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Napster Bans Metallica Fans
W00dDuCK noted that Napster has banned the 300,000 users that Metallica reported were pirating copyrighted music. Moments later, all 300,000 created new accounts.
This isn't over yet.
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The price of CDs are set entirely by demand. They charge as high as they think consumers can stand to pay. The costs on the supply side of the equation have nothing to do with the price because it is not a free market (there is no real competition).
As far as alternatives, I won't pirate, and I don't like the idea of buying and renewing a license to play the White Album and then getting the CD and any other format I want of it at cost. I like owning a piece of media with fair use. It would be interesting, though, to see how such a licensing system would affect these so-called "costs". Maybe we'd just pay a few dollars directly to the artists, who would pay their own studio/production costs, and there would be competition between web sites, CD manufacturers, and a guy down the street with a CD-burner to see who could distribute the actual bits for the lowest price.
"What I cannot create, I do not understand."
according to the audio home recording act, No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright [...] based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of [a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium] for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
so, by my interpretation, (and IANAL), I can copy metallica for personal use, as long as I store it on a DAT tape! I've already paid Metallica for it, when I paid the DAT tax on the tape.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I have recently looked into distributed file sharing systems and it seems that Freenet is an interesting form of distributed file sharing. However, I am unfamiliar with how Freenet is able to provide anonymity to users and how it can efficiently route information so as to make it difficult to determine where the information is stored in the first place.
Would it be possible to create something like Freenet where one can donate hard drive space or RAM to so that people can store data to be shared by others and also be searchable by users (unlike Freenet). To make it more difficult for any legal problems that may ensue, a person could post information in two parts: one part would be random data, the other part would be the actual data XORed with the random data. Each piece of the information would also have 2 hashes associated to it: one of itself so that users can search for it using a hash, and one for its counterpart so that users can find the other piece of the information. Since the information would most likely be in two different locations at once (we assume that users do not choose what is stored in their denoted drive space), then can anyone sue a user for having "random" data on their computers (if not, then this would protect the users contributing space yet not having a choice of what is in it)? When a user wants to retrieve information, the information could be encrypted using public/private keys and symmetric key encryption. The sender and receiver would send each other their public keys first. Then the sender would encrypt the information using a randomly generated symmetric key, encrypt the symmetric key with their private key and then with the receiver's public key. Then the encrypted key along with the encrypted information would be sent to the receiver. The other part of the information could be found by first retrieving the counter-hash of the data before the data is transmitted and having whatever client/server program is running find the counterpart of the information transparently. Any thoughts?
I'm saying that people deserve to be compensated for their work. I suspose that you won't mind putting all the farmers out of business by just replicating food. Who exactly is going to be paying to run this nifty little device. Or do you expect a money based economy to just disappear overnight? And what makes you think a device like that would end poverty? All that energy has to come from somewhere, and I'll bet it wouldn't be cheap.
--Ty
In the United States, the defendant does have to consent if the defendant is the government. They've gotten themselves a buttload of roads they can take to get out of a lawsuit.
Current moderation as of 3:43pm CST:
Offtopic=1, Troll=1, Funny=7, Overrated=1, Total=10
I personally feel motivated to comment that the (current) seven people who feel this is "Funny" should never again receive moderation points. I remember the "good old days", when +5 was a damn funny or insightful comment that always made me think or laugh. As opposed to this trolling drivel, which only generates the response "man I miss the old slashdot".
I can't wait for this one to show up in meta-mod. Karma be damned.
---------
Question: How do I leverage the power of the internet?
---------
There is no try at jedinite.com
No, I'm pretty sure that even here in the G.W.North redisributing music in MP3 format is considered re-distributing a recording not re-broadcasting. Besides the re-broadcast has to be done at the same time (within reasonable delays for satellite transmission etc) as the original broadcast.
check the work around by Cryptic at http://forum.napster.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002868.ht ml
Moderate this guy up. He's hit the nail on the head.
Bob
Hey i have a friend who got banned and when he tried to make a new username it gives him an error saying it cant register and when another friend tried to log in on his machine it told him that HE was banned by metallica.....i know its not my friends IP.... any ideas???
>>decrease Napster Inc's revenues.
What revenues? They give away their software and operate their servers for free without displaying advertising.
Damned if I know how they planned to make any money. With an IPO? "We have this product that we give away with no current way to make it profitable but please buy shares in us anyway."
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
Salon article for more on Napster's response and some FTC action re. CD prices.
Mambo dogface in the banana patch
Instead of paying Lars, why doesn't everyone on Napster just go ahead and rename all of their MP3s into Metallica - Filename.mp3 ? Or better yet, write a Visual Basic Script that does this for us and then attach it to an email for our Micro$oft Outlook friends? That would really cramp Metallica's "search and destroy" method.
--Evan
And that is NetPDs lawyers' problem.
bob
Not only would the 1% of inaccurate accusations be cause for the banned users to be in an uproar. But NetPD would need to find everybody sharing a Metallica, download it, and play it to make sure that people arn't sharing improperly named text files. For example, a term paper named "Metallica - Enter Sandman.mp3" would get me banned from Napster because I mistakenly named the files wrong. After all your Honor, I'm a computer neophyte. -BigToe
Well, I do own every record, but I was still breaking the law by having them available for others (who don't own them) to download.
Big radio is a waste of time; I won't even bother listening to commercial radio any longer. I live in the Boston area and we have a reasonable collection of college radio stations from BC, MIT, and Harvard. BC, under the call letters WZBC is the best college station I've ever heard... someone should arrange to netcast their "No Commercial Potential" program.
You must be near that Berkeley station that plays Negativland's weekly radio show... no?
> about once a month, so I guess I'm out of luck for a while.
Is this true? Are they banning IPs?
If so, guess how screwed all the people that get 'dirty' IPs are going to be!
why is everyone acting surprised at metallica being sell outs?? they sold out about 10 years ago. why did we love them so much? they were different. they were kind of anarchists. they were a real fan's band. remember when they said they would never make a video? remember when they said that all bands who made videos were selling out, and only in it for the money?? well, what the hell was up with "one"??? yes, they made a video. and followed it up with many more. looks like they realized that much more money could be made with videos, so it was a smart business move. look like now their business manager has lost his wits. how can you advertise and promote your music to 300,000 people for free??? dumb question. so, in closing, i say to hell with metallica. hope they go bankrupt. hope they are forced into retirement. i hate to tell everyone, but the internet and file sharing is big. real damn big. it cant be stopped. for every internet cop there are 100 hackers. its the only place where the people have the real authority.
I suppose I could have listed my favorite:
http://www.supersphere.com
Anyway I agree with most of what herbierobinson had to say (except from the yuppie and nosering bit).
I especially agree with the stuff about the majors paying a lot of money to make you want records by those major label artists. First they put up money for recording and an expensive producer (which the band has to pay back of course).
Next they put up money for promotion. Don't laugh this off. The system of music promotion is very very developed and quite tricky, but the main way they do business is the same way anybody else does it, by building relationships.
Mostly the promotions budget pays for perks and phone costs, although these things get pretty much intertwined.
Here's how it works:
The majors hire a bunch of college students for minimum wage internships. The interns (a surprising number of whom are attractive young women) spend there days calling radio programmers, DJ's, record store managers, and venues where their artists are booked. They have a quota of calls to make. Also when one of their artists is playing at a local venue they go there and put up a bunch of posters. So far any indi can do the same right, read on....
OK, so you have this room full of what amount to groupies who are very excited to be working with so and so A&R guy (who is maybe a couple of years older) and he comes in one day with a radio dj, or programmer, or record store guy, or whatever and says "Hey who wants to go to the [fill in the band] show, and dinner with me and my good friend blah blah blah..."
This (plus the coke... do a search on the name Joe Isgro...) is what keeps major label artists famous.
____________________________________
-- I beleve you'll like this -->
I'm sure a bunch of people have already checked this site out, but it made me crack up in the ultra-quiet computer lab at Marist College during finals week...fart. enough about me, go here if you have flash! ---- this .sig here until i think of something funny
Got Purple?
umm... Does it not work to create another user name and use that?
What the hell are you babbeling about? 5GB of music hardly sounds like a collection that you couldn't appreciate. Mine is 2GB, and thats only 550 some songs.
Now lets see here... Assume 10 tracks to a CD. This is a light estimate too, but just assume it for a second. Now you go and buy your 100 disk changer. Wow, 1000 songs, maybe 3.75GB of music there.
Does this mean that people that can fill 100 disc changers don't appreciate music? To hell with that thought. They love music. They're the people that buy $1000+ receivers. They're the people with transistor radios. They're... you get the point.
Granted though people with transistor radios wouldn't reduce themselves to mp3, there is a slight degradation of quality. Unless of course you rip your CDs at 330k or something ungodly like that, and who has the space on their HD for that? Still, at 128k there isn't that much degradation and with good speakers, a sound blaster live and a receiver of some quality the sound is good. You can definately still listen to and enjoy that music. I'm not complaining.
And maybe learn to listen to music, not just amass it...
Just because you have a large collection of music doesn't mean you don't appreciate it, or love the better songs in the playlist, or don't know the words to nearly each song. I can sing along with almost the entirety of my playlist.
Still, I haven't downloaded anything I don't have the rights to listen to. Of that large collection I have all the CDs. I don't want to buy a big changer when my computer suffices. Hell, I like being able to pick by song title and not try to remember CD number and then track number on top of that.
I personally don't care for Metallica. I have one tape, the self titled black one. After that I don't really think they put out more than 1 or 2 good songs. Who really cares if they're trying to prevent abuse of their copyright. You'd do the same. You'd be furious if people were stealing something you worked hard to do and you didn't want it distributed along channels which weren't controlled. They still suck, but they have a right to defend their copyright. This isn't really the best way to do it, but what really is the best way?
If not now, when?
Slashdot Moderator, please make this post known. I've found a way around the ban. If you can get your hands on an older version of Napster (I used 2.0), you may be able to create a new account. I hope I furthered the destruction of the Music Industry as we know it.
Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
-Scott Adams
So how did you sign up for the anonymous isp? Did you do it over the net? Did you call? If you did any of the above, then they could/ do have logs linking that so called anonymous account to a very real phone number/ ip number. Theirs a lovely little paper trail when you do most stuff, no matter how sneaky you are trying to be.
The prices that I remember was $12 in 1988. Looking again at the inflation calculator, this tells us that cd's today should cost: $17, and look at that, they do.
So what do we learn from this:
here's the kicker, and I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but the weekend in question that NetPD claims to have gathered data on napster users, I WAS ON VACATION, WITH MY COMPUTER POWERED OFF!!!
Go Figure.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
'Tis true. still learnin' how to use this thing. hehehe.
Thanks!
maybe they can...they do own their own original recordings
I agree that the Connells were good; I even have one of their albums. But did anybody outside of North Carolina ever even hear of them? They were sort of a local band, Ralaigh if I remember correctly.
I know who they are because I lived in NC for about a year in the early part of the 90's, but I've never heard anything of theirs any place else.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
And I'm not against the band's actions right now. Yes, it may be some crazed-lawyer's prompting making them do this, but by the word of the current law, and the contracts that Metallica, et al. are operating, the wonton wholescale distribution of their copyrighted, studio-produced tracks is wrong. Not to say that I've never downloaded a Metallica studio track that I didn't own on CD at the time, but I'm also not going to be in the ranks boycotting them. That's just plain silly.
get real you moron...who the hell is gonna grab MP3's on an acoustic coupler at a payphone....
They must have been som real fans if they were pirating Metallica mp3s. They respect Metallica so much that they were willing to rip them off.
Do you need Napster to function correctly? This guy needed that marijuana, and I agree that the decision to take it from him was bad. But it shows you what courts are willing to do. If the courts shut down Napster, the people who fight for its return won't have much of an argument. If you can tell me one thing that Napster provides that cannot be done by anything else, and that you absolutely must have, then you do have an argument.
Hey, there is a good CNET article on ithere.
kwsNI
Once the pendora box of technology has been open, there's no way to close it back. Of course ignorant people (especially lawyers and entertainement executives) will never understand that. Too bad for them...
(first post ?)
Napster : Metallica say you are trading in stolen property. We're closing your account
You : You bastards! That's libel*! I only trade in free mp3s from my own group Spametallicarr! I'm going to sue!
(* or is it slander? I forget)
ik vindt metallica een stelletje vuige lamme apen die op het zelfde trapstukje staan als de phlubby gnoom van trepaan!
I have an alter-ego at Red Dwarf. Don't remind me that coward.
This will truely be a never ending story. Yes, Information wants to be free, but people also want's to survive. It's easy to say that one want other works to be free, but when it comes to one's own work, they want gazillion's in payment.
It's indeed a strange world.
How did they key in all 60000 pages so fast
I want to hire that data entry clerk
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Tonight, I am going to execute my legal rights and perform and record several parody songs set to Metallica's music, as well as some original songs with the word "Metallica" in the title. Titles that come to mind: "The Ballad of Napster versus the Metallica Boys", "Metallica my Eye" (Cheech & Chong reference there), and simply "Metallica" (Hey, Nerf Herder released a song titled "Van Halen").
I will also record myself (as a good American Citizen) reciting the Pledge of Alliegance, which I will record under the title of it's last line ("And Justice for All"). I'll also give my views on the incomparable Jim Henson, titling it "Master of Puppets".
Now, I see the obvious flaw here, but I don't give a damn. We built the damn internet for ourselves (I was on Telenet in the early 80s, long before the web), and we're the smart ones. I'm not in support of using Napster for piracy, but I've owned *three* copies of "And Justice for All" on CD, and lost or scratched every one. I don't like most of their albums, but I've paid my buck to Lars, and I want my songs. I'd even be willing to pay a nominal "replacement fee".
Screw 'em. When kibo was doing his thing, he was one of us. When Echelon was doing it, it was at least passive, and (in their pov) helpful. Now the Lawyers are doing it, it's an attack on our future, on the vision held by those who understand information at an intuitive level... I'm pretty damn sure that Metallica didn't start this - that they were approached by the lawyer.
Mebbie it's time for some 60's ethics to come back - fight for your vision of what should be. We all cry "Contact the ACLU" or "Contact the EFF" (Which was started by a 60's child), but we're not doing much to defend ourselves.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Eep, sorry about the length of time it took to reply. Didn't realize you responded until today :) Well, I'm from South Africa. The Connells had airplay on radio stations here in the early and mid 90s, in fact one of their songs, 74-75, is still playing. That's how I heard of them. They never toured here or anything.
no sig
Trent Reznor is a musician of modest talent, but a great marketing man. NIN's real innovation is to take industrial out of the fringes and make it more marketable to angst-ridden teenagers. If you listen to any song from Pretty Hate Machine, you will notice that they are structurally more similar to catchy pop songs than obscure industrial pieces.
The only time one finds any innovative or experimental elements in NIN is in the absolute minimum quantities to get cred from the pretentious goth crowd who wish to put themselves above the Marilyn Manson crowd. (It's no coincidence that Manson, who successfully commercialised the goth genre and injected new life into Anton LaVey's failing Nietzche/Ayn Rand rip-off Church of Satan, was all but created by Trent Reznor.)
Witness the Perfect Drug video. There Reznor does his best Andrew Eldritch impression in backdrops inspired by Edwaed Gorey's drawings, both in attempts to cater to the "sophisticated goth" demographic. Pity that his songs haven't progressed beyond recycled teen angst,
Actually, when CD's first arrived in the USA in the spring of 1983, discs were priced at around US$18 to US$20 per disk. The price dropped to around US$15 to US$17 by 1985 when more production plants went online, and has stayed there more or less since. By conventional forces of economics, the price of an album-length CD should have dropped to US$8-$9 by 1990, because by 1990 there was enough CD pressing plants to more than keep up with demand and then some.
For some reason, the RIAA and its member companies bamboozled the American public into keeping the high prices; small wonder why the FTC did its investigation on possible price-fixing.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
That single least musical bunch of morons your 'god' ever created, that you are referring to had talent far outweighing your ability to write an insulting and offensive post.
Peter.
four words: stiff upper fucking lip
-- the most controversial site on the Web
NIN produces songs that give a view into human pain, suffering, and anger like no music before it.
s/pain, suffering, and anger/mewling, self-indulgent teen angst/
"I hate my parents! Nobody understands me! I don't want to clean up my room! It's *so* unfaaaaair!!!"
I actually found a back door into Napster. I tried creating several new accounts, but it looks like they've blocked my IP. I was about to give up on Napster, then I remembered that I've got NapAmp installed.
Using the same old banned username, I'm able to search for and download music, including Metallica.
I wish I could see their faces when their next album is released and they have a guaranteed 300,000 fewer sales. Seeing as how a million albums sold is a success, a 30% decrease is going to hurt them much more than an occasional .mp3 here and there.
For anyone who knows a bit about microeconomics, the issue here is that because the big music companies that are RIAA members are in effect running a price-fixing cartel, prices remain artificially high. This unfortunately results in lots of incentives to cheat, as witnessed by the rapid growth of using .MP3 files to exchange music and the use of Napster. It's that incentive to cheat that nearly did in OPEC in the middle 1980's, because supporting US$34/barrel of oil was totally unsustainable.
;-)
In fact we can apply this same analogy to operating systems. Microsoft charges around US$85 per copy of the OEM edition of Windows 98 Second Edition; there is MUCH incentive to get something far cheaper, hence the rise of Linux with its pricing of around US$30 for the desktop commercial distributions down to zero if you just want the CD alone.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Get a fucking clue. The Black album is one of the top 5 selling albums of all time, and Load/Reload have all sold over 5 million copies...
-Stu
Having your name tarnished in the eyes of a private company is most certainly damage if you didn't do anything wrong. This is assuming you did something stupid like use your real name and email address when you filled out your napster account.
Why on EARTH do you dislike the Beatles?
Have you bothered to listened to all of the Beatles' original English releases (like I have)? From MEET THE BEATLES to LET IT BE, the Beatles single-handedly redefined the entire genre of rock music and greatly extended its artistic limits.
Their three best albums--SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, REVOLVER and ABBEY ROAD--show an incredible, astonishing range of music that most of today's music acts can't even come CLOSE to matching. I mean, look at "A Day In the Life" from SGT. PEPPER; they masterfully combined what amounted to two incomplete songs into one of the greatest popular songs EVER made.
It is my personal opinion that at the end of the 21st Century, people will still consider the Beatles the musical geniuses of the 20th Century.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
>Everyone that actively trades mp3s ALL trade
.mp3 suffix. This makes the search a bit more difficult than a simple "ls -r *.mp3"
.... looks like a good tautology to me.
>some illegal ones along with the legal ones.
I assume, from your accusation therefore, that you have, at some point in the near past:
1)
Hacked into every computer I own which contains ANY MP3 files.
2)
Cataloged my MP3s by song title & artist... keeping in mind that on the Mac and the Linux box, they don't have that convinent
3)
Broken into my home, my car, and my rented storage locker so as to:
4)
Taken a complete inventory of EVERY CD, Tape, and record I own.
6)
Obtained a complete list of ALL of the music purchases I've made in my whole life, so as to allow for the CDs, tapes, and records I've lost or had stolen over the years.
7)
Correlated the data from steps 2, 4, & 6 to determine that I am in possetion of MP3s for which I have never purchased original media.
