Slashdot Mirror
New Russian Site Carries Unlicensed Song Lyrics
Anonymous Coward sent a link to lyrics.mguk.ru/, operating under the name LyricsDot, which looks a lot like the old non-profit www.lyrics.ch database did before it signed an agreement with the (U.S. based) National Music Publishers Association and went commercial. The trick with this new lyrics server is that it's in Russia, where U.S. law (and copyright law in general) seems to mean little or nothing. Is this the wave of the future? Will other sites containing data that violates copyrights or otherwise irritates large U.S. companies move to Russia or other countries where local authorities are unlikely to cooperate with American law enforcers? It's going to be interesting to see where this all goes.
Mine doesn't work either. Could you post an IP, please?
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What is freenet? Could someone provide a FAQ link or a quick description?
What we need in a .pi TLD for all these sort of pirate operations, with the servers running on a ship anchored in international waters.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Fun as bashing abuses of "freedom" in America is, it's better reserved for other stories. The question at hand is: whether the controvertial information storage will be relegated to countries where the US can't directly intervene.
:) Yeah, they can go and shut down one server. In responce two more will open somewhere out in Vladivostok. Another cultural point - Soviet censorship couldn't stop "forbidden" books from being read (the so-called "Samizdat" - self publishing), during the worst of Stalinist times. I fail to understand how American companies with the aid of the American government intend to stop this information now.
People have brought up good points on the treaties of Bern, Paris, and various other international agreements. What some of the American posters don't seem to understand is the spirit in which russian hackers tend to understand these agreements - namely that they were made for the purposes of convenience among big governments after WWII, specifically, for the convenience of America. This is not to insult anyone individually (well, maybe a few politicians, but no one here), but Russians, in general, don't tend to like American foreign policy very much. One could say they regard Americans as intruding, interfering sods who have no business messing with the world to suit their imperialistic tendencies. (e.g. Bosnia). But again, that's not the subject here. The point is that when America makes something illegal, it only encourages hackers over there to continue doing what they would have done anyway. (And let's settle the whole "international agreements" deal right now - I haven't heard about the UN coming forward to prosecute the Danish hackers on behalf of MPAA. The MPAA is lobbying the American Congress, not an (officially) international organization...does that tell you something?)
Besides all of which, the whole notion of copyrights as it is applied today (and as others have excellently pointed out) is utterly absurd. A copyright is supposed to unequivocally guarantee a given person's authorship for a given idea (and give them the opportunity to make money off it, if they choose, for a given period of time). A copyright is not supposed to be a weapon for greedy publishers to punish anyone who *might* interfere with their profits. If I read Einstein's work in e-text, I won't go out and claim that I came up with relativity. If I use his work, I'll cite it as an e-text. I'll give him the recognition that his copyright entitles him to. But spreading Einstein's ideas electronically (assuming the "copyright" is still in effect) is illegal since some fscking a**hole over at Huffton Mifflin or wherever *might* earn a couple bucks less this year. The issue at stake is the profits of American companies - do you think anyone else in the world, not just Russia, will give a flying fsck about that? Don't be rediculous!
The idea behind the whole thing is to make information more available for use by everyone. A similar idea rests behind the OpenSource movement, the GPL, etc.. Sites like that aren't out to infringe on the authorship of a given person for an idea. They aren't claiming that they came up with the stuff (in this case wrote the music or the words). And if anyone can logically explain how someone typing up the words to a song will *in any way* hurt the artists that wrote them, I would *love* to hear it. Or how making the text of a written twenty years ago will hurt the author (who wasn't getting that much in royalties to begin with, and now is probably getting next to nothing) will hurt it's author. (As an example of the latter, I can point out Maxim Moshkow's library here. For those that don't read Russian, the site hosts over 1.2 G of e-text (mostly translations) of a great number of works. Kinda like Guttenberg, but on a slightly larger scale)
By way of official disclaimer, I don't agree with true violations of copyright law (for example stealing someone's work). But I won't exactly go out of my way to make sure that the MPAA or whoever else gets that extra little bit of money. The purpose of this "undernet" is to make sure the information is available until the legislators realize that they can't rob the public in the same way forever, and change the laws (and then we'll start all over again).
One more point on, on foreign aid. Someone mentioned the importance to Russia of foreign aid. Here's a little inside info on that aid: it's not helping anyone. The aid goes from American banks to Russia, and then promptly to unnamed swiss bank accounts of the politicians responsible for receiving it. If you don't believe me, think about it this way - the money that Russia has received is enough to rebuild two economies, were it not being skimmed by the mafi...I meant the government. Begging your pardon...I misspoke.
And if they manage to do so....what does that tell you about American government?
I would happily sign my name to this, but with the state of "American freedom" being what it is, I think I'd rather not.
--Woland
it's funny to watch the foreigners argue about how shitty america is. :-)
That the former Evil Communist Empire(TM) and the Mad Mullahs could very well be bastions of freedom against the corporate empire. Piracy sucks, but so does corporate control. When will the corporates stop funding the lawyers' extra holiday homes and work on a reasonable way to work with the internet that satisfies both sides of the argument.
right on I say, its kinda like asking your mom if she'll buy you some candy, and if she says no... you go ask your dad.
translation: warez-monkies want their free software
I'm suprised not to find any stories or mention of OLGA. OLGA (the Online Guitar Archive) featured guitar tablature of popular music artists that was indexed (and by the time that there was a web, a search interface). This saved a lot of time since you didn't have to wait for someone to post the song you were looking for in the USENET newsgroups. They used to have a catalog of about 33,000 songs online with a number of mirrors around the world. What was unique about OLGA was that many of the contributions were submitted by people /figuring/ out the songs, that is, it was like open source software: It was all done through the contributions of its users. If you didn't see it up there or if you didn't agree with the way someone else plays it -- add your intepretation. That was cool because you could get 2 or 3 different perspectives of how to play the same song. Unfortunately, the Harry Fox Agency tried to sue them because they alleged that the files in the archive were copyright infringements. (Well, some of them probably were -- i.e., copied right from a book.) A number of the mirror sights closed down and the archive became severely crippled. They still operate today -- but only with a limited number of mirrors and very strict criteria on what contributions can be submitted. Check it out: http://www.olga.net/ Scott
information might want to be free, but people's hard work doesn't. I don't think free commercial software or mp3's is considered information. Even if you're just giving out where to get them. It still boils down to the same thing. Freenet, although is and can be used legally, it's followers claim reasons to use it over programs like napster is for illegal purposes. Wow, if that's the only reason to use freenet...im not using it. What legitimate purposes did you have in mind for freenet?
Information is a most fungible product. It knows no bounderies or nationalities. The US Congress, or the UK government or anyone else who thinks that laws passed in their own country will regulate the internet in other countries has been smoking the "Willy Weed" a bit longer than they should. Early governments and religious organizations went through this noise right after the invention of the printing press. You would think that folks would have learned by now, but I guess they never will. Really, its rather pathetic to see the responses that have been made...
I just did, and they agree, what next master?
Dunno, i'll think of something later. You were very quick by the way. Amazing how quick the repspective heads of state responded.
one word answer: Freedom
Ahahahahahaha! Sorry, hang on, let me have a roll on the floor. Oh my...
Oh thats better. My sides hurt now. Freedom you say? Yeah, it's so free you have your politicians in the pockets of major corporations, you snatch 6 year old boys away at gun point to send them back to Cuba, the RIAA & MPAA are jumping all over a couple of coders who dared to defy them, WAVE is in the offing across several states. You say you have Freedom? You think you're free because you have a constitution that isn't worth the paper it's written on provided it suits the politians? You can own a lethal firearm, so you must be trully free, right? Oh please.
Who said any of the other countries in the world can't be free? Australia isn't free? Western Europe isn't free? My, i feel opressed.
Just because you don't like capitalism
That's a rather general statement, made by someone who doesn't know me, don't you think? FYI (Although really, none of your business), I tend to lean to the right (That is, Conservative) politically. I do believe in free health care and education for all however.
Your comment comes across as though you believe the old US "Commie bastard" crap from the 50's & 60's that was spread like manure across America. Communism isn't actually evil, it's just that the means to implement Communism tends to be violent, and the leaders in the past have tended to be a little mental.
BTW, calling me an asshole tends to confirm to me even further, that because i dared to question the good ol USofA, i must in some way be abnormal. Bzzzzt. Go travel the world a little why not.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
That was tried here in California in March, the proposition failed... Well, maybe next year.
-----
Vikhozhu odin ya na darogu;
Skvoz' tuman kremnisti put' blectit;
Noch' tikha. Pystinya vnemlet bogu,
Rhapsody in Numbers
It's not working... But still a great Idea... lets move out to russian, iraq, iran, afeganistain... Or any place against US government... maybe te country side shound be good enough
I'm ready... ready for the grid lock... i'm ready... ready for the push. (U2)
I think it's something that's overlooked a lot by most Americans. The ability to critically evaluate America is something lacking with Americans.
I'm getting a bit off topic here, so I'll get to the point. America has a lot of world power. If they set their minds on getting this lyrics server shut down, they probably will.
Better to stay silent, and let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
Instead of, or in addition to, "none of the above," add a new column. You get one vote for a candidate, and one vote against. Apply minimum thresholds to win, kinda like a new newsgroup on Usenet: at least X people must have voted, at least M for and mo more than N against, winning by at least a margin of..., etc, etc.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The recent novel Distraction (by Bruce Sterling, IIRC) has some great observations about this, both the music and the software.
Spoiler warning!
