about mp3.com and domain squatting and you can get a better idea). they were hoping for this to be HUGE and although it was an interesting concept, it's too broken. this isn't to say i love where the law is going, especially with SDMI (eek!?) but that their implimentation was illegal and i do not see any way to make one legal, not under current law (and if anything it will get 'worse').
in disagreement though, i have been a 'regular' visitor to mp3.com, have introduced countless others, and have used their services since inception. i probably have close to 20-30% of their music 'mirrored' on my mp3 servers at home. i have no use for the beam-it technology, the my.mp3.com concept... but hearing new artists is a wonderful concept. granted, a lot of people don't realize that even the mp3.com artists get screwed by the licensing label, albeit not as severe as most record labels, but still it's only a good percentage when you look at it relatively.
anyway, i guess i just wanted to say that they can build on their music selction, their criteria, maybe work on integrating with some fo their competitors like riffage and the like, and expand with better searches, content, negotiations. as much as i dislike their corporate attitudes, hippocrasy, and egotism, i do like a lot of the music and it has led many of my friends and myself to purchase DAM cd's. there are other ways to 'make their mark', assuming they don't die out already...
another 2 bits...
bob sucks
doesn't matter, their model was illegal... they had no right to distribute those mp3's, whether other people owned them or not. legally, if both you and someone else rip the same cd by the same group (separate copies) on identical machines, the files are identical (by some miracle given ripping process but for argument's sake =p), and suppose one of yours got "cooked", getting a copy fomr the other guy is illegal. they cannot redistribute. only legal way of doing this is rip it yourself and back it up somehow. it's what i do for my big ass cd collection, got another bigass mp3 cd collection. =)
bob sucks
first off, mp3.com had no legal ground to stand on and i am glad they lost. i love their "normal" service but my.mp3.com was such a blatant violation of IP/copyright law that all one could do is laugh.
i am expecting napster to lose as well, albeit a totally different case. someone on here posted the case that is guaranteed to be cited in the napster case. basically it says that you can't provide a facility that knowingly will be used for the purpose of violation of IP/copyright law. the naivety of napsters childish ceo will be quickly smitten from his face and i will be grateful.
i hope that mp3.com survives, as i love their service, both the downloads for consumers to preview artists and their distrobution of dam cd's for their artists. they're still ripping off the artists hard, another cd label making the big bucks while the artist gets pennies... but percentage wise, it helps a lot of epole who would never get heard make a little bit of bank more than they would chasing their dream with a record label that wouldn't give them the time of day.
as for napster though, i look forward to seeing it get smashed. i hope the ftp's follow. anyone with intelligence who truly wants to defy the law in pursuit of being "1337" should be using freenet anyway or staying in their mp3 crew. i feel sorry for all the poor souls who think this way though and i hope they someday grow up and realize what they are doing.
just a little rant.
bob sucks
Kiss napster goodbye. After this ruling no university in their right mind is going to let napster on campus. What gets me (correct me if I am wrong) is that mp3.com was being sued over the my.mp3.com service. This service 'requires' that users OWN the material they are storing. Next thing you know you won't be able to record that new 'Puff Mama' CD you just bought onto a RIO or like devices.....
As far as I understand, the judge has made the ruling, but has not explained it. Perhaps others who have followed the trial can answer this question:
Was the judge's ruling based on (1) the idea that MP3.com didn't provide adequate safeguards to prevent piracy or (2) that owners of a CD do not have the right to download the songs?
If the answer is #1 (inadequate safegaurds), that seems absurd, as MP3.com (from what I understand from other posters) sampled bits from the whole CD, essentially making it difficult to illegally download without having already illegally copied the CD.
If the answer is #2 (no right to download what already own), I'm even more concerned. Such a precendent would put Napster et al in legal quicksand, for then there would be very little legal activity ocurring through Napster at all. (I, for example, have used Napster to download a number of songs that I already own on CD. But if the judge ruled based on #2, then those downloads were just as illegal as my (theoretical, of course) downloads from albums that I don't own.)
There is another possibility, (3) that it is okay for users to download songs they already own from third parties, but illegal for third parties to offer such downloads without permission from the owner of the song.
This third possibility strikes me as strange, for if a consumer has a right to a good, then it should not be illegal for someone (who cares who) to provide that good to them! (Such legal twisting reminds me of cases where it is legal to buy drugs but not legal to sell them or legal to buy sex, but not legal to sell it.)
I'll be very interested to see this ruling when it comes out. The precedents that it sets could have a huge impact on other pending and future lawsuits.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
I've written some rough hints on how to license music for your own website. I haven't tried it yet, but it should point you in the right direction.
Read this from CNN.com:
well, this message exposes your age....probably about 13 i would imagine (The immature names gave it away).Trying to make me look bad to make you like the almighty king does nothing.
Comparing high times to napster is like apples to oranges. If I want to buy pot, people's propery rights aren't being violated. It's illegal, but not the same at all!
you're right....neither is the RIAA/bands for preserving their freedoms and rights.
so that gives us the right to FUCK them LEFT and RIGHT???
freedom has no expections, but slashdotters do.
want to know what the funniest thing about this whole argument is?? I believe napster should be allowed to have their servers. I always have. I was just trying to point out that Napster is NOTHING like HTTP,FTP,or IRC. And ALL those linux-irc-newbie phrases you use like "luser" and "fsking" don't make your arguments any more believable. Napster is not what is wrong here...its the beliefs of everyone who thinks all art should be FREE, artists don't need the money, and all corporations deserved to get screwed. sound familiar? I can imagine you work at some corporation or fast-food joint or some other labor job that doesn't require a shred of intellect. I believe that anyone (even the RIAA or MPAA) deserve their rights. Although napster is legal, people that serve the illegal mp3's are at fault(repeated 10 times so you can get it through your head).
Why expect people to follow the Gnu license, when 75% of the same community can't follow the current copyright laws.
slashdotters/freesource community only follow the rules of their own "religion". When bruce P. was getting trampled on by Beos, slashdot and most of the users were behind bruce, and against the big-bad company.
through the GNU, you gain only about one thing: knowledge. You expect people in the same community to follow the rules, and release any additions to your source OSS and free. to artists like metallica, they get money. It's what they want for their work, and damn it! they deserve it. Free speech in the eyes of a slashdotter is FAR from reality. It kind of strayed from the path, and is a good excuse for stealing and getting free stuff (information wants to be free).
Artists have rights too
Real artists should not expect a penny in return for their stuff
I hope this is a joke!?
yeah..sure...what is the whole purpose of becoming an Artist? you get to do what you love, and make a living off of it. On the other hand, you could work for some big Corporation, the most preferred job of slashdotters, and slave your skills away for 1% of what you are worth. If that's what you would like your life to be like.....as a programmer....join the OSS/free software community...its great!
wrong, http,ftp,irc,etc. have a generalized purpose, kind of like hotline and gnutella. Napster, on the other hand specifically states that it's purpose is to share MP3's, and basically that's all you can share. And(being a mystery to most slashdotters), gets its popularity from PIRATED music. If napster was just advertised as being able to share any kind of file, it sure as hell wouldn't be as popular. Doesn't anyone see? Napster saw this coming, and they used it to their advantage....Free advertising...
It would be like someone having illegal software (or links to) on a website,ftp site, or irc room, and they do go after those people.
just because it is free, doesn't make it better.
It's not better. It's slower, and has a bad interface. Maybe because you think having no "centralized server" makes it better...but...it doesn't. There are better ways to deal with such things, gnutella isn't one of them.
HTTP, FTP, IRC are just as guilty
Here is the problem with your reasoning.
IRC,HTTP,FTP are PROTOCOLS not propr. protocols with a limited number of centralized servers and only one propr. client.(like napster). If napster was open, and anyone could put up a server, they would have no law suit.
well, if Company X came out with a client, told everyone it was specifically for warez, and were the only ones with servers, they would have a lawsuit on their hands.
man...get your facts straight!
if you think http,ftp, and irc are just like napster, then why didn't they get sued 6 years ago (or more) when they were invented????? because they're not.NAPSTER isn't an open protocol..it's hacked or reverse-engineered...and the actual napster server isn't. your theory would only work if altavista JUST had searchable child-porn on users systems. (because child-porn is illegal and so are copyrighted mp3's).
----think about it...PLEASE
When you listen to a CD from myMP3.com (assuming you own the CD you registered with myMP3 and didn't borrow it from your neighbor), you are not listening to a CD you own. You are listening to a CD MP3 owns. When you buy a CD you buy that individual copy of that CD, not all copies of that CD. You have no more legal right to distribute the songs on that CD than you do to post your copy of Neuromancer online for others to download. The fact that available technology makes it easy to copy and share CDs does not negate the legal rights of the copyright holder. You are confusing ownership of the individual CD with ownership of the right to distribute songs on the CD. If you sell your one copy of Neuromancer, do you think you have the legal right to possess, distribute, or photocopy any other copy of that book you happen across? Legally, the analysis with respect to CDs is the same.
#include "comment.h"
main()
{
int my_opinion = object_oriented_programming_is_da _bomb();
return(my_opinion);
}
If there was ever a way to get the musicians on our side, that is the way! That is just an amazingly good idea. I wish I had thought of it.
"Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure." --Robert LeFevre
Are they really profitting from the music itself? Isn't the profit due to the service they are providing? That is, by making the mp3s, storing them all in one central location and providing the bandwidth. So any revenue they get from that would be for providing a service, not for the music itself. It's like a record label. They (supposed to) get paid for advertising and distributing the music, not for making the music.
This makes a lot of sense. I for one collect music as a hobby, so a disc full of MP3's without the cover art, lyrics, and that SWEET SWEET smell of newness....do me little good...So I never really picked up on mp3's until my.mp3.com
Alas -- mp3.com has partnered with 3 online legit. music dealers who will make the songs available as mp3's as soon as I purchase them on their website...For me this is perfect, and it solves the age old problem I have with mail order, which is -- if I want something bad enough -- I want it now...I don't want to wait for the UPS man....However the beam-it stuff, helped "hold me over until the "real thing" could come in the "snail..errr.mail".....I have purchased over $300 worth of CD's this way since my.mp3.com began....So in this case --- I would say by shutting down mp3.com, the artists and labels are only hurting themselves....
Now napster on the other hand....That is just a bunch of cheap skates, that have no real appreciation for the artists or the art.....