8)
Done all of the above for EVERYONE who has MP3s
If not, you are wrongfully accusing a LOT of people, and are a complete idiot... or possibly just another rathar pathaetic AC troll. Hmm... idiot == AC == Troll
If you have done 1-7, you are quite a superhuman individual. Oh, and you are also a criminal. Many of the tasks you would have had to perform to determine that I posses or trade illegal MP3s are quite illegal in of themselves.... Care to share your real name so I can forward it to the proper authorities?
john
Imagine all the people...
You all shouldn't be mad at anyone for this, afterall, what we have done IS against the law. I do use napster, and I, like everybody else, is shielded by shear strength in numbers. Napster is shielded by pretty much nothing. Remember, they are in a heavy lawsuit, and they are going to do whatever they can in order to win it. Banning users is a way of expressing that they are trying to remove illegal files. The way the law is written, napster is responsible if they are neglegent, and ignore problems as they come up. If they remove those users, they are a step closer to winning the lawsuit. :)
Also, why should anyone be mad at Metallica? This whole thing isn't about money (At least I don't think so). It's about people getting away with things that they souldn't. Metallica is standing up for the entire Industry just as we are all standing up for napster. You have to put yourself in their shoes.
The ban has noting to do with the software on your computer. Every single file size is the same as people who aren't banned. Our registry keys are the same. I even erased napster from the registry, created new user, and it still detected me as being banned. Download Napigator, and connect to another napster server. You can get Napigator at www.download.com. When connecting to another server, I got on fine, and when I switched back to a server run by napster, no luck. I cannot easilly reconfigure my IP, so I don't know if that's what they check for. What else is there to check for that is changeable? I have done everything except swap network cards, but, I doubt the ban would go that deep. Nobody has to worry, MP3s are alive and kicking. Either us napigator to connect to a different napster server, or use gnutella, which I think is better than Napter. You can get this at www.zeropaid.com. There are a comparable number of MP3s there, and it works great. I agree with trying to get back onto napster run servers, but it ticks me off when people say something like "Metallica Sucks", when they don't. The reason people say it is that they stole some of their songs and got caught. When you do something that's wrong, you just HAVE to understand a few things. You won't be able to do it forever (At least probabaly not). It is not an entitled right for you to do it. Assume Murphy's law that says that Everyting that can go wrong will. It is up to you, the user, to deal with it. BTW - When Metallica's next album comes out, I'll be the first one with the MP3s
Today is the closing of a parenthesis opened before this sig, before this story, before this existence that is me (as if
Whether it's the Sex Pistols or the Who, this ugly, awful act keeps the tasteless separated from their dollars and keeps geezers who should of been 'thought' out into the cornfield long ago, in piles of green. By foisting this act of betrayal through Napster, we can only hope that Metallica will open the eyes of their fans to how lame, greedy and truly stupid this band is. Hopefully they will die bitter, alcoholic deaths, old and alone in the gutters after their royalty checks have dried up from their once fans disinterest.
A little harsh maybe, but when people fuck with the freedom of others, especially those who supported them, they deserve the worst. To bring Napster under even more heat, also qualifies them for a big Roman "Thumbs Down" in my book.
"We're the hardest working band in the business, I don't care if we're the best!"-Iggy Pop.
Hey, you think your house is cool?
Ok, under copyright law I am allow to make a copy of any copyrighted material I own for my personal use...Right? I can make a copy of the cd for safe keeping... So I can therefor download a copy of a song off the cd for my personal use, Right? How is this any diffent then making a tape copy of a CD to listen to in the car? What if I no longer care for an artist... can I give away my right to someone else to listen to the music? I don't see how this is any different then a used record store...I wonder how much some of the larger used record shops make off of Metalica?
same happened to me on win2K
hows about ninetynine, light's surprising constancy, little general, bluetile lounge, dirty three, paradise motel, art of fighting, 2 litre dolby, sweet william, pretty boy crossover, silvermine tapes, sounds like sunset, still, muaki sake, sea scouts, sandro, hungry ghosts, et etc.
the list is small and selective by my afternoon rising head. it is the close minds which lose, in the end. and the metallica kids can just go and tape their big brothers albums, or better yet, dismiss any thought of listening to metallica again..get their ears around something quality ?
perhaps try wading through the list at: [http://www.scrapbook.melb.net/bands.php3]
I tryed making a new account but it didnt work i cleaned out my comp of napster stuff and even checked the registry and cleaned that too and then i reconnected to the net to change my IP and tryed to make a new account after reisnalling napster and it still didnt work i got the same damn metallica thing
if this happened, all you have to do is to download napigator and use the opennap and mynapster servers.
i'm boycotting metallica as a matter of fact. i got an yahoo! club in regards to this and it has been recognized by the official Boycott Metallica site
tips to boycott:
refuse to offer or download metallica songs on opennap and mynapster servers
refuse to buy the $65 ticket to the metallica concert
sell all your metallica cd's
turn radio off when they play metallica song
refuse to buy metallica products
Ok, now this is really wierd... I logged in on a different machine behind the firewall (same IP) with a different username and it worked! So somehow after removing napster, and reinstalling it it still knows my machine was the one that was banned. I searched the registry for something hidden, but couldn't come up with anything.
I can still use it on a different machine with the same IP. Wierd..
Same happened here when I tried to create a new account, _but_ another computer on my network (behind firewall... same IP) still worked! I'm thinking it either places some kind of flag in your registry, or it takes some data from your machine to distinguish that particular machine from another. Probably the former.. Blizzard was sued for something similar to the latter, where they not?
I found this on the napster forum (groundzero) on their home page : use and have fun (by the way I'm going to be interviewd by a local portal tommorrow about beein banned from napster ) 1. You'll probably need to create a new account, so click on Start, Run, type in regedit. 2. Navigate to this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\Napster. On the right side of the window after you click on the Napster folder, delete the key that says "CurrentUser". Also delete any folders below the Napster folder. (i.e. click on the plus sign and remove all those folders that have usernames.) 3. Now do a search (ctl-f) for these things one at a time: 35D38C13-1434-AB7E-003483943341AA A1AD8C13-1383-5343-DCC38E43FF0AAE CAD8C813-1F34-1B3E-00CEAE43FF0AAD Delete every instance that you find of these keys. Hit F3 to continue searching. There are about 3 or 4 instances of each of these keys. 4. Reboot your system. (just in case.) This procedure worked great for me, and I hope it works on other systems as well. Hope this resolves the problem of people unable to use Napster
It's they're company, they can do what they want.
When I have friends over, I tell them not to drink my beer. That doesn't mean I can't have any.
That should've been "their", not "they're". Dang I'm tired. ;)
nope... doesn't work... i've tried. i think it has something to do with an ip/username ban. i've tried signing up for different usernames AND disconnecting and reconnecting (dialup, dyanmic ip address) in combination, but it doesn't work. the only logical thing i can think of is that they banned my isp's subnet/domain, HOWEVER, i have a local friend on the same ISP, and he isn't banned at all. What's going on here? How does a person reconnect up to Napster?
If I had something more interesting for a signature, this is where it would be.
There is all this talk about how screwed artists are nowdays because just getting a label to sign them is so hard that they'll sign anything, and most labels use roughly the same crappy legal agreements, screwing over the artists.
There is one thing that the labels can NOT currently ask them to sign over, and that is the rights "in perpetuity" (where perpetuity means as long as copyrights are valid, which is what, 90 years?). As I read it currently an artist can get back the rights to his work when the work comes up for 'renewal' of the copyright, which is after the first (28, 32?) years.
So currently if you're an artist and you make a deal with the devil to go big, there are limits to what the labels can demand in the contract. This is one of those natural limits. They aren't guaranteed the copyright in perpetuity.
Works for hire do NOT come up for the same kind of copyright renewal which means that in effect labels would now be allowed to demand the rights in perpetuity.
Yes yes, if an artist is stupid enough to sign away this much rights then they deserve it.
HOWEVER, we as a society make it illegal for a person to sign away certain rights, due to the potential repercussions due to abuses. You can not sign away your fundamental freedoms. You can NOT consent to be physically assaulted.
Labels have so much power that allowing them to demand rights in perpetuity would give them a potential goldmine at the expense of the artists, who would get nearly nothing extra. Do you really think the labels are going to give artists a fair deal in exchange for that 'in perpetuity' (aka work for hire) clause?
No way in hell. You can bet your ass that Elvis (ok, a rich example, but a good one) would have been given a pittance for the 'extra' future rights signed over, and his family would have been left with a lot less, in perpetuity.
I beleive you are correct about DMCA. Also, they might be able to do more than sue: They might be able to file criminal charges. The EU is stricter on intellectual property protection than the US. They have a concept of author's rights and there is no such thing as fair use in the EU.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Well I donh't know about perjury (after all they didn't testify in court), but I know that the ARE open to a lawsuit for slander. The game has become just a little more intresting. Well, as it stands, this will change the face of the music, regardless of win or lose on the lawsuit.
he who doesn't change and adapt, will soon fade from this world we known so well.
Well ladies and gentleman, assuming that such an endanger species somehow made it into this discussion......
Same here... W2K, and I can't get it to let me sign up for a new account (well, it lets me sign up, but still bans me).. I'm on a dynamic IP, so it's not the IP (unless they banned my whole ISP's subnet, which is unlikely, since I have local friends on the same ISP that can connect fine). Anyone who has any luck, please post it.
If I had something more interesting for a signature, this is where it would be.
listen, I know that I could get yelled for this but lets face it. as a band, METALLICA ROCKS, it is one of the best bands out there, they've been out for so long and created such good music that nobody has the right to just start hating it because of what they're doing with napster. I have every metallica cd, I have their posters, I keep track of what they do and go to their concerts. lets face it, we all enjoy music, and if you love/like metallica there is no reason to stop. you do have the right to be pissed off at the actual group for being stupid about this, but can you really blame them? you hear about this every day with other companies. Now put yourself in their position. there is this program where anybody in the world can get their songs for free. now to them this is illegal, they worked hard for their music and in their eyes what we are all doing is wrong. I of course, a college student think very differently. MY PHILOSOPHY IS THIS: I'm a college student, I have NO $ ==>> if I can get something for free I will, now whether it's a microsoft product or mp3's, to me, it doesn't matter because I'm poor and I can justify it by saying that when I'm at work, the job will have to buy the microsoft products because I know how to use them, so in the long run they still get "my" $. but getting back to metallica. if you LOVE 'EM, keep loving 'em, because those who love metallica who that the music is great, ENJOY...
P.S. to anyone who figured out how to get back into napster please tell me, tried reinstalling, deleting the files, didn't work, thanks
Master troll, my good friend. :) Its so rare to see a troll that is so flagrant and yet still so effective; many props to you. Good point about the Beatles, too; I've rather sickened of that tripe throughout the years. People seem to use Pink Floyd as the litmus test for acid tripping, but with weird crap about yellow submarines, a chick named Lucy and that godawful walrus koo koo kachoo crap... Bleh. Good job. :)
Deosyne
They just created new accounts? How did they do that if they were kicked off?
They must be Hackers or something.
Who would have ever seen something like this coming. Woe is me. Can't wait to hear more.
------
"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
When I log into Napster, it says, quite clearly:
"NO BOTS ARE ALLOWED ON THIS SERVICE. IF YOU RUN ONE HERE, IT WILL BE BLOCKED AND YOUR IP WILL BE PERMANENTLY BANNED"
So will Napster be blocking NetPD's bots?
Another point. If I, as a British Citizen, were banned, how would the DMCA apply to me ? If the transaction took place between myself and a person in Germany why is a US rule being applied ?
The same way in which US law has been applied to people in Canada, Sweden and Norway (possibly now the Phiilipines as well). Would be far more fun to have EU law applied against an American rock band though (especially if it was done just after they'd arranged a European tour.) US courts don't recognise the existance of international borders, as has been proven time and time again.
This is absolutely not ridiculous. Napster's move is one that manages to please the 'Media-Suits-RIAA-Metallica' bad guys while anyone who actually USES Napster knows all you need to do is recreate an account. Napster isn't out to get rid of all their users, on the contrary, they are most likely doing everything they can to keep every single user pleased with the product.
Napster is a great piece of software, unfortunately, they get the unfortunate role of being a focal point in a war between new technology/the users/musicians associated with it and the old technology/the corporations/musicians associated with it (the old technology).
Napster has managed to delay a bit of the pressure exerted on them. If we boycott Napster, what we get is a company that slowly and surely shrinks and disappears, and sets a precedent in the courts (since they all have Napster dead square in their sights), and eventually.. well, I won't jump to conclusions, but let's just say that it's in our best interests to side with Napster.
An mp3 can be copied any number of times with no loss of quality. Third generation bootleg tapes sound awful. The effort to copy an mp3 for someone else is negligible whereas dubbing an album to tape takes time and care.
With mp3 it is no trouble to copy the song for millions of people you don't know. Therefore the damage to the artist's sales is potentially much greater.
If the artists lose $5 a week to tape trading and $50000 to mp3s, does that count as a difference?
+++++
+++++
The harder you look the less you see. That's what we're up against.
, Metallica has just pissed off 300,000+ fans. Think those people will EVER buy a Metallica CD now.
Well, if they were using Napster, they probably weren't going to buy the CD anyway.
Whats the harm in pissing off a non-customer?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
So all the bad little Napster users that downloaded Metallica MP3s had
their accounts killed. Of course this didn't fix the problem, nor did it
even help remedy it.
While I don't like Napster, this isn't the way to go.
You want to stop Napster? You have to shut them down completely.
Heck that won't even stop the problem: Gnutella and Hotline and every
other $WAREZ_TRADING_SOFTWARE will still be out there.
What needs to be addressed is the cause. I suddenly have this image
(gods I'm a geek) of Leia standing in front of Grand Moff Tarkin telling
him, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more MP3s will
slip through your fingers."
Something needs to be done about the reason people go after MP3s
(collecting, its a counterculture/rebellion thing, they're thieves, they're
fed up with the low quality of the music industry, the industry rips
everyone off--artists and customers).
Banning 300K users from Napster is just like the trying to stop an
avalanche. You can't do it just by standing in the way.
--Ruhk
--
404 Error:
I don't fail to understand anything, I just choose to ignore it..
I'm not saying metallica shouldn't get paid. but they only get $1 for a $15 CD. I've bought all of the metallica albums with hard cash (about £150 ($150) worth - funny how the exchange rate doesn't apply when it comes to CD's.. ). If I could buy and download a metallica album in mp3 format for less than $5 (which is surely enough - no distribution,no packaging,no local advertising) then I would. so how about it record companies?
Thought not.
Sure, you could own Metallica CDs, and you could rip MP3s from the, and more than likley, no one would bitch (though at this point, it's hard telling). The problem is NOT that you HAVE Metallica MP3s. It's that you have them in your SHARED Napster music folder, henceforth making them available to people who DIDN'T buy the CDs. Someone mentioned buying some Limp Biskit even if you don't like them. I think this is a great idea. I, for one, am going to go buy a CD I would never have bought, just to make a political statment. The record industry won't know or care, but I'll sure feel good about it!
----------
Jeff Croft
http://jeffcroft.com
http://industrystandard.org
http://newbeetle.org
----------
Jeff Croft
http://jeffcroft.com
They obviously don't want you as a fan.
Really? Why do they say Metallica concert bootlegs are okay to trade via Napster?
They want people as fans, but they don't want people stealing from them. That's what this is about. Period.
Of course Limp Bizkit doesn't mind, Napster is paying them off.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
All depends on the elasticity of CD pricing. I believe it goes a little something like this. A price inelastic commodity, people buy it no matter what the price. So lowering the price wouldn't increase sales that much. I believe the argument is, and I agree with it, CD prices are elastic. If you drop the price by 50%, sales will go up by more than 100%. Unfortunately, that only discusses the end pricing schema.
If I sell something for $10 that costs $1 to make, I profit $9. If I sell it for $5, I only make $4. Therefore, if I cut my price to $5, I need to sell 9/4 as many widgets as I was before to make the same amount of money.
I'm not sure CD pricing is that elastic. Maybe someone should go ask mp3.com. Their model of DAM CDs is intriguing because it removes a number of those pesky middlemen that the RIAA employs. Artists get more money; consumers get less expensive CDs. As far as I can tell, everyone good wins. Only the RIAA loses. That's a shame.
I guess I agree with your conclusion: record companies (including the `religious' labels) are a bunch of greedy bastards.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
It's the people offering Metallica tracks for download that are the main problem, not the downloaders. They are also much easier to find.
Jeff
stty erase ^H
Here in Saskatchewan, we recently had a case where a man who was growing medicinal marijuana had it taken away from him even though he absolutely needed it to function. He couldn't even walk without it, yet it was still confiscated because it was illegal. Now, this might not be a perfect case, but don't think that because Napster has legitimate uses that it automatically becomes okay.
It is in Nederlands ( = Dutch, official language of The Netherlands), but so nonsensical that I will not even bother to translate. I do agree with the general direction of his opinion though, which is that he does not like Metallica very much.
You've made a better argument for decriminalizing marijuana and assault rifles than you have for criminalizaing Napster.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
The recording industry argue that the prices reflect the work they do in finding and promoting "artists". This does not wash when instead they push formulaeic ditties via pretty teenagers, and enforce playlists on radio stations. If the extra cash goes into this, then rebellion is timely.
Before everyone starts saying things like: "There's a whole bunch of legal mp3s on napster", I'd like to say this: face it, Napster's purpose is trading mp3s illegally, there is no other legitatamate use.
Erm... didn't you just describe Napster's legitimate use? Trading legal MP3s?
As I type this, I just heard that a federal judge ruled against several music marketing and manufacturing firms for illegally inflating the price of CD's in the US and around the world for the past five years. I think the explosion of mp3 trading is a very loud message to the powers-that-be that people are sick and tired of paying over-valued prices for music and being force fed what to buy. I don't place $15-$20 US value on a CD. I would be willing to pay $5 or a reasonable amount per song. I want the choice to purchase custom remixes and indivual songs and burn them to any medium and use any format. I set the value of the product (that would be demand-sided economics, kiddies), not the producers (they can argue it is a limited supply product...but there are THOUSANDS of good bands out there that could be heard if not for the expensive process of traditional promotion). I own the medium that contains the copyrighted work and I can determine what that medium is (by the Digital Copyright Act). If I want to make mp3's of my CD's, I can (I MAY be required to get rid of my CD's, but there is a good legal argument against). The other part of this argument is distribution. There is not a single radio station available in my area that promotes the music I enjoy. Only markets like NYC or LA have my music. Am I to be force fed music I don't want or denied access to new bands I would never know of? The bottom line is that this lawsuit is not about copyright, it is about the fight for distribution and control rights. No one has a problem with paying a fairly valuated price to an artist, but paying for promoters, advertisers, marketers, and all the other BS that goes along with corporate sanctioned entertainment is a problem. Artists unite...if you record, we will pay for it. Tell all the promoters and lawyers to kiss off. Poor Metallica, you just don't get it. I can't believe you guys are being chumps like this.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
In related news, annoyed Metallica fans constructed a stake and immolated drummer Lars Ulrich in effigy in hope to "deter other super-rich, self-righteous, watered down pop bands from abusing their popularity."
"They deserve this", says Metallica fan Gunter Heindeman. "I mean, I have Ride The Lightning and Kill Em All on record and I have no way to burn them into mp3 format. How the fuck else can I listen to them, now that my turntable is broken?"
Metallica's lawyers were not impressed. "Metallica demands that all record owners who want to have mp3s buy the compact disk. If the listener wants to make his/her own copies of the music for his/her own use, that's just fine, but Metallica will not tolerate opportunists trying to profit from their hard work and arti < segmentation fault in module pre_recorded_drivel.exe>
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
Intent and compelling state interests have an impact.
