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House To Hold Hearing On Napster
ptbrown writes: "On Wednesday the House Small Business Committee will be holding a hearing on Internet music technologies. (That is, Napster.) Chuck D, of Public Enemy and Rapstation.com, will be testifying on behalf of the good-side of MP3. For the opposition, the Progressive Policy Institute has written a report that recommends extending the DMCA to explicitly outlaw technologies like Napster." Yeah, we should definitely ban peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet, and NFS pisses me off, too. And Web pages: Ban Port 80! Does anyone out there understand what they're saying?
So tell me why the small minority of independent artists distributing their music on napster have more important rights than the RIAA.
I assume you mean that the majority of the music you find on Napster is RIAA music and the minority of music is independent. This is absolutely true. The obvious reason is that more people own copies of RIAA material than independent artists' material. The RIAA is obviously the best at distributing music offline. You do realize, though, that the RIAA does not represent the majority of artists that are out there right? Now, independent artists make up the majority of artists that use the Internet to distribute their music.
If the choice is between trampling the RIAA's rights and trampling the rights of everyone else on the planet the wishes to distribute music, then I'm siding with the rest of the planet.
Napster is an extremely effective tool for distributing high-quality music online. Although it's still in its infancy it's already proven itself to be good for that. At one show this month one of the bands I record called me up on stage to introduce me. The first thing someone shouted out was "Hey, are you gonna put these guys on Napster?" I said, "Hell yeah...if Metallica and the major record labels don't shut them down first."
Really go and talk to and talk to as many independent musicians as you can. I bet you can't find a majority that say they don't want their music distributed on Napster. My experience so far is that the majority want it and those that don't want it or don't know what it is are the minority.
numb
Do you know of any superior Unix to Unix, or heck, GNU/Linux to GNU/Linux protocals, for this?
Yep, they're right too. You STOLE the music from the band. Yes. Stole. You took it without paying the appropriate fees to the band/record company/distributer/promoter. As someone who has worked in the industry, I can confidently say that most of the people don't deserve the cash (i.e. music directors at radio stations shouldnt make a cent) but that doesn't mean it's okay to steal from them. I'm all for selling appropriately priced singles in MP3 format on the web. Go for it, design the architecture, but until then don't use Napster as an excuse to not buy CDs. This why Tower Records and Virgin and millions of other record stores have listening stations.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
How did you guess that?? ;-)
Derek Greene
Well all mp3 encoding is lossy but 320kbps 44.1khz stereo doesnt cut much out at all, but with the bitrate that high you lose a reason mp3 is so popular, its small size, 320kbps files are quite large.
"...no one is talking about banner file transfers.
Including me. I'm talking about illegal files on anonymous NFS shares. Does illegal usage automatically make a tool itself illegal?
"The subject is requiring services that provide directories of files to take appropriate action so that their servers are not conduits for illegal activity. That's hardly an unreasonable request."
Yes it is. Such a request goes beyond the behavior of similar services. For instance, telephones.
Back in the days of BBSs, a lot of people copied a lot of files via modem--but we never made any laws about "telephone companies are required to identify users".
Or how about any other illegal act (or conspiracy to commit such an act) over the phone? When you use a pay phone, there is no user tracking.
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Your wording made you sound a like a liberal little bed-wetter who thinks we should ban the tools also. :-)
Derek Greene
and if you are sensitive to high frequancies, poor compression can stand out like a sore thumb...and a low bitrate will just make the whole song sound like crap...esp when there is a high pitch sound alone and no other noise to cover up the distortion.
-james
Let's start taking weekly urine samples, too. Doing drugs are wrong. This step will be sure to put a stop to this illegal activity. We just need to be able to hold people more accountable! Right???? Riiiigggggggghhhhhhhhhht...
I can see you obviously never did a stint in the military or on a professional sports team, where routine random drug testing is normal accepted practice.
Oh, but I forget, this is the Generation X Cyberpunk children of hippies culture that won't accept any authority whatsoever, especially the kind that actually might catch them doing something illegal. We just need a completely anonymous society where it's impossible catch anyone doing anything illegal! Right??? Riiiigggggggghhhhhhhhhht....
That's correct, you're not affected nearly as bad, but you'd still be pissed if say 1,000 people had gyped you out of .50 each, that's $500. Little numbers add up quickly. To a band that's another gig at a small show. That's enough to replace a guitar or part of a sound board. So, it's still stealing, regardless. Don't make excuses for trespasses.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Napster will probably die. And as far as i'm concerned, they *should* die, because they really are attempting to make money on piracy.
When was Napster ever trying to make money?? You don't pay for an account. They don't have advertisements. Where are they making money?? It seems to me that Napster was written solely for the purpose of being written and the only thing that's happened since is that the company has lost money due to all these crazy lawsuits.
Napster exists for only one reason: To create an illegal market for copyrighted material
/.'ers have posted legitimate use, not potential use, but actual legitimate use of Napster to spread their own band's music.
Is it really too hard for you to swallow your pride and admit that you are wrong? Many other
If anything, it would be a narrow ban restricting companies from aiding criminals who move around copyrighted material.
Perhaps you fail to realize that the precendence set by this "narrow ban" could very possibly, and in all probability, lead to the "not so narrow banning" of other technologies that someone as "narrow minded" as you deems to exist solely for the committing of a crime.
Someone will eventually ban something you care about?
lysdexic
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."
lysdexic
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a t
The point is that Congress is the opposite of Progress. Haven't you ever seen Gallagher??
-Grendel Drago
[righteous anger is the best anger!]
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Contact your congressman!
phhhbt! You and I both know they don't give a dink what we think. We have to blame ourselves for having the damned congresspersons!
Politics are far too important to be left to politicians. Overthrow your congressman!
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Well, if you do read the whole story, you realize that what PPI is saying is the DMCA is not strong enough to stop services such as Napster.
For example, they make the claim that the law is not strong enough, because Napster can claim immunity as a common carrier, or not as a common carrier, or whatever (your point 1). However, the judge in the Napster case has already ruled they are liable--no change in the DMCA law is needed--they are just shouting to get campaign dollars for the Democrats from the RIAA.
They also claim that a judge should be allowed to grant an injunction under the DMCA, or that the time limits are not strong enough. False--Napster has not been able to escape current DMCA law--no change in the DMCA law is needed. (Their case might be stronger if the judge had gone the other way, but it is certainly premature now.)
I doubt that our poor U.S. representatives will be able to understand these affairs. Instead, Michael Ovitz should be called to testify about scour.c om. Heck, this is an ex-Disney president who is making millions as an agent representing talent. And his company enables trading music online! What do you think he would say about PPI's proposed legislation?
(I think he would say that if the legislation is relaxed, a lot of people could make money on this new technology. But if the DMCA is made more rigorous, it will only instantiate an obsolete business model and alienate customers.)
anybody w/ a three-letter name in all caps starting with a double-u has to be in favor of taking my freedom away, don't you agree?
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio
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The ratio of independant to mainstream is, if anything, WORSE on Napster than on public airwaves, given the large number of college and pirate radio stations around.
The ratio? Hmm, whatever. All I know is most of the stuff I look for, I find. Even if all I know is how to spell the bands name. Who cares if there are 300,000 copies of Metallidre floating around, I don't wanna hear them, or waste my bandwidth on them.
The fact that a bottom-up forum like Napster has independantly taken on the same shape as the corporate top-down ones is fairly telling evidence of this.
There is absolutely no evidence that a generation of kids with a HUGE range of easily available music, would choose Britney Moore and the Back'N Sync boys as their favorites. There is evidence that ones raised on MTV would though...
Napster levels the playing field, some people don't like that. They don't like competition, it cuts into profits and leads to nasty things like price wars. We wouldn't want to confuse consumers in a "price war" would we?
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+&x
Look, individuals can vote, corporations can't. It's time we make that very clear to the politicians who have forgotten.
Excuse the cynicism, but yes they can, and a few thousand times more effective. It's called lobbying. How do you think we got the DMCA in the first place? Duh.
And another thing. Being an election year may not be that good either.. It really means that any popular issue (police brutality, medicare, whether or not ketchup is considered a fruit in school lunches, etc..) has the potential of being exploited to further a political platform.
I can already see the negative campaining... "The Clinton/Gore administration passed laws that limit your privacy..." paid for by the Bush campain. "Bush wants to take away artists' copyrights..." paid for by the Gore campain.. (Or maybe I have it backwards; it doesn't matter, it's all arbitrary who's side is for what anyway.)
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2B1ASK1
in spite of many punk kids claiming that napster==freedom, therefore taking away napster==no-freedom, as others have admitted, napster is almost entirely a pirating tool. Its junk, and has nothing to do with freedom, except the abuse thereof. Anonynimity is also being abused by a bunch of foolish individuals who seem to give their brain a vacation while on the internet. I honestly believe the only possible loss of freedom will come from people who continue to act like airheads, thinking they're justified for _anything_ because they're on the internet.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
How bout your social security number? Your Credit Card Number? Your home address and names of all pertinent members living there? Should this information be free as well? The artist who created the groupings of tones and chords and instruments is the owner of the rights. He/She/They choose to sell them to record companies who publish them. Why not give them credit for their work? You'll respond, I give them credit, I spread their name around. Big fscking deal, name recognition is only worth something if they can sell something with it (preferably the music they work very hard to create). I'd love for people to go back to analog too, but we're stuck in a digital millenium now.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
-jcl
But asking people to respect copyright laws isn't exactly on par with government sponsored genocide. It isn't even close. If you follow my logic, then my statement is much more akin to me complaining that the Gestapo are searching *my* attic because other people are hiding jews. But, as I said, I would not consider hiding jewish people from persecution the same thing as stealing music. But your "logic", in fact, hiding a nazi war criminal in your attic from the police is the same as hiding jewish people from the german government. Good analogy.
I wasn't rejecting any principles of causality or personal responsiblity. I simply stated that if lawmakers feels compelled to apply restrictions to how people use a service (ie the internet) because a number of people are openly flaunting the law, and stealing from others, then I would be pissed at the people breaking the law, not the government.
I suppose a few generations ago, your ancestors were complaining that the government was going to make stealing cars illegal because that might compel them to actually pay for one?
Dana
If you only allow "non-commercial" distribution, it clearly isn't public domain. After how many years do you think the material should become public domain?
--
The shareholder is always right.
If Congress tries to do this, the law WILL be struck down in court,
If the judge isn't clueless
and that's a big if...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I dunno, a lot of the fans of Metallica I knew could not afford so many CD's. they bought as many as they could, but often had to subsist on swapped tapes from radio, and, yes, CD's.
I guess that's piracy, but not everybody is a trust fund baby and can afford a giant cd collection.
What people keep missing is that in order for these mp3's to be made someone buys the CD, just like the tapes no one seemed to have a probelm with. Maybe it's because you don't have to say "hey I wanna tape some metallica" to the whole world when you do it.