In his future, America kept threatening China over the software piracy thing, just like we are now. China calls America's bluff and releases every single copy of every single software product they have onto the net. America's software industry goes belly-up, followed by the rest of America's economy, followed by the rest of America, period. The state of Wyoming spends most of the book on fire. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I loved www.lyrics.ch and I love the new site,
:)
thanks for telling me about it Slashdot.
I sincerely hope they aren't bullied off the web... I know the music is copyrighted, but I don't think people's 'impressions' are.
MO
On Windez, what about Ctrl-P?
Or, for us Mac folks, Command-P?
Incidentally, when I saw the "instructions" for the Mac, I decided I had better things to do...
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
about that question above, YOU SHOULD GET A SENSE OF HUMOUR AND NOT TAKE EVERYTHING SO SERIOUSLY
why are you arguing about your country being better? Because it's not. i don't have to argue with you anymore, because I KNOW the I have more freedom than you probably EVER will. You probably can't get your green card. I understand, for you, the test is probably pretty hard. But don't worry, you'll get it next time. You foreigners will never understand what freedom is like until you get it.
if that question I asked to stallman is your view on me as an american, I feel sorry for you. you couldn't find anything else on me, so you started searching through my previous questions....PATHETIC!
There are lots of people in this discussion that didn't get it to work. It was probably moderated up because the moderator didn't get there neither.
:)
Bugs in the DNS system, or deliberate blocking of it in some DNS servers.
You should know that, studying at IFI
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Do you realize how _easy_ it is too mobilize troops? The right amount of money into the right pockets in mexico would allow for amassing of troops. It is really not that far away, just an ocean, in the era of ICBM's. You export say 100,000 troops a day, again, not that many on something the size of a B-52, only made to house men for a 12hr flight. (assuming they take the long way) So in a few days, they have 500,000 troops ready to be an invasion force. Now add the other implements of war that dont need to be transported. ICBM's, fighters, etc. If they were able to build an army (read: hitler did it) w/o anyone noticing, mobilize troops, and do prelim air raids, we would be caught relativly off guard. We have an awsome war machine, which is known for turn around time, but they have sheer numbers to work with. You send 300 peons vs 5 warriors and the peons will win, hands down. We might be able to maintain a 25:1 kill ratio (dont underestimate military training in the US, namly special forces, seals, marines, etc), but eventually the ratio will come back to haunt us. They have alot of able bodied bullet stoppers.
See the Freenet web page.
I think you're trouble here is assuming that /. has some sort of hive mind and that the hive mind is a hypocrite if you read two opposing viewpoints.
/., but probably no more so than in society at large. But the notion of "mass hypocrisy" is ridiculous. Note, for example, that there were many posters who defended katz et al over the Hellmouth thing. Note also that many of the /. critics were arguing that the /. gang were the hypocrites for saying that the posters "owned" their comments while simultaneously treating the posts as though they were in the public domain.
/. is not a hive mind. It is a collection of individuals, each representing their own thoughts and no one elses. Perhaps there are some hypocrites here on
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
It's amusing to see that Russia, a country where during the cold war millions of Americans were taught to hate/fear as the big, bad, oppressive Soviet Union, may turn out to be the one place where information and "intellectual property" is free and safe from censorship.
Too late...
the same in most western countries
I'd hardly call Russia a Western country by any stretch of the imagination. And even if the copyright law is similiar across countries, it still isn't the same law, and shouldn't allow one person in the US, to sue another person in a diferent country, under the US law.
World leaders need to start to understand the whole Global Internet thing, existing laws just don't work.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
I might point out that I am not American. I live in Reykjavik, Iceland, and do not have a drop of American blood. However, our good way of life today is mostly thanks to Yanks. I hated Americans for a long time, before I grew to realise this. I hated all the fat, ugly people, the hypocrisy, the sick morality und alles, but I realise that we Europeans owe America a lot....hell, they saved us from the greatest menace of all...Communism.
I did not say that Americans invented the computer. However, it is pretty obvious that American companies made the personal computer a reality for middle-class homes, not just for the super-rich. Same goes for Linux. If it hadn't been embraced so vehemently by Americans, I doubt if Linux would have caught on, not to mention the Linux-promoting agendas of companies like RedHat (though I prefer SuSE myself).
Please don't misinterpret what I have to say so grossly, but thanks for the reply.
Duh. Who said anything about altruism? Generosity often makes sense. However, I'm talking about more than just cash here.
http://www.phillytalkradioonline.com/usa.html
Again, I'm not saying that the USA is the ultimate paradigm of sweetness and light. I'm simply saying that not all of us are the bloodthirsty dictator wanna-bes that we're so often cariacatured as.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Bruce Sterling wrote an excellent book on this subject; it's called Islands In The Net. I would dare to go as far as to claim that it is an even better reference than Gibson's books concerning data havens.
So what's the problem? If I lend someone money, and they waste it (I'm not arguing that that's what the debtors are doing, I'm just drawing a hackneyed parallel) and then I choose to give them more money, with the hope that they'll be able to make good on the debt, I'm being MORE selfish? How does this follow?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
duh
If there is hope, it lies in the trolls.
Hmmm, I don't think I've ever seen a communist regime. Communism has, according to me, never been implemented. The thing they had in Russia; have in Cuba, etc. isn't communism (at least not in the way I learned about communism in school, or interpreted Karl Marx's (and others) writings...). Communism, like democracy, is good idea, it just isn't feasible (yet).
Freedom is relative. Compared to Holland, a very liberal country indeed, America is not free. If you are proud of America because you perceive it to be free, you should long to once live in the great superiour country known as The Netherlands. Holland doesn't care about drugs, prostitution, the police won't harass you or beat you.
That I might look up a song lyric so that I can quote it correctly to a friend?
That I might spend all my time reading through the lyrics archive instead of actually listening to the music?
That I might skim over the lyrics to an album that I don't own to see if I might enjoy the album?
That I might actually be interested in a piece of music that I own so much that I want to go read the lyrics in order to understand it better?
Krist... Obviously such nefarious actions must be stopped immediately.
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share and enjoy
...then you would be able to use legal means to stop it...if you had the money to do so.
Just another jab at the way my country works, which can be annoying. Still love the bitch, tho.
--
+&x
There is a large difference between international treaties that you are talking about at *US* law. Even with international treaties, US law still has not jurisdiction over Russia, much as it seems you would like to believe. Treaties are agreements between governments, *not* companies.
I get a failure on DNS resolution of that site. .sig: File not found.
ls:
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
Lyrics? You are worried about some freaking lyrics? Oh, wow. :)
Let me tell you something. You can go to Russia or China or India or South America, anywhere and you can get the entire Adobe Photoshop for 2USD. You can get ANY game for less than 3USD, you can get any Windows, any Unix, AIX anything for less than 5USD. And you are worried about some lyrics
You can't handle the truth.
The basic idea, except that the company that administers loads of music publiching rights in the US, the Harry Fox Agency, convinced Interpol to sieze this guy's computer and shut lyrics.ch down. Then, in order to stay out of jail, he worked out a way to put the lyrics up, with permission, but in an almost completely useless form. If you want to see lyrics.ch, you have to accept an browser application that will install on your system to show the lyrics in a way that is supposed to prevent copying.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Just like how once Napster came out suddenly no one bought any albums from the store anymore!
I hope the move to Russia for copyrighted data does occur. U.S. copyright and patent law sucks, and this could force reform. It could also force companies to offer their "data" at reasonable prices. And to actually *compete* to make their data available. I.e. be able to buy songs online for 50 cents, an album for five bucks.
Or will America just nuke Russia until it concedes the U.S. as the one true world power? After the DeCSS case, I think this one is more likely.
I agree with this somewhat. The Russian people have lived the last 80 years drowned in waves of lies and corruption. When the Party's 'apparatchiks' couldn't be blamed, other non-worthy citizens would cheat off the naive and/or honest ones. Its not right that Americans (or any other country) take advantage of loosened laws to initiate barely-legal business - this hinders useless efforts thriving for honest, equitable business.
To a certain extreme, these type of intrusions into foreign economic activities often lead to unexpected conclusions; some where the US 'Trueman Doctrine' is suddenly recalled (think Gulf War).
Following line: Good example of Fair Use. "OOG BUILD STONEHENGE, BUT STUPID DRUIDS GET CREDIT!!" - OOG, 4/20/00
Fair use? But OOG go through, er went through all the trouble to make an original artistic work, and the druids just outright stole it, not giving OOG any money, or credit, or anything!
{insert whatever symbol you use to differentiate funny-making from actual stupidity here}
--
share and enjoy
What you have to realize is that the "government control" you speak of is nothing but corporate will codeified into state regulations. When the government acts on behalf of the people, as in labor or equal opportunity laws, it benefits society. When it acts as the legal and enforcement arm of the corporate world, it deserves to be snubbed by the citizens it's betrayed.
Re-read the criticism, robo, he was mainly ranting at YOUR post, the US was a secondary target.
You then blame citizens for not voting?! What a laugh. There are plenty of good reason NOT TO VOTE. There is a reason politicians want you to vote is well: it reduces uncertainty. One of the biggest factors of any elections is voter turnout. Polls can't predict it well.
There are other good reasons not to vote - like not particpating in a charade - but that is just one.
In case I haven't burnt enough kharma yet, get a clue rob. Please.
Isn't this the same thing as lyrics.ch?
Pretty much. As stated in the article (you did read it, didn't you?), this site is intended to do the exact same thing as lyrics.ch, but since it is in Russia, it technically isn't covered by American copyright laws.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
lyrics.mguk.ru doesn't work. Try www.lyrics.mguk.ru.
.sig: File not found.
But I don't see any mention of lyrics.
ls:
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
Black helicopters swarming around the building that holds the servers.