Cars, for instance, maybe be used to maim and kill quite successfully. However, most folk do not intend that with their cars, and they were never designed with this purpose in mind.
However, if you design a pipe bomb and use it as a paperweight, that does not make its possession OK. In this case, pipe bombs generally are designed solely for maiming, and not in the case of self-defense, either.
Likewise, there's a pretty compelling state interest in denying private citizens nuclear missiles, even if they could be retrofitted with, say, bird houses.
Napster seems to be reasonably *trying* to crack down on illegitmate use (intent), and there's no real national-security or other massively compelling interest in banning it outright.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
i am using windows, and the new beta 6 of napster. i have tried uninstalling it...running regclean, and reinstalling it, but it still has my "banned" username greyed out.??????
If you go to the link, you'll see that Metallica specifically exempted trading 'bootlegs' recorded at concerts. That means they ARE letting people trade .mp3s of stuff they recorded at concerts.
If you would read articles about this subject on anything other than slashdot, you would also know that the only reason Metallica cracked down in the first place was becuase people were trading studio masters of songs BEFORE THEY WERE RELEASED. This was even before the promo copies or a came out.
So please stop saying "but I own all the CD's" Even if you do, try this:
1) Put CD in CD-ROM Drive
2) Run MP3 Program
wasn't too hard, was it?
- My password is slashdot
Perhaps it was a good way to clear out some dead accounts and such. It just took the Metallica deal to give 'em enough room to do it.
You started out plausible, but when you got to the Beatles you lost all credibility
So we turn to freenet. The government see this. Then what ? They ask the isps to run special monitoring software to sniff out these nodes and shut them down. (maybe a bit extreme, but never underestimate the government).
Other point is how many people have 24x7 net access that allows you to run servers like this without much additional cost. Sure 24x7 is common now, but often the ISP will run a port scanner to check you are not running a server or something
I dunno, I don't believe the government(s) can stop the net, but they certainley can control it.
Rebellion , yeah way to go, I'm all behind it.I'll be going home tonight to stick freenet on my box at home, cos I just got a cable modem!
You are right, when something is killed something better comes along and we have a continuing battle of good vs evil.
Personally I think it comes down to society and what the people want. Maybe in 30 years, a geek will run for president in the US and be elected.
That would be cool.
But I just think that some people live in a make believe internet world, and ignore the REAL world.
Alanp
Why would I pay good money for bands I can't stand? How exactly can that be considered "not buying Metallica"?
I have a better idea, I'll take the money I wasn't using anyway on Metallica and buy that good book, or a pizza, or whatever I had planned to do anyway in the first place. Seriously, how much Metallica is being bought right now?
I'm not even going to start with all the reasons why it is good that I am not allowed to freely copy and distribute any music that I buy.
--
dman123 forever!
--
dman123 forever!
Filtering out the -1s and 0s since 1999.
Just as many metallica songs as before. So bravo, Lars Inc. You've angered your fans, shown your true colors and failed to stop the trading of your material. You really showed them.
come for the naked robots, stay for the zombies
Actually, the picture is a lot more complicated than that.
If I produce something that costs $1, and I ship it out the door immediately, and my customer receives it, and pays $10 plus shipping, then I profit $9. If I produce something that costs $1, and I store it in a warehouse for three months, and I pay for an inventory control system to keep track of it, and, and, and...then I quickly eat up my profit. Needless to say, the latter is a more realistic model of a business that sells atoms.
Ironically, if the RIAA could get a vig on each mp3 that was traded, they'd make a lot more money, because it is much cheaper to store bits than it is to store atoms. This is why I'm startled by the MP3.com case -- the RIAA members could make a lot of money by supporting a "free" ad-supported site that doled out MP3's for a nominal charge while paying a small royalty.
But nobody has ever said that the recording labels were smart, merely right. Obviously, they aren't smart...
In other words, what these fans did would seem to be illegal if and only if they did not own a legal copy of the media. I just remembered something from the CNN story this morning: apparently, according to Metallica `the straw that broke the camel's back' was that their newest song, which has not even been released on CD yet, was being pirated. Possible, the reason it broke the camel's back was that it was impossible for anyone to own a licensed copy of that song yet since they weren't selling it.
Possibly, this ruling is not as far reaching as we are being led to believe.
Am I missing something? Any lawyers out there (Hawk, you're the man)?
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
Quoth the poster:
Sure they do, they just want you as a legal, non-pirating user.
You can't be serious. Stand in front of a mirror and say, with a straight face, "Napster wants to kick all music pirates of their service."
Yeah, that's what I thought.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Aside from the 97% of the sale price which the artist doesn't get, I don't think your argument shows that abolishing copyright law would make the music scene shrink. Most web site authors don't make a living by writing web sites, but there's still millions of them. If people tried to charge me 10p/20 cents per page then I would never use the web. 99% of musicians have always been amateur. Abolishing copyright would break up the publishing cartel so that these amateurs might have more chance of recognition.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
>Given that the duplication cost per CD is
>measured at about 35-50 US cents (that's
>including packaging), something tells me that
>the Recording Industry Association of America
>(RIAA) and its member companies may be
>conspiring in a price-fixing scheme to keep
>prices high. I mean, just how many middlemen
>are we paying in order to get the price of a
>CD to US$13 to US$17 per disk?
What's even more amazing is that as prices have gone down on CD production, prices have gone up on CDs. Current prices are the same or higher levels as they were when they were introduced in the early '80s.
I think the worst part is that the MP3 crowd is trying to stand on the leg that copying *should* be legal. It really can't, and allow smaller artists to keep earning a living - most artists earn less than the poverty level when working as an artist full-time already.
But costs for CDs and for songs should drop as the elimination of the middlemen & distribution costs occur, and they're not. And MP3s can allow for a broader, more healthy range of artists to be heard, allowing equal access for all artist to the same distribution methods - which rarely occurs with the current "label-radio station-record store" system.
Whatever you do... don't read this.
Ever heard of civil disobedience?
I thought perjury only applied to testimony taken under oath - even if the DMCA is making these allegations incorrectly, they're probably only open to a class action suit (which would probably be more effective anyway).
At the same time, Best Buy and any other Brick and Mortar retailer makes their CD's available for me to steal. Along with Napster, because the opportunity is there does not mean people take advantage of it.
But at Best Buy and others, you have a way to legally purchase the music, i.e. the register. They also take steps to ensure that you do not simply walk out with the CD (security, those annoying plastics tabs, etc). Napster offers no means to leagally purchase music through their software, and has no way to verify if you are downloading the song legally (you already own a copy of the CD) or not.
Also, the CD's that Best Buy has on their shelves were purchased by Best Buy from a music distributor, and Best Buy is simply reselling the CD to you, offering it's services as a retailer. If you download a song/CD from a Napster user, chances are they didn't pay anyone for the right to redistribute the music to others.
I (ahem) hear an Athlon 600 and gogo can rip an entire CD in about 10 to 15 minutes. That's what I would do um if such activities weren't technically illegal in the US (Due to the Frauhauf MP3 patent.) Maybe you should use an unencumbered music compression format...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Working for the (other) man
It's just not the artificially high prices that piss me off, but the fact that artists get a *very* small percentage of those prices. I'm quite willing to give my money to artists that I like, but I'm not very keen on helping make middlemen rich.
a) Walk into HMV and fill a basket full of CDs
b) Walk up to cash register with said basket and assault rifle.
c) Point rifle at clerk and say "I'm not going to pay for these CDs"
d) Walk right out the front door.
It would be better to ask for cash, but I'm trying to stay on topic.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Legal trouble for what? Last I heard, there was no "right to a Napster account". What's next? Law suits against Slashdot for articles that got moderated down? Law suits against IRC servers that unfairly banned an entire range of IP addresses? If Napster decided to delete every user account with exactly 4 vowels, that's their perrogative. It's a free service and if you don't like it, you can have an instant refund on your membership fee.
Under the section. "Why do CD's cost so much?"
...For example, the most significant cost of a CD today is the marketing and promotion of that music. To learn more about why CDs are a great value -- check out Cost of a CD.
I, for one, am tired of paying for marketing. Why am I paying for someone to tell me what I like?
Oh, BTW, their closing argument for this defense.
By all measures, when you consider how long people have the music and how often they can go back and get "re-entertained" CDs truly are an incredible value for the money.
Thanks for your opinion, RIAA, now I'll go form my own.
--
+&x
evil pete: See my reply to the comment about me 'failing to understand'. Basically I think prices are over-inflated by record companies and they must facilitate the cheap distribution of mp3 or they're income will suffer. if they provide cheap (download only) versions of albums via a fast,reliable server then what need is there for napster? This solution does not affect the artist as they can still make the same amount of money. it may however affect the record company - who would in turn cut the artists share of the profits.
The moral of the story is that record companies will have to start taking a smaller cut or lose out completely.
The price dropped for computer games because the market grew significantly and that the game makers found that $60 was too expensive for most gameplayers. Selling 200k games at $40 each returns more money than 100k games at $60. You could argue that the drop in price caused the increase in sales but I think the larger impact has been the increase in computers sold and the increase in number of PC gameplayers.
That's great you ban 300k some odd users, but if they are able to get new usernames, it doesn't seem to me it solved anything. Oh well, if it gets Metallica off Napster's ass, I guess that's all that matters? I do have to say, they have more work because as of this morning, a search for 'Metalica' brought up over 100 results. :)
On price fixing, I could've sworn that the morning news on a local radio station (WWSW, Pittsburgh PA for folks in the area... not syndicated news, AFAIK), briefly mentioned that the FTC is going to make some news tomorrow regarding allegations of music CD price fixing. The news item speculated that prices might be lowered, but declined to specify further -- i.e. no details leaked.
Anybody know more 'bout this?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
There's no law against using Napster, though, whereas there are laws against marijuana and assault rifles. Napster isn't illegal and has legitimate uses; therefore a lawsuit against Napster is unjustified unless they fail to follow the law as far as booting off users who are accused of copyright violations. A lawsuit against a particular user who is distributing copyrighted materials is justified, though.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
...and buy Metallica and Napster each a whack-a-mole game? It might satiate their respective impulses with similar results.
I could make up a list of people I alleged to have copyrighted works of mine available for download on Napster. It appears you don't have to have any evidence whatsoever, merely a list of names.
According to the DMCA, the list of names is submitted under penalty of perjury. Surely they're wrong on at least 1 of those 300,000 names.
If we could prove 1 case of it, could we send NetPD/Metallica to court for perjury? That might slow down they're crusade.
-----
Kick back: find a free (i.e., freely distributable MP3) and call it 01_Metallica_Nothing_else_Matters.mp3 or whatever. NetPD is with 95% probability NOT checking content, just names. Let Napter kick you out. You get the idea...
Of course I'm serious. If you don't think that's true, how can you in good conscience support them? Or are you one of those people who thinks pirating is your god given right?
--Ty
I think I'll go steal a car today because the people who make them charge too much.
AND, with the exception of a 7 second blurb by Kurt Choder on MTV, has there been any media coverage of this mess? that would be a resounding NO. I'm not saying that my local news station should be carrying the same news that /.'ers like to see, but CNN, Nightly news, etc. NOTHING.
I read further down that the music industry had been found guilty of price fixing or something like that? if its true, post a link to the story, i'd love to have a gander at that.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
Because, going through napster's servers, which are based in the US you idiot...
Yeah, the queries are, but the files aren't. So that really only makes Napster responsible in that case (in theory or course). In practice, it doesn't really matter anyway, because the good ol' USA will do anything they can to impose their inherently superior legal system over just about every country in the world.
However, that isn't what the orignial point was.
I believe his point was that the record industries are making enough money -- by decreasing the prices they won't go backrupt, have to fire employees or have anything that negativly effects the company. However the CEOs and other fat cats will have to cut their 10 million dollar salaries by a few million ( I don't know exactly how much they make, if someone could find a link that showed exactly how much I would be in debt!)
-- What doesn't kill you hasn't tried hard enough.
No, their measures are in line with copyright law. More extensive measures would probably require a way of identifying users which could cause privacy issues. Also, it is necessary for the copyright holders to defend their claim. Napster is not in business (assuming we can call them a business when their source of income is murky) to police its users.
---
Uh, it's a lot faster to rip an entire CD than it is to download one song. For example, I use MusicMatch at work on my meager crappy HP pII-400, and the average CD takes 11 minutes. I managed to rip 140 CDs in slightly over 24 hours. That was the bulk of my rip-worthy CDs. MusicMatch rocks, even if it is for Windows. If there was a good Linux equivalent, I'd even buy it.
Dude, you do NOT want the Von Trapps after you.
For those of you who think that Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit) is being some sort of leader in the mp3 movement, you don't know wtf you are talking about.
Aside from him being a complete fool, he also got PAID TWO MILLION DOLLARS BY NAPSTER TO SAY THE THINGS HE SAID.
Stealing music is no different than stealing a car. Cars are pretty expensive too... why don't you go steal a car? Morons.
Go listen to some good music, like Nine Inch Nails or Metallica. These people have worked VERY hard to get where they are, and you are screwing them of much more than the record companies that put out their music.
Here's a fun idea:
Take a whole bunch of legally distributed MP3's of average length, and rename them after Metallica songs. Perhaps spell a word or two wrong. Then, when you get 'caught' by one of the 5000 monkeys in California, countersue -- after all, it wasn't a Metallica song anyway.
Man, that would be fun!
(standard IMNAL disclaimer)
- Tommy V
karma prude
Support a few technologists in Washington.
The only hope we have is that when this happens there is a huge revolution.
But hopefully there will always be a way round it for those persistant enough to find it.
Who knows. I am just really glad to see the government lagging behind.
It would be cool to see ordinary john does suing each other to try and grind the legal system to a halt
Anyhow, must go and do some work now.....
Alanp
It must have been microsoft employees doing the punching. What, with the windows operating system *perfected* they tend to have lots of free time haha :)
It just has to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling when Metallica chooses to pick on you and your friends.. *sigh* Makes me want to cry.. :-}
As much as I liked to listen to them.. *PHOOSH* I'll never listen again.. What I find SPECIFICALLY funny is the fact that *ALL I HAD COPIES OF WHERE LIVE RECORDINGS*. I had not one copy shared in my library that was a rip from their CDs.. Pricks..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The real solution to this problem is to pay a penny and recieve 6 CDs. That's what I've been doing for years! CD's are less expensive than any other form of entertainment, and there are many companies willing to send you 6 CDs for free. You don't have to do anything. Isn't that wonderful?
I'm hearing rumors that you're supposed to give money to these companies after you recieve your 6 free CDs, but I don't give them any credence. Hell, I never have and they still send offers to me in the mail for more CDs!
By the way, you can sometimes get free movies and books too! Woohoo!
Mind you, sometimes you need to pick a crap CD to round out your five because the companies offering free CDs only have the most mainstream music. It doesn't really matter, though, because sometimes you can just take the crap one in to a record store and return it for either cash or store credit. If it has bad lyrics, you can even listen to it a few times and then take it back and claim that your son purchased it and you don't allow him to listen to obscene music, and by the way, how dare they sell him this trash?
I know I'm a bad, bad man, but it you're going to moderate me down, I warn you that I'm on topic, and not trolling. I may be overrated, but I'm also being informative.
And do I see a problem with the free music I recieve? No. I purchase CDs often, and I buy them at the artificially high prices caused by price fixing within the industry.
This was on the Napster ban page. We want your name, rank, serial number
Yeah right!
Selloutica is just trying WAY TOO HARD! What a bunch of over-the-hill, wannabe Lusers.
I seem to remember a congressional sub-committee spending an awful lot of time and money on the cost of breakfast cereal not too far back - any chance that we'll see a repeat of this action with the music industry's overinflation of CD prices?
I personally thought the cereal inquiry was a classic example of government being where it wasn't needed, but since it's apparantly OK for our gov't to get involved with pricing in the private sector (socialism, isn't it?), then I want them to look into CD pricing. I listen to a lot more music than I eat breakfast cereal, and I pay a lot of taxes for stuff that never even enters my realm.
How about a little satisfaction, Uncle Sam?
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
I just did a search for Metallica on a Napster server and I got the Maximum (100) different download choices for a search.
What Language is this anyway Je bent dom. Als Metallica.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Couldn't they take the time to set up an IRC network style banning system? You goof up once, we ban your nick. Goof up again, we ban this far up your IP. Goof up again, we ban your whole subnet. Seems to me this would be a lot more effective, and probably a lot more in their legal interests. People could complain that "it will block out other users that aren't doing bad things" but that is the whole point of K-Lines and such. Get everyone else mad at the one idiot, and either the ISP kicks him or the person is never seen again. Granted, he could just switch ISP's, but thats a lot more inconvenient than switching nicks. IRC networks have been doing this for years, and it doesn't seem to have harmed their user base at all. Just my $.02.
Backstreet Boys?
But I like that song where they dance like robots...
This is not a good business solution for Metallica, they should have known better than banning users from centrally controlled Napster servers. Now people are going to Gnutella, Freenet and HotLine. Screw Napster.
Bad move, Metallica, instead of reaching out to your fans and taking an opportunity to create a new on-line market for their mp3's they just have lost their chance to become the first band to realize how easy this user base could create enormous profits.
They should have worked with Napster and have incorporated micro-transaction support into its next version (but I guess record companies pay them more than 50c a disk). Oh well.
You can't handle the truth.
What the music industry don't see is that Napster really helps promoting the music out there, not taking away money. So let us all hurt them. If they ban Internet users, let us ban them. All stop buying music!! - Typo Dane
Sure they do, they just want you as a legal, non-pirating user.
Don't buy anything by Metallica. They obviously don't want you as a fan.
Sure they do, they just want you as a honest paying fan. I can't say I blame them. I sure wouldn't want commercial code I wrote to be pirated this way.
- Create a new account on Napster.
- Make an MP3 of yourself talking about how you feel about this whole Metallica issue.
- Make multiple copies of the file.
- Name each copy after Metallica songs, including one that just says 'Metallica.mp3'.
- Start sharing your creations on Napster.
Now let's see how they justify banning an account because Metallica says you're pirating their music , when all you're doing is talking about Metallica?
Of course, they'd probably consider that a moot point. But it was just an interesting thought.
---
icq:2057699
seumas.com
A program has been written to change the names of mp3's so they have "Metallica &" in the name. Stick it to the man, rename your mp3's and go on napster today. MetalRen Cutter larssucks@hotmail.com
Can someone post the full article? The napster domain is banned at my humble institution of learning. :-(
A geek is running for president! Al Gore ... he is a geek in every traditional sense of the word.
[boggles]
[gulp]
[boggles again]
[looks at the poster and carefully backs away]
Dude! Do you have any clue, any at all, about what a geek is?
[sighs and goes away sadly shaking his head]
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Im not sure about the US, but in Europe emails and electronic forms are legally binding, and I suppose as long as the form is followed by your IP adress (logged) then that would count as your identification. What surprises me beyond belief is the fact that the form is not secure. /penhead
From Napster's logon agreement:
-- NO BOTS ARE ALLOWED ON THIS SERVICE. IF YOU RUN ONE HERE, --
-- IT WILL BE BLOCKED AND YOUR IP WILL BE PERMANENTLY BANNED. --
Shouldn't NetPD then also banned for using a bot on Napster's service?