The other thing everyone misses is that a CD in your hand is better than MP3 or tape, and desired by many fans. And when they can afford one they will definately buy one. Sure you can burn cd's yourself if you want to and have the eq and knowhow. However that does not give you the posters, liner notes, stories, etc that come with the typical cd.
MP3 has the power to help struggling musicians and napster and things like it could help distribution of mp3. Artists who can't get signed by a major label or get airtime on teh radio can promote with mp3. It's a great technology.
Once upon a time metallica was not played on major radio stations and few people heard their cd's. But people saw and taped their concerts and swapped copies of the tapes. The same has been true of many bands before they became famous. Had they come down on people for it then they would not enjoy the fame they have now.
It's easy to say "nah these people just want a free lunch." But in reality they are just trying to listen to music on their computer, in a format that allows them to make their own playlist among other things.
Owning CD's and grabbing MP3's are far from mutually exclusive. They are both by definition the act of a music fan, who will have many reasons to want both.
- Clear notice on every web site telling users what personal information may be collected by whom and how it will be used.
- Prohibitions on selling or sharing personally identifiable profiles with other companies or third parties.
- Clear and simple procedures to opt out of data collection.
- Stringent guidelines on the collection of sensitive personal data.
- Notification on updates to privacy policies.
- Prohibitions on the use of data collected under more stringent privacy policies.
That's my take on it, anyways. At least they tried, let's hope they're open to reviewing that proposal.Personally, I think that should already be mandatory. Accountability is a very important thing in this medium, given the ease with which information can be traded. There are currently no safeguards in place that allow a user to do the equivalent of a paper-chase to see who has what information on them. Such a lack of standards is, quite frankly, shameful.
You know what? This would never work. What seems to be forgotten in this section is the fact that this kind of information is exactly what marketers want. As a result, there is no way that there would be any use in attempting to make something like this stick.
Why not reverse this? Let's see some sites that make it clear and simple to opt into data collection. It would be very pleasant to see a website that explained that they would like to use your provided information in (hopefully) a constructive way. I can't remember the last time I saw something like that.
This item is almost acceptable. But, in my opinion, why make particular items 'more private' than others? Who sets these standards? The idea almost makes sense, but it far too vague to be of any use.
When someone registers with a website, they should be able to expect to be treated the same for their entire time with that website, regardless of policy changes. They should have the opportunity to opt into the changes, but those changes should not be forced upon them.
This item is almost good too, but again, the user is required to proactively confirm their removal from a policy change. Bad.
How can we maintain the Internet free for the years to come? That is the issue that needs to be dealt with. The sooner, the better
you mean instill the radical beliefs of the OSS movement on the general populas of the Internet?
you keep throwing around words like "free Speech" and "freedom" and "information wants to be Free". Who sets the boundries of limitations? You? Under your theories, I could hack someone's website, steal credit card numbers, and pirate software. The problem here, which no-one here seems to notice, is that the Whole Internet is there because of capitalism. It just isn't this vast amount of dead-space void of rules/regulations/money. What if a company only sells their software product on the Internet?
people's art shouldn't fall under this rule.
Sorry, my little man.
I did 6 years in the United States Navy and served on three Nuclear Subs. Piss tests? Been there, done that, to coin a "Gen-X" phrase.
Go argue your narrow-minded stereotypes and half-baked assumptions somewhere else.
By the way, my parents are in their seventies.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? I say that Napster does have a responsibility to not be a conduit for illegal activity. Especially when that is their not-so-hidden purpose.
I say that you're a fricking idiot that should be hung so you can't polute our gene pool anymore. Now that's my opinion, but opinion is not law or you'd be swinging right now.
*Sigh* once again, no one is talking about banner file transfers. The subject is requiring services that provide directories of files to take appropriate action so that their servers are not conduits for illegal activity. That's hardly an unreasonable request.
We are talking about precendence. You ban one, you pave the way to ban the rest.
I used to think you were just sticking to you point and not backing down. Now I agree that you are a troll.
lysdexic
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."
lysdexic
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a t
I agree photocopying is fraud, but what people are doing on Napster is stealing.
At least they can take comfort in that there are actually people like you who buy into their propaganda
this must be a joke...if there's anyone here who's a mindless follower of propaganda, it's you. Unlike you, I am for FREE SPEECH. I believe in the right thing. Software piracy cannot be stopped, but that doesn't mean it's right. I would like to have the freedom to protect my property as I see fit, to keep people like you, from stealing it, or claiming it's "free speech" to steal it.
Do you even know what Free Speech is??? obviously not.
too bad those listening stations never have the album or artist I want to listen to....thats when i go home and fire up napster. but when it comes down to it, i've bought more CD's because of the new artists i've been introduced to thru mp3 technology than i ever would have. there've been artists i've had an intrest in but never realized their music would be so good...so i went out and bought the CD. on the other hand, there's artists i heard were good, and if i hadnt been able to listen to their mp3's first, i may have bought the CD then turned around and returned it.
my solution to the problem would be for the recording industry to publish music in an analog form again, so that a digitally copied version could NEVER be of the same quality as the original recording. furthermore, the physical package should be worth more...this makes me drool: every piece of music pink floyd ever recorded -- recorded in analog onto a holographic data storage cube. then sold in a fancy velvet lined case with a full color hard-cover booklet full of pictures and bios and history. and if i could take the cube to my local music store once a year or so and have the artist's new music added on. hell i'd pay over 100 bucks for something like that.
another big problem w/ CD's is that my primary drive to rip and encode everything i've got is that all my music is getting scratched up. then, once its on my computer, what can i do....my computer is fully open to all of my users...thats my policy. they wouldnt be users if i didnt trust them.... but a friend of mine grabbing a song off my computer isnt a breach of trust. i didnt tell him not to...i cant. all i can say is that its copyrighted material and that its mine.
the fact that some organization wants to own a bunch of noise is bullshit. _all_ information is free in my book (well, sensitive info will be witheld until this culture can handle it.)
what happens when i refuse to make anything i know private...and make everything i know public (note: as far as i'm concerned, the info stored on my hard drive is meerly an extention to the info stored in my head)
-james
Alright, I've been reading through these threads for about an hour and a half, seeing a lot of circular arguing about 'The RIAA does this to the Artists so it's OK for us to do it.' and 'The only reason Napster exists is to illegally pirate Metallica songs.' and various other silliness. I'd like to weigh in on both sides and try to clarify this issue a bit.
First of all, anyone arguing that the Artist should have control over their work should be AGAINST the RIAA. As it stands now the RIAA can order a band NOT to distribute music that the band created. And they MUST comply or face legal action. This does NOT mean that it is ok for us to all download full CDs of their music. But it does mean that the RIAA needs to be adjusted or done away with.
Right now Artists make very little money from CD sales. They make 0 money from napster downloads. I suggest the following business model to make everyone happy.
A Napsterlike service which charges a fee of 20$ a month for unlimited downloads. The service keeps track of which bands get downloaded and how much and awards them accordingly with a percentage of the whole. Say the service retains 5% of all profit garnered from the business. The other 95% is divided amongst the contributing artists in proportion to the percentage of downloads they have recieved out of the whole. If Metallica got 28% of all downloads for the month they get 28% of all profit.
I specify profit because the system overhead will take up some of the income and that has to be adjusted for. But with 300,000 users paying 20$ a month That's a lot of cash, even divided among 1000+ bands.
There could even be incrimental accounts like 10$ a month for 100MB of downloads or something of the sort.
I realize that this is abusable by small bands that can redownload their own music 4 million times, but that can be solved technologically. The business model is still sound. And it leaves a place for the RIAA (promoting bands) and for CDs. It leaves room for a band to release 1 or 2 songs to the Napsterlike service as a promo for their CD, and many many things like that.
In fact... I probably shouldn't be posting this, I should be calling Napster and the RIAA and see how much I can get for the idea....
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
IANAL but I'm pretty sure a C and D letter has to be snail mail and not e-mail to be a formal legal thingg.
I say we put the "digital" back in Digital Millenium Copyright Act: Everybody raise a finger!
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I'll be contacting my House representative to let them know they should not support any measure to restrict Napster like technologies, and you should too.
Fox
Has Metallica realized that "true" fans will shell out the $10 and buy a CD? There are a lot of bands that I bought BECAUSE I heard their MP3 on Gnapster. (Yes..I use the linux version) I wouldn't have known about them any other way. PS First Post
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Did anyone in their wildest dreams think that Chuck D(!) would become their political ally?
Banning peer to peer file transfer effects a ton of programs out there. Some a lot more in use than Napster (ie ICQ). There is no way their "report" will get any merit. Atleast I pray it won't.- ------------------
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actually, nfs pisses everyone off.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
That is what they'll go after next. No more DCC file transfers at all. They'll try get server owners to regulate transfers so that only certain approved file types can be transferred.
I now have daily thoughts about moving to a different country.
Politics are far too important to be left to politicians. If we don't get involved we have no-one to blame but ourselves. Contact your congressman!
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Because Gnutella and Freenet have no profit potential and no incentive to create user-friendly software, this new technology will probably be limited to a relatively small community of highly-skilled computer operators. If these decentralized software protocols do ever gain widespread popularity, Congress will have to revisit this issue.
If Napster dies cos of harassment by RIAA etc, Gnutella and Freenet will definitely take up the slack. Its ridiculous to say that Gnutella is hard to use - its no harder than any mainstream commercial app like MS Word. And there are even web interfaces for it, like Daily Phat and Surfy, that make using Gnutella as easy as using a web site.
Frankly, I can't understand the fuss over Napster, which is simply the messenger, delivering the message that peer-to-peer file sharing will totally transform the music industry and the movie industry, as well as parts of the software industry, and probably a bunch of other industries as well.
Check out how often people are searching for things like Win2000 or Win98 on Gnutella! I can't see Microsoft making too many sales to non-businesses in the very near future.
That's not really a fair comparision. Engineers and assembly line workers aren't exactly world-famous celebrities. You have to compare musicians to other entertainers like actors and athletes. Do actors have to sign exclusive 5 movie deals with only one studio? Do movie studios charge actors for sets, cameras and studio time out of their advance? Do musicians get the same percentage of royalties from their work as actors? Do athletes get to be free agents after a certain number of years?
Also the economics of building cars and computers is fundamentally different from music. Building a car factory or a chip fab requires a massive investment with substantial risk. Compared to that a decent recording studio is dirt cheap. Even pressing the CDs is cheap. The only expensive part is wielding enough influence to get MTV and top 40 radio to play your dreck (ie pushing the traditional distribution channels).
This scares me. What's going to happen next? How does this affect me, a person who doesn't live in the USA? I hate it how US corporations and government think that they are the only ones who run the Internet. Sure, it was the US gov't who originally put the Internet together, but that shouldn't matter now since it is a global phenomenon.