Some guy leaning out of one of them with a megaphone, shouting:
"Shut down the mirror of three thousand Geocities pages or we'll attack!"
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If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
At least the Watchtower is coherant.
Just watch out soon the RIAA is going to hire their own private militia.I can just see it.
The "Music Police".
"hey you with that unlicensed server offering for free what we make the U.S. public pay out the A** for, stop or we will be forced to either buy off your local law enforcment so they will arrest you, or mabye we will send our elite force of layers/commandos to drown you in litigation."
lol.
flatrabbit,
peripheral visionary
"Never wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it."
Many warez servers, crack servers etc are in Russia. They do have copyright laws, but the local authorities don't care much about piracy in Internet. There has been some public stunts where "hackers were caught", but actually that wasn't anything considerable.
;) )
Probably in a couple of years pirate sites will move to third-world countries, e.g. Russia or Asian countries, where the laws aren't so strict or they don't care about copyright laws.
(Btw, even today Russian warez sites and crack sites are better than servers in Europe or America. I know
Sounds like the Data Havens in the (otherwise extremely tedious) Bruce Sterling (so called 'cyberpunk') book, 'Islands in the Net'.
For the uninitiated, the Data Havens offer unlicenced pirate 'data', whether it be software, television programming or whatever.
History tells us there will always be black markets and smugglers, and even entire regimes devoted to these pursuits.
whois lyrics.mguk.ru ...
Query: lyrics.mguk.ru
Registry: whois.ripn.net
Results:
domain: MGUK.RU
type: CORPORATE
descr: Corporate domain for Moscow State Univercity of Commerce
It seems as though their database server has kicked the bucket :( They must have had plenty of hits... I have never been able to kill a MySQL server.
Also, does any of us feel guilt at listening to classical music knowing that no royalties are going to the estate or descendants of the creators? And I'm not just talking about the really ancient centuries old stuff where "rightful heirs" are today unknown. Even some artists who wrote songs in the 20th century like Scott Joplin, who would be protected by current law if their copyrights hadn't already expired, get nothing from the use of their work. Do you feel bad for this?
How can anyone support Disney keeping sole control over Mickey Mouse and yet have a clean conscious incorporating 'the entertainer' into their copyrighted movie of slot machine or game program?
BTW, the copyright on pkzip won't expire until the year 2101!!!!!! Is this in any way reasonable?!
Here are some potential candidate countries that have NO copyright relations with the United States and have NOT signed any international treaties regarding intellectual property rights:
Afghanistan
Bhutan
Ethiopia
Iran
Iraq
Mongolia
Nepal
Oman
Tonga
Yemen
These countries are likely to support the piracy of US products:
Syria
Libya
Cuba
Vietnam
North Korea
Somalia
These countries are known for their high software piracy rates and weak copyright protection:
Paraguay
Kuwait
Malaysia
Bahrain
Armenia
etc.
I would prefer a location where we can expect government backing for screwing the US corporate empires. Gentlemen, tack your pick.
In theory, Communism is a great idea. In practice, what is often called Communism is actually a terrible idea.
A typically American point of view.
The invention of the computer is highly debatable. Although an American was granted the credit for this invention, the first operational digital computer was the EDSAC (Cambridge, England).
Linux was also not an "American" thing, Linus wrote the first versions while going to school. That was in Helsinki, Finland.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
Can you list some of your best Sources... I read about 12 USA I-net Papers each day but need more Outside the USA Sources.
I do believe in free health care and education for all however>
free health care???I guess you haven't looked at Candada lately. People have to fucking come over to the US because the waiting list is too long on life or death operations. It doesn't work.
The only place I can see even close(if not more) then the US's Freedom, is Taiwan
enlighten me on how you think communism is a good thing?
So, hypocrisy is normally something along the lines of "do as I say, not as I do". But I interpret your situations as more like: "I don't care if you screw someone else, just don't screw me". And honestly, who the hell doesn't act like that? Oh yes, that's right, the small proportion of "mature" Slashdotters.
damn straight
I ran into the russian site containing all top-of-the line MP3 encoders and other good staff. Don't have a URL handy though. :-)
This is offtopic, but hey. If this post is any indication of your reaction to stuff, I can see why you may get marked as flamebait on borderline posts. Moderators can remember past flames I'm sure, especially with a sig and an attitude like that.
To get to a virtual host though, you have to do this it like this:
HEAD / HTTP/1.0
Host: virtualhost.com
Or GET, etc, etc.
Yes,
but Konrad Zeus did not build a computer. He designed a computer but Hitler, believing that the war will end in a few months did not put money in the building.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
"The ability to critically evaluate America is something lacking with Americans."
Perhaps you should stop watching CNN and reading the New York Times. Your statement indicates a serious lack of exposure to opposing points of view. Of which, there is no shortage.
Russian politicians dont even have to pretend to be honest. All it takes is a bitch like Valentini to pass a briefcase of money to Putin and/or the head of the Moscow milita and associated Gangsters (the Russian ones I mean) and those servers vanish before you can type "shutdown -h now".
Possibly. On the other hand, Russia likes to be treated as somewhat of a superpower. Hence, the US and the West in general have to be very careful about what they dictate to them, because everytime they do, the result is a more or less severe diplomatic crisis (Bosnia, Kosovo). If it appears that outside forces and especially the US have forced the Russian government into something, the very influential Russian right wing gets more than a little upset and threatens to abandon important projects such as arms reduction (though a third world country, Russia still has a large nuclear arsenal) or to disrupt proceedings in the UN security council by using their veto powers. I don't think the US government or the corporations where the real money is coming from, like oil companies and, for some strange reason, banana companies (Honduras) are willing to risk upsetting Russia over something relatively minor. Why do you think the US government/Microsoft hasn't adamantly protested the widespread use of illegal copies of Windows in Russia?
And there is all the foreign aid that goes to Russia from the US/IMF/Europe.
There's not a whole lot of it left, because Russia refuses to do what the US/IMF/Europe tells them to do. Clearly, they're not very impressed.
Hell the US paid the Russians/Soviets to ditch their comrades in East-Germany. Whats a few servers by comparison?
This happened ten years ago when Russia was still the Soviet Union and a superpower, and ruled by a man of reason (i.e. Gorbachev). You'll find that things have changed quite a bit since then.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
Ex-squeeeze me? Linux was "born" in Europe. Finland, to be precise. The "computer" was inittiated by Charles Babbage (1822). In England. The first "real computer" was build by Konrad Zuse. In Germany. Blaise Pascal & Wilhelm Schickard, first (mechanical) calculator, 1642 resp. 1623. Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, binary system, 1673. Hollerith, American census, 1880, card punching machines. A "bit" (pun intended) later: Konrad Zuse, 1934: AND, OR, NOT, XOR. ENIAC, 1946, Pensylvania. About 10 years ago (in school) I did an essay about computer history: http://www.pinguin.co netix.de/krimskrams/computer-aufsatz.zip Und um noch etwas Salz in die Wunde zu streuen: Look into _any_ one of your "advanced technology" (cars, buildings, IT, electronics, NASA, etc): you find _very_ few parts that does not have "Siemens" or the like stamped on it somewhere. Oh sure, the design is yours. But the technology... Oh yes ... Nokia. Ericsson. Fraunhofer. (MP3!) There are weird laws here as well. (for examples, look at www.freedomforlinks.de - German, sorry.) But for one thing, just a couple examples of what I frown at in the USA: - Microsoft is not allowed to forbid MSDN members to publish benchmarks and bugs (they apparently do this in the US). - If you buy something, you may do with it whatever you want - i.e. you may play DVDs or Videos on whatever device you like (it is another quesion if you are able to). This may void warranty but nobody can e.g. prevent you from using DeCSS. (just an example) etc. America wouldn't even exist today were it not for all the other countries. (and that is not just because of foreign technologies...)
Home Page
"You will be able to view a protected lyrics document, but will not be able to print the lyrics."
:)
Hmmm... I wonder what kind of technological marvel they have created which will prevent me from cutting and pasting the lyrics I am viewing on screen to another document and then printing them?
I went to lyrics.ch (now songfiles or something like that) and saw that hey had this "you have to download some app or plug-in and accept some secure cookie" crap. I am not willing to do any shit like that. And I'm using a Mac right now, so the instructions/gyrations were even more complicated.
I'm glad to see this new site up and I hope that they will withstand the legal and political pressure and refuse to capitulate.
The longer term solution (one which I wish had been implemented in the lyrics.ch issure, but hindsight is 20/20) is to make the mySQL database of all these lyrics publicly accesible as a giant tarball and mirror the hell out of it. It worked quit well for DeCSS. Once the cat is outta the bag, you can't put him back in. Imagine, 100, 1000, or even 10,000 sites mirroring this data. They can't sue us all, and we can move it around.
To the operators of the site: Please make the entire database available for public, anonymous FTP. We'll mirror it and make sure that it can't be taken away.
I really like the 'data haven' idea, is there one of the nouveau riche IPO recipients that would like to buy us an island somewhere in international waters? I'd volunteer to go work there.
BTW, does anybody remember that this (like the IMDB) started as a series of usenet posts that someone just collected into one location/database?
I wouldn't hurt to regularly repost the tarball on rec.arts.music. just like the FAQ's for the newsgroup.
Let's not let it get away this time!
Russ
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
Russian web hosts, http://weblist.ru/english/Business_and_economy/Com panies/Internet_services/W eb_services/Hosting/ get them while they're hot!
~ppppppppö
Wrong. The issue here is not Russia's "virgin" economy (which, BTW, certainly has been fucked). The issue is the total lack of the "rule of law" in Russia today. If the proprieters of this site have greased the appropriate palms, they have nothing to fear.