IMHO
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I guess it takes a lot of money for a bad band to make a good cd....However -- good bands can stick a boom box in front of their monitor, and guess what?...It's still good.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
But this is exactly what storage is to a remote location over a computer network. Your store it, you retrieve it, and yet it's still where you stored it (unless you specifically delete it, and I assume mp3.com gives users a way to delete from their accounts). If this logic stands, then we need a new term for what we now call 'storage' on remote computer systems - hell, this even applies to local disk 'storage.' This may be a threat to any ASP, in ways we can't hardly see yet.
In short, judge doesn't know English, judge doesn't know computers, and believe it or not most people in that profession are not quite that stupid. The job description says "must be comfortable with strange vocabularly and fussy applications of logic, also can pay well" - back before IT, it drew from our own kind.
Of course, unlike IT, there have always been more lawyers than job slots for 'em, which is partially why some become judges, despite the pay not being so good unless they're bought off under the table. I would not begin to suggest that applies in this case, despite the hearing having been held in notoriously corrupt New York City.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
As a recording musician, I am glad to see this. mp3.com was STUPID for not getting permission from the record companies.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
But in the end, is "Bridge Over Troubled Water" a different song when recorded on CD than on cassette? To what extent am I purchasing a particular medium, and to what extent am I trying to hear Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel regardless of medium?
According to my understand, copyright (in pure form, not this wretched substitute we have today) gives no rights to the work itself other than giving you the right to set the terms of distributions. It is the right to produce copies of the work and it is those copies that you have control over. You have the right to copy from your copies when you've paid for it, but if you expend all your copies, you are out of luck and have to buy a new one. I believe the answer to your question would be yes, there is a difference. Copyright applies to the distributed medium (so I would guess it is in this respect that MP3 was found guilty because they distributed their MP3's to users instead of storing copies made from the users' CDs).
Somebody made an anology elsewhere that if you have a book and it gets damaged you have to go buy a new one. You are not allowed to go to the library and copy their copy, even though beforehand you could have at any time made a copy of your own, so in essence I believe it does actually come down to the physical form. Morally, I think it's a gray area, but legally I think that's the way it works and was probably designed that way to close any possible loopholes by eliminating the gray area legally (even if it does still exist morally).
---
"Duane Dibbley?" -- Duane Dibbley
Not only will the RIAA be worried about other people hearing it if we play CDs, but what if the song gets into your head by listening to it? We can't have that! Then the song exists not only on digital media, but also on biological. Then if you accidentally hum it while driving, or sing it in the shower, you're redistributing their precious intellectual property and could be sued for a whopping 6 billion dollars. I should sue them for the cost of the roll of duct tape it would take to keep all of my CD cases closed so my roommate doesn't get his grubby hands on them and make me liable for redistribution, and also for the psychologist bills I'll have to pay with this new precedent to repress the memory of every RIAA-owned song via hypnosis. If every one of us did that, that six billion would disappear pretty quickly. I probably should have disclaimed the sarcasm. Damned lawyers.
myplay is totally cool. there's the occasional system hiccup, but try to get obscure drum n' bass or trance tracks on my.mp3 -- or anything underground for that matter. mp3.com was just a five billion dollar domain name looking for a fight and a biz model. obviously, they weren't too thoughtful about how they went about it (even though I totally agree with the spirit of their argument).
charge for service?? nothin'. nada. charging for service is waaaay too 80's. ...was this a serious question?
Sounds like a whole lot of fun for the kind of jerks who like to slip trojans out into the digital stream.
You can counter that with some form of an encrypted signature scheme.... but whose publicly known site holds the key?
It seems to me that this is a perfect example of how the record companies/RIAA have dropped the ball.
THEY should be providing this type of service.
THEY should be keeping themselves relevant for the future.
THEY should have decided if they are providing the disc or the license.
The distribution scheme they have is no longer the monopoly it once was. I mean really, what are record companies but loan sharks with distributors?
One, we don't want to go that way. Two, that's the only way we don't want to go...
Lets all get together and sue the RIAA for violating our rights. We have a right to listen to a copy of our cds and the government just said we can't.
Just scrolling through the posts, the attitude is that mp3.com got what they deserved. I don't know, it seems they're really the most legit and prominent mp3 based service on the Internet.
my.mp3.com is a lot better than napster morally, people are listening to songs they already own. Yet napster, which is basically only for illegal songs (how do you find an unknown artist's song on napster with title search?) gets defended to the death by most of these posts just because regulating is impractical.
my.mp3.com was trying to do something good with mp3s, even though maybe it was a little shaky on legal grounds. Basically you tell them what cds you have, they run out and buy them and rip it to mp3, and you can access those songs wherever you are. Now what's so bad about that?
Its like if you had a stereo with a cd player, but used your walkman most of the time. So you get a friend with the same cd to record some of the tracks on a tape(maybe he has some high speed dubbing equipment or something). Sure it would have been more legal if you did it yourself, but what's the real difference? Nothing, just some convienience to you. That's what my.mp3.com was doing, I don't know why people are so happy it got ruled against. Kinda sad actually, it just decreases the legitimacy of mp3s.
So they finally sued someone who deserved to be sued and won. Mp3.com was just asking for it, but Napster is just a data access program and has no control over content. Unless RIAA comes up with some means to notify a Napster server that a song is illegal I don't see what kind of grounds they would have against them.
Now if we can just get the porn, warez, and guns off the internet, it will be safe for upstanding, God-fearing, hard-working American citizens.
No offense to you foreigners -- some of you are ok, too.
It was stupid of them to even think about trying to get away with that service without consulting anyone in the industry first
OTOH, ZicoKnows always consults someone "in the industry" before posting here.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
MP3 is, by nature, a modification of the original content. RIAA can argue that taking the latest Britney song and encoding it at 56kbit/s, 16-bit stereo is a *modification* of their original material, and thus constitutes a copyright violation.
About the only workaround I see for this is if MP3.COM made ISO's of their CD database for people to download, but that's ludicrous.
Ironic, isn't it, that the very same thing that is *keeping* the majors from entering the online distribution arena (high-bit depth, large quantities of data in their existing PCM-based audio encoding scheme used for CD's) is also now being used as a *defense* against other's taking that material and putting it on the 'net in compressed, highly workable form (MP3).
Drats.
How bizaare.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
That's interesting. I was under the impression they weren't ASCAP licensed, for some reason.
If that's the case, then my argument has no value, unless their ASCAP license only permits radio wave-transmission, not Internet.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Well to be fair, this is being filtered as you say through a media organizations lackeys... so who can really tell by this report exactly what the problem is with the creation of their database.
:)
I'm willing to bet its not really the *Creation* of the database that's the problem, but the distribution of items from that database to 3rd parties (thus violating the non-transferrable single-use backup copy provision of copyright law).
This is definitely an interesting study in heuristics, if nothing else...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Certainly yours is one of the better explanations for what the case is here for the RIAA's success, thanks for clearing that up.
So in effect, the fact that my.mp3.com made some money from distributing their fair-use backups of copyrighted material (indirectly - advertising/banner revenues mostly, I would assume) is where they violated the law.
In that case, MP3.COM broke the law. It's not necessarily a favourite law, but they broke it nevertheless.
Will be interesting to see this one go through the appeals process... I wonder if MP3.COM had *any* plans for how to handle this sort of stuff at all? I think this has the potential to bankrupt them.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The RIAA could feasibly ask for huge damages on this. 80,000 albums worth of profit is a *lot* of money, and its not inconceivable that they could prove they 'lost profit' from this action by MP3.COM.
It ain't over yet, anyway, but this is a case to keep a close eye on.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'll master your stuff, if you want, because you're another mp3 musician like I am. I don't have that much reinassance-like music to demo for you but "Tiger" off the 'anima' album includes synthesized piano that sounds better than soundfonts. I'm a High End audio guy using a lot of homebrew analog equipment for this sort of thing, I could certainly do just as good a job on organ music- if you want to do a bit of networking, drop me an email and we'll talk about it. I won't charge you anything because it's easy for me to do- let's work together and get some great music out there- while we still can :P
Unfortunately for your analysis, the RIAA is not preventing you from using your music. They are preventing mp3.com from being the agent of your use, because mp3.com is not licensed as a music distributor. Like it or not, the record companies control the distribution, and mp3.com was doing distribution without the record company's permission. Of course they were going to get sat on.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
In your example, it would have been illegal for her to give you the orignal while she kept the backup. Otherwise, you're exactly right. If she kept the copy and gave you a copy, then she's engaged in illegal distribution.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
The MP3s are completely identical and, had the MP3.com done a rip/upload of those identical files, it would have avoided the legal issue. I find it disturbing that something which is completely legal becomes illegal because the software avoids repeating the transfer of data it already has. If MP3.com had required users to upload the same files, this legal loophole wouldn't have existed.
__
I haven't bought a music cd or tape in almost 6 years. But just yesterday I was telling my friend that because mp3.com makes it so easy to listen to all my music at work or anywhere I go, I'm going to have to go out and buy more albums so that I can beam them to mp3.com.
My.mp3.com isn't doing anything more than speeding up the ripping and distribution process for users. If they just distributed a cd ripper program and a mysql/perl server suite would anyone be complaining?
Joseph Elwell.
If my.mp3.com was a separate corporate entity, then they could be sacrificed and the parent could survive. This is not the case. mp3.com is liable for the punitive damages (the RIAA's ambit claim is $6bn, and the actual sum is likely to be in 9 digits), which are likely to break its back.
Hopefully when mp3.com goes into liquidation, someone who supports the open mp3 format will buy up the independent-artist side of things and keep it going. Hmmm; perhaps Andover would be interested in expanding its line of business?
Riffage (which, as it happens, is run by BMG, one of the Big Four labels) is likely to come out a winner from the exodus. And isn't the IUMA still around?
Chances are, if mp3.com goes out of business, someone may buy the independent business. Or the RIAA may allow them leniency, as long as they replace MP3s with a proprietary, encrypted format (we can see it now: downloads coming encapsulated in a serialised Windows player EXE).
If it was, say, General Electric or Sun or someone with a guaranteed, concrete revenue stream, they'd be guaranteed to stay around. mp3.com, however, doesn't have the ability to pay $800m+ of damages and ensure profitability.
Don't waste your money on MPPP; chances are it's finished.
It's been running through my mind the past week or so...