In case you didn't cathc this. Yesterday the Justice department announced it had won a suit against most of the major record labels in the US over the prices of CD's. It looks like the record companies were found guilty of price gouging and they will have to repay, to the gov't of course a couple of hundred million dollars. I wonder how this bodes for Napster. I suppose the record labels could appeal on the basis that Napster et.al. force them to overcharge since they are all losing money because of it. Or, it could backlash if people recognize that the existance of Napter and similar technologies is specically BECAUSE of price gouging.
nal 11
I played with Napster once. I'm actually on the side of Big Media (sorry), so what I had made available in my directory was an MP3 of *me* singing an old public-domain folksong. But I gave it the title of a hit song (a Britney Spears song) so suckers would find it and download it.
While I'm sure there aren't too many pranksters like this, Metalica has no way to be sure that each of these files infringes unless they download and listen to them.
It's a shame because legitimate musicians who record and sing their own music, or public-domain music will have trouble putting their MP3s on the web without being harassed. Even my service provider sent me an automatically generated warning when legit MP3s appeared on my site. I sent back the nastiest letter I've ever written. Since then, I stopped using the MP3 format; there are better audio compressors, and MP3 has been forever "tainted."
--- Speaking only for myself,
Here's a way they could redeem themselves technologically and make money in the process -
1. Set up a website.
2. Allow fans to download mp3s. Charge the same price for each CD downloaded as they would get as a royalty if it were sold (plus bandwith cost.)
3. A few songs as free samples wouldn't hurt either, but that's optional.
Everyone would win. Since we aren't using the services of the record companies, we shouldn't have to pay them. This way, we could cut them out and get music more cheaply, while not harming the artists at all. I think many Napster users would go for this; I know I would.
Of course, the RIAA isn't going to get any money, but why should they? We don't need their services any more. Let them sell their obsolete format to those who would buy it, and let us get it straight from the source, minus the middleman.
I signed up Lars, Jon Katz, Miss Portman, AL Gore and CmdrTaco. (this is a joke, I did not sign up these people)
But you have a good point, ANYONE ANYWHERE could signup on this "legally binding document" and there is really no way to tell who really behind IP 209.272.218.128, they should atleast require a pgp signature (even though this would still have problems) or even better yet, print it out, sign it and have 2 witnesses sign it, and fax it in with 2 forms of photo ID.
I remeber like 2-3 years ago, the Internet has just one big ass "Hoax" no one took anything serious on the Internet, it was more of a "play toy" for geeks and porn haven for preverts and that was it, now we are passing around credit card numbers and "legally binding documents" on the web and just expect it to work on in the real world. I view the real world and the Internet a whole lot differant. These world are just that, too differant and unrelated worlds.
This is one of the times where people would need to be tracked on the Internet, to tell how the really are, but at the same time certain things we do or don't do on the Internet should remain private.
Would pgp keys work in this sisuation? I think the Internet should remain %100 anonymous, unless the user wants to be known (and can also prove that they say who they really are), but when a user does want to prove that they are really who they say there are, there needs to be a sure %100 method of doing this. Maybe goverment issused PGP or simlair? (Sorry I don't know much about pgp, so this probably sounds really fsck stupid)
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Heh. I created an account last week on metallica.com... You can probably still contact me at metallica_ate_my_balls@metallica.com
You're right, of course, and I misread the statment you quoted when I replied. Thanks for correcting me.
--Ty
317,377 users? I think they mean elite users.
--
E_NOSIG
Okay so you know your shit.
But if you are deperate enough to lug your laptop to a payphone with your acoustic coupler, on you go. Don't think you'll get enough bandwidth to distribute MP3 though.
Government wouldn't be worried by people like u unless you do something real bad.
But how many MP3 pirates are gonna lug their laptop to a phone ?
My point is that one small step like more detailed logging would be enough to deter a lot of people.
On the flip side, though an argument to my point would be that is everyone did it (as is the case with MP3), then the government can't possibly arrest everyone.
This is where it would get interesting
How many true martyers are there out there prepared to go to jail for an MP3 ?
If we raise the bar a little above petty copyright, and get to the privacy point, then that interests me a lot.
My question is what do we do if the governments put the squeeze on ISPs ?
A solution to this (although I'm not sure how good it would be) would be to use anonymous proxies offshore, that the feds couldn't touch. That way, they can only see you using the proxy server, and stuff coming back from it.
Sure they could analyse the IP packets, but is it really worth that effort ?
Even if they do that you could use IPsec between you and the proxy (if it has the ipsec driver).
Would this work ??
Your point on the government relying on experts like you is almost valid, except a lot of them would sell there grannies. Look at that crowd that traced the napster users.
So my question is how do we really ensure our privacy in this online world (apart from using out neighbours phone :-) ) ???
Alanp
Duplication cost isn't the only factor. An audio CD sells for 18 dollars, but an OEM copy of MS Office without manuals has the same duplication cost but sells for way more (admittedly not to anyone on here. :) )
I think it's interesting that we consider 18 dollars way too expensive for a CD, but don't mind paying stupidly inflated prices for software; in both cases, what you're actually paying for is the content, not the media.
Contact.
And don't forget the Best Buy Inc would have already paid Metallica's label for the CD.
Therefore if the CDs get stolen, only Best Buy Inc loose out - not Metallica.
Richy C.
--
I have heard on the news this morning that the DOJ is investing the major record labels for price fixing or cd's. I cannot find a link though. Any else have luck?
What if the government passed a law that you couldn't log onto the net without some form of id ?
Again unlikely but could happen. They need some way to trace people what with all that is going on at the minute.
The other point is cyber cafes and shit, but none offer the ability to transfer MP3s as readily as a home account(unless you bring your own cd full).
The real worry is people who have 24x7 hi speed net access, and this is only available normally by being registered someway. If universities logged who was logged onto what facilities at certain times, then another step in loosing privacy.
Alanp
Dante,
I should note that for many years that vinyl LP sales made good money, even at $8 per disc.
The fact that the RIAA members never really lowered the original US$15 to US$17 price for a CD (which was understandable in 1985 when CD pressing plants were still very uncommon and the record companies had to charge more to pay off the cost of these advanced manufacturing facilites but not in 2000 when modern technology stamps out CD's at a few cents per disk) tells me that the RIAA liked the higher price so much they never bothered to lower it. It the RIAA had lowered the price of a CD to US$9 max back in 1990 the issue of piracy would be MUCH less now.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I'm reminded of how researchers in ages past used to write all their notebooks in code; the reason being that by hiding their information from the rest of the world, they guaranteed themselves a job. Of course, the upshot was that intellectual progress was relatively stagnant; it was more profitable to keep your secrets of architecture or chemistry to yourself. Proto-internet organizations (like the British Academy) couldn't flourish until some form of protection was in place. Without some form of protection (regardless of compensation), people just hide their information. That's the justification for both patent and copyright. Same thing goes for open source, which defines itself by a specific form of copyright - without the legal protection that ensures, there's nothing to prevent a company from taking one of my ideas and claiming it as its own. Hmph, this vigilantistic defense of Napster doesn't really attack copyright, it attacks the rule of law. As far as I'm concerned that's a direct attack at the social structures that make Open Source possible. Without a civilized, well-established system of legal defense, I'm at the mercy of anyone stronger than I am (Microsoft springs to mind instantly). Napster's argument about the inevitability of the technology strikes me as sophistry - that something is technically possible does not make it ethically acceptable. The existence of lockpicks does not give me the right to rob your house. The existence of gender doesn't give me the right to sleep with your wife. In clear conscience, I have to say I can't support Napster. They've developed a piece of software which benefits them at the expense of the musicians (except Limp Bizkit) producing the music. I have yet to figure out how Napster itself expects to make money, but they are currently existing, lampreylike on the efforts of the musicians, advertisers, and, heartless bastards though they may be, the RIAA. Replacing a system which gives minimal compensation for one's work with a system that gives no compensation is not a viable alternative. Side note - has anyone noticed that Metallica left the bootlegs alone? I know they're supposed to be sucking at the Devil's Teat and all, but it's an interesting point.
The entire country of Australia ("I come from a land Down Under, where the only band is a one-hit wonder)
Oh, you can't be serious.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds!
The Dirty Three!
Uhh.. Austrailia has some other really good bands. Really!
--
Surely not? I don't see how you can possibly pirate music with an assault rifle. --
I can think of a millions way to pirate music with the help of an assault rifle.
Marriage is considered capital punishment for the theft of a goat in some third world countries...
Hey, now that's got potential. Imagine the legal costs for metallica, the news, and the precedent that will be set by it.
He didn't say anything about supporting them.
I find it amusing that I fired up napster not 30 seconds ago, did a search for metallica, and tons of music still scrolls on by. I'm interested to see how Metallica and their lawyer friends keep up with this. Might I suggest we all rename random songs to unforgiven.mp3? Brings up an interesting point. Did they actually download and listen to all the songs that they claim were Metallica songs?
"Please don't sigh like that, maam"
hey, smells like some good ol' censorship! just what i like to wake up to... if you don't like music, don't download it.
btw, your music taste sucks.
Think that was flamebait? You've obviously never met me in person...
$email=~tr/.@/
Recently, we are seeing the start of the new technology revolution, perhaps controlled by some of the largest corporations nations the world has ever seen. Web TV has been researched as late back as Q1 98, let's take a look at what it does and what it connects to: Displays web content on PAL TV hardware (UK Ver) Parallel printer port (ECP protocol, Hewlett Packard, Centronics) IR PSTN / Ethernet telecomms connection Now consider the format of most shows on TV, on say ITV or channel 4, when a show ends, the screen quite often splits vertically to show a sponsors ad, or a trailer for the next show. Then take a look at the format of programs on the new digital, interactive services from Sky. Notice how the screen could almost be made up of HTML framed pages? Television content is preparing standards for the next generation of programming, or media saturance. Shows on the television will soon resemble your most visited websites, they could even be website programming video casts, and if they follow the formats of the existing programming then this would almost be transparent to the viewer. Imagine the following scenario on the Sky networks sporting channel: You turn the Manchester United, Leeds game on, using the service you can concentrate on the player David beckham. This changes your options and offers you the chance to buy player related merchandising. You click the buy button on the remote, and then enter your ordering details. This step is more of confirmation as Sky already know your details through the STB, Pay per view. Multiple buyers at the same address could be identified using cookie or token technology. The printer you have attached to your web tv box then prints an invoice. The next morning you notice a delivery confirmation receipt telling you your shirt will be there tomorrow. Is this the future? If it is, then it allows us to view the thinking behind the "big picture" of this whole potential mess. The set up is obviously aimed at "Essex Man", and the arrangement allows content suppliers to limit or control viewable content. Profiles of users viewing habits (both Terrestrial / Satellite TV and Web content) would be created and used to manage credit issues and ad targeting. It also provides a place at the table for non technology media organisations to dictate and mould the future progression of the Internet. Enough ranting, let's look at the benefits of such a set up. You will be able to print brochures, menu's or recipes off the set. You can be assured that your viewing schedule is being influenced by your tastes You'll no doubt get lot's more lovely junk mail, both physical from the set and from the network, again molded to your taste, and also spewing out of your printer to greet you in the morning. This I think is the future of such development, and I for one welcome you one and all to McDonald's world.
> If the lawyers can squelch Napster, why can't they kill FreeNet also?
You have to have somebody to sue to use lawyers. It also helps if they are in a country.
My Retirement Plan: (1) sailboat, (2) radio transmitter, (3) computer, (4) solar cells, (5) fishing rod. Oh yah, and an offshore bank account for 'services provided'. I can dream can't I?
Lets go ask those 300,000 people if they all want to go buy Metallica CDs with us
Right now, if you go to a "brick and mortar" music store the average price of an album-length CD is about US$15 to US$17, and already there is talk of the price going to US$18 very soon.
Dunno... the place I buy my CDs from is usually $11-13 new and $7-9 used. And it has a very good selection; better than any of the big electronics chains, at least for the music I prefer.
Given that the duplication cost per CD is measured at about 35-50 US cents (that's including packaging), something tells me that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and its member companies may be conspiring in a price-fixing scheme to keep prices high.
You won't get any argument from me on this point.
Maybe lowering the price of an album-length CD to US$8 to US$9 will definitely help things along, since not only will there far less incentive to pirate the music
Very true. I'd rather buy CDs, simply because I can play them in more places than MP3s. But I can't afford to buy all the CDs I would like to have. So I end up getting MP3s to supplement my musical intake, even though I'm buying at least 3-4 CDs a month.
It actually means: "IMHO Metallica are a bunch of stupid lame monkeys, on the same level as a phlubby gnome of trepaan" whatever the last words may mean.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
Dix wrote:
.MP3 files have become extremely popular. They have become the new medium to spread music that most radio stations seem to have missed lately.
"The recording industry argue that the prices reflect the work they do in finding and promoting "artists". This does not wash when instead they push formulaeic ditties via pretty teenagers, and enforce playlists on radio stations. If the extra cash goes into this, then rebellion is timely."
Boy, have you hit it on the nose! (bamf!)
I think the RIAA is more than just doing price-fixing on audio CD's. Have you noticed that radio stations in the last 10-12 years have become increasingly bland and too full of "adult contemporary" stations? Where is the big variety of music we used to hear on radio stations, even in the big markets? Has the record companies become so interested in "formulaic" pop music and enforcing radio playlists that a lot of music is no longer being heard?
It's small wonder why
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Chill, people.
Got Rhinos?
or perhaps rob and the guys can give out thepope.org guy's mailing address on next weeks geeks in space. then everyone with a revoked login id can go to the webpage and request that their login be reinstated as kurt.
john
-- john
free ISPs : caller display doesn't happen then ?
It would not be hard to log the phone number of the caller in the dial up server log. Have you even seen any of the common dial in modem racks (3 com/ USR being a good example).
If a law was passed to make logging of dial-ins then a few people would be caught out.
Just give the ISP the date, time & ip address, they give you the phone number. Quick call to the telco, and there you go.
My point was this may not be the case today, but it would be very easy to make it the case.
As for payphones... who surfs through a payphone ?
As for your crudentials a security consultant, I work in the telecoms industry as an SS7 specialist, and as practically all telephony runs over ss7 at one point or another, I know a fair bit. In the ISUP part (ISDN user part) of a message you have the calling party address. Not to hard to log this.
As for analogue telephony, it is switched by SS7, so the network still knows where the call originated.
Lesson : if they want to find you bad enough they will.
Alanp
See the article at FTC Settlement on MSNBC. They've gone after the industry a bit.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Have you ever tried to do the math to figure out how much it actually costs a band to record a CD? Everyone want's their cut.... producers, engineers, technicians, label, manager, studio, etc... It's not like Metallica takes $1 and the label takes $14.
More like Metallica takes $1
The CD cost a $1 to produce (stamp)
The label takes $2.50
The producer takes $.25
The engineers take $.25
The studio technicians take $.25
The manager takes $.50
The studio time cost $1
The video production costs take $.25
The support tour to drive the CD sales takes $2.00
The distributor takes $1.00
And the record store takes $3.50
The labels just look like they're getting so immensly rich because they have hundreds of bands operating under them... And they may make one of the biggest cuts, but they were also the ones that came up with the money to pay all the bills in advance.
Everyone should realize that the actual cost of the CD is neglible... It's just the physical representation of all the work. If you get the songs without the CD, just about all the other bills still apply.
do yourself a favor: Don't use Napster. They obviously don't want you as a user. Here's some more advice: Don't buy anything by Metallica. They obviously don't want you as a fan.
I don't see how this does any favors for yourself. People were never Metallica fans because the band wanted them to be fans, but because the music appealed to them. Metallica's stupid behavior does not affect this. If Napster and Metallica really don't want you, the concept of boycotting them is what's absurd.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
And what happens if you're a Metallica fan that have buyed ALL their albums, like me, I've shared some of them into Napster and I've been banned by Napster this morning.
I have the prove that I hold all the Metallica albums for legal, then I cannot copy them to anyone or to any kind of media?
That's the way to keep out new fans coming in, since they're banning the ways of sharing their music they're closing their market, since (I'm talking IMHO) every group that I've liked, heard about on the Internet or whatsoever I've finally buyed their albums to support future productions of that groups.
I hope that Metallica doesn't release a new album since I'll not buy them anymore.
May the source be with you!
1) Get a list of the 317K banned users
2) take a mailing list...perhaps that list of people you don't like
3) merge 1 and 2 on the from Napster provided.
Result? People from part 2) get letter from lawyer telling them they are being sued for piracy of Metallica "art"
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Nothing. But that won't kill Freenet. They are suing the DeCCS coders - does that kills DeCSS ? Seems to make it stronger if you ask me, never heard of it before the MPAA started playing dirty.
As it has been said, If we want to make changes we need to elect politions who listen to US, not to the lobbiests. What would be the most effective way to do this ? PHYSICALLY go and see your reps. Also send PHYSICAL MAIL, not email. Real letters have more impact on them.
The best system to get the congress/senate listening more to US (read "the voters") would be to make the congress distributed. Have them all be physically in their OWN states/districts and have a Huge Video feed of the other senators to work together. This would TOTALLY screw the PAC's and the lobbiests (because now they would have to go to 50 states, not just Washington DC).
I find it rude that one of my state senators (in Mass) has a "home" in Virginia.. Last time I looked, if you live in a state you are a resident of the state... He's there 6 months of the year yet he can still be a MA state senator (same crap as Hillary running in NY)..
UPS Sucks
Heh, I can't reach the site -- the IP range owned by Napster is blocked by my University's big-ass router..
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
>Have you noticed that radio stations in the last 10-12 years have become increasingly bland and is too full of "adult contemporary" stations?
You're not kidding, just take the Bay Area for example, RadioAlice, FM 104.9, 94.7, etc, they all play the same crap over and over and over again. Most of it I get the impression is what the record companies want pounded into your head.
Thank goodness that KSJO is still kicking, but even Lamont and Tonelli get boring after awhile.
-- This space intentionally left blank.
If you read the motd when you login, it says bots are not allowed on the server. Isn't this what NetPD used and wouldn't napster be able to take legal action against them or use it as a reason to void the banned list?
My first thought was that I bet half the people caught by this are minors and thus CANNOT be legally bound by *any* contract... silly, huh.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Hrmmm. Since when does a civil lawsuit need the defendant's consent? This seems... odd.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
For those who have access to it, I suggest a read of the Wall Street Journal "Business World" article by Homan Jenkins on page A27 entitled "Let's Give It Up for Metallica". Some interesting commentary on Gnutella, et al.
How the heck did they verify that these people actually transferred Metallica songs?? NetPD says so, so it must be true? What if I had an mp3 of Master of Puppets by Kenny G, did that count? What about a word document renamed fuel.mp3, would that get me banned? They didn't even make Metallica and NetPD prove the validity of the list in court. IANAL, but there seems to be a lot of ways to fight this list in court, and Napster just caved, why? Are they getting scared after the judges decision in the RIAA case? Are they simply out of cash, and can't afford to fight anymore? What gives?
What exactly does "information wants to be free" mean?
:)))
And, what does "information" mean anyway ? OK, I understand this is supposed to be information like in Shannon's theory of information (e.g.) the bits transmitted over the networks. However it seems to me that using the very same word for music, source code, binaries, images, text in every IP issue that comes around is stupid. It may all come down to "information" on a very generalistic point of view, but still those are very different issues. For example, there's not a great deal of interest in enforcing the right to modify music whereas allowing it for source code has helped creating great software. Having some big theory and applying it blindly simply doesn't work.
And, anyway, is it free as in beer or free as in speech ?