-sam
Here's a question: I know it's a weekend and all, but does anyone care? Is this really newsworthy? Big deal, some website in some God-forsaken backwater country like Russia has some illegal materials available. And Slashdot posts it.
:))
"Illegal". Its illegal, because we in the western world has stupid laws. Of course, those who made it should be properly honored -- but for how long?
And, its important to post, due to the interesting question it raises. Will "illegal" sites like this, be set up in countries which doesn't respect stupid letters from american lawyers? (Hey! Mattel lawyers! I've got your letter to me in glass-and-frame on my wall!!
However, its not long before we'll have freenet. And with it, totaly anonymity and the possibility to post whatever we want, without fear of retribution. I look forward to that.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
People will have to install FreeNet servers - yes. But I don't think that will be a problem. Lots of people will do that. And, maybe one or two corporate firewalls for some companies will block them, but ISP's most certainly won't.
They will if they are given enough pressure from governments. Universities are blocking napster.. why shouldn't they block FreeNet?
FreeNet sounds great on paper, but we will just have to wait and see if it is that great in Real Life[tm].
No offense taken - I agree with you. Remember, many Americans are as unhappy with the U.S. government as you are, but as long as a majority of our fellow citizens doesn't even bother to vote, and corporate dollars control our electoral politics, things are not likely to change.
It's gotten to the point where it looks like the best we can do is find "workarounds" for some of the dumber laws.
I don't support copyright or patent violations per se, but some of the things we are allowing to be copyrighted and patented, and the way some of the copyright and patent holders act (making threats that cause large legal bills even if they are not valid), we might as well all get used to being outlaws. This country once tried to ban alcoholic beverages -- and created a large group of outlaws by doing so. Then the U.S. government decide to go to "war" against some popular recreational drugs -- and created a whole new class of drug outlaws. Now we seem bent on creating intellectual property outlaws.
In the end, what happens is that U.S. citizens lose respect for *all* laws, and stop caring about whether they follow them or not. And citizens of other countries lose respect for the U.S. in general.
- Robin
Thanks for the tip on TOTO very good.
It's time for us hackers / computer geeks / nerds / political activists to quit bitching about the world. Instead of complaining or trying to fix the system through political channels, we need to make our own system. We cannot just wait for some country to feel sympathy for us and 'do the right thing.'
We need our own country. Our own island somewhere where we can start from scratch, the right way. The government would consist of democracy through technology. Everyone would have digital communications access. You think that a new streetlight needs to be out up? Log on and submit it. If more people support it then think it's a bad idea, it'll get done. A moderated government so to speak.
A politician should never make laws that he thinks would be for the best of his country's citizens. A politician should just be an administrator who carries out the requests and rules set forth by the majority
Other governments would want to shut us down, but after a while, they wouldn't dare. Why attack a country with some of the brightest minds who are not constrained by the laws of totalitarian governments? They know that they couldn't do anything except a full nuclear strike, and that would be political suicide. Net access is easy. Simply deal with some countries who don't care about us. If the island is in the South Pacific, run some submarine cables to Argentina. Maybe we could buy a huge chunk of land somewhere like Brazil. It doesn't matter where. Technology today allows us to evolve our \environment to suit ourselves.
OK, well I've ranted enough. Actually, this has been on my mind a lot and I've even gone through the trouble of picking an island, working out all the logistics, and designing the infrastructure, government, and economic system.
Yes, I'm lonely =)
When I'm done with my proposal, I'll stick it on a webpage and submit it to slashdot and maybe it'll get posted.
tasty and delicious
The secondary nameserver isn't pulling the zone
from the primary. So it'll work - ot not - on a
random basis. Use the IP address (195.7.186.68)
until they fix it.
Here's the relevant diagnostics:
% dig ru ns
; > DiG 8.1 > ru ns
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 7, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 7
;; QUERY SECTION:
;; ru, type = NS, class = IN
;; ANSWER SECTION:
ru. 2D IN NS NS.EU.NET.
ru. 2D IN NS NS.RIPN.NET.
ru. 2D IN NS NS.RELCOM.EU.NET.
ru. 2D IN NS NS2.RIPN.NET.
ru. 2D IN NS SUNIC.SUNET.SE.
ru. 2D IN NS NS.UU.NET.
ru. 2D IN NS NS2.NIC.FR.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
NS.EU.NET. 2D IN A 192.16.202.11
NS.RIPN.NET. 2D IN A 194.85.119.1
NS.RELCOM.EU.NET. 2D IN A 193.124.23.3
NS2.RIPN.NET. 2D IN A 195.209.0.6
SUNIC.SUNET.SE. 2D IN A 192.36.125.2
NS.UU.NET. 2D IN A 137.39.1.3
NS2.NIC.FR. 2D IN A 192.93.0.4
richard@ns1.vrx.net Mon May 1 00:40:25 ~
% dig mguk.ru ns
; > DiG 8.1 > mguk.ru ns
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 2
;; QUERY SECTION:
;; mguk.ru, type = NS, class = IN
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mguk.ru. 21h31m42s IN NS ns.mguk.ru.
mguk.ru. 21h31m42s IN NS ns.transts.ru.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns.mguk.ru. 23h51m17s IN A 195.7.186.66
ns.transts.ru. 23h51m17s IN A 195.7.176.5
;; Total query time: 3 msec
;; FROM: ns1.vrx.net to SERVER: default -- 199.166.24.1
;; WHEN: Mon May 1 00:40:37 2000
;; MSG SIZE sent: 25 rcvd: 101
% host -l mguk.ru
mguk.ru name server ns.mguk.ru
mf.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.68
ftp.mf.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.68
www.mf.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.68
lyrics.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.68
www.lyrics.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.68
career.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.68
localhost.mguk.ru has address 127.0.0.1
mail.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.67
www.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.67
students.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.68
richard@ns1.vrx.net Mon May 1 00:45:21 ~
% dig lyrics.mguk.ru a @ns.mguk.ru
; > DiG 8.1 > lyrics.mguk.ru a @ns.mguk.ru
; (1 server found)
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 10
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; QUERY SECTION:
;; lyrics.mguk.ru, type = A, class = IN
;; ANSWER SECTION:
lyrics.mguk.ru. 1D IN A 195.7.186.68
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
mguk.ru. 1D IN NS ns.mguk.ru.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns.mguk.ru. 1D IN A 195.7.186.66
;; Total query time: 197 msec
;; FROM: ns1.vrx.net to SERVER: ns.mguk.ru 195.7.186.66
;; WHEN: Mon May 1 00:45:27 2000
;; MSG SIZE sent: 32 rcvd: 88
richard@ns1.vrx.net Mon May 1 00:46:17 ~
% dig lyrics.mguk.ru a @ns.transts.ru
; > DiG 8.1 > lyrics.mguk.ru a @ns.transts.ru
; (1 server found)
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 10
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUERY SECTION:
;; lyrics.mguk.ru, type = A, class = IN
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
mguk.ru. 1D IN SOA ns.mguk.ru. hut.chat.ru. (
2000202100 ; serial
8H ; refresh
4H ; retry
1W ; expiry
1D ) ; minimum
;; Total query time: 177 msec
;; FROM: ns1.vrx.net to SERVER: ns.transts.ru 195.7.176.5
;; WHEN: Mon May 1 00:46:28 2000
;; MSG SIZE sent: 32 rcvd: 87
ns.mguk.ru has address 195.7.186.66
Need Mercedes parts ?
Why is it every day I either read an article promoting Linux or the theft of intellectual property?
Excuse me? A site posting lyrics to pop songs is piracy? For God's sakes, that's crazy. What harm comes to the artist, or even the record company, if some kid discovers that- OH GOSH! He really does say "you can take that cookie and stick it up your ass!" in that Limp Biskit song? What effect does this have on anybody? Who cares?
I'd say this wasn't newsworthy, except that it is good to know corporate America perceives this as a threat. What's next? Will movie quote sites be illegal? How about sites that give sports statistics?
It seems to be that the only way you could find somebody guilty of stealing intellectual property by using lyrics is if they use them in a song... These sites exist because fans want to read the lyrics, see what the bands are saying. It seems like the artists should appreciate and encourage that, not stomp it out.
josh sisk
Slashdot has more than a few readers, you know.
--
Well, I'm not disturbed, just, well...pissed off. I used to frequent Lyrics.ch a lot when it was "free" (before 1999).
Let me tell you a story...
When I was in grade 8, I discovered that my school had a bunch of old reel-to-reel tape recorders that were going to be thrown out. After some negotiations with a teacher, and some of his negotiations with the principal, I was allowed to take one home. Since I needed some tape to record with, I went to a local stereo shop and bought a reel. It had already been used, so it was a bargain. When I played it, I found that someone had recorded two rock songs at the beginning of the tape. I didn't care much for the second one, but I absolutely loved the first! I listened to it over and over. I was never able to find out the title or who sang it. I played it for a few friends, and they couldn't name the song or artist, either. Eventually, I lost interest in it.
About nine years later, I was heavily into MP3s, and I planned to try to transfer many of my cassette radio tapings and other recordings to MP3 format. I remembered that rock song on the reel-to-reel tape, and decided to have a go at it. It was about this time that I also knew about Lyrics.ch. Since the title and artist of this song still eluded me, I decided to see if Lyrics.ch's full-text search engine could help. After only a few tries, I discovered the title and artist: "Isolation" by Toto. Since Lyrics.ch also lists the name of the album a song is from, I was able order a CD with the song on it, and get a much better quality copy (which was good, because now, 11 years later, that reel-to-reel tape recorder is breaking down). I tried some of Toto's other music, and soon found that I really liked them.