...And Justice For All (9:44)
2.
(Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett)
Halls of justice painted green
Money talking
Power wolves beset your door
Hear them stalking
Soon you'll please their appetite
They devour
Hammer of justice crushes you
Overpower
The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can't believe the things you say
I can't believe
I can't believe the price you pay
Nothing can save you
- Justice is lost
Justice is doneJustice is raped
Justice is gone Pulling your strings
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true
So real
Apathy their stepping stone
So unfeeling
Hidden deep animosity
So deceiving
Through your eyes their light burns
Hoping to find
Inquisition sinking you
With prying minds
Exploiting their supremacy
I can't believe the things you say
I can't believe
I can't believe the price you pay
Nothing can save you
- Justice is lost
Justice is doneJustice is raped
Justice is gone Pulling your strings
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true
So real
Lady justice has been raped
Truth assassin
Rolls of red tape seal your lips
Now you're done in
Their money tips her scales again
Make your deal
Just what is truth? I cannot tell
Cannot feel
Exploiting their supremacy
I can't believe the things you say
I can't believe
I can't believe the price you pay
Nothing can save us
- Justice is lost
Justice is doneJustice is raped
Justice is gone Pulling your strings
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true
So real
Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true
So real
Posted without permission, Copyright Metallica and the label which owns their souls and feeds their families.
75 years ago, modern commerce was new and fresh. Commercials were live, radio was interesting and formats were unique. Now we have giant uninspiring powerhouses which act as barriers to entry, who dictate what we listen to. Systems of "payola" well rooted in powerful radio stations. It all works into a simple and rather horrible equation.
Maybe if the system is flipped on its head, top bands won't make millions while bottom bands finance them with the levy they pay on recording media. Maybe albums won't be so shiny and pretty, but gritty, there might not be top-notch producers working out wicked sounds for talented mucicians. But I don't care. I want my tiny little bar-bands and little independant theatres.
To hell with mega-media.
Haha the newbie is exposed! If you think HTTP, FTP, IRC were invented 6 fscking years ago, then you are the clueless luser, not me. That you have the gall to admonish me and then make just stupid suppositions like that, you arrogant little fuck... well, let's just say you're lucky I'm dignifying it with a response.
/NO/ - not in the correct context. It doesn't fucking matter if Napster is an open protocol or not, you jargon-regurgitating moron. That's a moot point. It doesn't matter if a single company distributes it. It doesn't matter if its sole function is to find MP3s. It wouldn't even matter if they had a mechanism in place to only find pirated MP3s and tell you where to find them. That information is not illegal. That information is not illegal. (Repeated for your benefit, since I've said it about 6 times in previous posts and you have yet to understand this most basic concept. My dog fucking gets it).
Napster is not doing anything illegal. Get that through your think, trogolodyte skull and we'll all be a little better off. Did you even read the threads before you posted (no). There are legitimate MP3s on Napster. Ones that artists have released to the public domain, and don't care if they are traded. Furthermore, Napster is not distributing MP3s. That's illegal. They are not doing it. They are just telling you where to find them. If I tell you where to find drugs, assault rifles, or any other sort of contraband, is that illegal?
PLEASE - why don't you think about it. How do you think magazines like High Times can get away with telling you where to buy pot seeds, telling you how to grow pot, telling you what kind of pot is best? Because they aren't selling pot. Just providing the framework for an illegal activity is not illegal. This has been proven again and again. Linking to it is legal. What is illegal is physically giving someone MP3s. Only the users of Napster do that.
I pray to god that you understand what I say. If you don't, e-mail me and I will personally sit down and draw it out in big, vibrantly-colored pictures for you and send them as an EPS. Otherwise, shut up.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Exactly. Try to define just what Napster is without coming up with a blanket definition for pretty much the whole Internet. Just try it! I did, and I couldn't. Napster is no different from HTTP, FTP, or SMTP, except in implementation. Any attempt to outlaw Napster will either be so far-reaching and thereforce stifling to legitimate progress on the Internet that it will be immediately struck down, or it will encompass minute differences between Napster and other services, in which case the Napster client could be altered the same day as a way around the ruling. Mark my words, Napster will never be outlawed functionally. It's impossible.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
That's not a sound, legal argument. You just can't go throwing around ambiguities like "generalized purpose" and expect any sort of law to stick. Napster does have a generalized purpose: to share MP3s. To that end, HTTP, FTP, IRC are just as guilty; I can get MP3s over every single one of those. The fact that they have alternate, legal uses makes no difference whatsoever. So does Napster - transferring public domain MP3s.
Think about all the angles. You can't outlaw MP3 trading programs because there are a lot of legitimate MP3s out there. Such a blanket ruling would be tossed out faster than you can say "appeal".
You can't outlaw programs that only trade MP3s, as you mentioned, because within the day Napster would be coded to trade any sort of file. Hell, people have already hacked the client to do this based on binary patches. Napster proper could do it fast, and Napster would instantly become legal again.
You can't outlaw anything that allows you to trade MP3s, period. Oh, what a clusterfuck that would be. SMTP, FTP, IRC, HTTP, Usenet - all guilty. That's another ruling that would get tossed in a heartbeat.
I take exception to your "If napster could share any kind of file" theory, by the way. The reason Napster was so popular is because it was first to market. Had it not been for the fact that Napster was literally Shawn Fanning's first Win32 programming project, that ability probably would exist. What makes him a smart guy is not that he coded Napster - a lot of us here could have done that, some better - but that he knew the timing, knew it was better to release a crappily-coded version of Napster and build a user base rather than sit back and add features to the client. The latest client, Napster 2.0 beta 5, still blows, but that doesn't matter, because there are so many users of it that people are willing to put up with a shoddy interface for the added selection. Meanwhile, there are Napster clones which are infinitely better, have the ability to share all types of files, tons more features, that are floundering because they came to late into the game. Just download GlobalScape's CuteMX, which is free, to see what I mean.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Functionally, that's all Napster is too. Get your facts straight. I suggest you toodle on over to freshmeat.net and type in the word "Napster". You will find more than ten clients available. Functionally, Napster is a protocol. Although the client is not open, for all intents and purposes the protocol is. It has been reverse engineered many times over.
And you are just flat wrong about company X and whatever else you say. Company X and or Napster aren't doing anything illegal. They are merely providing a search function. No copyrighted material resides on their server. None. Do we sue Altavista for telling us where to find child porn? Google for telling kids how to make bombs? Of couse not. What Napster is doing is no different, except for the packaging.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
ALL OF YOU have mp3s.. even you morons complaining about how "Illegal" they all are..
ALL of you have them.. ALL of you.. even in the RIAA.
The nature of mp3s is that once you find out what they are.. you want them.. they're miserably easy to obtain, before you know it, and illegal or not, suddenly you find you have a formidable collection.. END OF STORY.
Information isn't like spaghetti.. if I cook a pot of spaghetti and you take half, I'm left with 50% less speghetti.. If I have a piece of information, which you duplicate... I have NO LESS information than I started with.
THOSE are the New Rules(tm).. Right or wrong, that's what they are. If existing Copyright/Trademark/Patent Law doesn't FIT into the New Rules(tm).. GUESS which is GOING to HAVE to change.. I'll give you a hint.. It won't be Information Theory.
Have A Nice Day(tm)
US$0.02++
Actually, I did vote for McCain.
Didn't work. Was worth a shot, though.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Unfortunately for MP3.com, it was a very LARGE portion of their buisness model. MP3.com needed a hook to get repeat visitors and a mailing list of customers (the kinds of things that Wall St. values in a advertising-based 'net company). My.mp3.com as a portal was their mechanism. The key attraction for my.mp3.com was for users to be able to hear music they own anywhere they are, thus, they keep coming back to the site to listen to their music and the advertising dollars keep rolling in.
Kill the music downloads, and you kill the reason for daily visits to the site. You strangle their primary income. By the time the final effects of this reach Wall Street tomorrow, the company might not even be worth the $6billion that the RIAA is asking for damages.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
So this is what a troll looks like, eh?
Ok, I'll bite. I use mp3.com to listen to my cd's@work. Nothing illegal about it. They're just saving me trouble, and space. I own all the disks that have been registered in my name (but then ZicoKnows I have low ethics). Shutting down mp3.com just pisses me off. Now I have to bring disks in, or MP3'em myself. And incidently, as of right now (4:20 EST) they're still streaming audio, 'cause I'm still listening.
--locust
Ah, so if I asked you to bring my CDs to work for me, then are you doing something illegal?
In my view, what I've bought from the record company in the form of a CD is a copy of some information and one license to use it. As long as I don't use the information twice at the same time, it should be legal (like a number of seats in a SW license). I didn't see a shrinkwrap license that said I couldn't ask MP3.com to bring it to work for me every day. But then I'm not a lawyer.
On a related note... Strictly speaking as I play a CD (especially in a player with anti-skip) I make a copy of the disk. Is this copy illegal? If I am running a program then are the copies made for caching and virtual memory purposes illegal as well?
--locust
How does myplay.com make it's money?
Advertising?
Wasn't there some article where it was suggested that the only viable media model in the future will be to sell advertising using the media.
So - is myplay.com an early adopter of this concept?
Basically myplay goves you the online storage space for nothing, and the extra facilities (i.e. public playlists AKA icecast streams) are thrown into the service.
....
Shame there's no official unix dropbox yet
my.mp3.com is basically requiring you to present evidence that you own a CD and then they are giving you mp3's of that CD so that yuou can play them.
Myplay.com instead lets you upload mp3's, so intead of 'beaming' your CD, you're ripping the CD (at whatever quality you like) and adding them to your myplay locaker.
Now - in the end the results are the same, but legally there's enough of a difference that mp3.com was breaking the law while myplay wasn't. If myplay were breaking the law then I presume that they'd have been taken to court first since they've been offering their locker service for a lot longer than my.mp3.com.
But then again - maybe I'm jsut defending them because I like the way I can put up tracks by obscure artists which mp3.com would never acquire (e.g. for vinyl only tracks). Or maybe it's they way they support linux and use software like icecast for streaming.....
or maybe it's because you can go there and listen to my current playlist. Downtempo, Leftfield and other words - go on - you know it deservers to be number 1.
Only a consumer can make a copy of their music
Playing Angel's Advocate here, bear with me. What if I purchased a used CD from another consumer? Legal. What if she'd made a backup copy for personal use? Legal. What if she gave me the backup copy along with the CD? Super legal.