I heard a quote a couple days ago saying that Napster should be relocated to Rwanda. At least they wouldn't have problems with the RIAA there (although armed rebels might cause a problem or two...)
If Napster wanted to be a legal service, i.e., one that only allowed trading of music with public trading copyrights, that would be one thing. But that is not what Napster is about, and all the rationalizations on your part doesn't change that reality.
:/ Is there anywhere that would be worth taking my family to, as I am beginning to genuinely worry for my daughter's freedom in the future, what with all of the little bits of legislation of this nature passing daily. Critical mass is approaching, and I don't want her to have to deal with it.
I am quite curious as to where you came up with this information, as I am sure that the parties looking to remove Napster would pay a large sum of money for it, as it would prove criminal intent and seal their case. I have seen an inordinate amount of spam on Usenet, so its obvious that the intention of the creators of Usenet was to distribute advertising. Of course, I've seen plenty of porn on Usenet, so it must be there to distribute copyrighted material. But then, I've been involved in a few meaningful conversations and debates on Usenet as well... bah, that couldn't possibly be what it was created for, never mind.
It is extrodinarily presumptuous on your part to speak for the intent of the creators of Napster. Perhaps their only crime was coming up with a tool that works remarkably well, like Usenet or IRC or gopher or pocketknives any other bloody thing that has been used in the commision of a crime, even though that was not the intent of the creator. I normally don't feed the trolls, but I feel that it is vitally important that anyone who may be exposed to this line of bullshit should also be aware of a reality of life: people will use a well built tool. Last goddamned thing we need is some Congresscritter reading that crap and thinking, "Of course, we should ban all MP3s and the services that could be used to distribute them!" Next thing you know, a perfectly good audio compression algorithm is outlawed, all technologies that could expidite the transfer of copyrighted work, whether in written, audio or video format, are banned and the USA is the only country in the world where it is illegal to connect to the Internet. Land of The Thief, Home of The Slave; makes me almost regret spending time in the military.
Deosyne
On an offtopic aside, I was curious as to whether any countries out there are better off; I'm afraid my knowledge of other countries is limited to the quality of the local brews.
Now why the hell won't Metallica answer our questions?!?! Bastards. I think I'm gonna go burn my metallica CD now.
You mean you haven't already? I burnt them a year or two ago as soon as l3enc was done.
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2B1ASK1
I therefore propose, as a political position, that the non-commercial distribution of any material older than 23 years be legalized.
Oh great. That's just what I want is to have better access to "Freebird" and "Boogie Wonderland".
It's economically feasible; almost all profits from commercial content are extracted in the first few years, a decade at most
Yeah, tell that to the millionare that owns the rights to all the Beatles music (I don't think it's Michael Jackson anymore, is it?)
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2B1ASK1
There's a difference between me deep linking to your public site, and me deep linking to a URL intended for paying customers that I found. While it's possibly legal since they aren't taking much of a stance to protect it (being that it's easy to avoid the login by using the partners link), that doesn't make it any less right if their intent is for people to pay for this service.
BilldaCat
What need to happens is the record industry needs to realize that their revenue is ending. Its a new era and if they don't think fast they are going to be out of luck.
Not if they can sucseed in stoping change.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Everyone tries to justify it as "free speech"
I'm not justifying it as "free speech" (although at Free Press it might make for an argument...), I justify it as a great way to hear and sample music that I would never come into contact with through regular channels. I use it as the amazing promotional tool it can be. But then again, I'm not everyone (and you can all be thankful for that!;).
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+&x
we should maybe have more support for organizations like KFMF (Kosmic Free Music Foundation)....i like a lot of their music...like i've said few times on /. already: all information and knowledge should be free...and my hard drive is meerly an extention to the memory in my head.
-james
aw, *bullshit*. Napster does NOT create an illegal market for copyrighted material. The market is there, it was there before (cassette tapes, prior to that, it was bootleg vinyl, and if you don't believe me, I have a bootleg - very poor quality, LP of a 1972 Pink Floyd concert.) Napster is an enabling technology. It's only a tool man. Napster does have legitimate uses. Who gives a rat's ass what it was intended to be used as. The same can be said about ANY tool.
/., that musicians actually get paid for their work. I think that 99.999% of the punk kids who downloaded Metallica's stuff and got banned would agree that they'd much rather give their money directly to Metallica. (the same is probably not true for pirateers of Brittney Spears).
And, I don't think it's unpopular here, on
It is the mass-rejection of the RIAA, record labels, radio stations, narrowly-focused promotion, low-artistic value, and high margins on CD sales that is the issue here. Read some of the other posts. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's wrong. And don't read that as an endorsement of piracy. This is civil disobedience. Along with all the nobility that the term implies.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Ralph Nader is a champion of the little guy
Dream on. Ralph Nader has extreme anti-corporation bias (similar to one exhibited on Slashdot in the ravings of Jon Katz) and a darling boy of class-action litigation lawyers.
Just because Nader hates corporations and makes a not so bad living out of kicking them in whatever the body part happens to be handy, does not mean that he is pro-individual (aka "champion of the little guy"). If anything, he is pro-government. If he had his way, you'll need eleven permits and three certified safety experts watching just to start your lawnmover. Provided you can own a lawnmover, that is -- after all, these are very dangerous devices.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
What the HELL are you talking about?? I can't remember seeing a single post on slashdot that even IMPLIED that the artists should not get compensated for their work. I use Napster for the same reason that many other readers do - to find good music that I would not otherwise know about so that I can BUY it!
Two days after I downloaded Napster I placed an order on CDNow for $350 of music. That's more than I've spent on music at one time in more than 4 years.
That's probably true. Even a 30-year-old like myself gets more enjoyment out of the cultural experiences I can share with others!
But as it stands now all the major labels and RIAA have to do is manufacture some over-produced teeny-bopper band, market the hell out of them, and rake in the millions while kids suck up the music, often not even realizing that they had a real choice.
When I first got into music when I was 10 or 11, I pretty much fit that pattern. When I was around 15 I was fortunate enough to meet a group of people who had setup a tape trading network for good, obscure independent bands. It wasn't long before nearly all of my disposable income was being spent on the amazing music that I discovered as a result of being part of that network. And I got a lot of other major-label music consuming drones involved, and converted, as well.
Napster accomplishes the same thing on a much grander scale, and I believe that there are a LOT of kids out there who would alter their music-purchasing habits given the chance to hear what they're missing. The RIAA does have good reason to be afraid!
I contend that if Napster pulled ALL illegal materials from their database, they would definately lose a large chunk of freeloaders. On the other hand, I think that a great indie scene would thrive there. Especially if these bands began to actively exploit it, instead of posting their stuff on their own Netscape-crashing web pages, and hoping people will stumble onto the URL's.
Converting Napster to an mp3.com-like independent artist playground is an interesting idea, but I like that fact that I can discover music from ANY artist there. The amazing thing about Napster is how quickly the network effect works its magic. The good stuff gets propogated at a blistering pace, regardless of whether it's major-label or indie. It's actually interesting to do some searches and see what's HARD to find on Napster - the stuff that noone thought was good enough to even bother putting in their mp3 libraries.
and that's the main reason why I rarely visit slashdot anymore. (sigh) I don't know, maybe its just me..but somehow I don't think linus torvalds is the messiah.
To be accurate, "music piracy" as you refer to it, is a sub set of "peer to peer fle sharing," therefore Napster actually IS just "peer to peer file sharing." It is only an avenue for music piracy because you "are man enough to state that" you use it to illegally and knowingly pirate music. Napster didn't do it, you did. You could have just easily shared child porn or nuclear weapon secrets (or the cure to cancer, for that matter).
The point is that Napster is just a medium, and the tactics that are used to go after it scare some folks. So what, right?
OK, Gnutella comes along and fills the void that Napster leaves. What kind of tactics are the RIAA and their minions (Lars) going to use then? Are those tactics going to affect me because some hired gun needs to go thru my system to get to you? Get ready, the next round is going to be interesting.
Extending your argument to its logical conclusion, each time you step foot into a movie theater, the theater operators would be required to obtain your ID and and credit card # for entry. After all, you just might yell "FIRE!" in that crowded theater and wreak all sorts of havoc. No one should be allowed to get away with such behavior anonymously! We must hold everyone accountable for something they *might* do illegally, right? Why don't we just start handing over our DNA samples now? Let's start taking weekly urine samples, too. Doing drugs are wrong. This step will be sure to put a stop to this illegal activity. We just need to be able to hold people more accountable! Right???? Riiiigggggggghhhhhhhhhht...
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
"Napster is an avenue for music 'promotion'."
:)). Remember, labels like Sub Pop or Kill Rock Stars don't have as much money to throw away like Geffen and Atlantic do.
And I'm sure that if I stole a bunch of CDs from the Wall and threw them to people in the street, that would be "promotion" too, right?
I'll agree that, in theory, Napster is a tool for promotion. But in case you didn't know, the reason for artists to promote their music is so that they can sell CDs. Sure, Napster may be "promoting" the latest Filter CD, but where's the incentive to buy it if you've downloaded the CD in MP3 anyway?
"The RIAA can keep independent music off the radio and MTV and pretty much any other mainstream 'available to everyone' promotion vehicle, but they can't keep them off Napster."
Since when has the RIAA been keeping independent music off MTV and the radio. Hell, I work at my university's radio station, and we haven't been invaded by RIAA stormtroopers saying "Play Britney Spears or you shall die!" And if you want independent music on MTV, I strongly suggest you watch 120 Minutes (a damn great show) or see if you can get M2 from your cable provider.
The real reason why you can't find independent music on the radio (commercial anyway) and MTV is because the droves of pre-pubescent teens want to see crap-ass pre-fab acts like the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, and Britney Spears. I spoke with an MTV exec at a journalism conference at Columbia University when I was in high school, and I was told that MTV has basically "sold out" (as he put it), because if the kiddies want to see some boy band, MTV will flood them with it, because they're in it for the money (surprise).
As for your assumption that the RIAA is keeping down the indie labels so bad that they have to use Napster, IMHO I think it's full of shit. Sure, I can find my college rock heroes like the Fastbacks, Swallow, EDL, Simon Says, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on Napster, but the results are pale in comparison to how much you can find if you search for Metallica or Dr. Dre.
Simply put...Napster is a "promotional" tool in the theoretical sense (I admit that I have bought some CDs because I downloaded the music via Napster), but it is still primarily a tool for music piracy, no matter how much RMS-like reasoning you try to coat it with. You really want to help the indie labels? Go out and buy some of their CDs, and support your local college radio stations (I guess I'm a shill for those
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
You're joking right? Legitimate MP3s are rarely ever distributed on Napster.
So you're saying if I was to get a Phish song off of Napster that would be worse that getting it off of the Phishing pole, or sugarmegs, or hell, even recording it off the Phishcast?
Napster is a *better* service.