Lyrics.ch also helped me decipher the lyrics of lots of other music I had, as well. It was also instrumental in helping me track down a few songs I heard on the radio but for which the DJ did not announce the title or artist.
Then, in January 1999, as you know, the Harry Fox Agency and some big-money, copyright-owning record companies came knocking. When all the dust settled and the negotiations finished, Lyrics.ch was still in operation, but one could only view about 1/3 of their songs.
I gave the "new" Lyrics.ch a try. In order to view a song, I had to run a large Java applet that took a while to download and presented a "high security risk" according to Internet Explorer (my version of Netscape at the time was 4.05; not good enough to run the Java applet). Then, the lyrics appeared, but I was unable to copy-and-paste them out of the browser window. The lyrics disappeared whenever the applet lost the focus, so clicking File->Print was useless. The Java applet displayed about a page-full of lyrics at a time, but for only about five seconds per page. Not enough time to read them, and useless for singing along with the song! At the end, it just displayed, "This concludes the reading of this lyrics." I would have to reload the page to view them again.
I'm not sure, but I think the lyrics are now encrypted as they are sent down the wire to your computer. I have to wonder how much of this was mandated by the copyright holders, and how much was done by the Lyrics.ch staff simply to please them and avoid further trouble.
About the only to save the lyrics is to use screen capturing and retype the lyrics while viewing the screen capture (they'd be too small and blocky for an OCR program). This is difficult in Windows; you must quickly paste the bitmap into a paint program before capturing again. About the only operating system for which this would work is Mac OS; there when capture the screen, it automatically saves the captures with incremental filenames. I don't know how to capture the screen in X.
Why can I not save or print the lyrics as before? Sure, they're someone else's property, but wouldn't a strict copyright notice at the bottom of the page solve that? What's wrong with just good ol' HTML? And besides, they're just lyrics! What harm can one do with them? It's not like they're directly harming CD sales, like pirated MP3s.
It seems to me that this was just done by the record companies just to show the world who's boss. They could have said, "Listen, those lyrics are our intellectual property, but since they're helping people find music, we'll let your site stay up [unmolested], but you have to put this copyright notice on them and give us a cut of your ad-banner revenue." But instead, they've made the site almost useless. I refuse to run that Java applet on my home computer, too. Who knows what else it's doing, besides showing lyrics?
I realize that Lyrics.ch should not have taken such a liberty with someone else's copyrighted property, but the record companies should not have reacted as they did. Their reaction only hurt them, as far as I'm concerned. Remember how the lyrics were user-contributed before? I haven't seen any new ones added since the crackdown.
So, I applaud these brave Russians with their lyrics site. It wouldn't hurt to set up a mirror in Taiwan (a country which never signed the Berne copyright convention), too.
By the way, I've read The Right to Read, and I love it. Sorry, but my right to fair use comes before some money-grubbing record company's right to lock up harmless information like their lyrics. FIGHT THE COPYRIGHT NATION!!
America is historically the most generous country in the world? Out of interest, where the hell are you getting your information?
The United States' per-capita foreign aid is extremely low, lower than just about every Western European country. (At least, according to the numbers I have from 1994.)
I'm not a rabid America-basher, but foreign aid is certainly not one of America's specialties.
This time, as many people as possible need to try to obtain a copy of the database, then hoarde it. Nobody else should try to run a competing service, that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in this case, but if thousands of people have backups of the database, then in the event that this site gets shut down for whatever reason, another one can pop up in another location with no delay and right where the other one left off.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
If you ask the wrong question, the answer doesn't matter.
it's not
What do we believe, anyway?
it's
What do I believe? Anyway...
--
+&x
Now who's fault is it that the government is influenced so completely by the government? It would seem to fall onto the average american, but that's not really fair, because, quite honestly, the average american isn't smart enough to have seen this Corporatism coming. As wealthy and well off as this country likes to present itself, the majority of its population is too busy working hard to make a living to worry about their culture's influence on other countries.
The ones who have all the wealth have gotten it because of this culture and corporatism, and for the most part are quite happy with it, as long as it keeps the excessive paychecks flowing.
Yeah, it's a lack of global morals and ethics, yeah it's not fair, yeah, it's a bad thing. I don't like it, and I'm not defending it. But when you say you're angry at a lot of Americans, i'm curious as to who exactly it is.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
The Soviet Union acceded to the Universal Copyright Convention in 1973, and the Russian Federation inherited those treaty responsibilities. In addition, Russia on its own signed the Berne Convention in 1995.
The Berne Convention is as close as anything comes to a world copyright, with 144 countries signed on [Word97 doc, sorry]. These 144 countries represent well over 85% of the world's population; the only countries remaining to sign are mainly disorganized ones like Somalia or rogue states like Afghanistan. The Berne Convention permits the same people who sued the Lyrics Database before to file suit in Russia.
Now, it may be true that there is a certain degree of corruption or even lawlessness in Russia, but from a legal standpoint, it is not true that US law means "nothing" there. A copyright filed in the US must be recognized by the other signatories, including Russia.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
There are plenty of good reason NOT TO VOTE.
There is ONE good reason not to vote. If you want to make everyone else's vote louder...DON'T VOTE!
--
+&x
This is an interesting development, and one that I'm seeing more and more: the (possibly intended) misspelling of the word 'hypocrisy' as 'hypocracy'... the ending 'acy' implies a form of government. Is the observation being made that western nations are becoming countries ruled by the most powerful hypocrites? Is this meme already being integrated into the language? Sort of a freudian slip, on a societal scale.
---sheath
Sorry, international treaties exist. Get educated someday. The arrogance of the states has nothing to do with this. I am not trying to get flamebait points for this, so I am spelling out the truth below.
This is a modified post from what I made on another site concerning a similar issue.
For counties that have signed the Berne convention, it is illegal to _distribute_ unauthorized copies of copyrighted matierial.
If you don't believe me, check this link out:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overv
It's the text of the treaty. It doesn't list signatories, but both the US and the Russian Federation are:
http://www.wipo.org/eng/general/copyrght/bern.h
Your ability to get the cooperation may be stymied by slow courts and the fact that you have to somehow go over there to get some type of prosecution.
If this material is not copyrighted (I don't know the full issue of this case), then there's nothing to stand on. But I doubt it.
You're apparently not well versed in these treatise, which require countries to enforce international intellectual property laws. The agreements of the WIPO and WTO allow corporations to sue and seek damages for IP infringements.
You were mistaken in thinking that this is a matter of U.S. law, when it's a matter of international law.
There's a large difference between educated well-informed commentary, and ignorant ranting.
YES SIR! COMMENCE OPERATION RIPOFF!
The other prominent example is the terrorists involved in the Achille Lauro ship take-over. They were lured into a trap in Malta, I think, and wound up on a NATO airbase instead of where they thought they were going. And the US has put out feelers for people involved in other terrorist acts, distributing thousands of matchbooks with the picture of wanted men in Pakistan, for example.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
And such a place will **always** **always** **always** exist.
You're right. These places will always exist. And I hope we will always be able to get to them. I see a problem coming though. There are currently only a few international carriers who go to these places. It doesn't take much for RIAA or MPAA or anyone else (the government?, wto?) to pressure them into just not carrying traffic from locations that don't play by our rules.
The result is all the warez, MP3s, and banned code will still be in Russia. But there will be no way to get there from here.
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
You are supposed to read my previous post in an Ed McMahon (sic?) voice - NOT a military voice.
You know, "You are correct, Sir.... HEY OH!!!!"
Well maybe you'll get it someday, but I ain't holding my breath.
You are? Best go tell Japan, China, North Korea, almost all the South American countries, the Middle Eastern countries, half of Europe.....
Honestly, statements such as this simply reinforce my view that most Americans are arrogant & ignorant when it comes to non-American matters. What's so great about America that means the rest of the world shoukd want to be like them?
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Would putting it in the /etc/hosts file work? That doesn't seem to be working for me. Where's my brain fart?
--
I remember reading once on Ivanopoulo's site an email exchange he'd had with Macromedia, after the makers of Flash and Dreamweaver discovered that he'd been cracking their software. From what I recall, it began with the typical intimidating lawyer talk, and ended with the corp realizing the pointlessness of the exercise.
Endlessly amusing. Imagine that, an individual telling a company to fuck off and being able to go on with his life! Haven't seen in America for at least ten years.In my opinion, US companies that use lawsuits to fight copyright laws on the net are hurting themselves more than they are helping. Eventually they are just going to end up pushing people who have questionable content off shore.
I'm just waiting for some small 3rd world country that doesn't get assistance from the US to realize this, and setup shop as a haven for this type of material. Got Lyrics put it on our servers, got code that decodes DVD put it here,...
Then companies will have no real recourse and will just have learn to deal with it in better ways
"Have you seen my marbles"
The recordable cassete tape in the 60s. Recordable 8-Tracks, the xerox machine. The film camera. The motion film camera. The motion film camera with sound recording. The VCR. The video camera, Digital Audio Tape (DAT), Hard drives. The MP3 format. Fast Hack 'Em (C64 copy program). The internet. CD-R burners, CD-RW burners, and just starting now, DVD-R burners. Human memory.
All of this and yet people are still making money producing and selling music/movies/software.
But then no one will buy anything!
Yawn. Your statement doesn't reconcile with history.
It would seem that you're also not familiar with how world economics works. Perhaps you should swallow that hatred for U.S. citizens, and use the energy to read =)
I suggest researching WIPO, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the TRIPS agreement, and the WTO.
No country is an island in global economics.
"Illegal". Its illegal, because we in the western world has stupid laws. Of course, those who made it should be properly honored -- but for how long?
Huh? Let me put this in terms most Slashdot readers will understand.