What if I listened to the backup copy she made? Not legal? Must I make my own backup copy myself for it to be legal, or can I copy or otherwise obtain a backup copy from another consumer who made it, legally, himself?
It seems to me that the fair use principle isn't in place so that we can spend our time ripping CDDA and encoding MP3s, but that, having purchased a license to listen to the music, we can listen to it in other formats.
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how to invest, a novice's guide
My observation is not entirely second hand. I saw this stuff in its early stages, and heard rumblings of it well before it was official. Also, I used this software last night, nothing is truely inconsistent with what I said...
How do you know it is cryptographic? Even if you do "know", how do you know it is sufficiently cryptographic? I highly doubt they store the entire CD in its original form. In fact, I suspect they store just a few cryptographic checksums for the sake of bandwidth, database design, storage space, speed, and reliability. Knowing mp3.com, I strongly doubt they're greatly concerned with the actual security; so long as they can say they took "reasonable precautions", or what have you, they feel they can get away with this. [In fact, I suspect the slashdot communitity and other Net Zealots would rally behind mp3.com even if it is proven to be trivial to pirate from it, and that the vast majority of the service's traffic is piracy (This is certainly true with napster)] Thus, I think it is highly probable that all the data the service is looking for could be captured and sufficiently described in a couple bytes (a fraction of the actual mp3 album's size in any case). Furthermore, there is not one product that comes to mind that claims cryptographic security that has actually withstood hackers efforts--certainly none where the interests in actual security do not lie with the creator.
I must disagree with you here. It is a trivial matter to convert these streams into mp3 files. The hackers could also distribute a program to automate it, not that it is really necessary. In addition, I've been around IRC and warez pups long enough to know that the most limiting factor of piracy distribution is bandwidth and storage space. If hackers could enable users to download from mp3.com's multihoned fiber optic site with essentially infinite bandwidth (it will naturally scale with demand) with only a mere 100bytes per CD out of their pipes and harddrives, it would be very easy for them, and the user. It would also be next to impossible to stop. Think about it for a minute, one ~5 megabyte upload to a newsgroups (or many of them) and the group could give access to anyone with access to that newsgroup to my.mp3.com's entire CD collection (assuming 50k CDs with 100 bytes per CD representation). Very very trivial. It'd would beat the pants off of napster for 99.99% of its traffic (e.g., all the popular 50k CDs mp3.com has archived)--much improved bandwidth, easier searching, better presentation, reliable download sites, and a huge collection of CDs at your finger tips in an organized fashion. I'd bet dollars to pesos that someone figures out a way to make it happen too. (assuming this service doesnt get shut down too rapidly)
RIAA may or may not be motivated by more self-centered concerns as well, but this does not automatically rule out the possibility of a serious threat to their revenues as I described. Even though this tool does not yet exist, these things can take years on appeal, and they might never get an injunction against them (atleast a timely one).
I'm not your typical slashdotter. In fact, I'm not your typical anything. I don't walk lockstep with any group, be they capitalist or communist, or what have you. That being said, I think this "information wants to be free" line is a line of idealistic bullshit. Also, I'd like to remind you, that despite the "net" and all the much acclaimed innovations by Net advocates, the artists still choose to sign with these major labels of their own volition, even though they only get of a small fraction of the revenues from each sale. Nobody is pointing a gun to the artists' heads and forcing them to sign. This means that the labels are providing more value to the artists through distribution, marketing, sound engineers, etc. than if they tried to go it alone. It may be true that the labels enjoy an unfair percentage of the revenues, but even here I have doubts. If you look at these publically owned corporations, their profitability is not all that high. Yes, it is lucrative, but not much more so than any other business. It a lot costs money to promote, market, distribute, etc. Thus, even though they enjoy a large share of the profits of a sucessfull CD, they must plow it back into their operations so they can continue to be sucessfull and provide greater value to the artists.
Yes, this is often cited. I would never claim the industry is infallible. However, there is a world of difference between this and the internet with unopposed piracy. My.mp3.com with the piracy i've described makes it entirely too trivial to obtain songs. Given the growing presence of broadband (which makes my.mp3.com a joy to use, I know from experience), and the plethora of mp3 devices (have you seen the Nomad Jukebox), I can see a real threat if internet piracy goes unchecked. Pirating mp3s through this service may very well be easier than running out to the store or ordering it onlinem, atleast amongst users who are sufficiently intelligent, broadband computer users, and owners of sophisticated mp3 devices.
The bottom line is that the industry may be myopic and stupid and greedy sometimes, but that does not automatically invalidate rational criticisms of my.mp3.com's service in regards to piracy.
Before you jump on me about them having full CDs, when I said "checksum", I really meant they might have some kind of cryptographic hash (e.g., MD5 as is believed), but this is not entirely equivelent to possessing a full CD to check the data against, especially since the client presumably allows for a certain number of bad challenge responses (e.g., scratched CDs). Unless mp3.com publishes the protocol they use to authenticate the challenge replies against the CD or the representation of it (e.g., hash), we really can't know with any certainty what method they are using, nor how secure it is (even the implimentation of the same protocols can make or break its security). Given the fact that the burden of having their service effectively cracked is not on them (at most they have to replace it with a better method), I could easily see them underestimating the threat from hackers, or simply not caring (figuring instead that they can battle it in the courts and absorb whatever costs...and given the history of the CEO and what not, I wouldn't put that past them)
..gotta bolt.
Without getting too involved in the legal issues and what not...
.com), only you punch in a code representing the CD, which then creates a fake CD device, with all the data mp3.com's is looking to verify (and _nothing_ more). Once mp3.com's software has scanned your "fake CD" for a few seconds, if my understanding is correct, you then have access to those mp3s from anywhere you go (or you can just download the mp3s). Then all the little warez groups can effectively distribute mp3s at people with a mere 20 bytes or so of data (a compressed representation of whatever the software is looking for).
Did anyone ever consider the possibility of this my.mp3.com service really trivializing mp3 piracy? I mean mp3.com writes some trivial piece of software that reads the CD. This might be OK, if it really works as claimed. However, I have little doubt that it wouldn't take a hacker long to write a hack to "fool" mp3.com's software. It would something like fakeCD.exe (or was it
The point being that this has the possibility to really trivialize the pirating of mp3s. Based on my years on IRC and what not, the primary limiting factor for the distribution of warez is the lack of bandwidth on the part of the groups, not the lack of willing parties. Certainly if #cracks on efnet, for example, can maintain a large database of serial numbers (a few bytes a piece) on a bunch of different bots, the same could, and would, be done for my.mp3.com. Or, just create a single "official" warez file, which contains the codes for all popular CDs...if each CD representation (e.g., artist name, album name, cd identifier, etc.) takes 100bytes, that'd be about 10k CDs in a 1 meg CSV file. Very trivial to distribute and virtually impossible to stop that, plus it's only one download, so it'd be harder for all involved parties to get busted.
I think this is dooable, and I think it would be trivial enough to have a profound impact on RIAA's collective earnings. As unfair as it might seem, I'm not so sure that RIAA is necessarily being greedy or overzealous here.
If MyMP3.com is found to be infringing copyright because of this, the same argument can be made for caching without the copyright owner's explicit consent.
So, commercial music (CDs) isn't covered by "licenses", it's covered by copyright law. Copyright law is most definitely transferrable, and it isn't single use. You can time shift, space shift, and copy for personal use as much as you want. The question in this case is whether MyMP3 can cache the mp3 versions of songs on behalf of the users. Keep in mind that MP3.com presumably bought at least one copy of each CD.
This decision is troubling, and its implications are yet to be understood. We'll have to read the legal opinion and comentary.
Gun companies and tobacco companies are getting their asses sued off because they supposedly aren't acting responsibly in keeping their products from being used inappropriately. Lawyers won't even think twice about suing Napster on the same grounds.
I disagree with all three -- if you're going to go after someone, go after the person who's actually using the products illegally. However, I have no sympathy for Napster because the success of the product is due precisely to the fact that it can be used for music piracy. That's why they haven't kept their word about trying to keep people from using Napster illegally -- because they know that almost nobody would care about Napster if it weren't for all the illegal content there for the taking.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
First of all, the concept of Napster is so simple that anyone can do an end run around it and roll their own. This will probably start happening when the Feds start cracking down on music pirates on Napster next month (see article). The pirates will drop in numbers, as many decide they don't want to face the risk of prosecution, and many will start using alternative programs, to stay a step ahead of the feds who are cracking down on Napster. Add these factors to Napster's rising legal costs to defend its existence, and you're looking at major trouble for Napster's survival.
And having rolled my eyes enough times at a barely-coherent Sean (Shawn?) Fanning (Napster's creator) blurting out "The technology can't be stopped!" I say good riddance to the both of 'em.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
The irony of this is that MP3's service works (and is, in my opinion, legal) because the music industry is selling exact copies of digital information to users. I buy a bunch of bits on CD from a music store. MP3.com buys the same bits. MP3.com is arguing that if we both have the bits, it is legal for them to send me a copy of their bits, since I am gaining no new information. Information theory is on their side. If I already own the bits, then they aren't giving me any new information.
The whole idea of a "copy" in a digital world is nonsense. The only concept that makes sense is whether someone is gaining access to information they didn't previously have available. When you buy a CD, you have to be buying the right to listen access the bits, not buying the information itself. Everybody has exactly the same information on their CD. You can't sell the same thing to multiple people; you can only license access to it. The music industry is trying to confuse information with the storage medium.
The only valid legal argument I see against MP3.com is that they are making it easier for others to infringe copyrights because it is easier to borrow a friend's CD and register with MP3.com than it is to burn your own CD of it. I'd disagree with this, but that is the only argument I find reasonable here.
magic
Ok, I'll bite. I use mp3.com to listen to my cd's@work. Nothing illegal about it.
Actually, seeing as the job of the justice department is to determine whether law is valid or not, and they have just said that this is not legal, I would say you are quite incorrect here. Under current IP law, they are doing something illegal by distributing copyrighted work that they do not have the rights to distribute. Whether you own a copy or not is irrelevant, they still don't have the right to distribute it. Now I'm not saying I agree with the law's current stance on this issue, but under current law I do agree that what they did was illegal.