Loads of indie bands (and signed bands for that matter) have MP3s available for download on their webpage, not to mention the legitimate webpages out there that distribute MP3s
Very true, and they should have some MP3s on their page. They could even call them *blessed* mp3s. Record live shows. It costs roughly $300 to record a live show and put it on the Net as MP3s. Even less to gain a worldwide promotion network (i.e. Napster)
Getting rid of Napster is not going to help the RIAA keep indie bands down.
Yet it helps tremendously to control access to a wide range of music. It removes the control they have worked so hard to create. Napster *replaces* the RIAA and their control mechanisms. The value they offer musicians is promotion. That's what Napster does, or at least that's what I use it for. Just because some other folks don't know a good thing when they see it doesn't mean that thing should be illegal. There are better ways to deal with technology than condemning it as evil and suing any company that tries to use it.
The way to solve this problem is not through draconian technical measures that will replace promotion as the most expensive part of music. The way to solve this problem is with sensible, enforcable, fair laws. As well as the idea, which I fully grasp and act upon, that you must support the music you like monetarily if you wish more of it to be created.
--
+&x
>It may be impossible to write a law that accounts for every conceivable technological innovations, however a judge will know an illegal act when she sees it.
it does sound a bit like 'I know pronography when I see it'. but I think there is a difference: it is indeed impossible to write a law that encompasses all future technology. (should we ever find a way of instantaneous transportation, this would most probably not be covered by current traffic and other laws). But part of the job of a judge is to outline the interpretation of the law, and establish this interpretation through jurisprudence. So in some way, a judge does recognise an illegal act when he looks at it. but he may have to look long and hard.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
a very good reason not to allow corporate sponsoring of political parties. I'm very glad that in a large part of the world ( the largest? I don't know..) this isn't allowed. No company can stop funding a political party cause they don't like their policies, which puts the power over politicians more on the side of the voter.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
"peer-to-peer data sharing doesn't require a company to centralize
.a perfect example of "the internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it".
the information. Gnutella and Freenet technologies, as well as whatever comes next, allow such
sharing with no central control."
. .
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
And another cool quote for you:
"[Record labels] stealing our copyright provisions in the dead of night when no one is looking is piracy. It's not piracy when kids swap music over the Internet using Napster. There were one billion music downloads last year but music sales are way up, so how is Napster hurting the music industry? It's not. The only people scared of Napster are people who have filler on their albums and are scared that if people hear more than one single, they're not going to buy the record..."
Courtney Love, speaking at the Digital Hollywood conference.
suppose my kid spoke his/her first words and I taped them. convert to MP3 and send to family-members overseas. or just put the first words on napster. it's mp3, it's legit, it's legal. Or I put some MP3s of my own band on my drive to share. again, this is legal. trading mp3s in itself is not illegal. trading COPYRIGHTED mp3s (not copyrighted by you, and not free for distribution) is.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Do you know why the NRA is so powerful?
1. Because there are about 3.5 million members who are willing to give $25 per year each to the NRA to fight for them.
2. Because those 3.5 million NRA members are MUCH more likely to vote than the average American. Out of all Americans somewhere between 50 million and 60 million actually vote. If you're a politician who is running close to his opponent in the polls it's in your best interest NOT to piss them off.
And, yes I AM advocating the use of guns, ballots, dollars and every other legal means to affect positive change.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
if you have any interest in using any of it, feel free. i lifted a paragraph from another post here. this was addressed to tom lantos, the congressman for most of san mateo county (where i live).
------------------
Your Honor,
I urge you to vote against any more restrictions on Internet communications, and specifically against any requirements for any centralized cataloging or identification of Internet use and users.
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act itself is flawed, and I am quite concerned that the proposals by the Progressive Policy Institute would make it outright dangerous.
First of all, the current DMCA has a major flaw. It allows injunctive relief WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF LAW! As an example, if I want to silence some particular form of speech or element of information, I may (if I am sufficiently powerful and well-connected, enough so to retain a powerful law firm) simply send a letter to a service provider, who is, by the provisions of DMCA, required to remove the content, without any evidence of injury to the plaintiff, without any review by the courts or even any law-enforcement agencies, without due process! I think it would be more sensible if the plaintiff was first required to PROVE some injury, copyright violation, or other just cause-- enough so to obtain a formal injunction-- before any content or information is removed. This would be more prudent, and, rather than expanded as the PPI proposes, DMCA should actually be cut back to at least place the burden of proof on the plaintiff.
Secondly, the PPI wishes to extend DMCA even further, to include the "Napster" software and service. Napster, Inc. has its headquarters in your district (San Mateo) so I am sure you are quite familiar with its business and the issues surrounding its operation. But, ultimately, Napster is just a bit of peer-to-peer, loosely-authenticated file-sharing software. It just happens to be used today for sharing music files, --hence the controversy-- but that's only one possible application for the technology. Incidentially, when subjected to a description simplified enough to be comprehensible to the non-technical, almost all software on the Internet is the same kind of software, and even your own web site runs using peer-to-peer, loosely-authenticated file-sharing software of a very similar type as Napster! Part of the danger of the PPI proposals is that they will either narrowly target a specific company for restriction, or, in order to extend their agenda more widely, inadvertently place unrealistic as well as unconstitutional restrictions on the Internet as a whole, which would be unacceptable. The line is very fine indeed, and we must tread carefully. I urge you to extend every effort to educate your congressional peers on this distinction, since, coming from less technically-advanced districts, they may not be as up-to-speed on the technology as you are.
Thirdly, the much-maligned (and, in recent days, much-threatened!) "Right to Privacy" is the natural modern-day extension of the right to be secure in person and property. Any requirements to authenticate, track, and audit internet certainly puts us in danger of violating that right! This area is a bit more problematic, but our friends in the judiciary have established it fairly well... all the way up to the Supreme Court. I'm sure that you are familiar with _Talley_v._California_(1960)_, which addresses the distribution of anonymous publications. The court found then, and reiterated as recently as 5 years ago, in McIntyre_v._Ohio_(1995), that anonymity is often an essential ingredient for the propagation of democratic ideas that are unpopular to the powers that be. The right to free speech on the Internet is the natural modern extension of the rights to free speech in general, and to a free press. Restricting Internet communication is clearly not consistent with those rights, and the PPI proposals need to be carefully reviewed so as not to endanger them.
Finally, stripping away all the copyright complaints (which I maintain are a red herring), Napster, MP3, and the Internet are simply free-market forces doing their best work. The recording industry is an inefficient industry feeling the pain of competition for the first time, and I don't believe that the American people should be asked to subsidize it-- not with tax dollars, and certainly not with their Constitutional rights, which is what is being asked by the PPI. The RIAA's claims of concern for the well-being of their Artists is the most distasteful form of deception and misdirection, the given the mistreatment that Artists have suffered for generations at the hands of this same recording industry that claims to be acting on their behalf. The artists are not injured by Napster, even though the RIAA has recruited a few spokespeople from among their artist rosters. The Middlemen is where the bloat is: the recording industry and its comparatively out-of-date distribution, promotion, and accounting mechanisms. I would argue that the RIAA members' profits come at the expense of the consumer, not of the artists. The Internet and Napster is a competitive market force, which exposes the inefficiency-- if not the dishonesty!-- of the record industry oligopoly and its lobbying group, the RIAA. I would love to see a reform-minded RIAA embrace the new technology, but, instead, they have chosen to condemn it and litigate against it, to assert their power in a way that is not only ugly and self-centered, but dangerous to the rights of all Americans.
Interestingly enough, these 21st century issues have a close parallel in the 18th-century issues of the John Peter Zenger case-- the case which established a free press in this country and helped set the stage for the American Revolution. In that instance, it was libel, not copyright infringement, which the powerful interests of the day used as the smoke-screen to attempt to silence the free speech of the not-so-powerful. Nobody thinks copyright infringement is a good thing, just as nobody thinks that libel is a good thing. They're both injurious to someone. However, the question to ask is: "How many of our rights as Americans (or, as it was in the John Peter Zenger case, as Englishmen) are we willing to forfeit in order to be protected from some real or imagined injury?". Consider that, in the Napster case as in the John Peter Zenger case, the injury would primarily be to the rich and powerful captains of a very profitable industry (in the case of Napster, the entertainment distribution business, an industry which is arguably inefficient and provides questionable value for the money they collect) whereas the rights to be forfeited would be those of every American. It's an important choice.
This particular American chooses NOT to forfeit those rights so that the RIAA and the recording industry might continue their profiteering. I assume you would choose the same. Perhaps I might give up my rights for better reason, but not for that one. And I trust that you will do more vote that way, and also use your influence in the House to educate, inspire, and motivate your fellow Representatives.
Thanks for your kind attention!
Sincerely,
Hey, thanks for the heads up on this live webcast.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Cut. Paste. Insert your name. Print. Sign. Mail. I know it's a couple of steps, but life is tough sometimes.
i a.html
[Your Congressperson] [xxxx] Rayburn HOB Washington, D.C. 20515
Your Honor,
I am concerned by recent developments in copyright law. In this election year, I would be very interested to learn of your official stance on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and its enforcement. This law destroys the doctrine of fair use as it applies to software and technology products, and steals valuable personal rights from the consumers who vote for you.
Please remember that while corporations may provide the largest individual donations to your fundraising efforts, corporations and industry conglomerates do not have a single vote. As a concerned citizen and constituent in the high-tech sector, and as a registered voter, I hope that you will do your duty to represent the interests of the people who elected you.
There is currently a proposal by the Progressive Policy Institute, of Washington, D.C., to modify the DMCA to include new, draconian language that would destroy any remnants of privacy and anonymity in the online world. Please refer to the website
http://www.dlcppi.org/press/release/napster1.htm
for the PPI press release, which includes the points of the proposal. Of greatest concern from a constitutional standpoint is the proposal to
"Require internet service providers that wish to qualify for safe harbor to collect personally identifiable and verifiable information from their users.[...]"
This initiative is reprehensible, and as such is perfectly in keeping with the overall tone of the DMCA, which invades personal property rights in favor of undue protections for large corporations. For a published US Supreme Court decision regarding this very issue, please consider the decision in _Talley_v._California_(1960)_, which addresses the distribution of anonymous publications. The court found then, and reiterated as recently as 5 years ago, in _McIntyre_v._Ohio_(1995)_, that anonymity is often an essential ingredient for the propagation of democratic ideas that are unpopular to the powers that be. I quote an excerpt from the _Talley_ decision:
"... n7 Even the Federalist Papers, written in favor of the adoption of our Constitution, were published under fictitious names. It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes."
You may read the entire _Talley_v._California_(1960)_ online at
http://www.epic.org/free_speech/talley_v_californ
and the entire _McIntyre_v._Ohio_(1995)_ online at
http://www.epic.org/free_speech/mcintyre.html
Please examine this matter closely, and take action to prevent the extension of a law that already reaches too far.