Let's say you write a program (this being a stretch since most Open Source Supporters can't program beyond "hello world" level, but I digress), and, being a good linux zealot, release it under the GPL.
Now say a commercial company ("software hoarder" in rms-socialism speak) in Russia likes your program, so they start selling it with theirs, claiming it as their own, without mentioning you or distributing the source. You get nothing out of it and are powerless to stop them.
Would you feel resentment? A sense of powerlessness? I would think so: those people would be ripping you off.
This is exactly what is happening with Napster/FreeNet/Gnutella/etc. Artists are being ripped off in the name of "openness" and "anti-censorship", which means "I want more free stuff" in slashdot-zealot speak. It's disgusting, and as you can see, if you disagree, you get judged a troll and get censored. I guess those anti-censorship types feel it should only apply to them, huh?
It may hurt but it's true. The GNU/Linux zealots vigorously defend themselves against violations of their property rights, but at the same time they steal or copy anything that they consider useful.
Dude - the rest of the world lost respect for the US long ago.
At least they haven't made it illegal for people to read over your shoulder.
(Go read The Right to Read even if you think RMS is a fruitcake. It brings up some good points on this topic.)
US courts have held that US laws apply anywhere in the world where Americans or American interests are affected. Enforcing US laws, however, is a question of logistics; they can't afford to kidnap^H^H^H^H^H^Hextrajudicially extradite everyone who sells pot to an American tourist or copies a MP3, though in a few high-profile cases they can make an effort. Witness what happened to Noriega, for example.
This interests me because if the data is being routed via landlines, the ISPs in my country would be the front line of the conflict you just described. And keeping in mind how US gov managed to coerce several small European countries to participate in the Wassenaar agreement, well... good bye fast and reliable access to Russian data havens.
USA to Russia: "Let's ditch this ABM thingy."
Russia to USA: "No waysky."
USA to Russia: "Waysky."
Russia to RIAA: "How do you like our new lyrics site?"
RIAA to USA: "Eeek! Gasp! Inarticulate sounds!!!"
USA to Russia: "OK, we'll stick with the ABM thingy."
Russia to RIAA: "OK, we'll take down the lyrics site."
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What's the word... touche?
:)
Good point. I somehow got the weird notion that slashdotters could agree on something like IP and free speech.
What do I believe? I believe people in general act like they are expected to. Treat them like children, they'll act liek children. Trust them, and some will abuse it, but most will see the light. "Escalante" by Jay Matthews is a good example.
I believe free speech is a good thing, and I'm willing to put up with flamers, trollers, spammers, libelious spin docters, etc. Those who aren't willing to, don't really believe in free speech, imho. They believe in their own free speech, but not for people who abuse it. That's okay, too. They could be right, but I disagree. As Larry Niven puts it, "it takes a lot of people to run a civilization."
Otoh, if there's a way to silence spammers without using censorship, I'd love to hear it. I haven't thought of a way yet, but it might be possible. What do you believe?
I also do not doubt that there are opposing points of view - I never even implied there was, but, the majority of Americans do not understand the internationism going on in the world today.
I have spent time in a number of countries, Japan, the UK, and a number in Europe, and they all seemed more 'globally aware' than the US. Given the postition of the US, it is twice as important to be more globally aware. It is that fact that is the most annoying, having to watch the Americans, thinking that they are the be-all, and end-all of the world.
To a degree, my arguement is flawed - my real problem is with the other countries that put up with so much crap from the America. But it'd be nice to see both change
Better to stay silent, and let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
Being a Russian citizen who works his ass off for just 500$ a month (considered a damn high pay compared to an average of 40$), I do strongly believe in global software communism. A copy of Windows is worth my monthly paycheck, so in no way I can afford adding "pennies" to the richest man's pocket. I am forced to opt for illegal software for which I _pay_ at a nearby subway station 3$ apiece for the very same copy of damn Windows (sometimes software appears months in advance before it hits the stores in North America) Also, I am amazed by your ignorance. Do we still believe Russian have bears as pet animals? Russia is a signatory to numerous conventions on international copyright law, alas the actual enforcement machanism badly limps. This article should have been posted in early or mid 90's, when piracy was not even an issue. Nowadays we suffer huge crackdowns on illegal trade spots and it's getting harder and harder with each day to purchase pirated stuff. However, the centre of all pirated software is still United States and Western Europe (especially Sweden and Germany where all major 'warez' sites with 250+gb of weekly traffic reside - just as comparison, the major and sole Russian 'warez' site used to get only 12-15gb of weekly traffic, which is not even ISO related). Russia and China get credit for openly selling the stuff, but it all comes from you, damn yankees. -eOF
Yeah, it would be a tough one if china were to mobilize it's working class into a war machine, but you've forgotten one thing, they have to get here first.
The hypocritical opinion that copyrights are immoral tools designed only to protect the profits of giant, evil corporations (ignoring the more desireable usages of copyright, such as the GPL and comment-posting rights) was posted to the front page of Slashdot by one of their own editors. Care should be taken by Slashdot to work towards achieving a higher editorial quality.
Actually, if the Russian poet had any sense, he'd file a lawsuit in the US. The US publisher would have to abide by American copyright laws.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
From my vaulted perspective, insulting the suburbs is one of lowest forms of discrimination. On par with racism, sexism and religios bigotry.
Good for you. Now if you think that your "Inc." and its $10k of revenues a year mean anything to those in power, go back to the sandbox and play with the rest of the Sunday school bunch.
We seem to have a few crossed wires - If you read my comments I have never said it is a matter for US law. I am in fact saying it is NOT a matter for US law. You are however right in saying that I not well versed in the treatys, however I am happy to accept what you say as you obviously know more than me :)
... seems to mean little or nothing.
I still claim however that the orginal comment in the post that:
...in Russia, where U.S.law
is not a good thing to say, as US law has no meaning whatsoever in other countries even with treaties. For instance, US can't make a new law and then enforce it on other countries.
It is however, I agree, a matter of International law, but even so, the chances of anything happening in Russia are negligable as they have slightly more pressing problems than either worryng about this sort of thing.
Perhaps you should re-read my post. I was clearly comparing CNN and NYT as similars.
My point was that there is no lack of internal criticism in the US.
At the very least, it makes politics more interesting.
Well, its like my grand pappy always used to say:
:)
If ya can't beat 'em, move your servers to a country that treats it citizens like shit, but is still better than America because it lets us put our stuff there...
or somethin' like that
Could it also be that the Powers That Be scour for postings like these on Slashdot before launching a new assault on the next threat?
I recall when Gnutella, Napster, lyrics.ch, DeCSS, et al became big news on Slashdot. Not long after, the RIAA, HFA, MPAA (and their comrades) were hot on the trail of all of these with an army of high-priced lawyers. Many lawsuits later, most of these things are still under heavy fire from corporate lawyers. Is the attention given to grey-market stuff on Slashdot contributing to this, do you think?
You'd think that lyrics.ch was originally safe from 'U.S. law', as the post puts it, but copyrights are perfectly enforceable internationally. It only takes a few phone calls to the local police station to go and raid the home of the instigators (which is exactly what happened to lyrics.ch). Thuggish, true, but they can and probably will do it again.
Mea culpa .. I must've inserted a "start reading the NYT" in there somewhere. So much for drinking on Sunday afternoons.
We invade their asses and install a "free" form of government.
Remember they are communists and a threat to the american way of life.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
IMHO, The Internet's best quality is that it is global, and has become so before the powers that be could see what was happening and oppress it. Consequently, no one country can EVER completely limit freedom on the Internet! If my country makes some boneheaded law that makes something on the 'net illegal, then that thing can move somewhere else. Regulating the Internet is like trying to hold a gallon of water in the palm or your hand.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Just one major point you missed: The material is *not* illegal in Russia, where the site is hosted. It is illegal in the US, not the rest of the world. Heres where the reality check should be called by the US lawmakers (and enforcing authorities). The net is global, your laws might not be enforcable anywhere else. Now what if mp3.com moves itself out of the US to Russia? Interesting.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
FreeNet is still the answer. :)
You cannot block anything perfectly in firewalls. Tunneling solves it pretty good. Set up a proxy, which you can connect via.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
well.. as I don't know much about FreeNet, so I will now keep my mouth shut about it. Instead of complaining, I will read the FAQ if I have any more questions..
:-)
If Russia were to support this behavior, they would be violating several international agreements, and would threaten the practical use of WIPO, the WTO, and international agreements in general. This isn't a good thing, and given Russia's dependancy on U.S. capital to rebuild their broken economy, I don't forsee it happening.
I'm trying, but the symantics of the GET command are confusing me. Where's the manual for using telnet as a we browser? (Seriously, if some one could point me to the RFC, I'd be appreciative.)
They'll simply proceed legally against the Russian organization, and perhaps lobby the U.S. Government to enforce the intellectual property treatise that Russia has agreed to, as a member of the WTO.
Russia currently has a virgin economy, and if it wants it to ever grow so that Russia can be a serious world power, again, instead of the joke that it is, they'll oblige large corporate pressures. It's simply a matter of how hard American corporations wish to press situations where a country refuses to enforce agreements.
If anything, publicizing this site will lead to its downfall.
Either there's some mass hypocrisy going on, or a good majority of Slashdotters are simply too immature to think things through. Recall:
Situation 1
Jon Katz et al. publish a book on the Hellmouth series of discussions and articles on Slashdot. Whether or not it actually accomplished anything is irrelevant; a mass outcry goes up from Slashdot posters whose material was used. Reasons ranged from not getting a slice of the pie to feeling intellectually raped to wanting a say where and when "their" material is used.