Do you have anything to hide? Let me dig though your house without permission? Do you have anything to hide, let me follow you around for 24x7 for 2 months watching EVERYTHING you do.
Even if you are a %100 pure saint and never have or never will commit a sin, it is still creepy having people watch you when you don't want to
Care if I stand over you and watch you while you sleep? Creepy? Yes. I like to remain anonymous while I sleep and also when I take a shower, I don't have anything to hide, but I don't want people to have access to that information...
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Very confused about the legality of the form on Napster. I could fill that in (I don't even use Napster) with the name and address of a banned person. No signature, just text...
Another point. If I, as a British Citizen, were banned, how would the DMCA apply to me ? If the transaction took place between myself and a person in Germany why is a US rule being applied ?
The phrase "can of worms" comes to mind. And of Napsters form the phrase "half-arsed" presents itself.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
But people are now using it for business, and aparently thats what people want, so its time that things changed. And the net was not designed to be anonymous, but when things first started, no one could imagine why you would want to be anonymous so they didn't put anything in to stop it. If the same people could go back and redesign their orginal systems using what they know now, i'm sure that security and accountability would be part of it.
With all the news about the Internet super highway, I suppose I should mention that the world wide web is being sued by the rock band Metallica. Unfortunately, I don't know what for. It's definitely news, though, and so long as something is news, I should mention it. For more information, consult your local library.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
-- NO BOTS ARE ALLOWED ON THIS SERVICE. IF YOU RUN ONE HERE, --
-- IT WILL BE BLOCKED AND YOUR IP WILL BE PERMANENTLY BANNED. --
My question is, how did NetPD really get their information ? I doubt it was actual humans sitting there harvesting names by hand and recording them on a big list. It's a simple little rule, not even close to being a law, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
-somnambule
Should be an interesting episode.
You should be paying about US$3 to US$4 less than you're paying now. Given the fact that CD duplication costs are way cheaper than even duplicating analog audio cassettes, it is just a bit amazing that Americans can be fooled into paying more than US$9 per disc.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I'm sure when metallica were just doing demos they probably swapped tapes of their favorite bands. Lars had a much publicised love of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal Bands (NWOBHM) and no doubt listened to and exchanged lots of bootleg tapes. How is this different from what napster and other programs are used for now? I don't see much of a difference (except maybe sound quality).
It would take a LOT of bandwidth to download roughly 3megs from each of the 300,000 users
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Because :
a) it doesn't belong to anyone. Who will they sue ? Even the nodes (servers) of Freenet are designed so that their owners don't even know what they host. Request and searches are also anonymous (crypted and hashed), so you can't even tell who is looking for what.
b) it is open source. Much like GNUtella, once the source has been released into the wilderness (the Internet) you can't kill it. Try to think of rabits in Australia...
c) it is really a distributed filesystem - you can't just shut down a server a kill it. It doesn't even rely on DNS !
Talk about timing... Read this story about lowering cd prices on MSNBC.
But it's impossible. From here on out, it's simply not possible to control major media distribution.
Metallica's contract was written up before anybody even conceived that music distribution channels would be broken.. which is a shame, but I'm not sure who's fault that is... Definitely not the fans'.
Dead Can Dance
The notice to bad users states that Metallica has accused them of making available Metallica music, not actually trading it (which brings up all the "I'm putting this here for people who own the CD, it's not my fault they download it"). NetPD has no way of tracking user to user transfers, they can just do a search on Metallica like everyone else, using a 'Bot to save all the resulting users. Maybe they could even do something fancy like search on the titles of all the albums and tracks too.
It doesn't seem likely that they could somehow eavesdrop on user transactions, since the transactions are distributed, only the database of available songs is central.
-- Colin Cross
Also any band that objects to piracy should be boycotted as a protest to the fact that they actually might want you to pay for the record that they invested time and money producing.
If people use Napster for the purpose they keep bleating on about (ie. listening to free music and small bands who are trying to build a fan base) rather than the majority use which is pirating then they have nothing to worry about. Of all the people I know using it I would say that less than 40 percent of the commercially available music availabe is owned by them legally. I have some friends who have even stopped buying music because they can get it free now. But then again the freeloader problem was always a product of consumerist society...
Technically this makes the music industry a highly imperfect market, and the only answer now is nore legislation... Or bands going out of business.
Working for the (other) man
According to the cnet article, they banned 317,377 users. By phreak-speak, at least, if Napster's not 31337 (eleet), at least they're eltett .
As someone tracking this story very closely on my own site, I can tell you that a popular item of discussion in this whole sorry state of affairs centers around the all-important question:
What EXACTLY is the "secret recipe" used by NetPD to determine someone is a "MEtallica Pirate"? And, seeing definite vagueness regarding the TOS of the Napster agreement with regards to bannable activity, what's going to happen when a group amoung these 300,000 ex-fans decides, instead of simply recreating Napster accounts, decides to challenge Napster's assertion that they were actually in posession of Metallica tracks? This is just a sordid state of affairs.
OFFTOPIC, and I apologize, but if you want to get even more pissed off at the music business then read this article reporting on a bill before the US House Of Reps. that would declare ALL published artistic musical work "work for hire". This is a VERY, VERY bad thing, arguably just as bad as the War on MP3 - but it's NOT BEING COVERED IN THE MEDIA. Yet.
no, where can I get there mp3?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Here are a few other bands whose fans should be banned:
Nine Inch Nails (like heavy metal without the talent)
Rush (think they're clever, but aren't)
Hootie and the Blowfish (shit name, shit band)
AC/DC (the single least musical bunch of morons God ever created, and disgustingly sexist to boot)
The Grateful Dead (shit beyond shit)
The Beatles (the Britney Spears of their generation)
The entire country of Australia ("I come from a land Down Under, where the only band is a one-hit wonder)
And in general, anything else I don't like.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Are you kidding me? ;-P
.. (WE all know what the correct scenario is!)
This is totally off-topic, but I want to raise
a point that their "legally binding" document, asking you initials, name, address, etc etc should *NOT* be run through an insecure connection.... this is probably how Metallica got the usernames in the first place
Seriously tho, to be ON topic so I don't get mod'ed.. I can't believe a very long lasting band such as Metallica would even illusion in their heads that they're losing money..
But also, I think that soon, we're going to have a "which came first: the chicken or the egg" type rebuttal when it comes to high prices vs. distributable songs. "High-priced CD's because of the 'pirates'" vs. "Open distribution because of High-priced CD's"
Besides, its not like Crapster (my nickname for it when the servers don't respond) is really screwing those users over, its not that big of a deal to add a number or a letter to your username.. sure its a pain in the numbed-area, but is it really THAT difficult? I think Napster is just trying to "be on the straight and narrow" and please as many people as possible.
[DISCLAIMER: This post is a work of satire and should not be misconstrued as a holy text upon which to base a religion.]
mp3.com just got bitten by RIAA, right?
.mp3s.com/stations/2/turn_on_tune_in_space_out_.ht ml)
Go download some music (legally) from there and support mp3.com. I'm only just getting back in to mp3.com after not having looked at it for a while. There's some _seriously_ good music there if you dig around a bit.
Was thinking about mp3.com the other day, and, apart from the whole legally dodgy Beam-It stuff, I can see why RIAA wants to shut mp3.com down. As I said, there's a lot of really good music available for download - music that I would of previously been happy to go buy in a shop on CD. "Commercial" quality and all that. Or I can get a DAM CD for ~US$7, and the artist is still making more money than if they had a record deal with a major. And, hey, guess what? The majors aren't getting in on this new stuff.
There's already some artists who are making a decent living from mp3.com sales, etc. Look here.
The majors aren't needed any more. I would be upset if I was them.
(for a nice selection of electronic music from mp3.com, check out this link )that I have nothing to do with): http://stations
...j
Wow, what good value, $39 for a game when I can get a whole operating system with hundreds of applications from cheapbytes for $5. Ok so they're not directly comparable, but I still think $39 is a rip off (and it's more like £39 ~= $50 here). But then IANA gamer.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
perhaps napster took the wrong action... instead of banning metallica's fans, they should have banned metallica's music!
Then you are a very rare person, and I salute you for it. Almost all of the people I know who get free music/games/whatever on the net snicker about how stupid people are who pay for such things.
I do agree that there is a problem with this that people who should have a right to download this music, people like you who have bought the albums, are getting hit here. I'm not sure there is an easy solution to this problem.
There really isn't a way to prove that you own the music that a pirate couldn't exploit. On the other hand, it's not fair for you to be punished because of the actions of others.
Does anyone know how much free space there is on an average music CD? Any at all? Would there be enough for the mp3s to be included on the CD somehow? Then the people with a right to them would get them. Not sure what to do about people who buy tapes then though. Anyway, it's an idea. :)
We put the BAN in Bandwidth!
Dear Metallica, Remember that 15 bucks you wanted me to spend on your cd? Well, I spent it on a new IP from my DSL carrier. Change that figure to 317,376 banned users;) -duck
the odometer lives!
Sure, they cost less than a dollor to physically produce, but a lot more to make (Studio cost, etc). I wrote a post awhile back about this, but the jist is, they average CD cost a big record company around 5-6 dollars to make and they sell it for 9
You consent
You consent to be sued.
By!
4 hippies
4 hippies from Frisco.
We!
Aren't broke
But we arent the same now.
Sad but truuuuueeeeee.
Now!
You consent
or your parents are doomed.
For!
Plaguing us
with your current fanship.
Why!
Don't you just
cough up 20 dollars
For!
Our Album
or the new garth brooks one.
it's the same thing..
Sad but true....
The Face -= o_O
-.Shaun.-
And to think how easily the label screwed us before...
By bandmates and I (now seriously in debt) signed with [Label name not given to protect my ass from a libel suit] three years ago.
They put up the cash to produce our first (professionally recorded) album, with the understanding that we would *PAY THEM BACK* with proceeds from album sales and live shows (standard contract).
Our cut of every CD sold was $.55, $.35 for a tape. This (OUR CUT!) was to be the money used to pay back the production/promotion costs...about $75,000.
The tour manager *the label* hired (we had no say in that matter) booked us really shitty gigs in small towns...lots of Monday and Tuesday night shows to an empty house. Needless to say, after eight months of living in a van, we'd only come up with less than half the amount needed (at this point closer to $90,000 because of the money they "lent" us to support the tour).
[LABEL] found us in breach of contract, and promptly sued us for the remaining $46,546.43 (a number I'll never forget). We all took out a number of high interest loans, and eventually got the label off our backs.
BUT - becuse we were found in breach of contract, the label now owns the rights to the twelve songs on that album, and the name of the band. Our contract would have reverted rights back to us in 20 years...
...so, my question is, is this bill retroactive? If I read it right, anything produced before June 1, 1999 is okay...IANAL, but anyone know for sure?
The moral of the story is *DON'T SIGN* We're distributing our next album ourselves...too bad I had to learn the hard way.
[End rant...back to crummy hardware repair job]
Ok, I hope that what I say will be usefull and inspire some of you to go and get involved in this issue beyond ranting about how bad the current system.
Yes I use Napster. I use it to find rare stuff and stuff that I would never buy or already own. Let me tell you that Napster is not an easy game unless you are looking for something ultra-popular or are willing to spend some great deal of time. This is even true with a fast connection.
Looking at these issues I think that the Artists could really allure users away from Napster and make the bucks that they are missing. If Artists could provide reliable fast ways of downloading individual and entire albums of mp3s for decent prices. Sounds like a pipe dream with the way the current system works huh?
Well maybe not, if we the technologically enhanced step into the fray. Why don't we start campaigns to educate the artists we love and try to win their favor. Hey stop laughing, it might just work.
I have written a letter to my band of choice, the forward thinking level headed band Depeche Mode. Obviously their are certain bands that I wouldn't bother thinking about if I were you. Metallica and Dr. Dre combined have the I.Q. of a salad, so don't even bother.
We all the know that the system sucks and that things like Napster are a natural consequence of the shitty system. Lets stop ranting and try to change the minds of the artists that didn't fry every one of their brain cells on drugs.
Thanks
"Lets get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape?"
Hunter S Thompson
raul
Just a quick correction. Bill Gates clearly doesn't have an infinite amount of monkeys. If he did, Windows would work better.
Microsoft: A Few Monkeys Short.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
I like it, napster really had no choice but shut down the offending accounts, but instead of simply turning off the accounts they give 300,000 users the chance to put up their hands and say "sue me". If just one of them can prove they were not trading copyrighted material then napster is justified in not doing a blanket ban on everything that looks like it is copyrighted.
While I was not shocked to find I was banned, it really pissed me off when I tried to create new id and get back in. I was going to unshare my metallica collection, but every new username I tried was blocked with a stupid banner about being banned.
it's in my head
You bet i mind if they make a random search of my house. And yes i have nothing to hide. Do i think that companies should be able to track you? NO! but if you do something wrong there needs to be a system in place that leads to your front door. so that you can be held acountable for what you have done.
"By accessing the files stored on this computer, you agree that neither you, nor any person or entity acting on your behalf will hold me liable for any copyright infringement, whatsoever."
Modify this disclaimer to suit your purpose. Say, a clause that makes it illegal for any entity to sniff inbound or outbound packets, track your IP address, write to your ISP, etc.
Every Napster, Gnutella user should have this posted on the shared directory.
Trepan DOES mean something!
It's a way of enlightening yourself by drilling holes in your head.
See trepan.com for more info!
Let's play Whack-A-Mole!!!! I already changed BEFORE this happened, just in case.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
This is ridiculous. If I was on that list, I would most certainly not create a new account. I would never use Napster again.
And that would make RIAA very, very happy. Remember, the point of the exercise is to kill Napster.
Besides, what are you bitching about? Napster basically provides a free service to everybody. Since they are not taking your money, they can (legally and ethically) do anything they want, including banning all people whose nick starts with a letter "A", those who come from certain subnets, people who connect between 11pm and midnight, etc. etc. Napster doesn't owe you anything. Deal with it.
Go buy some Limp Bizkit, even if you don't like them; they will never try to dictate what you can do with something you paid money for.
Why should I buy music I don't like? At least contributions to charities are tax-deductible... And how do you know what Limp Bizkit will do in a year? or five? Just because Napster paid them a bunch of money doesn't make them angels IMHO.
Do you know how to program? Help with the OpenNap project.
Gnutella is tastier.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
so we should rip our metallica mp3's at metallica concerts. then we would have effectivly recorded them at a live concert-thus it would be a bootleg.
john
-- john
Anonymous finger-pointing has become acceptable practice in America, at long last. Guess it was only a matter of time.
I could get used to kangaroos...
I've been following the posts for a few days by now - and I really don't see many in favor of Metallica. Still their point seems very clear (and right) to me. I know there have been many many discussions about this, but Metallica is NOT releasing their music under the GPL! I don't really think it's about the money either - cmon think about it! They have been one of the most successfull bands in the last 15 years and they must be so rich by now it can't matter that much. Besides, selling a CD doesn't deliver Metallica that much since most of it goes to taxes and other instances. What it IS about, in my view, is that it's their work being copied so easily. It's like having worked for 20 weeks at some difficult project for your University and then simply seeing it copied by many other students to do their advantage with it. Would you like it? I certainly wouldn't, cause I spent a lot of time and energy in it and others take advantage (in the Metallica case that's financial advantage). It's not that much about the advantage the others have, but the feeling your hard work is simply copied. The same way it is with Metallica: They don't care about the financial advantage others had, they simply feel that the hard work they have done was somehow for nothing. Music IS an art, and Metallica's is even a beautiful one. They put their whole life in it. I hear you all say: I bought all the CD's. Well, Metallica is NOT attacking the people who owe the CD's, but the ones who don't and use Napster to copy songs. If you do have the CD's, there is NO reason for you to share your songs on Napster (Well I guess there are for some of you). I will continue to support Metallica and buy their CD's - cause even though their expensive (And that's not even because of Metallica), I think they are worth it! You say they betray their fans. If you are a real Metallica (stronger: Music) fan, you don't use Napster!
I actually got banned!
I feel sort of special!
Of course I wasn't actually hosting Metalica mp3s, they were mp3s from the Sound of Music sound track renamed to Metalica songs (fun joke to play), but I still feel special.
I am wasting breath saying this as geeks out here wont do anything but here's a try.
Let's organize a national burn metallica day. Everyon gather up you mettalica items and burn them in groups (be ready to run when they try to slap a garbage burning fine on you) and burn cd's t-shirts, etc. Or find some "green" way to do this... (A wood chipper/shredder?) if you own or manage a record store, pull all metallica products from the showroom, and place a sign stating that matallica sucks.
we could send a big message to them, but alas, we'll just sit on our butts typing flames to each other on slashdot.
Let's do something like our parents and brothers did... I lost a good friend of the family at Ohio state, when the Feds decided that mowing down the youth of america was good, Who out there dares to be as active and coragous as the last generation of this country? will you risk being killed, or imprisioned for what you believe?
I doubt it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If the lawyers can squelch Napster, why can't they kill FreeNet also?
in the article linked, they give a quote by Metallica saying they didn't put anybody on the list that only had downloaded bootleg music. While this keeps with Metallica's tradition of allowing bootlegs (they are an incredible live band and their live stuff is extremely good), I hardly believe anybody sat down to listen to every Metallica file all 300,000 had downloaded. But I digress, the real matter here is that they only were after the songs that were off of albums, which means they're after the money. Therefore, this leads me to believe this is the lawyer's battle, not the band's. How could Metallica truely be after a sum of money as small as this? 300,000 people * 50% that actually would buy the cd * $.50 per album? That's $75,000. Hell, take the $2 million that napster is paying Limp Bizkit to go on the free tour in consolation and you'd be sitting pretty. As our own little protest, the (college) radio station I work at has banned Metallica from our tower. (Sometimes it gets played by the less-intelligent DJ's, but they get punished accordingly) Check us out: WildCat Radio 91.9 Taos
uh I paid $2 for a debian cd and someone in my lugi gave me a staroffice for free... I put them in my cd-rom drive, and what do you know, they had content on them, good content to, it tasted like melted butter
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Gee, Shaggy, I couldn't see *THAT* coming from a billion miles away!
According to Reuter/Variety, the Federal Trade Commission is also investigating CD pricing and will be filing a complaint tommorow. Apparently Time Warner, Sony, BMG, EMI, and Universal have all agreed to settle. The issue at stake is the practice of having a minimum advertised price for CD's. While the margins in the music industry aren't as great as some on /. make them out to be (hence the heavy focus on mega groups), it looks like claims of price fixing aren't all that far fetched.
JOhn
Consider the problem the napster community is facing: NetPD is crawling them with a robot and recording what they have.
Image if Napster, or GNUtella, or whichever client, had an apparatus whereby each node could pose a question before offering its list of files. Each user of each node would come up with their own question. Here's an example:
Question: How many digits are on a human hand?
Answer: 5
or
Question: What is the abbreviation for Music Television?
Answer: MTV
common sense questions like this wouldn't ever stop a human, but imagine trying to write a crawler robot that could answer questions like this 350,000 times.
i want to support music artists. i don't think that giving them 1/2 of a cent on a $17 dollar album, the other 16.99 of which goes to viacom, an international conglomerate which manufactures bands like in sync and lame content like MTV, as well as pours billions into industry gestapo firms like the RIAA - counts as supporting them. i want to buy $5 albums of which the artists get $3. I want to do it online. napster is just a way to force that change on a system that has been fucking us for so long it doesn't know how to do anything else.