Sincerely,
[Your Name +Address Here]
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
Actually, it does. That's why the US is in some =SERIOUS= privacy discussions with the EU. The EU has banned the exchange of personal information with ANY country with weaker privacy laws than the EU member state from which the information was sent.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
To get semi-back-on-topic, I've found you can still get CDs way below the $15-18 range people cite all the time. If you're lazy and do all your shopping at Media Play or whatever, you're going to get screwed, but if you find a little record store where you live, you can usually get deals on stuff. Oh, and they carry better music, too.
Group: The Dismemberment Plan
Album: Emergency and I
Just run out and buy it right now. Trust me. Unless you can download track 9, "The City," off Napster or something. Then you can buy the record.
-jpowers
-jpowers
http://carver.holycross.edu/wchc/
Now I live in Boston and listen to WBUR. Pretty much the same, some hardcore of various kinds now and then. They stream their broadcast all day:
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/svp/st_org/wzbc/streamin
-jpowers
-jpowers
Lots of our(the world's) problems would be solved if people would just talk to each other rather than talking to lawyers, or politicians, OR pulling out a weapon.
>I like naïveté when I see it...
Too bad he doesn't recognize sarcasm when it's staring him in the face.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
A fine point and one that explains the Govt and RIAA actions well.
:(
I don't see where Metallica fits into this picture though. Surely they would be happy to cut out the recording agency (who treats them like shit and takes 95% of the income from the CD sales anyway). Bands make their money from concerts and selling merchandise, and make bugger all from sales -- except for the top few worldwide smash bands, who get money from their songs *despite* the recording companies.
If I were Metallica, I would jump at the chance to record new songs and sell them on the net for cheaper than a CD, and keep the profit !
I guess their only concern is that they have already produced the good work and it is locked into a contract with a recording company, so they cannot sell it themselves on Internet.
Oh, I agree entirely. The point is that, as long as market B is satisfied by pirating the expensive music/software, there will never be a market for inexpensive music/software.
I disagree. In fact, you could say that if music simply wasn't so expensive, people wouldn't take the time to pirate it, because it has little to no value.
If I could pay $5 for a CD, or spend half an hour downloading it, I'd probably pay the $5 AND download it (or rip it). Now, change that $5 to $15, and I'll pass the CD and just download the sucker. It's very simple.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Personally, I believe in the future internet sowhat like William Gibson portrays in his books, a bit of lawlessness (but then again, show me any free country or for that matter any country at all that doesn't have criminals) but on the whole extremely open and useful. I would much rather have it be that than something out og George Orwell's 1984.
Renewal periods have subsequently been extended to 28 years + 14 renewal in 1831, 28 years + 28 years renewal in 1909, and life + 50 in the 1976 Act. Sonny Bono gave us life + 70.
--bal
I'm hiding my Nazi war-criminal because he's an absolute WIZ at keeping my vintage porsche running.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Actually, www.emusic.com and www.listen.com already sell single tracks in MP3 format. I don't know how good a selection they have though. A good number of posters are saying that they would gladly pay for just the songs they want for reasonable prices (emusic.com sells for 99 cents a track). So the service is already there, if more people start using it, the providers can expand there library, RIAA will still make their money, the people will have only the songs they want, at reasonable prices, and the universe will be at peace.
Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that the Dave Matthews Band explicitly allows (and encourages) taping at their shows, and also allows non-commercial distribution of those tapes--including as MP3s. Fans (like me) are happy to be able to get all sorts of cool live recordings (some of which are crap, but a lot of which sound pretty good), and we still shell out good money for CDs/t-shirts/concerts. Not that people don't put ripped DMB albums on Napster, but I think their policy (which has been the case, AFAIK, from their days of obscurity) is a good one, and should be encouraged, rather than held up as an example of what's wrong with Napster.
if they have a hard copy they are mor inclined to read it and consider what it contains. I think it's a great idea to bring the discussion to the attention of the politicians, regardless of how it is diseminated, but why not use the method which garners the strongest response (sending a hard copy via US mail)?
No Mexicos not the answer, do they even have cd-r's in mexico? At least Canada gets free internet TV :-)
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
The thing is, that it's all a game of mindshare. Do you think that the average "buy a CD this week with my allowance mommy gave me" teeney-bopper is going to want to keep track of the hundreds of obscure indie garage bands and their psychotically designed websites to download MP3's? At least a very large part of music enjoyment among many people is cultural conformance. Face it. That might not be what tickles the average slashdotter's musical tastes, but I'm talking about the bulk of the market the RIAA is targeting. This is why the music industry narrows the focus, because it's all about mindshare. Mindshare is limited by the mental capacity of the people in the market, and Napster is a tool that allows a person to INCREASE their ability to keep track of a wider variety of artists, what their music sounds like, how to find more of it, etc. Maybe the config file editing geek doesn't need that kind of help, but 300,000 Metallica fans CAN'T be wrong.
I argue that Napster DOES add a great deal of value to the promotion and distribution, not only for independent artists, but for the artists that are supposedly being harmed by the illegal copying.
True, a lot of the indie bands that allow free distribution aren't selling their music because, frankly, they can't, they suck. But that is not the reason they don't have big recording contracts with major labels. There are lots and lots of good unsigned bands out there. Who has time to listen to them all? Let's live by the RIAA's model and only listen to the 5 bands they are promoting this week. That's what you're saying.
I contend that if Napster pulled ALL illegal materials from their database, they would definately lose a large chunk of freeloaders. On the other hand, I think that a great indie scene would thrive there. Especially if these bands began to actively exploit it, instead of posting their stuff on their own Netscape-crashing web pages, and hoping people will stumble onto the URL's.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
First, you're either putting words into my mouth or making unjustified assumtions about who you think I am.
I agree that everyone deserves the same rights. And I did say, nor do I think, that anyone is unjustly privileged. They have those privileges because people allowed them to, and because people believe they do. That is not unjust, it is nature.
My point with this was that freedom is more important than greed. For everyone, not just a certain subset. I believe that artists and people in corporations have the same rights I do. As a matter of fact, I both work for an entertainment corporation and own part of a recording studio, so I would be cutting my own throat not to think that.
My point with anonyimity is that people DO have the same rights. So who they are when applying those rights is irrelevant. Applying rights differently based on who someone is, or is not, is the problem with requiring lack of anonymity.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
everyone should see #510
I actually become nauseous seeing these 'Holier than thou...' attitudes exemplified in this post. You and the many others defend copyright laws like a religious zealot! Even the subject line of your message calls on the name of 'God', as if to establish the severity of the subject matter to which you are referring. It is just a law! It's not written into to Bill of Rights, Constitution, Ten Commandments or any other supposedly infallible set of rules. And what undeniable truths has the user known as 'Carnage4Life' taught us about this law? Basically the same thing that we see on any given topic on Slashdot... that anyone who has a different opinion than him can shove it. You mention that you 'plan to work for a software company', so I assume you are still fairly young. I hope that you can learn to open your mind a little before it is too late.
Record LAbels actually don't have alot of direct employees...mostly subcontract people. Most record labels can technically be classified as a small business. A band is definitely a business. RIAA certianly is a small-business! Answer that question?
Derek Greene
"I like that fact that I can discover music from ANY artist there."
Unfortunately, as long as the few dishonest people keep up their behavior, and as long as the RIAA companies keep their current business model, where they need to control ownership of the IP to survive, the presence of illegal material threatens the legal stuff.
I think that on many levels this argument is very similar to the gun-control one. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Napster doesn't pirate copywright-protected music. People do. Legislate behavior. NOt tools. This stuff is already illegal, simply enforce the laws that are already on the books!
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
"On top of this, they're generating more publicity than they've managed to over the last three
years in the last month. RIAA wins, MetalliDre gets new publicity, and the attorney walks away
with a fat pay cheque. "
too funny, it's making more economical sense to hire a lawyer to generate publicity than a marketing department.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Yeah, let's use the words "Gestapo" and "Nazi" to appeal to people's emotions and hopefully they won't actually think about the argument.
How about border guards check your licence because some people try to illegally immigrate? Gun stores check your ID to make sure you're not a wanted criminal? Beat police looking at you to check you're not carrying an automatic rifle? People checking your post for logic because some posts don't contain any?
In short, I agree with your result, but not your reasoning.
I wouldn't hold Napster responsible for such laws, but not because "it not their fault". It's the government's responsibility to create fair laws. Laws are always made on the basis if a couple of cases, and more often than not these are negative. The government banning something because they have only seen a bad use for it is reprehensible and an abuse of power.
Wait till you see Windows Millenium.... I heard that basically what you said IS a reality. (No File/Print Sharing and No Networking)
The whole idea of IP is flawed. The only true property are material things. You cannot 'own' thoughts or ideas. If i wrote a piece of software i thought would benifit everyone, i probably would just give it away free anyhow. As a programmer, i'm being paid for my time to create the program, not the program itself. And i'd continue to program with or without pay. To say that 'art' may be owned, and denied on the basis of economics is ridiculous. They have no right to keep it to themselves. If thats really what they want, they shouldn't be recording it in the first place. I for one wish they had done that starting in '96.
You STOLE the music from the band. Yes. Stole. You took it without paying the appropriate fees to the band/record company/distributer/promoter.
You can't seem to read. He said he would NEVER BUY THE CD ANYWAY. So what sale have they lost? They haven't lost any. Why? They have a really sucky product. I wish the RIAA WAS losing alot of money over this; maybe we'd start seeing some quality. You can't say something was stolen if nothing was lost.
Sorry you're wrong. The only 'rights' an artist has to his music would be the copyright; which he signs over to the label (he'd have to, or they'd be violating the law).
Well then, how about the artist making money off of playing live for people instead of buying cds? You still don't understand tho...try this.
