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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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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)
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?
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
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
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
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.
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-- I beleve you'll like this -->
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