(:
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
Napster will help to offset any hit the band might take by giving tickets away, as the "Los Angeles Times" reports that the band will get close to $2 million for the tour.
Limp Bizkit notes that the sponsorship money will go directly to the tour's production costs (travel, venue rentals, lights, etc.), and that Limp and Cypress Hill will not make any money on the outing.
Sincerely,
A Limp Bizkit fan.
Heard on NPR this morning (sorry, no URL, I hunted at several big news sites with no luck) that the investigation into CD price fixing by the RIAA has resulted in a finding that the music industry has illegally conspired to maintain artificially high CD prices.
Wanna know something funny? in the decss case, the author wrote the program under the GPL, but since they didn't physically sign it over to the FSF, there's a big controversy. personally, i hope that the GPL gets revoked from the program for a few reasons:
1 -- i've clicked a bunch of "legally binding" agreements and broken them. if the GPL is revoked, they'll no longer be legally binding (that's my first argument in court)
2 -- it'll make more people physically sign their software over to the FSF
3 -- it'll piss more people... the more people that hate the man, the better...
Think that was flamebait? You've obviously never met me in person...
$email=~tr/.@/
It's what they (Napster) said they would do. Somehow, it seems like a quite benign response. Just make a new account. But...it seems this might just be the first shell fired in a long bitter war. Metallica's lawyers are not likely to let this go away quietly now. What's next? Who's next?
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither. " Ben Franklin
Personally I think it comes down to society and what the people want. Maybe in 30 years, a geek will run for president in the US and be elected.
A geek is running for president! Al Gore was a social outcast in school, has done a bit of programming, hell he even invented the Internet (I know... not really, but he helped bring it to the mainstream...) Whatever you think of his other politics, he is a geek in every traditional sense of the word.
Reality has a liberal bias
... but in reality they are kicking off anyone (such as this guy) with the string "Metallica" in a filename. Way back when the average mp3 would have taken 3 days and nights to download, I used to have similar debates on the propagation of live music bootlegs. I always pointed out that most bands would LOVE to have dirt-cheap recordings of themselves being passed around at no cost to the band. I just don't get how artists who were on the right side (pardon the arrogance, i mean MY side) of that debate can be so thick-headed about Napster.
grep -ri 'should work'
How can these @$$holes tell me that Napster is illegal? I use Napster, I also own and use a VCR.
I could use my VCR to tape movies off of the idiot box or off of rental tapes. I could then sell my newly aquired copy of the movie. That would be illegal, and the VCR was the tool I used to commit the crime. VCR's are not illegal.
I could use my copy of Napster to distribute illegal copies of MP3's. That is illegal (don't flame me, it is), and Napster was the tool I used to commit the crime. Napster is illegal!?!? How?
Just 2 Pennies
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
i havew been blocked for six mounths, my isp has me blocked. if these users just signup again, metallica could sue isps to block them. not all of them, just the biggest ones. wouldn't that suck, we would have to find small local isps or setup them up ourselves
The coffee god lives!
Weirdly enough I tried like all of us to make a new account and log in
And was blocked....said I was banned by mettalica? what are they banning whole ranges of IP's? the napster server I connect to or my ISP entirely?
It seems to me that the RIAA wants it all with no liability as to what they sell... Take a gander at some of my idle thoughts:
1) They say I buy the 'rights' to an album, but those rights aren't transferrable, nor does it cover rights in other (alternate) mediums (like MP3's from the net).
2) They say I get 're-entertainment value' from CDs. So, If I'm done with a CD, can I ship it back for a rebate? Amoritize the price over the 'life' of the CD, and refund me my money... Remember, CD's have a LOT longer life than albums or Tapes. Of course, you'd have to factor in the popularity of the artist... A Stones CD would probably be worth more than a Haircut 100 CD...
3) How to 'used' cd stores work (legally speaking)? Is the physical CD my 'license'? If so, then as long as I have proof of license.... I could buy a second copy of a CD at CD production costs, right? Why can't I buy just a license to MP3's on the net?
4) Why are these 'liquid audio' (sites that let you buy and download songs, and then burn them to CD one) every bit as expensive as brick-and-mortar stores? Surely their Net connection can't be NEARLY has expensive as a TRUCK + all the middlemen...!
Anyway...
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
I am in my late 30s (youch!) and my interest in pop music had declined to the point that I probably purchase about 5 CDs a year (you know, the new Sting album or something). But along came napster - Being able to download and try out new music fired up my interest in new music. It has made me much more open to purchasing CDs by artists that I would never have even been aware of without Napster. Heck, tommorrow my MP3 player is being delivered. The point of all this is that the music industry seems to be clueless to the fact that MP3 is probably the most exciting thing to happen from a distribution standpoint in 20 years. So why is the RIAA pursuing an expensive legal strategy? On the face of it, it would appear to be about copyright issues - however I think the RIAA realizes that the really big issue is that they stand to lose everything if they no longer can controll not only how music is distributed, but, more importantly, WHAT music is distributed. I can tell you that armed with my newly kindled interest in music and my MP3 player I am definately going to start listening to independent artists distributing MP3s. Remember every big name artist was unknown until a recording company spent the money to market and distribute their music. With MP3 and the internet the member companies start looking a like buggy whip manufacturers.
Will this still work....
Metallica... I have loved your music. But today I think that you have sunk to a level where its better to be a fan of some damn boyband!!!
HELL they would not go after their fans. NOTHING is worse than having a good band go to a BAD lawyer.... YO whats up with the interview with metallica!!!!
Bloody hell, So when do i start getting pulled over by some freking web start up for hogging to much bandwidth!!!
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
Hmmm...now there's an idea--I wonder if the Napster Metallica legions can sue Metallica for a 10% agent commission for promoting their music?
Napster doesn't allow 'bots. They specifically forbid them. Just like they forbid copyright infringement. So, I guess this means NetPD is going to find themselves without access to Napster, right?
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
How did they do that? I am thinking that Napster re-created the query that NetPD did and performed a mass-boot that way. Or NetPD was nice enough to give them a text file version parsed by commas or something. Or they hired some of Bill Gates' infinate fleet of monkeys typing on infinate typewriters.
Now where the heck did that Jolt go...
I like paying the middleman, Bob from accounting is one cool dude, also I have all of Ricks marketing progranda (commericals, posters) etc, rick is the marketing God! Go Rick and Bob, they make a super middleman team.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
NetPD is not too smart either. When the CTO was interviewed, he wouldn't even give a simple idea on how it worked other than the metaphor that it is like 5,000 humans in a room searching for the info. Which means his little plan will fail. I think most people know that if your algorithm is so secret that you can't tell anyone, then you are doomed.
No dear, it's not just because their software is crappy closed-source (although the comparison to secret encryption algorithms DOES come to mind), but because he simply has no good explanation for his methods!
It's like if you asked Mattel how CyberPatrol can search 100% of the 'net, and then block all bad sites, and have them all checked by a human. They, for example, would have a hard time convincing people that they had 500 OC-48s, a few Beowulf clusters, and the entire population of China working as employees, with each person checking a site per millisecond.
Why is is OK for us to record songs off the raido. But NOT ok for us to basicly record the songs off the net?
Well, American CD prices are among the cheapest in the world, so I'm not sure where you're from, but it ain't Europe or Japan. Besides the cost of the media isn't what you're paying for. You're paying the musicians, the engineer, the producer, the studio time, the mastering, the packaging, the marketing, etc. The real crime of the music industry is that these costs are huge, and they all come out of the artist's royalties. See this article by Steve Albini to understand how screwed up things are.
After being banned, I decided to try and create another account. First, I tried ogre_2112 a variation of my nick. Still banned. Then, figuring it would ban all _variations_ of my nick, I tried a new one: AmigoLoco. Still banned. Hmm, maybe it banned my email address? So I changed that to another address I use and another new nick. _Still_ banned. I guess they banned my IP. My IP only changes about once a month, so I guess I'm out of luck for a while.
And I own EVERY Metallica CD ever recorded. The funny thing is, I usually don't share any of my MP3's except my Rush albums. (All of which I own)
I've only shared metallica songs on TWO separate days. And they were _months_ ago.
if Napster shows they're taking action to prevent the transmittence of copyrighted materials through their program, wouldn't this give them some ground to stand on in the RIAA thing?
"No, man, like, uh, your band sucks."
God forbid your own personal distaste in a piece of music not be universal...
Spiderbait Regurgitator Powderfinger Sonic Animation And if you're a teenybopper: Savage Garden Killing Heidi I would have thought Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds would be at the bottom of the list of "Good" Australian bands. Sure, we don't have the enormous pool of musical talent that the US might have, but remember - we number less than 10% total population compared to the US.
---- Stephen Poole dashiva99@yahoo.com
Two years ago I did a small CD press run: * 4-color CD * creation of the "mother" CD * jewelcases For 750 CD - it was about $1300. I didn't do the printing for the inserts into the jewelbox. If I had it was about another $1000 (4-color printing, fold-out, two-sided). So, the cost per CD at a VERY SMALL run, ***but at a quality similar to commercial CDs*** worked out to about $3/CD. The price for CDs in the marketplace, given how little the artist gets from each CD sold is completely unjustified. It's no wonder that lots of garage and independent artists charge LESS for their small run CDs then the major labels do for their very large run pressing (where the cost/CD goes to under $1 each).
"Don't buy anything from Metallica. They obviously don't want you as a fan."
That's bollocks. Metallica of all people have always treated their fans with respect: they put up with bootlegs, and they have no problem with fans sharing music, such as lending it and copying it for their friends. But there is a huge step from that to the massive online trading of mp3s. When you have over 5GB of assorted music, more than you could ever hope to listen to and appreciate, can you really call yourself a fan of anything? Or are you just, as they claim, a "commodity" trader? For the vast majority of people Napster is not a community. It's just a market.
Even so, Metallica aren't suing these people for copyright infringement. After all, they are potential fans. All they're asking is for them to stop it and grow up. And maybe learn to listen to music, not just amass it...
Under the law, you should be able to rip them to mp3s, but under the law you can not give/trade these
Just because YOU own the CD, doesn't mean that the person downloading your songs owns the CD...
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
In my opinion its all a media war...can these anti-mp3 groups keep mp3 from becoming the popular format of the masses. I don't think they are hoping to stop mp3 trading, they just want it to look like drugs. I would hope that they know there is not pratical way that a judge, a lawyer, or a artist can stop mp3 distribution with a pen or a box of papers.
You have to have somebody to sue to use lawyers.
Here's a list of people to start with:
Ian Clarke
Brandon Wiley
Ken Geis
Steven Hazel
Ragnar Hojland Espinosa
Adam Langley
Oskar Sandberg
Michael Scheuner
Lee Daniel Crocker
Theodore Hong
Sourceforge
Use the typical BFG lawsuit approach. Sue as many people as you can think of that are involved and then wait to see who screams the loudest about it.
it's important IMHO for the FCC to prohibit a single entity from owning more than one tv station and more than one radio station.
...state that an entity cannot own more than 8 media outlets in a market with a maximum of 2 TV stations.
The current laws... (they were just changed, which led to the Viacom/CBS merger, who want to change more laws since the current ones say that none of the Major networks could buy a small one like UPN)
--
+&x
This is ridiculous. If I was on that list, I would most certainly not create a new account. I would never use Napster again. I would also never buy another Metallica record again (not that I have in years).
If you were one of the people whose account was cancelled, do yourself a favor: Don't use Napster. They obviously don't want you as a user. Here's some more advice: Don't buy anything by Metallica. They obviously don't want you as a fan. Go buy some Limp Bizkit, even if you don't like them; they will never try to dictate what you can do with something you paid money for. Go buy some Grateful Dead, even if you don't like them, for the same reason.
Do you know how to program? Help with the OpenNap project. If you can't program, support them any way you can: Download it and run an opennap server.
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
Why should the users be anonymous??? They should be held acountable for what they do on the net just like every where else. Why should there be a way to keep who you are a secret from people?
Maybe the mettle of /. should be put to the test.
I've heard fierce boycott cries against companies such as Amazon and Yahoo for lesser offenses.
For all intents and purposes, metallica is a commercial corporate entity and everyone is 'mad' at them so why not boycott metallica too?
Or are slashdotters just too small, irrelevant and too attached to their precious metallica CDs?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and claim that Metallica will be watching Napster pretty closely from here on out.
Go ahead, create a new account and put up the Metallica MP3s. You'll be on the next list Lars trucks over to Napster HQ.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
Not exactly. But even if that's true, you just got yourself 300,000 pissed off Napster users. Three quarters of them probably got another account right away. The rest probably looked into other file-sharing programs, like iMesh, CuteMX, and Gnutella.
Now imagine if Metallica gives them another 200,000 names next week. Rinse, dry, and repeat. And perhaps, other musicians will join in.
I still think what Metallica doing is ingenious (I think what they're doing is evil, but still ingenious) - by calling Napster's bluff, they showed other musicians that:
1) you can waste many man-hours of Napster Inc, especially when you deliver them 300,000 usernames on hard copy.
2) create a massive inconvenience for Napster users, which might drive them away to other solutions, and decrease Napster Inc's revenues.
I guess Napster won't be having their IPO anytime soon. Doh.
Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)
I've rarely used napster, gnutella or whatever. The few times I've actually used it were to download songs that I already have on CD. It's a quick way to search and d/l files when you don't want to go through the task of ripping your own. Some of those 300,000+ Metallica fans must own Metallica CD's. What's wrong with listening to a song on your computer instead of your home/car stereo? My computer only came with 1 cd player. What if I want to listen to multiple songs from different artists? I have a few hundred CD's, but I haven't figured out how to put all of them into my 1 cd-rom drive yet (at the same time).
If I were one of the lawsuits defendants, and I owned Metallica CD's, I'd have to question the motive of a company willing to sue it's customers for the usage of a product that was purchased. In fact, I might not purchase any more of their products if that's the way they're gonna treat me afterwards....
No thanks. I don't smoke anymore.
If there's one good thing that this entire deal is doing, it's letting music fans know that Metallica acknowledges bootleg recordings as material that they shouldn't touch.
From here.
"Metallica has stated that it intends to limit the scope of its notification to commercially released Metallica albums, making "no claim of infringement with respect to recordings of songs made by fans at Metallica live concerts.""
The DMCA allows anyone to easily force an ISP (or something like Napster) to kick off others by alleging copyright violations. However, the catch is that, if you are wrong, you face the penalty of perjury.
Nope. The accuser doesn't have to swear to anything. In keeping with the spirit of the DMCA, it's the accused who has to come forward and under the penalty of perjury state that he is innocent. Ain't DMCA wonderful?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
A kid walks into school. The school rules state that the kid must be at school at 8:00am sharp. The kid doesn't like this and starts up a union of students (an illegal union) that all decide to pitch up at 12:00pm instead. The kid gets expelled from the school, but hte trend has already started: all the kids are pitching up at 12pm. Soon, kids all around the country are pitching up at 12pm. Are you going to expel all the kids ?
no sig
"Are you now, or have you ever been..." springs to mind. This little rats-in-suits startup gives me an uneasy feeling. The laywer-happy media juggernauts will get a warm feeling paying for the illusion of security. However, the service they are getting will, in some cases be other than they paid for.
In any case, there are some serious issues with a commercial big brother shovelware outfit like this- what redress will people have when they screw up, and falsely accuse people of all sorts of things? food for thought.
I don't like them, and I certainly do not trust them further than I can spit them.
Just my 5 cents...
This is how the game is played. Young, struggling musicians get approached by a man in a dark suit who promises them all the fame in the world. In exchange for the publicity, they agree to fork over 99.99% of the money from CDs, let the RIAA represent their "interests," etc. They get publicity by being heard on MTV, radio stations, etc which they think they would never get if they continued performing at local bars and in their parents' garage.
As a result, this whole affair is what comes of it. It is illegal to give away this music. It is illegal to download this music. Everything but what the RIAA blesses is pretty much illegal (or have enough spare cash to challenge them in court).
If you object to this, do not support any group (movie, etc) represented by the RIAA (or other evil organizations). It is that plain and simple. With this new medium (this Internet thing), unknown musicians do have a way of getting themselves known throughout the world, and they can do it themselves. A simple bait and switch mechanism could bring in a lot of popularity and money. Give away some MP3s when you're starting out, get thousands of people to download them, give them to friends, etc. Then when you hit the big time, sell CDs, t-shirts, MP3s, etc yourself. Release a few MP3s here and there for free to keep up the hype. Let the MP3s drive up your hype/popularity, then rake in the money with hard copies, concerts, etc. This is possible, you just have to be a good enough band for it to happen. The RIAA knows it is difficult, so they are banking that it just will not happen. Go ahead, let them win.
Well, the fact that radio stations are playing more or less the same old crap from the record label playlists is the reason why talk radio and news stations are zooming up in popularity.
Care to explain why KGO, KCBS and KNBR have such high popularity in the Arbitron books? Or how about why even a conservative talk radio station like KSFO are doing quite well?
No wonder why I find FM radio to be such a big wasteland of music. I remember in the old days I can listen to everything from classical to easy listening to jazz to hard rock! Nowadays, forget about it! (grrr)
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
We've gotten a lot of criticism over this. What hurts, though, what really hurts is the insinuation that we're just doing this for money. It's not just about the fast cars and the exotic pets and the lawyers with fast cars and exotic pets. All of us would be perfectly happy serving fried food or mopping the floors of adult entertainment establishments except for the fact that we'd be taking jobs from our fans. And that's what this is all about: the fans.
After all, there are thousands of amateur musicians releasing their music on mp3. There are thousands of little local bands that would give up a few organs to have 350,000 people downloading their music. It stands to reason that at least a few of them completely kick our ass, musically speaking. But they don't have that one crucial thing we have: We have millions of dollars going to convince you that we don't suck.
And that's what we're trying to protect with our lawsuit. If music were free, there would still be music, there would still be bands, but the promotional money -- or as we call it in the business, the "we don't suck" money -- would dry up. And without that money, face it, you'd be lost. Without the magazine ads and the stand-ups and the elaborate 3-D record covers in the music store windows you'd have to rely on your own personal tastes to decide what music to download and listen to. And let's be honest, if that's what you were into you wouldn't be downloading Metallica albums.
So join us in our efforts to eradicate Napster. If not for yourself, think of future generations of headbangers. Hell, not just metalheads but pop music fans of all sorts, from teenyboppers to death rockers, all lost in the wilderness with nobody to tell them what supposedly doesn't suck. It's a sad and scary thought.
Thank you and rock on,
Metallica
Metallica is stupid and so is anyone who tries to fight this. I think most users will understand that Napster's arm was twisted to make them ban users. And the users will just create new accounts. However, Metallica has just pissed off 300,000+ fans. Think those people will EVER buy a Metallica CD now. At least before, people could have liked the MP3 and then purchased a CD. Metallica has just shot themselves in the face and made their record sales worse.
NetPD is not too smart either. When the CTO was interviewed, he wouldn't even give a simple idea on how it worked other than the metaphor that it is like 5,000 humans in a room searching for the info. Which means his little plan will fail. I think most people know that if your algorithm is so secret that you can't tell anyone, then you are doomed. I give that software maybe a month (that's generous too) before someone gets a copy, disassembles it, and writes a patch for Napster. Then, I would like to see where NetPD sees it's sales. Get a clue guys, there is nothing any company can do to stop MP3 because there is a HUGE wave of millions of people behind it with a combined force that is greater than an company could ever mass. Look what happend to DVD and their secret algorithm.