Situation 2
A site goes up in Russia purporting to use and abuse copyrighted material that the owners of which obviously don't want to be folded, spindled and mutilated in that way. Slashdotters cheer the advent of "free information".
I won't even the parallels this draws to people who take "liberties" with the GPL and other related copyright licenses. I mean, hey, they should be free to do what they want with it, right?
Marie Antoinette tried to have her cake and eat it too. She ended up missing her head, an irrelevant footnote to history. I fear this community will just end up an irrelevant footnote.
telnet://bbs.ufies.org
Trade Wars Lives
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I think that's a very good point. Everybody gets excited when they have the ability to get lyrics from russia because now the site is not breaking any laws. But what if someone were to take linux, find some flaws and improve them, then distribute it binary only from russia? would we have any power to stop them?
It works both ways. Foreign countries have laws that can both help the what some of us believe in hurt it also. Don't forget that.
As a side note, I have some mp3's...theyre illegal too. I don't believe I have some right to these mp3's. In fact I know that I don't. I do have a problem with how artists are treated by the recording industry, but nonetheless, I believe they have a right to control their ip just as much as the next guy. Not everything in the world should be gpl'ed...even rms says that.
I just read the author's suggestion of making a gzipped version of the database available. /. shares their list of articles? how would this work, is there a lyrics-sharing standard? what implications could it have?
Couldn't they use XML to share the same database, as
I think the answer to all our worries about material beeing pulled from the net, will be answered as soon as FreeNet is finished. One can argue wheter freenet is good or bad. But the single fact remains - that information will become free. Totally free. Nobody will be able to stop it. :)
And that, imho, is a Good Thing.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
I am writing this letter to express my frustration over the design of your web site. My main point involves the use of a great evil to the Internet, known as Java.
The method by which you display lyrics becomes not only untimely, but also frustrating to users like myself who just want fast access to the lyrics we need. I do not want a little timed singalong, I do not want a 5 minute wait for 1k of TEXTUAL data, and I certainly don't want your web page keeping me from achieving my goal of reading the lyrics to a song. I think that there are others like me out there, but they have likely said nothing and gone elsewhere.
I want to read lyrics to songs I like, and with a name like lyrics.ch, I hope that it is your intent to provide them. I hope you see the error in your ways.
I hope you post your lyrics in plaintext.
Their response:
Quoting ILS Webmaster : > Dear Eli:We were able to bring the lyrics back only when we instituted technology to protect the copyrights of the music publishers, who own the rights to display and print lyrics. The java technology, which includes scrolling the lyrics in successive pages, allows people to view the lyrics, but not to print or to save the lyrics, which was part of the copyright protection requirements.
There is a great deal of difference between someone simply writing the lyrics for themselves, and displaying them in a digital manner which is easily and perfectly reproduced. As the "distributor" of lyrics in a digital environment, ILS chose the only option available which allowed protected lyrics and allowed users to view those lyrics without requiring them to actually install software. The Java applet is signed with a digital certificate, verifying it is the same applet that was written by Fox Agency International, to assure users they are not getting a bad or malicious applet. Like most things, Java in and of itself is not evil, it is its misuse that causes problems.
If you're interested in learning more about the issues of copyright and music, you may want to visit http://www.face-copyright.org/music/index.htm.
Thank you for visiting ILS.
ILS Webmaster
None less, the site still takes approximately 5 minutes to load what would be 2 minutes of text. Copyright does have acceptable use clauses, and they should be taken into consideration. Copying the lyrics (which would be in the best interests of bands and record companies to include anyway) for the purposes of singing along is most likely acceptable in the eyes of the governments overseeing the copyright rules. That is why acceptable use is included in the copyright law, because without it, we wouldn't be technically allowed to even memorize the lyrics.
By the way, it has been 10 minutes since I have started downloading the applet for one of your pages, and it appears to have hung it self. Perhaps a single, permanent viewer applet with some CONTROLs for forward, backward, page up and down will do. Have the applet download first, then fire up the lyric from a secure server. Let people scroll. Let them know it will scroll automatically.
Also, If I type www.lyrics.ch into my browser, I do not want to redirect to songfile.snap.com! I wanted to go to lyrics.ch. Post a link if you must, add a link to songfile.snap.com in the REAL lyrics.ch site if you must, but stop hijacking my browser. By the way, A lot of people can't stand popup windows as well.
These little niggling points may not seem significant to one who has become used to viewing his/her own site continually, but to new users, it can be the point of no return. They may not visit you again.
You may want to check out sites such as:
http://www.asktog.com or
http://www.useit.com or perhaps
http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/
for more information on compliance with a solid user experience.
I also want to let you know that http://srogers.com/lyrics/ has a clause that states:
"CONDITIONS & TERMS: for the use of the Classic Lyric Server By consulting this archive or copying documents the user acknowledges the following conditions:
The lyrics in the files contained herein are an interpretation of the represented musical piece. They are not intended to replace any commercially available publishing, nor is it guaranteed to represent an exact transcription of any commercially or otherwise released piece. In fact, I urge you to support the artists by buying one of the lyrics books above. These files are for private, scholarly, or research use only. The documents are subject to different license and copyright regulations. As far as no particular regulation is indicated, the documents are not (available) in the 'Public Domain' . The user acknowledges and agrees that the lyrics are copyrighted and protected under the copyright law. The copyrights remain with the authors respectively with the indicated Institutions Passing documents to third persons presumes, that these persons previously were informed about and are liable for compliance of the regulations. "
It is not your site's problem if an end user re-distributes the copied datum to another location. They can and may do so, as I am sure you are aware, completely without your knowledge.
BTW, srogers.com/lyrics gave me what I needed (behind blue eyes by the Who) in a matter of seconds. I doubt you can afford to lose out.as of today, Monday, May 1, I have not received, nor do I expect to receive a response. Also, I will go to any other site with the cajones to post something that doesn't take 5 minutes to download via applet.
Lowmag.net
So is DNS propagation anything like Usenet propagation?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Anyone who can get to this site, how about posting the IP #.
___
No matter wether this site is in Russia or in Pluto I would like to note that some people are making too fast notes on the "illegalities" of information outside US. Note Russia is *NOT* Soviet Union. Yes it is the heart of ex-Soviet Union. But as in US we have now the presumption of inocense. And sorry guys. It is not perfect but it EXISTS. In the second Chechen war people have seen this thing working, good or badly. On what concerns our virtual world of Internet so this thing has been even overused. Some virus writers have managed to stay away from trouble because the corporate environment is too stupid to call some cracking/virus soft illegal (without court rulings) and ask for immediate action against them (which have burned a pair of cases against crackers).
We may consider, among us here, that this site may violate copyright laws. But for the moment it is hard to consider this thing illegal at all. Note that copyright laws in Russia differ, sometimes radically, from US. And here Bern Convention and other international rulings may be of little help. The fact that the site publishes lyrics (and ONLY lyrics) could give some trouble for a US lawyer. I am not an expert on music/literature field. But I have noted that partial and relatively restricted publication of art does not violate any copyrights in any way. lyrics are, in some way, an element of a song... So are they copyright protected?
And note. US laws are not applicable in Russia. Russia has its own body of law. It may be similar or not to US. But in some cases is radically different. Here I have the right to copy 10000 Windows98 CDs while I restrict them for my personal use or to decor the walls of my room. Here I can reverse-engineer any program. And I can sell my modifications, if this does not negatively influence the reward of the original author (I can sell a patch to rip off Explorer out from Windows but I can't sell a crack for Windows CD key). And I can do this, independently from the original author. And I can sue Microsoft and other companies, for the fact that they are violating my consumer rights by stamping in their russian licenses that I have no right to reverse engineer their stuff.
So on what concerns this site let's wait and see. Until someones risks to go to court...
.. where U.S. law ... seems to mean little or nothing
Now excuse me, but being in Russia US Law has no effect, so it does not "seem" to mean little it actually means absolutely nothing.
Compared to the US, the Dutch economy is VERY good. Under 3% unemployment, 2% inflation, budget surplus, balance of payments surplus, FREE health care, good savings record, massive foreign investment....The only thing in deficit is land!!!!
What a shallow response, heh. I'm an american, and true, we made be a super-power, but when it all comes down to it, we probably could not take a full scale invasion by China if they were to train the working class able bodied men for combat. If they were to ally with other communist countries they would have an awsome force to be reckoned with. Remember, if we pull out our nukes, we piss off most of the world, including Russia (unless they decide to back us). You would suddenly get draft cards in the mail, and MP beating down the door if you didnt register. Sounds more like us being like communist (for the good of the party) countries, not the other way around. We already have espionage carried out in top-level US military operations by China, seems like a logical next step.
I'll give you that yes, some countries like our style of clothing, etc. But overall, i've been seeing more and more kids around here (US) with anime shirts on and paraphenalia on their backpacks. And the trend is growing. Doesnt seem like them mimicing us, does it.
Eraser_
Will they push for new laws that would force copyrighted content to be censored at the border (in the router), like other countries such as China do in their firewalls?
It's a damn sucky place to live if you pay taxes.
Not if you're employed from overseas - 35% tax free for up to ten years.
Even though the Dutch complain about violence, it's far far less of a problems than most anglo-saxon countries.
When you buy games, they come on huge CDs that have a whole bunch
Same here in the States. Get them from BSDi, the makers of the Walnut Creek CDROM collection. But do they have Hampsterdeath, Vitamins, or freepuzzlearena? I know for a fact that freepuzzlearena started in Russia (as TETRIS®).
Will I retire or break 10K?
... is just move Napster to Russia, no more RIAA worries!
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
As a non-American, I can tell you that it the arrogance of the states gets to me sometmes.
No offence Roblimo, but your statement here is one of those times!