Money i spent downloading mp3: $0.00
Money i would have spent
buying cd : $0.00
Loss to record company b/c
i didn't buy cd : $0.00
and a low bitrate will just make the whole song sound like crap
:)
Well thats why you don't download songs w/low bitrates
Not true at all. This isn't a zero-sum game where what is stolen is determined by what's missing. Duplicate copies are made; there is no zero sum when things duplicate uncontrolled, like in digital media. So he never would have bought it, but he would've taken it (and he did) if he got it for free. You're right they didn't lose a sale per se, but they did lose the cash if that was the only way to get their music. Their property (intellectual in this case) was stolen. Easy. Open and Shut Case of Grand Theft Audio.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Why shouldn't ideas be ownable? They are already, just because you protest against the system does not give you the god-given right to reject this system and break the law. Recording artists make money because people want what they create. If you want to reward them with your listening time, buy their shit, so they'll make more. If you don't like them, don't buy them. To say that you are a programmer and would give your stuff away, how wonderfully altruistic of you, but can you say that if that software would make you rich by charging $15 per copy, you wouldn't do it? That's crap. That's like winning the lottery and not turning in the ticket. Face it, you're pissed you can't create anything worth selling and therefore you don't want to pay for anything.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
No, but you still stole their product. It's not zero sum. See my post in the thread above this. It works like this: Money you WOULD have to spend appropriately paying for the royalty to actually legally listen: $1.00 Money you might've spent if you didn't pre-listen to the record AT the store: $15 or so. I dunno, you're still a thief. Regardless. I don't care if you think it's right (or righteous) to steal intellectual property, but the law doesn't care how you feel, only in your actions.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
They may sign over the copyright, but there are other rights they sign over as well, synchronization which covers various and sundry other things as well as copying. However, the deals for the rights often include royalties for the band for each album sold. It works like that. Trust me.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
i'd say that my SSN isnt very private...i seem to need to give it out left and right to schools and companies. but i wont argue over that point, as i understand that i could never trust the general public enough to make all information free....it would be nice if you could tho.
i will admit that spreading an artist's name around is giving the minimal of credit (although i do have friends who have purchaced albums by artists after they heard my copy). but, if an artist makes a song that i happen to like enough to put on my play list, i'm not gonna buy the cd...and in some cases, depending on how much i like the song, i may not want to pay much for it either! there's some music i keep on my play list just so i will have music that my friends like when they visit. if i feel that i enjoy an artist's music enough to pay him and give him credit, then i will do so in a much more effective way. if i truely love the artist's music, i will probably buy the album (esp if i could get it in a more permenent/durrable form). the credit i give an artist who's music i truely love will most certainly recieve credit in the fact that i wouldnt miss one of their concerts if i could help it. the songs should be advertisements for the albums which are advertisements for the live concert. besides, when it comes down to my desire to pay money for music, i'd feel much more comfortable handing over a bunch of cash to have the artist blast the music in my face.
so what this comes down to in my book is that i will pay for the performance or production, but not for the information alone.
-james
oh, no guessing necessary.
The first amendment gives you the right to express, or not express, anything you wish. This includes your identity, as expressing your identity is simply another form of expression.
You may also state your ideas without stating your identity. Otherwise, the freedom to state one thing would obligate you to state something else. Freedom of speech is a right. It is not granted by anyone. Rights can never be granted, only taken away. Taking it away, and offering to give it back with conditions of identity, is putting preconditions on rights, which turns them into privileges. Privileges are not rights.
Now, you may state "In order to use this service, you must agree to give up the following rights:" But congress may not pass a law requiring it, because that would be a violation of free speech.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
OK, well the who should own the idea of art? The idea of nuclear physics? The idea that man has certain rights that cannot be taken away. The problem w/your arguement to buy their shit is just that; it IS shit. Does my buying the cd tell the band that i really only liked one song from it? Or does it say i liked them all? As for not creating anything worth selling; i could take that road and i'm sure i'd make money on it. however i choose to use my talents to solve specific problems where i work; they pay me for my time, not the number of things i create. And my peers have thought some of my solutions very creative. It seems to me that you're the one pissed b/c they can't creat anything worthwhile. Otherwise i doubt you wouldhave stooped to a personal attack. Finally, you've probably just insulted every true artist out there. Creating music or a painting is hardly done by chance. It takes alot of skill. So i don't see why you meantioned winning the lottery when you're talking about creating anything.
You seem to have contradicted yourself. You say that he never would have bought it, but that they lost cash if the CD sale was the only way to get the song. How do you figure that? It seems to me that if he said he would NEVER buy it, and if the CD WAS the only way to get it, then he wouldn't buy the CD, and thus no money was lost by anyone. Can you explain then how they are losing money? For there to be theft SOMETHING must be lost.
You're talking about apples and oranges. Concepts (in and of themselves) cannot be owned. Music itself is a concept, but the individuals works OF music are NOT un-ownable. Yes, you are telling the band you liked their work (not the whole album, maybe just one song) and that they should make more of it. As for your job, I'm glad you get paid for your services and I'm very happy that you find creative solutions. I am a vocal artist (albeit an unsigned amateur) and I take a great deal of pride in my work, but I own the recordings that get created. I paid people to record me, and I expect that should I ever "make it" I would want people to pay me for my work. Skill is an inherent part of it, yes, and you can't LEARN to be a great artist. It's bred-in-the-bone so to speak. Some people win the genetics lottery and are born artists. Some are not. Am I bitter? perhaps. Am I gonna dwell on it? no. But artists deserve to be rewarded for their work, stealing their work does not reward their talent/skill.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
This isn't a zero-sum game like it used to be. Digital copies may proliferate at will for (nearly) zero cost. He had the music (that itself was what was lost) and the way he went about it was theft. Easy.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Tell me, if i buy a cd where i only like one song on it, how does the artist know the differnce between the two? Honestly i think you of all people would be against the current system in anyway. Surely you know you'll never make it unless you hand over your 'rights' to the labels. How much do you really think you'll get even if you do that? From what i understand, its the labels that reap the benifits of good music, not the artist.
the music was not lost though. For the music to truely be lost to someone, they must not be able to listen to it. Like if i take your car, you do no have it. However if i scan your car w/my star trek like replicator and create an exact duplicate and drive that away, what was lost to anyone? Nothing. This isthe same thing.
You're right, they do reap most of the benefits from anyone's records, but for the most part, they handle most of the expense: recording time, mass duplication, promotion (that's a REAL hard part, just ask an exec.) and touring, and instruments, and etc, etc. It's worth it. Trust me. I couldn't afford (without a lottery win) to do all those things myself. Some bands, perhaps, most, not at all. So labels become a big part of the industry, taking a large portion of the profits.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Mu.
If a URL isn't password protected it's open to public use and ergo deep linking. How could one possibly divine that the supplier who made the content available really intended it only for paying customers? Now, if some http trickery is being used to fake a login, it is probably against the site's terms of service (most say you must not share your password).
---
The real problem is entropy.
Try again, geezers vote democratic for the most part. That's why the Dems pulled the mediscare scam in the early 90s, to keep their base loyal.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Please, shut up w/that IP crap. IP is something that was invented by business for business. Knowledge cannot be lost like you are arguing it can. The music is NOT lost, it does NOT cease to exist, nor is the knowledge required to make that music riped from the original artist's mind. I could declare that rain IS the end of the world; if you accept my statement then of course the world is ending if it starts to rain. p implies q. if p is false then q is always true, no matter what. Why? Well it doesn't really matter in the first place since you started with nonsense. We have the idea of material posessions b/c materials are scarce. There are so many foo-bars in the world, so if mine is taken i truely have lost something. Knowledge is not; it is actually infinate. If foo-bars were infinate, they would be free, and stealing them would not be a problem. Their monetary value would be zero. You see? Please forgive spelling mistakes; its late and i'm tired.
Perhaps I should excuse your reasoning on the late hour. Music may not be lost, but that does NOT make it alright to copy it without crediting the artist. Theft is the act of stealing, to steal is to take surreptiously, unlawfully, etc from another. I draw a parallel with espionage: you go and copy some plans for a nuclear reactor, and you're a spy, you go and copy an MP3 that's not yours and you're a moral hero? Doubtful at best. It's theft. Copyright is not just a good idea, it's the law. So what if it's business-to-business? It still applies here.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Plans for a nuclear reactor SHOULD be made available to anyone anyway. Who are we to say who may use nuclear enegry and who may not? There's a reason that mathimatical equations and similar thigns are not patentable; its b/c to keep that information locked up does more harm then good. Copyright has become too far abused; it WAS a good idea; but now it is just something for billion dollar buinesses to use to beat their consumers over the head with; not only they, they are trying to dictate what you are ALLOWED to use copyrighted material for. No longer is it just about copying anymore. Any law that is abused so badly should be repealed. It was also the law in Germany in the 1940s to report the wearabouts of any Jews. Does that mean it was right? Segregation was also law here in the US. Think that was a good idea? B/c something is law means nothing if it goes against natural law. And natural law is that for there to be theif, there must be some LOSS. If you DUPLICATE something there is no loss. I'm still giving the artist credit if i copy an mp3; i didn't say it was MY band playing it; the song will still be call Metallica - whatever...
>metallica = sellout, only if you include
>Korn,Seven Dust,tool,(put any new-age rock band
>here)
agreed.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
Whoa hold on a minute. I don't recall anyone saying that musicians shouldn't make money. I think the general response has been let's find Another Way.
As far as "I own the material." not being a valid argument well I'm sorry but it is. I for one don't see anything wrong with ripping MP3's for my own personal use as a method of backup for my investment in a CD. It's only when I distribute them that it becomes a problem. Metallica has said all along that they don't have a problem with the MP3 format per se just how it's being used.
Personally I'm on the fence for this whole issue. I see the copyright problems however I don't think banning this technology can be done. The cat is well out of the bad and is sprinting across the field. There will always be a method to distribute these files.
As someone else has in their .sig... I don't have the answer but I admire the problem.
Progressive:
1. moving steadily forward or onward; advancing.
2. proceeding in regular or ordered steps.
3. favoring social or political progress or reform; liberal
C'mon give me a break, how on earth can these guys call themselves progressive?
"Require internet service providers that wish to qualify for safe harbor to collect personally identifiable and verifiable information from their users"
Hang on, may be is in sense of definition 1. progressing steadily towards... an orwellian society I say.
If this is a progressive policy, the Pope is then a hippie!
The Face -= o_O
-.Shaun.-
For the opposition, the Progressive Policy Institute has written a report that recommends extending the DMCA to explicitly outlaw technologies like Napster.
From the PPI site:
PPI proposes the following changes to the DMCA:
- Give judges the flexibility to grant injunctions against service providers whose services are substantially used for copyright infringement. It may be impossible to write a law that accounts for every conceivable technological innovations, however a judge will know an illegal act when she sees it.
From what's currently on the PPI site I cannot see how this is supposed to be outlawing technologies like Napster. Instead it seems to me like PPI has found the perfect median position in the Napster vs. RIAA debate. Let me explain how I came to this realization.1.) Napster wanted to claim that it is a common carrier under current law and thus should not be held responsible for the actions of it's users. What Napster has forgotten is that all common carriers (e.g. phone companies and ISPs) have personal information about their users so that if they are involved in illegal activities the users can be prosecuted. The PPI's first point is simply that if a company or service wants to claim innocence as a common carrier then it should be ready to cough up user info if the users participate in criminal endeavors through their service. After in the U.S. obscene phone callers and people who host illegal material on their ISP pages can be dealt with through their service providers, so why should Napster be different?
2.) What's wrong with a reasonable time frame for cease and desist? I see nothing wrong with a law that explicitly states how long service providers can give users to remove illegal material (especially since it would take 5 minutes in front of a computer to do this) as long as the time frame is suitable.
3.) Agreed. Make the law general enough so that it evolves with technology instead of creating a specific law to handle Napster, then another one to handle digital movies when bandwidth becomes ubiqitous and another to handle whatever else the future brings. This is very logical, after all the U.S. constitution is over 200 years old and has mainly survived due to it's general nature while countries with constitutions containing massive specificity and minutae seem to be in constant turmoil and have to deal with constantly changing laws and environments.