_________________________
Words of Wisdom:
_________________________
Words of Wisdom:
Never pet a burning dog.
here's a notion- mp3's are the bane of RIAA mostly because the music industry no longer controls the engineered degradation of the format. Consider CD's, they are designed to wear out from scrathes and sunlight after a couple of years, maybe decades if you are extremely cautious. I still have a CD bought in 1986 and it is quite a sight- now it is all scratched up and milky, just from normal use. And I am fairly careful with my CD's. Some may argue this point, but tapes, vinyl records and CD's all have this flimsiness in common while mp3's do not.
Is this a tremendous insight or old news?
-=b
This is amazing. After reading the link on the napster ban page, I am just amazed at the request made there. A legal binding form?? Somehow I have a problem with that. How do you verify the identity of the person who clicks "submit"? IANAL, but the company lawyer says we must also have someone fax or deliver a *signed* copy of any agreement posted online. So how does this hold up? Do you need hard copy in a case such as this or not? What kind of legal binding is a submit button?
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither. " Ben Franklin
What's to stop the lawyers from suing these people?
The day i can buy cd's for more like $10 as opposed to the average ~$20 (after tax) for a CD.
...that and the day i can actually find the cd's i want in a music store as opposed to having to special order stuff thats hard to find, or even just out of print....
...anyone here ever tried to find older Thrill Kill Kult, or KMFDM or Pig in your typical music store? 'Course I can buy all the copies of Brittany Spears and bad rap music i want, but that just makes me vomit :)
I lost the comment that said 'napster is being a wuss, cause they could stand up or argue this metallica-bullying in half a dozen ways'. But why should napster bother? This way, they ban 300 thousand screen names and everybody who isnt us or them thinks to themselves "boyo! Napster sure is in complete cooperation with metallicas paperheads." But /we/ know that banning 300k screen names wont do jack, i think napster also knows it. So they dont actually harm any users and yet they appear to be cooperating with the offended party. This is good, cause we have to admit, a lot of stuff on napster that falls into the 'illegal' category. For napster to say they wont keep people from doing illegal things would be bad for them. /were/ to say 'we want our money' they would receive a negative response (again..my feelings) from the public because they are already fabulously rich! - vpu O ew;;U Xmr arMS RJWAW aX lwuvpESA/ --------------------------------------------------
Now my complaint about Metallica. Artistic vision? My ass. To me, it sounds as if metallica is crying over money they think they could be making if their music wasnt being pirated (this I doubt. If any of the people I know didnt have MP3s, they probably wouldnt buy jack.) Maybe when I become a world renown artist I will see their point, but personally i would frickin happy as hell to find out people were making copies of my artwork, illegal or no. But if metallica
Ok. Im done. -------------------------------------------------
*smashes head agaist desk* oh please tell me this isn't true, and if it is please point me to a link. Trying to figure out what the judge was thinking just makes my head hurt.
notice that the counter notification page is under http rather than https.
hasdi
It's actually easier than you think, if an ISP's arm is being twisted by a court.
I work for an ISP that keeps very neat records (99% of the time for technical support reasons (information is power when you're talking to a moron), and 1% for covering our own asses). When you dial into us, Your login and logout session details are recorded, including username, IP address assigned, and caller ID string (unless you set your analog modem to block caller ID).
Scary, isn't it? Although we only give out information to authorities when a court order is involved, it makes "anonymous" seem a bit smaller.
Don't want to pay Lars? Sue him!
Why is it any different? You are stealing someones property. Be it intellectual or physical. You are trying to say that because it's easy to steal and hard to account for that makes it ok?
--Ty
Seems like an odd what-if, but I'll bite. No, it would be just as wrong to "copy" those items without paying the designer/builder/grower as it is to copy music and giving it away.
And let's avoid the, "what if the car was for your own personal use" stuff . I think that stretches the analogy a little too far. :)
so who's counting how many CD's have been purchased after first "previewing" by downloading from napster/gnutella/hotline/etc?
Speaking for myself, several dozen in the last six months. Music I would not have heard otherwise. Of course in the case of Metallica I suppose the reverse may be true, and lots of people have decided not to buy because it's crap...
support gnutella! screw napster.
http://gnutella.wego.com/
Shhsh!
The real crime of the music industry is that these costs are huge, and they all come out of the artist's royalties.
But the artist only sees $0.56 out of each CD, and those costs come out of that small fraction! What about the other $16.43?
Goes into the Bentleys these ponytailed A&R poseurs collect...
The quantity of sympathy I have for RIAA and its puppets can best be expressed by sqrt(-1)...
Your Working Boy,
I see no obvious way a form could be linked in court to a specific Napster user unless the user testifies they submitted it. There's no authentication that the name and address entered belongs to the person completing the form. There's no authentication by any obvious strong cryptographic means, no witness's signature, notary, or anything else normally associated with a legally binding document, let alone one where the alleged signer starts giving up their legal rights.
I suspect anyone could submit a form on behalf of any napster user. (Those more familiar with Napster's registration process are welcome to correct me). Yes, that's possibly perjury, but could someone sumbitting a false form be tracked down with only an IP address to find them?
I don't listen to Metallica, so I'm not directly involved in this issue. But I wouldn't fill out the damn form if I *was* blocked inadvertantly. It feels to me like replying to the opt-out address in SPAM email. If someone wants to sue me, they can use the traditional methods to find and serve me. (Been there, done that, my attorney and I are waiting)
IANAL, standard disclaimers apply.
I think it would be the price. I still think they should be $20. Most PC games are too scary (seriously) for the wider market. Add in that $50 price tag, and you've totally obliterated any but the hard core market. It's an interesting industry to watch though. Didn't total sales for video games just pass motion picture revenues this last year?
--
+&x
price fixing scheme here
IANAL, but don't you have to be 18 for your signature to be legally binding in most transactions?
Does anyone have a mirror of the statement from napster, since my college has all access to napster blocked?
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
The Alternative? Spend 5 min downloading copies of the song and have my entire collection within a week.
I am confident that a significant number of people using programs such as napster are in the same boat as I am considering the junk that is sold at Wal-Mart, RadioShack, Best Buy ...
So unless Metallica plans on including the mp3 versions of their songs on the CD's that I purchase and makes them available if I present a proof of purchase, they can go to hell.com!
The comment is flamebait. If you actually go (like I did) and read the bill (go to Thomas, search for S. 1948, then look at Sec.1011), then go and look at the actual US Code which it references, you will see the following:
A ''work made for hire'' is - [...] (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work [the change incorporated from S. 1948: as a sound recording], as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire [my emphasis].
This does *not* mean what the author of this comment alleges that it means. No copyrights are ripped away from any artists. It still requires that an artist agrees that the work that he or she is doing *is* a work for hire.
The 1976 updating of the Copyright Act holds that the mere creation of a work of art confers copyrightholder status on the creator. A significant legal action is required to transfer copyright to anyone else. A further legal action is required to certify that a work is being done "for hire".
This really *was* a technical amendment updating Title 17, Sec. 101, Para. 2 to include sound recordings as an area in which work for hire *might* be done. It is *not* a wholesale taking of intellectual property as was alleged by the author of this comment.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
The copyright infrigment of video games is no where NEAR the proportions of what it is for music. And yes, it has slown down, especially since game makers have gotten smarter.
What they're doing:
Requiring unique keys for multiplayer: Means pirated versions can only play on lans and single player, and most cracks don't have all the files for single player. Thus cracks become a demo for the real game, at no great charge to the company.
Copy protected cds: the old trick of making a scratch on the cd to prevent easy burning. I believe CTP has this, and lets you install and play the games on multiple systems.
Making more movies: A lot of these games have fantastic ingame movie sequences, that are half the fun of playing the game, and the internet still isn't fast enough for most people to download 4 cds worth of game easily.
Constantly updating the game: New features/bug fixes are coming out all the time, made easily available through an autoupdate feature. Now, everyone else around you has an incompatable version and you are stuck waiting around for someone to feel like putting out an updated crack.
Now what does this have to do with the music industry? Not much, but it shows that someone helped defeat/put to use "pirates" without resorting to law.
In this case, I think lowering the prices/making music more readily accessible would be the smart thing to do. Perhaps a buy online, get the mp3 now, and get the cd in the mail. I'm certain 5 to 10 dollars is worth paying to buy from a real store, where I get physical media, and centralized access to the music I want.
The DMCA allows anyone to easily force an ISP (or something like Napster) to kick off others by alleging copyright violations. However, the catch is that, if you are wrong, you face the penalty of perjury.
Metallica/NetPD admit that the list may not be completely accurate. Let's say that it is 99% accurate. That still leaves 3,000 people kicked off unfairly. If those people were to hit back, Metallica/NetPD would be faced with serious risk of massive perjury.
Takers?
I'm not sure why they even bother to offer the opportunity to counter Metallica's claims. If a company that would get support like Napster is afraid to counter Metallica's claims, what makes them think that individual users are going to be able to handle Metallica's army of attourneys. It's also a pointless to do that when you can create a new user name for much cheaper.
To all napster users who have used the napster service to steal Metallica's music (or anybody elses for that matter) - you deserve to be prosecuted.
To all legitimate napster users, (and non-napster users,) and/or Metallica fans who agree that the approach Metallica is taking in trying to stop the theft of their music is wrong - I suggest the following:
- Do not buy any (more) Metallica music.
- Contact Metallica in any way you can letting them know that you will not buy their music in future and tell them why.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
bablefish translates this from German To English as:
ik vindt metallica stelletje vuige lamb een apen op het zelfde trapstukje staan as de phlubby gnoom van trepaan!
What Language is this anyway
Perhaps it is in code
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
bill before the US House Of Reps. that would declare ALL published artistic musical work "work for hire". This is a VERY, VERY bad thing
;-)
I'm not a signed artist but this still pisses me off...all this focus on Napster and musician's rights has been drawing us away from finding out about this.
metallica's lawyers: "Hey, Napster is infringing on your rights! let's get 'em!"
metallica's record label: "Hey, now that we've pissed off your fans and gotten you lots of media attention, we thought we'd mention that we now own your work. Forever. And it's retroactive. Have a nice tour!"
What's a starving artist like me to do? Should we write our Congressperson? Storm the Senate? How about having a Million mp3 March?
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
My account is gone, I tried to login and couldn't. (I'm assuming it's because of this.)
I scanned my MP3 drives and the only thing I have with their name in it is
f:\mp3\misc\friends\Mark - Covering Metallica - Enter Sandman.mp3
For them to get me kicked off of Napster, they have to be alleging a criminal violation of some sort, and I don't think me having a copy of a garage band's music is a criminal violation (at least on my part, I have no idea about covers in general).
So, can I sue them for defemation of character or something? Or at least to get them to go to Napster and reinstate my account?
I think defamation has to have damages and be public, but there's got to be something appropriate for this case.
For certain though, I'll never buy another MP3 from those thieving bastards again. Another example of a big company (or band, backed by a big company) throwing their legal weight around and crushing anyone who gets in their way. Fuck Metallica, and fuck the RIAA.
Sort of... Partially, it depends on the ability of the minor to understand what they are getting into (4-5 year olds likely would be considered too young to understand what they're getting into), but minors get a chance to back out of agreements when they turn 18. As far as how 'electronic signatures' and minors go, I have no idea how well they'll hold up in a court.
www.knac.com has an interview with Lars bout 20 mins after he dropped all the paper work off at Napster HQ, as well as the actual press conference.
D =3599
http://www.knac.com/servlet/Article_Page?articleI
He does make a few decent points, but for the most part he appears clueless.
My favorite quote
Lars> "Uhhh the internet is uhhh a great uhhhhh thing"
What about the Smooth sounds of the Connells? The most underrated band of all time from the late 80s/early 90s.
They were real music.
no sig
Uhhh.... They do. A boat in international waters is subject to the laws and jurisdiction of the conutries who's flag they are flying. What if you aren't flying a flag? Well, then you are subject to the laws of the country of the authorities doing the intercepting.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Whoop-dee-doo. CD's cost a lot. People can charge whatever the hell they want to for CD's. If you don't like it and think it is too high, then you go without the music. You don't have some sort of god-given right to hear music that others create. Just because the price is too high doesn't justify stealing. If you think a group's music isn't worth $18, don't listen to it period. If enough people thought $18 for a CD was too high and people stopped buying music the price would go down or something would happen. The prices havn't gone down however, because people DO buy cd's because they believe the cost is justified (apparently, if someone paid $18 for a cd they didn't think worth $18 then sucks to be them, they made a bad decision). K.. i'm done ranting.
Typing your name qualifies as a signature, on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems, under US and UK law. Thank you.
Truth is a defence, but it isn't the only defence. As long as you believe the statement is true, and you have no reason to believe it is not you are pretty safe.
Besides, they swore under penalty of perjury that those 300,000 people pirated their music.
They swore that they believed those people were pirating the music. Unless you can demonstrate that they were in possesion of evidence to the contrary at the time then you are out of luck.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
While many people have made references to alternatives to Napster such as OpenNap and Gnutella, called Freenet. Here is a quote from their page at http://freenet.sourceforge.net
"Freenet is a peer-to-peer network designed to allow the distribution of information over the Internet in an efficient manner, without fear of censorship. Freenet is completely decentralized, meaning that there is no person, computer, or organisation in control of Freenet or essential to its operation. This means that Freenet cannot be attacked like centralized peer-to-peer systems such as Napster. Freenet also employs intelligent routing and caching meaning that it learns to route requests more efficiently, automatically mirrors popular data, makes network flooding almost impossible, and moves data to where it is in greatest demand. All of this makes it much more efficient and scalable than systems such as Gnutella."
While people may argue that programs such as this will only encourage the spread of piracy, I think that anything which allows (relatively) anonymous sharing of information will be abused to some degree by people out there. I would much rather have a certain amount of "bad stuff" happening because of a certain program than have my every movement tracked and logged by The Man.
http://bike.stu.ph/rides - free GPS routes available for Garmin, Magellan, GPX and Google Earth
I believe that this piece first appeared in Maximum Rock and Roll about five or six years ago. In it Albini exposes the finance mechanisms behind a major lable record, including an sample balance sheet:
l e.htm
http://www.interstate40.com.au/NEWS/Nov_Dec/Troub
(I found this particular URL by doing a google search: '"Steve Albini" trouble music')
Anyhow around the same time I first read this I was enrolled as a grad student in Music Business at Columbia, where I was taking a course with Irwin Steinberg, the guy who founded Mercury and later Polygram.
He was totally convinced that the majors were about to take a fall, because as soon as real artist realized that they could distribute there music for free they would, since they usually wind up loosing money on a major label deal anyhow.
It's funny buy in the class they actually gave us copies of a major label contract, and ran us through the negociation process, and yes, the whole thing is designed to make the artist think they are making money from the records while actually making them NOTHING!
So why would anyone make a major label record?
People who make the decision to sign with a major are usually following one of two lines of reasoning:
1. (the smart ones) A major label record will get us a ton of exposure, and we'll make a lot of money when we tour.
2. (the stupid ones) We'll sell a bunch of records and get rich.
Obviously anybody thinking either way about this is couting on the label to do a lot of marketing work, and that the marketing is going to provide the exposure, but really anybody who is confident that their music is truly worthwhile and is savvy enough to be thinking along the lines of the first line of resoning would not be at all threatened by mp3s, napster, the hacker ethic or whatever.
As for those following the second line of reasoning, I think everybody can agree that the music scene will be alot better off without "musicians" who make music in order to "get signed and get rich".
Wanna prove that our way is the right way? Try this (if you have some cash):
Find some band or DJ or whatever that you really really really like that hasn't been signed to a major label, and offer to pay for a recording, so long as you can give the recording away in mp3 form, and more importantly under a licence like the GPL which will prevent somebody from signing them later and taking the recordings back.
The artist still owns the songs themselves, only the recordings will be gpl'd (or equiv.) That way they will still get the paid for radio play.
Of course they (or anybody else) can put the record on a CD, with or without nice cover art and shrinkwrap (whatever).
Build a fancy website about the group, put the recordings up in their full form, and start telling people about it. If the music is as good as you will get lot's of hits and can sell ads, and the band will start getting a bigger turnout at shows, and can start reqiring much much larger amounts from venues. Everybody wins.
____________________________________
-- I beleve you'll like this -->
First, moderate this one up, that's an important point. As a real big GPL fan, i think that free information is a very good thing, yet in that way, things will advance much faster. So hey, you metallica crapping singers, look at me, you want to advance? - take a lesson from GPL, let it also be free, you got enough mony anyways, eh?
Dan.
Truth is a defence, but I'm almost certian that lack of knowledge is not. Besides, they swore under penalty of perjury that those 300,000 people pirated their music.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Well a lot of the crappiness of radio these days is due to the FCC permitting a handful of companies to own most of the music stations in the country. Thus, they all sound the same because they ARE the same - they play what the head office tells them to play.
While opening up the airwaves for low budget, low power locally owned and operated stations is a good start, it's important IMHO for the FCC to prohibit a single entity from owning more than one tv station and more than one radio station. For a rather scarce commodity (the EM spectrum) to be allocated fairly means giving everyone a chance. (let's not get into the overall crappiness of FM compared to AM though...)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Hmm, I always knew Ozzy was a geek (by definition of course) and his music RULES!!
Jim
Remember to take out the trash if you want to send email to me.
I don't think so. This stuff will go too far and eventually the internet will be regulated.
How do you regulate the internet you ask ?
What is happening already. Make ISPs responsible for their users. When a few people have been sued for doing what the government consider illegal things on the net, other people will think twice. This bop the mole is bullshit. A lot of people will not be willing to take the risk.
You can argue that the more people who stand up to them the less chance they have. Bullshit. You can live in your little cyber world all you want, but when the feds come busting through your door in the real world, you will soon know reality.
And when some guy name bubba wants you for his personal love toy, what then ?
Don't think that you can do what you want on the net. You can't break the law and get away with it. Even if the law is wrong.
While there have been some cool new technologies like mp3, violating copyright is against the law. And it looks like people will be made to pay. While I agree that the mymp3.com and DeCSS are a fiasco, and I don't think they violate any laws in any way, the metallica issue is different. It is copyright theft on a mass scale
Just wait until the government catches up with technology and excersises its iron grip. The internet makes you easier to trace, you leave an electronic pattern whatever you do. Anonyomity... bullshit. Slap a court order on the owners of the server who gave you your anonymous email address / dynamic ip and bingo. Server logs are pulled, who was dialled in then, who got that ip allocated.... etc etc.
Live in the real world people. Not this fantasy that the internet will change governments etc....
Alanp
First off, nobody needs CDs. They are in no way an essential part of life. If CDs were priced at $2400.00 almost nobody would buy them, and life would go on
;), concerts, mp3's recorded off the radio, satellite/cable broadcast music. etc. It goes on and on. Don't forget that you don't *need* a substitute even. Just don't listen to music.
If the recording industry increases price, and as a result they see increased *profits*(which they did and have), then the price must have been below market equilibrium prior to the price increase. This means that the demand for CDs was sufficient to allow for a price increase.
If their *profits* had decreased after the price increase, then they would have been above the market equilibrium... and naturally they would lower the prices.
Say that I make chewing gum, and the net cost for producing, marketing, selling, etc..., is $0.03. I could sell it for $0.031 and make a profit. But say the demand was huge, because Linus likes the gum.
Really huge demand... I would increase the price. I would keep increasing the price on a weekly basis (or whatever) until a price increase failed to cause a *profit* increase. At this point say I am selling the gum for $3.00... which is $2.97 profit. Huge profit, this thing only costs me $0.03 to make.