Under current law, it is not legal to distribute a copyrighted work just because you legally obtained it. It doesn't matter if the customers own a copy or not, it's illegal for them to distribute it period. Like it or not, that is the current stance of the law.
Why? It's faster (15 seconds to beam it vs 30-45 minutes on my machine to burn). It takes none of my disk space (vs 3-4 megs per mp3). It's streamed, I can listen to an mp3 or playlist on demand (unlike shoutcast). It's free...
Take my cd collection, it took me many weeks to encode all my 300 and some cd's using about 13 gigs of disk space. my.mp3.com let's me do it in a fraction of the time using no disk space and I can still play it a cd quality sound provided I have a fast enough connection.
I just got an announcement from SDSU that Mike Robertson (MP3.com CEO) will be speaking at San Diego State on Monday. If you want to see the announcement, its at: my web page
This was sent out for students looking to interview, but if I were interested in working for them this lawsuit is the first thing that I would be asking about!
__________________________
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
This is a normal civil suit, right? So it should be appealable. Generally, Circuit Courts tend to show less cluelessness than lower courts. So there is still (some) hope.
Does anybody know if MP3.com plans to appeal? Of course, barring settlement, they don't have much choice -- the decision, if upheld, will bankrupt them and close them down...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
As I understand it, RIAA sued mp3.com for the act of copying the CD's to storage.
Well, MP3 could switch to an alternate method doing almost exactly what they do already that might be different enough to be legal.
Acording to an old article (too lazy to dig up link, sorry) every time you "beam" a CD to mp3.com it polls for random blocks of data from your CD. You send them up, and after enough tries it is satisfied you own the real CD.
Well, couldn't you just store these randomly polled blocks until you have a whole image? Then requests could dynamically pull mp3's from these images. Indeed you could simply store hash blocks of CD's on the server, and have the client side figure out which blocks belonged to a CD and ask for a series of blocks to be MP3 encoded and streamed out to the user.
I think you could argue that the whole system was a giant hashtable for storing individual CD's - for storage concerns you simply wouldn't have to store a part of a CD if you already had that part in memory, thus you could claim that the cd they pulled from the site was the one stored from each users own computer, with really great hashing! To help that argument along, you could have the client attempt to send every block of the CD - the first person to transmit might be annoyed and give up after some time, but the second user would be able to skip over all the cache hits until the whole image was attained.
You could also have a per user index of stored blocks stored on the server to indicate which CD's were held - I think you'd have to stay away from any reading of the stored data unless requested by a client.
It's even a little better than MP3.com is one respect - if mp3.com does not have a CD loaded, they ask you for the UPC code on the back of the CD. Sometimes the CD's do not have UPC codes (Tempest 2000 soundtrack, for instance). Sometimes (often) you have a CD they are simply not going to be able to find (Muppet Movie soundtrack, many others). This system would load them all, after enough attempts to beam them up the server would have the whole CD and you'd be set.
As a sidenote, I have many of my CD's (and only my CD's) stored on my.mp3.com and love it for listening to music at work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually, napster has plenty of control over content, they own the main directory servers no?
Anyway, the DCMA does make some noises about the responsibility of the connection provider, and I wouldn't be surprised if the record industry tried to make a anit-napster/gnutella law. And given the, uh, flexibility of the US government, I wouldn't be surprised if it passed.
It will never be hard for intelligent people to find illegal MP3s. I know someone who is so anti software piracy that they'll ban people from IRC channels for mentioning it. But they've got 9gigs of mp3s on there hard drive, on a web shared directory.
People just don't care, and most of them never will. What stuff like thisis going to hurt is the distribution channels for indi groups and bands that can't/don't want to sign with Labels.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
When I hand over $20 for a CD, what am I paying for?
A disc that happens to have copyrighted works on it.
You are not limited by what you do with that disc (it's yours) except if you want to make a copy of the copyrighted works on it.
The copyrighted works on CD's come with no license, so the only rights you get are those set by Fair Use precedence (and precedence is the only thing that defines Fair Use - check the United States Code for copyright law, it explicitly avoids defining Fair Use).
So, if you want to copy the copyrighted works on your CD onto tape, or mp3's, or whatever, then that action has to be covered by a Fair Use precedent to be considered legal. Previously, I was of the opinion that this was fair use, but this court decision contradicts me, and frankly I'm rather worried about this.
why do CDs cost so much more than cassettes of the same album?
Capitalists price things at whatever people are willing to pay for them. Otherwise they get sued by their shareholders. If it costs you $0.60 to make something, and you're selling it at $5.00, but people will pay $18.00, you're either generous or stupid.
If only society would value the former :)
How long is it going to be before we get a real MP3 broadcasting radio statio playing MP3's of mainstream artists?
Negative six months
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+&x
Hear, hear!
Know where you stand, why you stand there, and don't let anybody push you around. Pirates killed people on the open seas, they don't trade art on the Net.
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+&x
Poor RIAA - the dinosaurs just don't get it.
I've got 10X more use out of my CD collection with my.mp3.com/BeamIt than I ever did with they physical discs. I have about 1400 tracs registered with mp3.com so far (about half of my ALL LEGAL CD's). Good job RIAA - push me away from legally buying your music....
This case has *NOTHING* to do with copyright. It has *EVERYTHING* to do with CONTROL.
I really hope this can be appealed. Look out dinosaurs - here comes the comet....
Hmm... my hands could be tools of thievery too.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
The RIAA should start a suit against Micro$soft, sun, etc as well. They're distributing software like IIS and ftpd that allows users to easily download copyright protected content from a machine. Combined with Altavista, who should also be sued for providing an easily searchable index of illicit material, these products make it too easy to distribute and exchange copyrighted materials.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
Particulary with 'net broadcasts, you can get some innovative radio, even if (like me) you live in a pathetic radio market.
Which if you think about it describes about 95% of the United States...
I live in Houston Texas but I'd be willing to bet that radio here is among the worst in the nation (mainly because I am not a shit-kicking goat-roping country "music" fan). I think it SUCKS that Austin Texas, which is approximately 8 times smaller, has a much better variety of radio stations than the fourth largest city in the US!!!
All I can say is "Thank (insert appropriate Diety here)" for net radio!!!
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
If like my album please donate. or they should have Nag in middle of the sound. no.. someonw will crack it.
... the fact that I am able to listen to a CD seconds after I have bought it online made me buy at least six CD's over the last two months.
I'm the same way. I've bought about 10 CDs over the last two months - 6 were CDs bought after I checked out their MP3 songs, 2 were bought at a performance by the artists, and 2 were bought through traditional means. Which means that, if there are a lot of us doing this, the record companies didn't get most of that money, instead it was the artists. Figure 40% cut for the artists for the MP3-influenced purchases (20% production, 40% site fees) and 50% cut for the artists for the purchases at the performance (50% production and advertising - already paid to listen to the event). Only on the last 2 did the artist get 2-6% (probably 5%, since a name artist) and the company get 75%.
Zap! There goes the revenue stream for RIAA.
Will in Seattle
Search on "ephemeral recordings"... only certain (specially licensed) people are allowed to make copies, even for personal use (this includes CD to MP3).
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Also, I believe that the judge ruled that the Rio was not a recording device per se, but that it was a device for that makes a temporary copy in order to play the music (such as digital speakers might) (see here).
So the original laws stayed intact, I guess.
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Of course, this assumes you trust the RIAA to present a fair and impartial interpretation of the law. When this topic was last discussed on /. there were a number of counterarguments based on other portions of the Home Recording Act that appears to grant exemptions for copies made for noncommercial use. See the comments in this article referring to Sec. 1008. (Specifically, comment #52, but the link seems to not work for some reason.) At any rate, the RIAA conveniently neglected to address that portion of the act, which leads me to believe that they are a bunch of lying weasels.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
As a previous poster pointed out, mainstream web casting is happening now. And the RIAA has no apprehension over such licenses -- they're the ones that issue them, obviously. Sold their first one over a year ago.
If you'd like to buy a license, contact the RIAA's Steve Marks at 202-775-0101 or smarks@riaa.com. They're currently still ironing out the details of a per-use license, but blanket licenses are available now.
Dunno if they'll respond though -- I've sent a number of emails to no avail.
-- r . m o s q u i t o --
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The shareholder is always right.
Good to see some response on this. I'm 100% serious. I've bought my last albumn in the "traditional" way.
Points raised:
1: The "how do you discover new music" thing. Well, I thought about this last night. Granted, the labels do promote the music. But you still hear new tunes on the radio. Particulary with 'net broadcasts, you can get some innovative radio, even if (like me) you live in a pathetic radio market. Realistically, if some folks start doing this, it's at best a "statement" thing designed to change.
2: Agreed, cash through the mail is a bad idea. I wonder if you could get a money order made out to the band. As noted, checks aren't anonymous.
3: a paytheartists.org web site was mentioned. I'd be happy to help out. Email me.
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I've never used the beam-it service, so this may be a non point, but I assume they stream this stuff, no?
If I own a CD, and bring it over to your house, and put it in your player and play it, have I broken the law? If I make a backup tape of my CD (Which I'm assuming is still legal, although the audio home recording act made my head swim so I'm not sure)...ok anyway, I bring my legal backup to your place and play it for you, is that illegal? Mind you I haven't given you a copy of anything at all, just let you listen to it.
(again)From what I understand, my.mp3.com is streaming, so in essence aren't they just letting you listen to their fair use backup as opposed to giving you your very own copy?
Even if my friend kept saying "Play trak 7 again please" and I was stupid enough to sit their all day rewinding it for the bastard (even though he owns the damn *CD* and I know because I saw it!) I still don't think I've broken any laws.
If I am breaking the law, then I think it's time some people woke up and changed the laws around a little. Either way, the RIAA is trying to shut down a service that *technically* legal or not, is fairly legitimate. The whole idea is based on trying to make sure people have access to their music and not pirate it.
What is going to be left is pirat^H^H^H^H^Hunathorised copying on a massive scale, because hey, mp3's are easy, even if the RIAA does not like them. The tools are all out, and it will take some massive re-education of the masses to make them feel as if they are doing something wrong. The media already seem to be on this (not surprising). Who knows. All I know is that they seem to be out to wreck a perfectly nice way to share and promote music, and will happily throw the baby out with the bathwater if need be.