Basically, I can't see much wrong with PPI's recommendations and it certainly is a whole lot better for everyone than Napster's proposals (leave us alone, so our users can keep ripping artists off) or the RIAA's (explixitly ban anything that affects our bottom line) plus if implemented properly will also be able to deal with whatever other disruptive technologies that may appear in the future.
did Slashdot make an arrangement with the NYT to link directly to partner articles? If not, I'd hate to see them basically stealing this service, I assume this is something NYT charges companies for (assumed due to the partners URL).. nothing is free, either choke up your user data (real or fake), or Slashdot should pay for it.. stealing information is wrong, regardless of what the 'information wants to be free' people on Slashdot say. It's their information, and they should be able to restrict it and charge what they want for it.
-1 flamebait.
BilldaCat
Check out this cartoon. I think it sums things up fairly well. You will need flash 4 to view it.
Of course, it might get you even more pissed off, since they propose:
Require service providers, as a condition to qualifying for the liability limitation under the DMCA, to collect personally identifiable and verifiable information from their users.
which as someone noted above, is far more sinister. What are they going to do - require my Social Insurace Number or credit card number to access file-sharing services?
You also have to question these people's grasp on reality when they base their arguments on statements such as:
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a music industry trade group, estimates that piracy of physical music products, cassettes, and compact discs costs the industry nearly $5 billion in sales worldwide every year.
which we all know is crap.
This PPI group seems to have more suggestions that will just jam a few fingers in the dyke while water will continue to pour through. If they are successful, all they will do is further harm privacy on the internet along the way.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
The economic policies of the Democratic Leadership Council (the "New Democrats") are virtually identical to those of the Republican party. They are in lockstep with each other on almost every issue (the current big one being permanent normal trade relations with China.) And you believe these people are "socialist utopians?" You must be joking.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Why wouldn't the government be looking into Napster? It is facilitating the transfer of illegal goods! You can talk all you want about how the 'Genie is out of the bottle' and all, but Napster is all about the transfer of illegal music. People are going to complain about the government trying to tighten up the DCMA, there will probably be a Jon Katz article about it, but they wouldn't be revising the law if Napster wasn't breaking it.
Sure, a few artists have said they don't mind if people transfer their music over Napster, but many haven't. If a band says it is okay, then fine, but if a group doesn't want their music on Napster, it shouldn't be.
If the US gov decides to try to ban peer-to-peer file transfers or force ISPs to store detailed info on what their customers use their bandwidth for, it will be Napster's (and it's user's) fault! They aren't the good guys.
Dana
------------------------------------------------ -
"If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists" -
bad = bag
(dangit)
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
I wonder if these politicians are really arrogant enough to believe that their decisions will have any bearing on how the Internet actually evolves. Even if they do ban the use of peer-to-peer file sharing tools, people will continue to use them anywy. With the anonymity offered by public proxy servers, and the distributed nature of Gnutella and FreeNet, the government cannot enforce regulations on file transfers even if they tried. Not even the bankruptcy of Napster would have any effect on the culture that has developed around file sharing. Let the politicians appease the people with $$$ while we continue doing what we've been doing.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Honestly, it is quite pointless to attempt to stop the distribution of mp3's. We traded mp3's before napster. Why doesn't Metallica/Dr. Dre/et. al. go after the *thousands* of ftp sites. If they are so committed to ending mp3 distribution, perhaps they should camp out on the countless irc networks and watch all DCC transfers.
This is a feeble attempt to try kill a small (but significant) facet of the digital music community. My magic eight ball tells me that they will eventually fail.
This whole ordeal is nothing new to the internet community. Once a situation that an organization for one reason or another decides it's a "problem", becomes widespread enough to get the attention of Recording industries, politicians and local news channels, people that dont really understand the situation or it's consequences demand answers and solutions to the problem. This same thing has been happening over and over since the BBS days. Anyone remember all the commotion companies were making over IRC and the trading of warez?
My bad, I admit it. I was guessing, and tried to look for a connection in the rappers I know about to Chuck D.
My sincere apologies to Mr. D. =)
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Well, we still have crappy music and the industry is thriving. I'd say that the crappy music (that is, the stuff with mass appeal like TRL) is what's keeping it alive.
With regard to the second quote: if he feels that he's overpaid, he should give his music away or sell it for less, but he still has the right to be overpaid if he wants to. If people are willing to pay for his music, why not? On the other hand, artists that do not feel they are overpaid should have the right to get the proceeds from their work.
Fortune favors the bold. -Virgil
I always have to laugh when people become vehemently offended and surprised at government and business attempts to reduce the level of anonymity on the 'net and actually glean some useful personal data on the people out there using it. The reality is that anonymity has, until the Internet, been essentially a mythical thing. The "real world" certainly doesn't have any anonymity at all, and I always find it at least peculiar, if not downright weird, that the Internet generation feels that it's somehow your RIGHT to be anonymous in this world; because it isn't, and it never has been. Don't get me wrong; I think it may become that way and, more importantly, I HOPE it becomes that way. But don't get up in arms because they're thinking of taking away something you never really had in the first place. Anonymity on the Internet was through obscurity alone; well, we got our wish; the Internet's no longer obscure.
As a staff member working on Capitol Hill, let me remind you of the hierarchy of response to constituents (highest to lowest).
1. US Mail
2. Fax
3. Telephone calls
4. Email
NB: Most congressional offices don't put the priority on email communcation that this community does.
In your correspondance, refer to any personal contact you've had with your Member of Congress. Such notes usually get pushed to the top of the pile by staff.
You can click here to look up your Representative from a US zip code.
I agree that this is a bit harsh.
However, I think that if you have the right to speech, the person who you are speaking against has a right to know who you are.
"I know it's unpopular here on Slashdot for musicians to actually get paid for their work..."
/mnt/floppy).
I haven't heard anyone espouse that view. What I hear is people complaining about non-musicians getting paid for the musician's work. I also hear some complaining about paying musicians when they DON'T work (like, when I say cp nothing_else_matters.mp3
"Napster exists for only one reason: To create an illegal market for copyrighted material."
Napster didn't create the market. The "copies of copyrighted works" market has been around as long as copyrights have.
"...Napster only exists by a loophole in the law."
What loophole is that? Why can tape manufacturors and claim "we're just a medium" but Napster can't? If your answer is "quality of copy" think instead of CD writers. If your answer is "ease of distribution" think instead of FTP. If your answer is "ability to search" think of archie and Google.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Moderate this guy up. He seems to be the only one to have read the article before spewing ignorant hyperbole
Yeah, he spewed his ignorant hyperbole AFTER reading the article!
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I pronounce 'about' and 'router' too correctly to pass myself off as a Canuck.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Where did I say artists should not have the right to choose? They can choose not to, but I think they're going to have a tough time of it. Business environments change, people who change with the times thrive more than those who don't. I know it frightening to think about, but it's the way the world has worked since day 2 (which was of course a change from day 1).
People like you need to get EDUCATED on these issues instead of just trying to spout pure filth that "Napster is only for pirating" - Thats a load of crud, and you know it. Whats next? All *insert race* people look the same?
Time to ring the clue bell folks.
I eat the flesh off the living, and I vote!
> service providers whose services mean serious risk of copyright
> infringement (i.e. Napster) should be required to get solid
> identifying information for users, should have to respond to
Yes, such a thing would apply to napster. It could also apply to, oh, I don't know, maybe AN ANONYMOUS NFS SHARE. This, the slightest moment's thought makes clear, was exactly CmdrTaco's point. According to your description ("providers whose services mean serious risk of copyright infringement should be required to get solid identifying information on users"), there could be no more ACs on Slashdot, and no more anonymous write access to public file systems.
-------
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
While we're on the subject of grass(digital?)roots involvement in politics, I'd like to remind my U.S. compatriots that this is an election year. Many of you will have the opportunity to hear candidates for various political offices speak. Find out when they will be speaking, or contact their campaign headquarters and ask them what their position on the DMCA is, what their position is on the Internet as regards defending the rights of the individual versus corporate intrusion. Ask for a written statement, or ask for an interview, if you can't ask a question at a speech or political rally. Tell them you work for the online media outlet called Slashdot, and post a report of what they said here.
Keeping the Internet free (as in speech) is very important. The death of the Internet as an open medium will start with the banning of Napster because some folks use it to do illegal things. If the law is worded poorly, then any type of peer to peer data sharing could become illegal. What's next? Requiring a special license to have a web site? Soon the large corporations will wrangle it so that linking will become illegal.
Look, individuals can vote, corporations can't. It's time we make that very clear to the politicians who have forgotten.
If you want a reaction from your elected representative, do the things above, and write a letter, with a pen on paper, longhand. Trust me, that will have more of an impact that something typed or printed off of a computer, because you took the time to sit down and write something original. If it was laser printed, how does your representative know that it isn't some form letter. (I also recommend unlined paper.)
Time for some political activism, folks!
If you want a true internet candidate, I'll be eligible to run for U.S. President in 2008. So, get up off your ass and vote!
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I am man enough to state that "I use Napster to pirate music. I am fully aware of the legal and moral implications of my actions, and I don't give a damn."
The level of hypocrisy here on slashdot is unbeleivable -- If I were to develop a program called "GPL'ster" that provide a way to distribute binaries without any source code or GPL mannifesto docs, I would get CRUCIFIED.
For the record, I do believe that extending the DCMA to cover *technologies* like Napster would be a bad thing, because these technologies are part of a system of checks and balances that the consumer requires in order to keep software and music publishers honest (or at least less dishonest than they'd like to be).
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
If they wanted to, the RIAA could probably start its own little service where you pay by the MB. Allow selecting various songs, total up the MB, pay and then download as much as you like, storing info about your selections online. If you wanted to download to an entirely different machine, fine -- it should be able to remember your previous selections. For a premium service, burn one or more custom CD[s] for delivery.
If they provided a GOOD search engine and pointers to extras (videos and other merchandise? lyrics files? Official band sites, touring calendars...), then it might have enough of an advantage that at least some people would actually use it. But it might have to be basically full-service in order to get actual paying customers...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Even without safe harbor a third-party may not necessarly be held liable. I am not a lawyer, but I do know there (supposedly) has to be some culpability in order to lose a lawsuit based on contributory or vicarious infringement. Losing safe harbor does not necessarily mean a loss in court.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I think what we need here is some good, old fashioned, 60s-ish protest music. Something to reach out to the masses, and spread the message about what's happening here. Remember songs like Fortunate Son and Ohio and For What It's Worth?
We have an election coming in November, and need to influence the voter base. The majority of that voter base isn't following this issue, and will believe what the RIAA tells them.
Music combined with an organized Internet awareness campaign could make a difference. I'm sure a good, catchy tune, that is freely available on the net, would have some impact, especially if the radio stations pick it up. Napster has started to promote something along these lines, with their contest to put lyrics to a rap song.