Some people would be pissed off... some of the people who could afford my gum at $0.03 would not be able to buy the gum at $3.00. They scream that it only costs me 3 cents to make this damn gum, how can I possibly justify selling it for 3 dollars.
Well, guess what? I am not making this gum for the benefit of humanity. I don't care if some people can't afford my gum at $3.00. I am here to make money. More specifically I am here to make money as fast and efficiently as possible. If increasing prices increases profits, you damn well know I am going to increase the price.
The fact that napster and whatever else is out there means there is a substitution for CDs (be it legal or not). Actually there seem to be a lot of substitutes for CDs. tapes being the closest, radio, humming (if you are really good
Anyway, I personally don't have a problem with the cost of CDs. I just don't buy them anymore. I have a small collection built up over the years, and that combined with the radio is enough for me.
gotta go,
--Scott
Folks,
As I said earlier, the whole issue with Metallica versus Napster points out the fact that music buyers in general are suffering from a case of sticker shock buying new CD's.
Right now, if you go to a "brick and mortar" music store the average price of an album-length CD is about US$15 to US$17, and already there is talk of the price going to US$18 very soon. Even the online music stores like CDNow.com, Borders.com, and other can only knock a few dollars off this high price.
Given that the duplication cost per CD is measured at about 35-50 US cents (that's including packaging), something tells me that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and its member companies may be conspiring in a price-fixing scheme to keep prices high. I mean, just how many middlemen are we paying in order to get the price of a CD to US$13 to US$17 per disk?
In my personal opinion, this is a true case of monopolistic practices, because the customer _is_ being hurt by a possible artificial high price by an OPEC-like cartel of record companies. Maybe lowering the price of an album-length CD to US$8 to US$9 will definitely help things along, since not only will there far less incentive to pirate the music, but also there will be substantially more volume sales of _legitimate_ CD's. Anyone who's taken a course in microeconomics can figure that out pretty quickly.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
(note: This is paraphrased from someone elses comments, who gave permission for them to be used).
How NetPD found these people to add to their ban list is an interesting issue. Were they offering Metallica mp3s themselves and tracking the people who downloaded them? If so, did they have permission from Metallica to do this?
Or, were they tracking people who were offering Metallica mp3s? It wouldn't be difficult to take any 3 meg file (like one of those that photoshop creates), rename it Metallica - Ride the Lightning.mp3, and offer it. The issue is about copyrighted material being freely traded, not the use of their name, so would NetPD be downloading Metallica mp3s from all the people offering them, playing them to verify that it is indeed Metallica, and then adding these people to the list? If so, did they get permission to do this?
If I had the time, I'd download some girl pop songs and rename them to Metallica songs
-Steve WDC
Given that the average price of a CD has stayed around $15 since the early 80s, hasn't the price actually gone down when you take inflation into consideration?
from the 'Cost of a CD' page:
Error Occurred While Processing Request
Error Diagnostic Information
An error occurred while attempting to establish a connection to the service.
The most likely cause of this problem is that the service is not currently running. You can use the 'Services' Control Panel to verify that the service is running and to restart it if necessary.
Windows NT error number 2 occurred.
now if the RIAA was running linux...
(score -1, offtopic)
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
Welcome to 2000 - if you look to have lots of money for lawyers, when you say jump, people ask how high. If not, you're nobody.
I love our brave new world
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
And maybe one or two of you might listen a bit when I say 'help?'. I need some support. People don't like it when bands put their focus entirely on marketing and suppressing mp3s- but if you're not Big, if you don't have the resources, then you basically have a choice: do your art or stop doing it and promote what you have. That's a damn ugly choice to have to face. I keep choosing to do more music- and it's killing me. There isn't time to go out and harangue people to listen to it, and that's not where my heart really is anyhow...
So I'm going to ask something (which you're free to ignore, after all I have no ability to force anybody to do anything). I keep putting up new music- my techno 'Dragons' album is almost done and has several new songs added to it very recently, more very soon. Please go to http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ and poke around downloading or streaming some music. I won't try to push a single song to become a 'hit' on the 'charts' because I don't believe in that model anymore. If you can't find anything you like, even when it's free, then go away again grumbling about my pushy tactics ;) but if you find something you like, instead of going "oh I probably should get that $5.99 CD to support the artist", could you please TELL SOMEBODY?
It just wears me down to see all this constant emphasis on the manufactured stars of a dying industry. Even bad publicity is publicity- and you know, I only have so much energy to put up against the army of marketing people, lawyers, and outraged geeks all raving about and at and against and for Metallica- and I'm just not going to spend it with complete selfishness. I'm going to spend it mostly on creating my own music- and then I'm going to go hang out in the mp3.com boards and try to encourage OTHER MUSICIANS that I like, because that needs to happen. There needs to be that support- and I'm going to try to provide it for others even if I hardly get any myself. And every now and then (not every five seconds anymore o_O ) I'll run across a Slashdot article relating to music and mp3, relating in some way to my situation- and I'm going to try to get word out about what things are really like out here in the trenches.
I do hope some people who've checked out my music and liked it go and _tell_ somebody about it. There's very little I can do to make that happen, as most of my energies are _already_ focussed on making more cool music for people to enjoy... and I spend as much as I can afford on posters to put around town and stuff. Everybody seems to nod and go "that's cool" and then go back to yelling at Metallica (at least on Slashdot). Maybe you guys could just forget about Metallica for a day or two and listen to free music, music that's actually being shared willingly?
http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ
Surfing through a payphone is done everyday using a coupler to the payphone handset lets you access your anonymous freeweb ISP then do whatever you want. If you want to access the web from home do it, just don't do anything that you shouldn't be doing. If you just have to be an elite Warez/MP3/Porn junkie and don't want people to know about it encrypt your stuff.
Well, my friend just told me he got banned. Tried to create a new username called FUCKMETALLICA , but it was already taken. fancy that...
If they get caught trading mp3s, do you really think they would be buying more CDs anyway? I'm sure there were a few that traded legit copies of ones they had, but let's get real. I'd put real money on the fact that %99.99 of them were trading illegal mp3s.
IANAL, but here is what's funny:
Metallica explained that these usernames had made available for others to download materials that Metallica claims infringed its copyrights.
At the same time, Best Buy and any other Brick and Mortar retailer makes their CD's available for me to steal. Along with Napster, because the opportunity is there does not mean people take advantage of it. Which is along the same lines of people getting something without paying for it. So, I guess I'm waiting for Metallica to deliver a list of all the Best Buy stores to Best Buy, Coconuts stores to Coconuts, Musicland to Musicland etc...
Some may say that this is different because it's making it easy to and encouraging people to steal with Napster. I say they haven't talked to enough suburban 14 year olds (sorry DJ Jazzy Trevor, I didn't know the food court was your turf).
<SARCASM>Oh wait, that's right this is the way of the future, and we should be scared of it.</SARCASM>
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Not that I want to lay claim to these morons, but unfortunately they come from further down under.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Yes, Metallica is a big band with lots of money, but they have rights too. Same rights that any independent, unknown band who have just started have. When a band becomes famous and starts making money, it's not suddenly OK to pirate all of their music you want. If we made exceptions to this, it would not be fair (or universal). It's like the issue with Elian, if we just allowed an illegal immigrant to stay in the country because he's a cute little boy and all, then we should tear down the borders and allow any immigrant to come on over and join the party. What would the point of becoming a popular, successful band be if it meant anyone could steal your music freely?
- Amon CMB
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
The obscene Regulation of Investagoatory Powers bill, all about electronic freedom (And poetically shortened to RIP) allows a person to use an electronic signature to sign legal documents.
This is not law yet.
Therefore, in the UK, an electronic signature is not legally binding.
Besides, RIP states that the electronic signature is a cryptographic device.
In short, Napsters thingy is bogus, for all UK citizens.
http://www.riaa.com/MD-US-7.cfm
comes this gem:
No sir, I don't like it.
-- adam a
Well, I've now ditched the account, changed all the info, but Napster is blocking by snagging my IP. Unless of course MetallicaFucks5YearOldBoys was a blocked account. Or not.
Napster cannot itself determine whether or not the files that you were sharing fell within the category described above that Metallica claims are infringing. However, under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 512(c)(3)(vi), Napster will disable access when, as here, it has received a notice from a copyright holder claiming under penalty of perjury that you have made available material infringing his rights.
Policy for Counter Notification
In compliance with the DMCA, 17 U.S.C. Section 512(g), Napster will reinstate any user who disputes Metallica's allegation of infringement via a sworn "counter notification," and who after that counternotification is provided to Metallica, is not sued by Metallica within ten (10) business days. Following this is a form for "counter notification."
This is the first time I've seen something about the DMCA that actually benefits those other than the copyright owner (the counter-notification). Napster (and no doubt NetPD) has no idea whether the files being shared were Metallica music or even .mp3 files at all.
Since Metallica says it's not going to sue fans why not just "counter notify" and stand up for what is right?
On a clear disk you can seek forever
This is a long time coming. Back in the early '90s I was saying that it would be a long time (perhaps as much as 10 years) before the information industries of music, books, research, advertising, etc. started to notice that their world had ended and the Internet had taken over. This war has only just begun, let's hope it's not going to be a bloody one (a vain hope, I'm sure as RIAA will not stop before SOMEONE is sent to jail as an example).
I've just started to check out Gnutella, not because it's really that interesting a service to me, but because the idea of a truely distributed network is intriguing. I think I would have done it differently, and indexing/reviewing is going to have to be the next big advent there, but it certainly has the chance of being to the next generation of Internet/Web usage what gopher was to the pre-Web days (which, if you don't reacall was HUGE on the relatively small scale of the Internet back then).
As a help to growth, I propose a new file format. Simply a MIME document with the extension ".gtl" (itself having the mime-type x-application/gnutella-catalog), which contains three required parts. The first is text/plain (description) the second is text/plain and contains one line that has an MD5 checksum of the third part (used as a key for refering to this document) the third part is of any format, but application/pgp is specifically allowed for (the content: signed and optionally encrypted). If the content is signed, the signature is that, not of the content creator or distributor, but of a review/indexing site that has verified and cataloged the content, perhaps also providing a public forum for user-feedback regarding the content. An optional fourth part would contain a text/plain one-entry-per-line list of URLs where the content is indexed and/or reviewed.
Can anyone else smell a business model, here...?
I do not use Napster and do not have the desire to What I want to know is "By what means did Metallica use to obtain the names of the people they gave to Napster." The point I want to make is who appointed them (Metallica ) the internet police.If I found out that a IP addres or an email address from my domain was listed by Metallica in their case aganst Napster I would be inclinded to sue Metallca. Make no mistake I am not for or aganst Napster. But I will not allow my privacy to be violated by a group of artist,whats next the MPAA or the arts snob commision want to view my hard drive .
I read about this story this at news.com over my morning cup coffee...sure enough, my Napster account was blocked! Between Metallica's harassing Napster with their greed and NetPD's intrusiveness I've had it with them and every other corporate bastard trying to jack over the average Joe...RIAA, MPAA, Metallica, Dr. Dre (not that I listen to rap)...
/. interview later this week...
You built your empire and fame off of people spending money on your records, t-shirts, and concerts. Ironically you'd never be where you are today if it wasn't for the underground/bootleg scene that got you started at the grassroots level.
I had only the Black album and Load before MP3 was big. Had it not been for the MP3 scene and some friends into it I never would have become a bigger fan of yours and probably would never have been exposed to your earlier works.
Well, today I'm pissed. For starters, I busted my Garage, Inc. album in two and *nailed* it to the wall over my desk, then I boxed up my copies of Load, the Black Album, Master of Puppets, and Ride the Lightning and mailed them back to the WHOIS registrant postal address for Metallica.com:
Registrant:
Metallica (METALLICA13-DOM)
P.O. Box 18327
Knoxville, TN 37928-2327
US
I'm so infuriated at being sold out as a fan that I don't know what else to do with your "commodity" -- you said the word, not me, Lars. You said you were gonna lose fans because of this, well guess what, you're right! I wish I could have been in California last week busting your CDs for the cameras.
About the only thing I respect is you guys grabbing your balls and fighting for what you believe in, damn the consequences -- that deserves some measure of respect, but there is a bigger issue for me and thousands of Netizens here...
The Internet is fast being transofrmed as a place for free expression of ideas to a bastion of corporate greed and government regulation. The Bill of Rights and ideals it was founded on like freedom and privacy are being trampled on left and right, and unless some serious democratic corrections are made to our society, we are headed for an Orwellian future of corporatism or a violent revolution as public outrage mounts. Put down your drumsticks for a minute and read up about the Echelon Project, UCITA, DMCA, DeCSS...they are all storm clouds. I understand if you're pissed off at me for taking an unpopular stance, but it's what I believe in.
Lars, you said on CNET Radio "...I can barely use AOL...I need help" So get out there and SEE...pull off those blinders that AOL pulls over your eyes and passes itself off as the Internet! Get a second PC -- I know you can afford one -- and your local Linux Users Group will be happy to install an operating system that lets you see the Net as it really is. Go watch The Matrix if you haven't already....FREE YOUR MIND!
I don't know how to show you what's out there, but you just might find the Open Source community to be alot better "against the man" folks than you give us credit for. Anyways, screw it, my envelope with your CDs is on the desk and it will stay there until I see what you guys have to say in your
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I remember seeing and hearing tales about
sideshow geeks a long time ago.These were partyin
dudes who would do cute shit like eatin glass and nails,swallowing live mice and snakes,bite the heads off chickens,live body piercing before your
eyes.
This in no way conflicts with the mentalpicture i have
of Algore(his real name as he is an an alien and
these are the things he is reported to feed on)and
his lovely wife Ti Pergore.Reported to have been sent here from a planet called Pmarcee.
Thats right,they were originally sent here to end
all Rock and Roll.Then when we were lulled into
suicidal submission by the resultant tide of elevator music and Perry Como.The PMRC ships would
descend and conquer the gelatainous masses.
Then there came the Bob-blessed Frank Zappa
and his humble sidekick John Denver and defeated
the multi-headded dragon called Pmarcee.And lo
each cloven head looked like a senators wife and
had bad dyejobs.
Later on both men died foul deaths.Coincidence?
I think not!
Now Algore runs for president and will hand us over on a plate.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Tired of being the only one on your block who hasn't issued a rambling, meaningless legal threat to Napster? Can't afford high priced, low moral legal representation to craft elegant claims of damages and wrongdoing you have suffered at their cruel and perverted hand? Just click through this easy multiple choice form and your one hundred percent screwball legal threat will be generated and sent by Low Pass catfish to the acting CEO of Napster, Eileen Richardson. Don't delay, start now!
The bulk of the money spent has never been spent on production or manufacturing. Most of it is spent on promotion. A really decent album can be made for $10,000 these days, but you won't sell at Metallica's level unless you spend millions of dollars and years of hard work promoting it. If Metallica and their label hadn't spent the last ten years working and touring to promote the group, nobody would be downloading Metallica MP3 files. You believe the system is corrupt, but you let them lead you around by the nose! If you want thumb your nose at the RIAA go to http://www.iuma.com/, http://www.ubl.com/, http://www.francemp3.com/, or even http://www.mp3.com/. Between them, you can find half a million artists who WANT you to download thier MP3s. From the samplings I have made, I would say that at least 10% of those artists are also better musicians than Metallica. To some degree or another, those sites are trying to promote small unsigned acts and promote diversity on the internet... They are making a buck, too, but from the looks of it the only one making more than rent money is mp3.com...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
All the /.ers screaming for blood over CD prices...maybe you should contact the FTC and tell them to keep up the good work.
==
"This is the nineties. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first."
No wonder you are nauseated.
In a typical radio station setting you are forced to listen to what radio directors think of as popular. They are not interested in playing what's "good", or diverse.
Well, with all due respect, you really aren't in a position to judge, are you? I mean, liking Celine Dion _and_ Nine Inch Nails takes some kind of sick genius.
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What are the weapons of happiness?
The post-acid (last few albums) Beatles have nothing in common with Britney Spears and little to do with typical pop music sounds. Try listening to the music before you decry it.
Just wondering...
So the RIAA, Metallica, and NetPD want to play hardball in getting Napster shutdown? Why make it so easy?
Who says it is copyright infringement to rename a public domain mp3 file and rename it something as "metallica - sucks!" or something of that effect? If they are using bots its going to be funny having thousands of users wrongfully flagged as copyright infringmers. The only way to prove it is a metallica file is for them to download it from your box, and last time I checked anyway, we still have freedom of speech, and, it isn't illegal to cancel a file transfer from Napster if you don't want them to leech your bandwidth! (Nor is this a violation of the napster license i beleive.)
Are they going to conduct a search and seizure raid of everyone's computer to find if it is a metallica song actually? Think the government is going to waste it's time if we all get dragged to court?
Also, didn't I read something in the DMCA stating you can be penalized if you wrongfully accuse someone of infringement? NetPD better "hire millions like mad" in this case to make for certain they are getting users who are actually providing bona fide metallica songs.
Fuck Ajit Pai
Instead of banning 300,000 users, why not ban the trading of Metallica songs on Napster? So much easier, and much more effective.
"I can only show you Linux... you're the one who has to read the man pages."
Can't get the article? It's probably because it's on Napster's server and your university blocked it. Stupid colleges.
I think that this was inevitable. The US recording industry has every reason to protect their monopoly over the music media.
Over the past decade, we've seen a major shift in the industry to increase the control over the content and distribution of music to the masses. Independent record labels are almost non-existent and forget about ever hearing inde music on a local radio station (unless you are very lucky). Guess who has been buying all the radio stations? I happen to live in a Clear Channel city, how about you?
Believe or not, these people want to control music from the moment it gets penned down to the moment it enters your ears. You hear what they want you to hear, when they want you to hear it. Bands like Metallica are just puppets for their corporate masters. When they are no longer profitable, they will be cast aside like the rag dolls that they are.
IMHO, the industry doesn't care about piracy and never has. What really keeps the execs awake at night is the threat of losing control over the DISTRIBUTION of their media. They've done their best to isolate themselves from the digital age though unconstitutional legislation, but it's not been enough. This is why they have pulled out all the stops on attacking MP3 and any kind of electronic distribution that they don't already own. Why? Well if they don't control it, they don't get their cut.
So when you buy that CD, most of the money goes right back into feeding the beast that shoves the music back down your throat. Gag.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." -- Plato
Reinstalling it and getting a new username doesn't un-ban you, they're either leaving files or registry changes on my machine or their banning IPs. Anyone find a hack yet?
and legal MP3s as well
Is MusicMatch a Xing derivative? If so, then you have 140 garbage albums in mp3 format.. Xing is a disgustingly inaccurate encoder, it severely cuts quality for speed. Lame is one of the fastest high-quality encoders and is free. And even better, the soon to be released version is going to be 100% GPL code, no more patching!
I'd be a shame to spend all that time encoding your collection and all of the recordings sound muddy and watery!
Remember, don't feed the trolls.
Circuit city sells CDs at a loss or a most break even to sucker you into the store to buy other stuff that they make money on (the term is "loss leader"). They don't stock anything but major label current hit artists and they don't do anything to promote new artists.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
I've *ahem* downloaded quite a few Metallica songs off Napster and have not been given the boot. I'm wondering why, since it seems not everything in my nifty little collection is live or bootlegged or both. Anyone have any straight forward advice on what to do at this point? Should I delete my account? Sit tight? Barricade myself in my house? Help.