OTOH, I have a pet conspiracy (oh shit you can't spell conspiracy without "piracy"!)that the RIAA is looking to set up shop with something *just* like mp3.com, beam-it and everything. The difference; you'll be asked to pay for their service, and the unsigned artists who want promotion will have to sign some restrictive agreement.
(sorry if this here turned into a rant. Maybe should have broken it up into more posts, oh well. Like you, I'm trying to sort it all out)
:-)
Follow this link for more.
-cwk.
I had an idea. I believe that:
Suppose this is right -- I guess it is. Now let's suppose I want to share a CD with n friends. Here is my idea: we make a contract, in which I agree to give the CD to the next friend in a list as soon as I own it -- and so on, until the last (n) person gives it to me.
Ok, now each one will have the CD at infinite small time steps; we all have the CD at the same time. If we make a list with people enough, everybody can hear any MP3 in the world.
Don't take this seriously, please.
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This space left intentionally blank.
it will be illegal to play to your CDs, because listening to them may allow someone else to hear the music without having paid a licensing fee to the record companies.
One of these days, someone is going to figure out a storage scheme comparable to MP3, and work out a deal directly with the artists. Then, the recording companies, and those few artists who are siding with them (hear us Metallica?) will be left out in the cold as the rest of us get on with our lives.
Gonzo
All you lawyers out there...
I know absolutely nothing about law... so I rely on all you =) Anyone know if this could set a precedent for other music related legal cases? (cough cough NAPSTER cough)
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
I bet the RIAA is dancing with glee at this news. Not only does it give them more control over the music, but if the lawsuit DOES shut down mp3.com (which it would.. have you seen the figures they're asking for?!) they killed the major distributor of free legal music on the 'net... Hm... all these bands are going to have to find someplace else to go... wonder where they'll turn to...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
- the summary judgement in so complex a case was not valid, and was probably made by a judge either intimidated by the RIAA or unfarmiliar with the fundamental issues of the case
From the initial complaint:
The defendant made unauthorized copies of those 45,000 audio CDs, loaded the unauthorized copies onto file servers, and is permitting users of its Internet service to listen to and download those unauthorized copies.
Under Section 106 of the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. (the "Copyright Act"), plaintiffs have the exclusive right, among other things, to make reproductions of their copyrighted sound recordings in all forms. This is one of the most sacrosanct rights afforded copyright owners.
It's quite possible that the judge was well versed w/ the issues, and made a good decision according to the copyright as it actually stands. Whether its philosophically consistent with our beliefs is another issue.
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
I'm probably going to sound like a troll here, but this decision is proper. I am not saying that the relatively free distribution of music over networks is wrong. I am all for businesses and individuals coming up with viable alternatives to the current system.
MyMP3 was not providing a viable alternative, nor is Napster. These are business that are building their models around the existence of old-style music production companies. Both companies success hinges on the existence of a large source of heavily marketed music. That is, these companies require that all the members of the dread RIAA continue their existence, that they continue to spend millions on marketing and production.
If people want a world where music flows freely, they will have to put their support--their monetary support--behind companies that develop new business models, that can come up with distribution and payment systems that do not, fairly flagrantly, violate the law. Are people willing to do this? NFC.
Either that, or individuals are going to have to push for legal reform. But let's face it, do many people really care enough about the ability to trade music over the internet to do much about it, except perhaps post comments on a forum, or send their congressman an e-mail some staffer will ignore? Is there enough money out there interested in fighting the incredibly long legal battle? Again, NFC.
If I'm not mistaken, MP3.com owned the CDs that they origionally got the music from, right? (Only makes sense, they had to purchase the physical medium to get the data.) That means that they were, technically, consumers, and had the right to copy the MP3s to their servers. Now, the people using my.mp3.com were simply making another copy, which was allowed, because they were also consumers. They used the device of MP3.com's servers to make the copy, but they had a perfectly legitimate right to have an MP3 copy of the music that they purchased (and therefor, liscensed.)
I'm not saying this logic is perfect, or if it's exactly legal by US standards, but you can see how it would make sense (especially if you want it to.) It's not like these people are idiots or anything. Ah well, looks like what we thought was going to be a simple journey into the "free information" age is, in fact, going to be a dig-in-and-defend trench warfare. You ready?
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
But here's the interesting point. The RIAA is suing not only for an injunction, but also damages. So they'd like to put mp3.com out of business by asking for $150,000 PER SONG streamed. But if the user has to demonstrate ownership of the CD first, how is the RIAA going to claim a single penny in damages? Anyone have any info on what basis they were claiming damages?
Then, the recording companies, and those few artists who are siding with them (hear us Metallica?) will be left out in the cold as the rest of us get on with our lives.
It's already started to happen. The people who brought you PayLar$.com created Orange Alley and their Bootlegal system.
Basically, you pay a small amount to download MP3s from their website, and with it you buy the right to _legally_ distribute as many copies of that song as you want. If your friend goes and registers a copy of a song on their site, and cites you as the source, you get a kickback. And the artists get like 60% of the gross. Unfortunately, they can only distribute minor artists at this point, because all the big names have, by definition, already sold their souls to the labels. But these people have the right idea, and if this catches on, some of their clients will be big names some day. And then the RIAA can go take a flying leap...
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
But then, in what way does it make sense to distinguish copies from my CD as opposed to copies from MP3.com's CDs? The end-product bitstream is indistinguishable. (NOTE: I understand that RIAA would say that it is the process of copying -- ie., whose licenses are involved and at what stage -- that matters. But personally, I don't believe that that argument holds weight by itself. It assumes the traditional idea of copyright to justify the traditional idea of copyright.)
Consider a somewhat-tortured example. Say Alice writes a novel. She says that it's OK for Bob and Charlene each to read the book, and for that purpose, allows each to make one copy of the manuscript. Bob goes home and types out the novel based on the manuscript. Charlene then takes Bob's copy and types out a new copy. Barring any typographical errors -- and hey, it's a mind experiment, so we can -- the two copies would each be an exact representation of Alice's novel. Has Charlene violated Alice's trust?
On the one hand, Alice said that Bob and Charlene could each make one copy for personal use. Bob, by allowing Charlene to copy his copy, has in some sense violated that.
On the other hand, Bob and Charlene are now exactly where Alice wanted them to be -- each can read his/her personal copy of the novel. In fact, Alice can only detect that something fishy went on because Bob and Charlene tell her. Had she left for a week and returned, she would be completely unable to tell whether Charlene copied the manuscript or copied Bob's copy. And since a difference that makes no difference is no difference, the two cases are the same. In other words, Alice has no grounds to be upset with Bob or Charlene, because their alternative route leads to exactly the same endpoint.
To snap back to reality, I would be quite disappointed if the judge's ruling is based upon a distinction between MP3s copied by MP3.com and those I might have recorded myself and then uploaded. If the files are bitwise identical, what does it mean to distinguish them? If one were called a.mp3 and the other b.mp3, no test by the RIAA or anyone else could determined which was "mine" and which was "MP3.com's". So, does it make any sense to rule based on this unmeasurable difference?
Another piece of the puzzle just fell into place here. Instantaneous, universal Net access really is forcing old concepts to adapt for survival.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
MP3.com did not break any laws. Their service only works "if the user owns an original copy of the copyrighted work".
Consider what such a law could mean.
- It could be argued that you will not be able to store your digital property online, be it music, software, or video.
- it could make it difficult to legally transfer your property from one device to another.
- another application of this ruling could mean that you couldn't transfer your digital property from one media to another. If your CD goes bad, too bad, buy another one.
I only hope that something like open source happens to the music world. Its controlled by corporations, not musicians. I imagine most actual bands and musicians would want their works transmitted freely over the net. Remember, most bands themselves are in onerous contracts with the record companies if they are signed at all. Anyone recall John Lennon's shock when he realized that he didn't even own his own songs?
I do not believe that record companies and the RIAA represent the best interests of musicians. Rather, they serve the almighty buck, at the expense of them.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
This brings up all sorts of questions:
- Is it legal for me to make mp3s of my CDs and store them on my web server so I can download them and listen to them elsewhere even if I don't bring the CD with me?
- Is it legal for me to do this one my friends/school file server.
- Is it legal for me to make mp3s of my CDs at all?
- Can I listen to a friend's mp3 if he made and he is in the room? What if he isn't? What if he brought thr mp3 over and put it on my computer?
- What if he's not home? What if he left them on my computer and left the CD with me? What if he lost the CD and doesnt have a copy of the mp3 itself?
Too many legal ambiguities. Anybody really understand it? I wish it would be more consistent.
It seems to me that it would make the most sense if we followed the same laws that we did for computer software. One copy per machine per license. Never can too separate machines be running the same software at the same time.
It doesn't seem like mp3.com was violating this "rule"
I think alot of the posters are missing the point. mp3.com proper (ie not the my.mp3.com service) simply allows people to download unsigned acts. my.mp3.com, is a very different service. basically it has an index of popular CD's. in order to listen to mp3's a user had to actually put the CD in to their CD drive (which the software recorded), and then they could listen to the mp3 tracks mp3.com made of that CD at any time, since they owned the CD. The only difference between this and making a simple taped dub for personal use is that this is a lot easier. For a parallel, consider the following situation: I have a couple of CDs I have purchased, but I don't want to have to bring them back and forth to work when I go there. So, I rip and mp3enc them, and put them on an ftp server on my home computer (password protected of course so only I can get them). Then at work, I download those mp3's and play them (better yet I use some sort of streaming audio solution, which would be exactly like my.mp3.com's setup). I hardly think there is anything wrong with that - morally or legally. And if there is a legal problem with it, I guess our country is more screwed up then I thought it was. I can't help but think that the judge had no understanding of the technical issues involved before the case, and thus Sony's arguments served as an introduction to the mp3 for him. The root of the problem is that no one in this country is as liberal as the founding fathers were (or at least as liberal as we are taught they were in school). So, whenever a new technology or social problem comes along, a given percentage of the populace (usually the ones that stand to lose money at the expense of the little guy) says "Screw freedom! That's bad! Outlaw it!" and the money-driven court industry quickly follows suit.
So in essence what you're saying is that the artists, recording engineers, producers, and distributers involved with bringing you that music aren't worth anything. You can't be a musician, otherwise you'd know it takes alot more than one dollar to produce a CD. I know people selling self produced CD's for 15 dollars and aren't making squat. These people deserve to eat. How do you make your money? Flipping burger's, or livin' off your parents, no doubt. Once you grow up, Anonymous Coward, you will find out that living in this society is no free ride.
signed-
The Corporate Bully.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
This story at etown has comments from Mp3.com's CEO and the RIAA.