The US is one country. Yes, you are the most powerful, all that other stuff you love telling everyone. But you're one country.
What if Russia demanded that a US publisher pay a Russian poet for the illigal use of his poetry? The good 'ol USofA wouldn't give a flying rats ass.
And why? Because Russia is another country and the US should not have to abide by any other law except its own.
Just sick is what your country is. Just sick.
It really isn't that sneaky or illegal to find song lyrics, as many fans who went out and bought then intellectual property of the band used the coverslip of the CD (which they bought! gasp!), and copied it onto their website, or started a larger fansite (Radiohead Nine Inch Nails ), or maybe the band had the balls to put them up on their own website. If you have any sort of love toward a band and ar eonline frequently, you should have found some of these sites already, posting news about the band and putting up those lyrics.
Countries that have strong regulations will realize that they are going to be losing business in this market because it is so easy to up and move to a place with little or no regulations. The worse the regulation, the worse it is for the economy. I hope more sites do this, government control deserves a slap in the face.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
I may be wrong here, but copyright law varies from country to country. So th page is protected by Russian copyright law, but the files may not be. So what we now need is international IP laws (keep the corporations out of this, please) which will be accepted and valid at least over the net. Or how about a set of laws for the net only, treating it as a separate nation by itself?
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
page began to load fine for me, with title bar etc and then stopped with:
:-)
Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2) in _mysql.php3 on line 4
can't connect to database
Poor kids
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
Russian politicians dont even have to pretend to be honest. All it takes is a bitch like Valentini to pass a briefcase of money to Putin and/or the head of the Moscow milita and associated Gangsters (the Russian ones I mean) and those servers vanish before you can type "shutdown -h now".
And there is all the foreign aid that goes to Russia from the US/IMF/Europe. Hell the US paid the Russians/Soviets to ditch their comrades in East-Germany. Whats a few servers by comparison?
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
but except for the UK (its unresloved here), haven't ISPs been given common carrier status? Which should exempt them from lawsuits.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Sorry, but i don't find them...
/pyder.....
just a nice stonehenge picture and some pages which are either in russian or "under construction"...
_
/
\_\ sig under construction
Doesn't this already happen with cryptography...
Open source projects like gnupg make sure that all of their content is created and distributed outside the U.S. The OpenBSD project and the OpenSSH project have their ftp servers outside the U.S. so they'll not have to deal with U.S. laws regarding encryption. Not really new news, just a new application what other people have been doing for a long time.
it is most definetly the future. but it's not like it hasn't been done before.. (*cough* cryptography *cough*)
.. but if Russia becomes a sort of data haven (ref: some book by William Gibson), someone may start blocking accesses to Russia in their firewalls.
Here's the site's IP: 195.7.186.68
" This web page is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this page, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law. Any files you have downloaded here are only for your own purposes. Any uploads prohibited. Our team does not bear the responsibility for your surfing this page."
Imagine that. Invoking copyright law to protect the content what violates copyright law.
___
I was bored just last weekend and went to visit lyrics.ch. I knew that they had been bullied and now had some stupid applet that only scrolled the text for a short amount of time. It was still there. So I busily went about reverse engineering it. Turns out they apparently just dump a jar with the text to the client (well, it is in serialized form, but the text can be easily extracted). This is very easy to get around, but just obfuscated and annoying enough that one would rather not even use the service than attempt to get the lyrics. I bet their visit rate has plummeted. They are now an almost worthless site. Who wants to wait for a goddamn applet to load to give them a glimpse of the lyrics?...that's just insulting. To bad they had to turn their site to shit.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Never, ever underestimate the power lawyers think they have. If foreign countries host sites with copywritten material, we'll just have lawyers suing ISPs for routing traffic from them. After all, if people knew the words to songs, they might just go sing them themselves. Then where would this world be? It cannot happen, except from licensed karaoke dealers.
I have no problem getting to the site, it's IP resolves to 195.7.186.68, but this lyrics site is a virtual host, so it's pointless unless you want to telnet to port 80 and give a Host: command in the HTTP request.
if CDs in the west had the lyrics in the Cd booklet like they always do in asia then it wouldn't matter much about this site would it?
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: lyrics.mguk.ru
Address: 195.7.186.68
And for you lazy ones, just click here.
Bitchslapped? Give Rob a bitchslap from bitchslapped.com.
The concept of IP is a rather intellectual concept in itself. To what extent can any person really create something new? It's very difficult to do anything without building on what others have done. In a way, invention is merely synthesis. To take it to an extreme, how much credit do you give to the builder of something really fascinating, if they used legos?
It's a blurry line. I don;t give credit to the plumbers or the utility company when I am inspired while in the shower. And yet, I realise that the code I write after would be much less without the work of the compiler writers, and the CPU designers, and too many others to comprehend.
Isn't this the same thing as lyrics.ch?
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
to see this wonderful side-effect of globalization. Bet this is not exactly what the corporations and their government lackeys had in mind when they were speaking of the unfettered flow of goods and information.
Large companies will find a way to shut those sites down. They'll just talk to the right (corrupt) politician, have some aid money derailed away from Russia, and inform them that they can get their money by simply shutting down a few sites. Bam - back to square one.
Well, you might _not_ know about my other project at mp3.com, because it's not current stuff so I don't promote it. But I do write pop/rock songs as well: mp3.com/RFW is the place- that's short for The Room Full Of Windows, my 'song band'. What's more, for every single song I have up there (two DAM CDs available- DAM == 'mp3.com press to order system'), the full lyrics are typed out and listed online on the page. Not everybody takes the time and effort to do that, but I did.
I hope somebody does the cut-n-paste thing (seeing as I've done all the actual typing) and _puts_ my whole lyric collection on this Russian server. It would be with my total approval- the only limit I'd have is that I'll leave it to somebody else to do it, because I'd like the webpage-hit and would be happy to get song downloads in exchange for making this available so freely. The lyrics are, and will remain, copyright Chris Johnson (various dates). However, I am perfectly free to permit them to be kept on a Russian server and doing so does not in any way imply I waive copyright. I just happen to not be a dick about sharing- shock, horror ;)
I don't actually have any song lyrics on mp3.com/ChrisJ except that one of the techno songs mutilates the words, "get out of this one alive" as spoken by a MacInTalk speech-synthesis voice I hacked different data into to make it more distorted and weird :) need to play with more of that. However, there is a lot of 'about this song' material, and that is where I put the technical data on how I made the songs, and if there are any great audio hacks I invariably include how I did it. So even on the instrumentals there is background information included :)
you're welcome ;) now moderate me down, dammit! Hacking MacInTalk voices with ResEdit and a total lack of documentation is simply not geeky! you should have done it in perl while covered in hot grits! ;)
As much as I hate copyrights, and sincerely believe that they are not a valid property right. I must say America is still better than most places, because who own's information can not even become a question when you are not free to have any property rights at all.
There are a lot of people who think choosing between Democracy, Communisim, and State-isim is like choosing between apples, oranges, and banannas in a grocery store. They say it's all a matter of personal preferance, but frankly it's a load of bull, the USA is still measuraly better than most places inspite of all the crap going on here because our government is less likely to shove this social crap down my throat than most european countries and most communist (or has-been communist) countries.
America's biggest failings IMHO are copyrights, patents, social security, medicade, medicare, the war on drugs, massive taxes, publicly funded educatuion (more like a baby sitting service), and their shamefull harassment of honest gun-owning citizens. But in many cases people are even more harassed in other countries, so I think other people have a lot of nerv critizing the USA, look at your own countries first.
This means we're gonna be logging into fragging RUSSIA to enjoy the freedoms we should have as AMERICANS.
And to think people fled to the US to enjoy the freedoms they couldn't have in Russia, just in my adult lifetime.
This is so sickly ironic it makes me chuckle.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
How about not calling it "the" wave of the future, but rather A wave of the future. In that case, yes, it is.
But in other places it won't (or may not) be. (Maybe the RIAA will take control of the DNS servers for the web.us?)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Tom Vogt, from Denmark, has been the defendants' most active and vocal supporter. His mirror is still up and running.
New posters to /. may get: "It's a joke." as a reply to a post, I did. Then they learn not to take things at face value around here.
I've also seen the reply: "You have just been trolled."
1000 SlashDot sigs
... we create all kinds of wireless gizmos and read the USA section of CNN for laughs.
You get your news from a subsidy of AOL? Geez.
-henrik
This reminds me of Gibson's datahaven concept in his Neuromancer series. How long can it last? If US lawyers fail to get a site pulled because it is hosted in Russia, will they start going after ISPs that peer with the Russian ISP? "You must drop packets to/from this list of IP addresses or you are helping aid copyright violation"
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Here it is... there's a nice little search box on the site's main page.
Surprising the RIAA hasn't gone after the CD Database yet. I mean, my god; all those albums and songs and artists in one giant list, cut & paste-able without any restrictions or "click here to accept the license agreement" messages?? It's anarchy! Must be costing the recording industry many negative billions of dollars a year...
"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."
I just searched for "Irving Berlin" and "Cole Porter" and came back empty handed.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Another, related issue that I have been pondering since I posted this article on the longevity of MP3 to GeekPress is how much the music industry has contributed to the rise of Napster by not giving people other options. Currently, the music industry makes people pay exorbitant amounts for a block of music, even when the consumer only wants a single song. And if the CD sucks, too bad, you can't return it.
Napster isn't just about getting free music. It's about being able to acquire a single song at a time. It's about getting it in a format where it's easy to play 20 of your favorite songs. The music industry just hasn't been willing to provide these last two features. And the danger in that for the music industry, of course, is that people will continue to download songs from Napster and quickly get used to getting music for free.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News