... which is where MP3.COM is getting in trouble.
...
The license which allows you to make a single copy of a piece of music for your own uses is a double-edged sword. You can make your own copy, but you can't give that copy to anyone else - *EVEN IF* they also have the same CD. The license is non-transferrable.
So MP3.COM's massive database of songs is cool and kosher, and they're allowed to build it - they're just not allowed to let anyone else access it, under the single-use non-transfer license clause by which most commercial music is covered.
I think that's the crux of the issue. It sucks, but it's going to be interesting to see how this one progresses
(Please note, I'm not a proponent of the RIAA - I'm all for free music, I'm just trying to get my head around the differing viewpoints in this case)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Ouch... MP3.com (MPPP) is down 40% today. That's gotta hurt...
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See.. though it made sense in a certain way... that if you already own the CD, you have the right to listen to the music, therefore, you can d/l it from mp3.com. This may be true.. YOU can't be charged for 'piracy'. However.......
This does not change the fact that mp3.com does not have the right to profit (and in the web, hits=profit) from others work without permission, and that is exactly what they were doing.
...I guess information doesn't want to be as free as some people think.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
(http://news.mp3.com/news/liststory?topic_id=276&c ategory_id=1001&month=200004)
NEW YORK, April 28, 2000 -- MP3.com (NASDAQ: MPPP) had its day in court against the major record labels today, as U.S. District Court Justice Jed Rakoff granted a summary judgment on behalf of the labels in their suit filed over MP3.com's My.MP3.com service.
"This is not a victory for the record labels--it's a loss," MP3.com Chairman/CEO Michael Robertson said in response to the decision. "New technologies for delivering music are here to stay, and the technology trend is moving in only one direction: forward.
"The record companies are at a crossroads and are required to make a decision about the technology that they choose to embrace. My.MP3.com is a system which requires the purchase of CDs in order to function, as opposed to other services like Napster that do not require users to first purchase a CD before accessing music. The labels made the decision to challenge a technology that will protect their intellectual property interests and grow their business. They will be left with copyright chaos, as we're witnessing today."
Despite the recording industry's claims that online music services are damaging their business, music sales figures in the United States were up approximately 8 percent in the first quarter of 2000 over 1999's first quarter, according to music sales authority Soundscan, which tracks music sales at points of purchase throughout the United States.
"By standing against the My.MP3.com technology, the recording industry is standing against increased revenues for its members and damaging the chances of a responsible music delivery system to counter the unregulated systems like Napster and Gnutella. These systems do not compensate artists and rights owners," Robertson said. "When pioneering new technologies designed to grow their businesses are attacked, it leaves a vacuum which will be filled with technologies unfriendly to artists and their existing revenue streams." Since its inception, MP3.com has been a champion of artist's rights. We'll continue this mission."
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
MP3.com is lisenced with the ASCAP (see here).
- Following last week's announcement by ASCAP of its historic and unique strategic relationship with MP3.com., the reaction from ASCAP members has been uniformly positive, with many expressions of support. Among the most prominent of ASCAP members to issue statements praising the agreement are pop/rock superstar Alanis Morissette and Desmond Child, the writer and producer behind a long string of pop, rock and Latin hits.
The ASCAP is "a membership association of over 80,000 composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers. ASCAP's function is to protect the rights of its members by licensing and paying royalties for the public performances of their copyrighted works.".So MP3.com was definitely allowed to "publicly perform" the MP3's. I don't know how close that is to digitally reproducing them, but it at least allows radio stations to broadcast the songs.
If you check the RIAA's filing on the lawsuit, you'll see that they are suing MP3.com for copying the data from the CD to MP3.com's computers, not for actually distributing the data. It seems like quite a stretch to me.
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- Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court for the Sourthern District of New York issued a terse order holding MP3.com "liable for copyright infringement."
Does anyone know if/where the full text of the "terse order" is available online? As fun as it is to speculate wildly about the facts, I'd like to see what exactly influenced the judge to make this decision.The only thing I was able to find was the website for the court mentioned above. (click here) But I couldn't find anything more. It's too bad I don't live in New York or I'd get a copy of the thing and type it up myself...
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But the fact is, the record company has invested in marketing and promoting - are you saying they don't deserve to reap some rewards from that investment?
:-) Don't buy major label CDs, turn the radio off (or at least change to a community or college station). Change is coming, slowly but surely.
If they market crap so they should not be compensated for marketing crap. If they market a good band then I'm just rewarding them for rewarding the artist. Why shouldn't I just reward the artist directly?
You could claim that I should be rewarding them for picking a good band to market, so that they will pick a good band in the future, but I do not buy this argument. The marketing a good band was a fluke. They will just market more crap in the future because there is more money in marketing crap.
Now it's reasonable to say, "I won't support any RIAA label bands (I will just pirate their shit and not send them any money), but I will send money to local/internet bands." since the RIAA label bands are making most of their money from the system, but the independent artists can really be influenced by recieving 5 grad of donations from their fans.
My solution: support local, independent artists. Go to your local clubs, see some of these up-and-coming bands (if you're in Saskatoon, SK go see Old Guard Road). Buy one of their CDs if you like them. If you don't like them, hey, you're in a club - keep drinking until the music sounds better.
Clearly, these are good things to do (clubs & live music are fun), but remember "local bands != internet bands." that local band you support by going to the concerts may sell you out by getting a recording contract and suing Napster (or the next new technology). You should really support artists who seem commited to internet/mp3 marketing and promotion (like Sunscream, Negitiveland, etc.). We want the bands who hate the RIAA more then we do, to be the ones to mkae it big. Local artists are importent because they can become internet bands, but they are not necissarily the good guys yet.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
What many people seem to miss is that this case was decided through summary judgement, a legal process used when the suit or it's defense has no merit. In short, no actual testimony was heard in court. MP3.com will obviouly appeal, and they will win the appeal - the summary judgement in so complex a case was not valid, and was probably made by a judge either intimidated by the RIAA or unfarmiliar with the fundamental issues of the case. We will be hearing much more about this, and debating the facts now is stupid since the facts were much ignored, so much so that MP3.com was denied a real trial.
Well, I am not particularly fond of shelling out bags of money for CD's (especially since the artists get a puny percentage), but the fact that I am able to listen to a CD seconds after I have bought it online made me buy at least six CD's over the last two months. Assuming I am not the only sucker to do so, it makes you wonder how long the recording companies will be in business with this kind of stupidity...
"The deluded are always filled with absolutes. The rest of us have to live with ambiguity." - Aristoi, Walter Jon Willia
Aarrrggghhh. This was pointed out before, in an article a month or two ago. I guess it wasn't moderated high enough fast enough soon enough to educate everyone... I saw it, but it seems like most people did not.
This seems like a pretty clear case of '3rd party helping me excercise my fair use rights' to all of us. HOWEVER, that exact circumstance, having a 3rd party help you utilize your fair use rights which involves them physcially replicating copyright works in your name, was specifically made illegal (excluded from the tecnical definition of fair use) a long time ago, in a cassette-tape / something-or-other type case.
Basically, it was along the lines of the DMCA. They slipped one by you in the legislative system, you're screwed, I'm screwed, and so is MP3.com.
Of course I am not intimately familiar with the details, I just remember reading the post I mentioned above a month or two ago.
Can someone else please dig up the exact reference, or can someone who knows the real details that I am painfully trying to explain without the details myself, post them, and some nice people will moderate you all the way to the top?
The music industry wants you to believe that it's fighting to keep things the way they've always been. But it ain't true: from the rise of vinyl singles, to albums, to 8-tracks, to changes in radio markets, to CDs, to the growth of touring and merchandising, all this stuff is new. God didn't give any company the right to make profits obscene enough to support these fat-cat trade organizations: they made it by screwing people who listen to music. That's what profits are: extra money.
The music industry's complaints are just the new, improved white-collar version of what's been happening to blue-collar workers, small farmers, and mom-n-pop shops. They'll lose this fight. But it's up to you to help them lose, by whatever means you consider to be ethical. If women, African-Americans, or immigrant groups had listened to what The Man said was Right, they'd still be on their knees working for pennies if they were lucky. They didn't - and the world's a better place for all of us because they fought for what they thought was right. Oh my! And sometimes they even broke the law by doing so!
The music industry is trying to take control of the oldest tradition humanity has of a shared, free, and open experience. And how do they make all theri money? Exploiting technical innovations. Oh, I see - MP3s are "different." Yeah, right: do the math and tell me please, who are the real pirates?
Just make sure, if you decide to break the rules, that you can and do explain why you made that choice. And that, beyond just "profiting" from breaking those rules, you've done everything you can to change those rules through established political processes.
Laws can be wrong, and if enough people oppose them they can be changed. No one ever said opposing them was fun or easy or even safe, though. But sometimes you have to do what you think is right. As always, the most important aspect of doing so is teaching others to think the issues through, instead of just snapping to attention because The Man told them to.
I am not a lawyer, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Too bad mp3.com's lawyers didn't stay there as well.
A lot of people think it's blank-and-white but I'm not so sure. It's not just the physical object. I expect that anyone would object if they purchased, say, Beethoven's 9th but instead received a blank disc. The encoding of the music obviously adds value.
I think it's clear that in fact, when you purchase a CD, you are really buying both a physical object and a "license" to play the music. After all, why do CDs cost so much more than cassettes of the same album? It is not production costs -- I believe the CD is actually cheaper to manufacture -- and it'd be ludicrous to pretend that it reflect the difference in "up-front" money and marketing expended by the company. But of course a CD lasts longer and is tremendously more convenient than a tape, and some of the cost reflects that added value.
But in the end, is "Bridge Over Troubled Water" a different song when recorded on CD than on cassette? To what extent am I purchasing a particular medium, and to what extent am I trying to hear Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel regardless of medium?
I have the intution that, eventually, we'll realize that it's the information that matters -- that the music, not the medium, is what one buys. But I don't see the path from here to there, and until we find it, the legal system will get twisted further in knots.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Mp3.com electronically duplicated 1,000's of artists music and through it up on their website. They asked for trouble and trouble is what they got. A better method for mp3.com would have been to use their "Scanning" software to verify ownership of an mp3, and then allow the user to enter an href to the verified mp3. The amount of investors' money that went into purchasing, scanning, inventorying, and developing the databases and software must have been enormous. Delete the server side mp3's, donate the CD's to charities (tax relief), and modify the software they've already developed to allow for href's and they will just be another ASP (application service provider), and will be a lot harder to touch.
I have five albums up for sale at mp3.com:
- anima is rock instrumentals on animal themes, eclectic, with some fine performances
- Extended Play is long-format rock instrumental music- hot, guitar-based jams with some Mothers influences
- Hard Vacuum is a dedicated Noise album that revells in raw sound-as-sound
- The Room Full Of Windows is vocal indie pop/rock from the heart
- The RFW Demos are songs that didn't make the RFW album, but something about them seemed cool enough to put together a demos reel
All of these are $5.99- through mp3.com's impressively fast CD-to-order facility, you could buy any of these CDs and have 'em within a couple of days, pretty CD cover and all.If anyone had entertained thoughts of maybe getting one of these someday, or for that matter of ever picking up a CD to support some other mp3.com artist, or even downloading stuff...
didn't it say damages were yet to be awarded?
the interesting judgement would be to conclude (fact of law) that while MP3.com did something wrong, that since no harm was done (no CD sale was lost by action of MP3.com), no damages are due.
that'd be justice: all wrongs made right, and yet not endorsing further extortion by the record industries.
See RIAA's filed complaint here. Paragraph 26:
- In order to create and offer this service, defendant copied every track from 45,000 commercial audio CDs onto its computer services. All or virtually all of these audio CDs are marked as copyrighted and contain explicit notices prohibiting unauthorized copying.
... Included among these infringing reproductions are copies of thousands of copyrighted sound recordings owned by plaintiffs, none of whom has authorized defendant to make any such reproductions.
Also, paragraph 34:- Defendant has willfully and with full knowledge of plaintiffs' copyrights made infringing reproductions of thousands of plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings for the purpose of operating its commercial My.MP3 interactive service.
In fact, if you look through the actual allegation of copyright infringment (the 1st and only count alleged against mp3.com, paragraphs 31-36), the only copying really mentioned is copying from the physical CD to MP3.com's computers.They also allege that MP3.com is distributing these "infringing reproductions", but that's not in the actual count itself.
Unless I'm misunderstanding, it seems that this could be a huge precedent that could prevent home users from making MP3 copies from CDs that they legally own.
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Which brings up the point of an exact copy. Yes, you could defeat it with an exact copy. But who is at fault there? The person who copied the CD? The person who copied the CD? Or the person wop accepted the fake? Who got in trouble in school for copying a paper? The teacher who accepted the fake as real?
They were distributing copyrighted material without a license. Even if they were sure that the users alreay owned the CD's, the legality is still very questionable. And with the availability of free ripping software, the usefulness of such a service is also rather questionable.
I wasn't aware it was that black and white - from what I heard it was distinctly grey. MP3 own copies of all the CDs you get beamed. In order to get a CD beamed you have to physically have it at some point - most people will own the CDs rather than nick their friends collections. MP3.com allows to to access MP3's of your CDs once these conditions are met. Now maybe they need a radio playing license or something similar to be able to provide a directed broadcast to your authenticated browser, but in principle it sounds reasonable. Whether this constitutes fair use, which I suspect is MP3's defence, is another matter - the courts don't appear to think so.
How long is it going to be before we get a real MP3 broadcasting radio statio playing MP3's of mainstream artists? With the increase of digital broadcasting over the air (i.e. the UK is going towards digital broadcasts as the BBC ramps up it's transmitters, and satellites have broadcast NICAM digital radio for a while), I see no possible justification to stop some website broadcasting MP3s if they can get a license. Why do I get the feeling that RIAA really don't want that sort of license to arrive?
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I don't understand why they risked the future of their company (which was doing quite well and has one of the best domain names on the 'net) without thoroughly researching how this would affect them in the future. Heads are going to roll at MP3.com: their entire legal counsel team should be fired, not for losing the case, but for allowing the company to get in this mess in the first place.
Maybe if MP3.com has gotten themselves licensed by the recording companies first...
The crux of this case (I believe) is not whether or not its legal for an end-user to listen to an MP3 of a CD that they own, but whether its legal for a company (such as MP3.COM) to *make* MP3's for redistribution to end-users, from original CD's.
It's not a case over whether or not you have a right to listen to MP3's of your own CD's. You *do* have a right to do that.
It's a case over whether or not MP3.COM can 'steal' (RIAA's terms, not mine) music from other CD manufacturers, for re-distribution. When you sign up for their service you are downloading MP3's of CD's you already own, but which were *made* by MP3.COM. This is the crux of the legal wrangling that RIAA is using to try to bring down the bull of MP3.COM, so to speak...
What this is more similar to, as a case, is radio stations. RIAA's clientele already have vast quantities of precedent for radio stations retransmitting their material, and there's a thing called a 'license agreement' that a radio network must agree to before it can broadcast the latest Britney song... RIAA is arguing that MP3.COM have violated copyrights, much the same way that a Pirate Radio station would have done, by broadcasting material for which they (MP3) haven't obtained a right to use from RIAA's clientele...
Now, it could be that after all of this, MP3 and RIAA go into some sort of licensing agreement which allows MP3 to make MP3's of RIAA's clientele's CD's, but more than likely this won't happen - RIAA is too bloodthirsty, and the music industry already full of hyena's, that this will probably just result in MP3.COM's downfall, sadly. It could be a simple matter, but alas - greedy pigs in the music industry don't see it that way, if they can't control it.
That's just my understanding of this lawsuit, so don't quote me, and please correct me if I'm wrong in assessing this.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"I pirated your new album and really liked it. Here's five bucks. This is way more of a cut than you would have gotten from the record company. See how this could work? Now go tell your label they're moronic dinasaurs and your're sick of them picking at your and your fans' carcasses!"
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
They were distributing copyrighted material without a license. Even if they were sure that the users alreay owned the CD's, the legality is still very questionable. And with the availability of free ripping software, the usefulness of such a service is also rather questionable.
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MP3.com lost here--and rightfully so, I hate to say--because they were offering downloads of songs to customers who already owned the CDs of those songs. Well, that's providing a service based on distributing copies of someone else's IP. That's a service which, given the current tenor of copyright law in this country, only the owner of the IP would be entitled to offer. It's rather like, if a company were to offer free downloads of the full 6-disc SuSE distro including all the non-freeware programs, for anyone running that edition of SuSE. SuSE and the companies whose non-free programs are included would probably get very upset and sue, concerned about their ability to keep track of their IP since there are ways to fool the server into thinking you're running full SuSE whyen you're really not.
I don't think it's at all unfair to close this service down, since MP3.com can keep offering downloads of songs it *does* have a right to offer, such as from artists who've given permission, have contracts with them for downloads, etc. This was a very limited part of MP3.com's services which was ruled a violation.
Napster is an entirely different issue. Napster is a network, which allows users of the network to connect to each other and download stuff. Napster itself doesn't host songs on its own "site" like MP3.com's MP3 Anywhere or whatever it was called, was doing. So, it's very likely that Napster will be ruled some form of "common carrier" and therefore not liable for what its users do amongst themselves, since its network has a legitimate use in allowing users to distribute non-copyrighted sound files. To make Napster police its network to decide what is and is not copyright infringement would put an undue burden on Napster and similar networks, and is not what a judge would order. In fact, if a network does police itself, then it would become liable--but if it just provides an open service, it can be considered a common carrier. Just my 2 pence...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
The market for games then was so small that one company - Microdeal of St Austell, Cornwall - published virtually all the games on the platform. They were all "ports" of Tandy CoCo games from the states. "ports" means they just patched some ROM addresses, since the machine really was a clone apart from some keyboard lines being switched and having a new ROM (written by a tiny little software company called Microsoft).
Now, anyone still using the Dragon 32 in 1986 was a real enthusiast. A lot of us had bought the disk drive expansion unit, at a cost of around $600, in order to speed up loading and saving our little BASIC programs.
The problem was, Microdeal wouldn't release their games on floppy disk. The market was "too small" - it was tape, or nothing.
I was a hacker, though, so I was capable of hacking the little games and putting them onto disk. Wow. I could fit 26 games onto a single 720K floppy. That was cool. But not everyone had my patience and experience cracking the "protection" they put on these games.
So little me, with my little fanzine, decided to offer a service to people. "Send me your tapes," I said, "and I shall put them onto disk for you, at a cost of only 50p per game." You see, I wasn't in it for the money, I just wanted to help people out. I was just a kid. Anyway, I already had 90% of the games on disk already so those jobs would be easy ;) In fact, it seemed silly to ask for actual tapes, so I just said "send your original inlays, to prove you own the game, and I shall send you a disk with the game on it."
Quite similar to MyMP3.com, really.
Well, Microdeal had a fit. Their President wrote me a very indignant letter, saying I was pirating the games and would I really check people had the games before sending them, and claiming that I was being immoral in offering this service.
Me?! Immoral?! All you guys have to do is write the things onto disk and upgrade people for a couple of pounds ($3.20) but you don't bother; you expect people to use these old-fashioned tapes forever.
(My legal sophistication was a little lacking in those days).
Anyway, I wasn't about to go up against some huge monolithic company like Microdeal, so I withdrew the service, with a tear in my eye.
I guess the point is that this service seems fine and dandy and reasonable, but legally it's on thin ice. I'm a little saddened, but not entirely surprised, at this court decision.
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It's a
-- Danny Vermin
I guess I must not be as smart as a lawyer, cuz I just don't get it! How could a service that allows you to listen to an mp3 of music that you already own be infringing copyright? my.mp3 only lets you hear what you've already shown it that you own, or am I getting something wrong here?
Sure, you could borrow a friend's CD and add that I suppose, but you could also make a tape of it and play it in your car. That doesn't make tapes illegal, just the act of dubbing. I don't know of anyway to get music that you didn't pay for through my.mp3.
But hell, let's all keep heading down this road and keep fighting technology we don't understand. Maybe we should stick to something simple like banging two rocks together to make music. Of course then someone would copyright rocks, and if you tried to play the same rocks in a different place you'd get sued.
-MadDreamer
-Mad Dreamer
http://www.modernhumorist.com/propaganda/mp3.html