I'm no musician, but this seems like a good idea and should be encouraged.
And who would determine these things? The same people who banned 30,000+ people from Napster by accident? Get real, sicko. I'll brew you a pot of coffee myself.
I eat the flesh off the living, and I vote!
The recording industry has never been seriously hurt by piracy. Neither has the commercial software industry. The people that ARE hurt are the people trying to make their media affordable -- the cheap/free artists.
Consider the current cost of CDs -- $15-$20 a pop. There are two groups of people: (a) those who are willing to pay that price and (b) those who aren't. Group (a) gives the recording industry their profits. Group (b) usually resorts to piracy.
If the recording industry came up with the theoretical "perfect" copy protection, and completely destroyed the pirate market, group (b) would lose their current supply of music, and would have to seek other options. They could join group (a) (not likely), or they could turn to artists who distribute cheaper music, or even free music.
Pirated music is the biggest competition that the cheap/free music makers face.
Software works the same way. MS Office is the de facto standard, but not because everyone is willing to pay $500+ for the software. It's the standard because just about anyone can get it. If you couldn't get it without paying $500, you'd probably be a LOT more willing to try something like StarOffice, even if it were an inferior product.
- Rob Cottrell
Actually, you don't know that. Constitutionally it shouldn't be outlawed. It does not violate anyone's right to life liberty or pursuit of happiness and therefore it would be unconstitutional. What people use it for however can do those things. You can ban the tool, but people are just going to make another one.
To be honest napster should simply be a wake-up call to the recording industry. We live in a capitalist society (supposedly anyhow...) where the economy is supposed to be consumer driven. If you method of doing anything with a product or if the product falls behind the times then guess what...you lose. The recording industry would make alot more money if they would sells whole CDs and single downloadable tracks...there are manybands/albums i only like one song off of and don't wish to waste $15 for one song! However $1.50 billed to my credit or debit card...sure thing...set me up a user name and account so that if my HD crashes or whatever i dont have to pay again. That alone would generate a whole lot of $$$.
Again, you don't ban the tool, you ban the trade and the trade has been banned.
Derek Greene
Sure, many ISPs do. Mine does. But there's a world of difference between many ISPs collecting data and making it illegal for them not to do so.
--
Wage Slave Journal
Since the former is clearly implied by the latter, and much shorter, it is more effective for purposes of thumbnail summary.
(If you wish to question the assertion that the former is, in fact, implied by the latter, begin by explaining the practical, real-world difference between giving judges "broad powers to grant injunctions against" X and simply prohibiting X. For extra credit, explain why the established legal doctrine of "chilling effect" has no real validity.)
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I know it's unpopular here on Slashdot for musicians to actually get paid for their work, but a lot of people need to get a clue. Napster exists for only one reason: To create an illegal market for copyrighted material. All the rationalizations in the world ("Hey, I already own the material, man!") don't change the fact that Napster only exists by a loophole in the law.
The first sentence there is such obvious flamebait that I don't think there's much value to responding. So I'll move on to the rest of this quote.
First of all, the purpose of Napster is not to create an illegal market for copyrighted material. The purpose is to create an online music community where people can share music easily. Indeed, it is extremely sad that it is already so cluttered with crap that the RIAA holds copyrights on. This is a consequence of the RIAA selling billions of CD's over the years.
Perhaps you enjoy Metallica and/or Britney Speers (sp?) but there are many people who enjoy music that you've never heard. Music that you can't buy in your country, or anywhere except for a few select local music stores (these guys are getting shoved out of business too by the way--how convenient for the RIAA when distribution channels for independent artists go down the tube.) It's the people that make independent music and listen to independent music that are truly getting screwed out of this whole deal.
If Napster really were only useful for distributing copyrighted material I really wouldn't care if they were crushed. I don't know why you insist that it's intent is piracy. You can say it is as much as you want but it won't make it a reality.
You have seen Napster, right? They have chat rooms to discuss music (or do you believe that chat rooms exist soley for the purpose of distributing copyrighted material and kiddie porn?) It is a tool that can be used to build a great online community and help a lot of struggling artists. And you think Slashdot readers should cry for the super-rich RIAA when our lives are already over-saturated with their music? I for one would be thrilled if the RIAA could remove all their music from Napster. If they could though, I bet they wouldn't.
numb
Why not try somone truly different, Ralph Nader is a champion of the little guy, and as far as I can tell, gets his jollies by breaking his foot off in corporate americas collective ass. Judge for yourself here
The onion had an insight into your question, here
no comment
The USA is still the best place in the world to live - among other things, it allows people like yourself to run away in cowardice and denial any time something the slightest bit controversial comes up. The fewer simpering immature weasels around, the better.
Bye. Don't let the Customs checkpoint barrier hit you on the way out.
Thomas Edison invents electric light bulb... Candlemaker's Guild cries foul.
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A PC without windows is like chocolate cake with no mustard.
Bono probably couldn't give music away cheaper or free if he wanted.
That, right there, is the problem with the music industry -- artists who go with mainstream labels have no control over the price or distribution of their work, and those artists that choose other labels don't get any time on the air, thus, lose sales and money.
Originally label companies were a good idea -- they helped get artists started by providing funds, and they protected the artists' interests legally. However, now the major labels are all out to cover their own asses, rather than their clients' (both musicians and listeners) interests. It's wrong, and needs to be stopped.
Bono probably couldn't give music away cheaper or free if he wanted. The record companies wouldn't stand for it. I seem to remember that the Beastie Boys and/or Tom Petty tried offering free mp3s on their web sites, which were quickly yanked by the labels. Fugazi makes sure that all of their CDs are available for 8 or 9 bucks, but they have been doing that for years outside of the mainstream system, thus removing them from any chance of radio play or mainstream popularity.
-B
The point is not that WE know what they're talking about, that's a given, with tech sites like /. anyone who has beenaround should have a clue. What's REALLY scary is do _THEY_ know they're talking about? While I deff. feel Napster SHOULD be shut down, it has nothing at all to do with MP#, the technology, the format, or the protocols...lets face is, Napster as a piece of software is NOT as well written as it should be, nor is it ported to my favorite OSes of choice. The broader rangeing effects of this, were it to pass, would make web browsers, DCC chat, ICQ, NFS, Samba, FTP, bascilly anything used to transfer data between 2 computers, illegal right? but of course, going 1 mile over the speed limit is ALSO illegal... what they will do is turn a blind eye but use this law to punish people when they neeeed it... it's a scary world already... lets hope this doesnt pass.
Gah.. can you imagine, you get arrested for stealing goldfish food from walmart and just so they can throw the book at you thwey also bring you up on charges of Digital transfers.. yikes! (in other words: it'll never hold up in court)
</rant>
-Doug
Q. What's it take to get a story posted on
If gnutella isn't, how about FTP?
Napster doesn't make trading copyrighted material possible, it just makes it slightly more convienient.
however a judge will know an illegal act when she sees it. Indeed not only this but in the case of /. V Microsoft what would a judge be saying - yeah or nay. Its not obvious
It is a stupid law. It stops the good people doing their thing, and the bad people will find another way around it. It restricts the freedom of the innocent, whilst doing nothing against the guilty.
Of course, music piracy is bad. But music gets played over the airwaves all the time and the radio stations don't get sued - the radio stations pay a small royalty each time a piece of music is played.
Each user of Napster could have a stache of Beenz. When they download some music, those Beenz get transferred to the relevant artist (not music publishing house). The artist can choose how many beenz they want for a download. Alternatively, the Agent (e.g., Napster) could pay the charge per tune, but put advertising into the content that is transferred to cover the cost. Unfortunately, advertising on the Internet doesn't work!
If the user likes the music, they can then order the real Album/Single via the Agent (e.g., Napster) and get a discount on the album for e.g., double the amount of beenz that they payed for the tracks they previously downloaded from that album.
Remember, piracy is piracy, but is it bad when it allows people to listen before they buy?
As subject says, let's find out. If /. can interview (sic!) "Me"-tellicer, what about Chuck D. Perhaps he's curious about _his_ bedfellas too.
Have you read the banner when you log in? It looks very 'social-contract' to me. Under this premise, the only thing you can blame are the individual people.
Would you blame New York itself, if you got mugged in central park at night?
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script-fu: hash bang slash bin bash
[ approaching AI ]
Actually, both the Republicans and Democrats are fragmenting with their messages becoming increasingly unclear as they jockey for position on the sacred "middle ground".
The DLC and the their idea of "New Democrats" isn't that new really. It's just a relabelling of folks called "Moderate Republicans". The DLC helped forge Clinton's campaign. Clinton kept the political center by taking Republican issues and adding compassion. Bush is doing (or trying to do) the same thing right now from the other direction.
The Democratic Leadership Council is influential, but it is NOT the Democratic party, which I believe is still looking out for the disenfranchised and "the future"... instead of helping rich businesses make as much profit as possible NOW even if there's nothing left 10 years down the road.
- StaticLimit
"The ONLY use for napster is illegal trading". It's not- you're wrong. Just modify your statement to "The MAIN use for napster is illegal trading" and we're fine. Hyperbole does your argument no good.
Now think about this. It's been what, 2 maybe 3 weeks since the crap hit the fan and there are already new bills being drawn up? Obviously there is some pushing from an unforseen force. Record industry maybe? I can see this getting pushed through quickly and halfassed. I'll admit it, I used Napster to get songs I wanted. It was great, when I couldn't find the song in the stores, or I only wanted ONE song, I didn't have to blow $15 on a CD, I just downloaded the ONE song I wanted. I have already contacted my rep and expressed my concern over these proposed laws. Some may joke, but look at how the world is today. You can have someone break into your house and if you hit them, or shoot them, they can legally sue you. If these pass, where will it end? It won't. That's the answer. I would think dearly before bringing a child into today's world.
"So who do you think is going to win, Corporation or Government?"
Neither, currently there is an open source effort to create something superior to napster: gnutella. Unlike napster, gnutella does not require a central server and thus needs no big corporations providing such servers. And above all, it is very hard to monitor gnutella users. The current version of gnutella is already pretty usefull (I use it all the time). The government focussing on Napster is a good thing since that allows gnutella to develop further. Unlike napster, it will be very hard to stop gnutella or derivatives.
Jilles
or shut down your services. It applies to hotmail, geocities, slashdot... a huge chunk of the Internet as we know it.
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Industrial space for lease in Flatlandia.
How does Napster help unknown/up-and-coming artists? How do you find an unknown band through a search service? What do you search for?
mp3.com helps unsigned artists to get their music out to the masses, but I don't see how Napster could.
I was going through the committee membership looking for those "firebrand of capitalism" names. I only saw a couple of names that I consider to severely jeopardize Napster's case. The membership is here. Is anyone else familiar enough with these House members (perhaps from your own state) to be able to comment specifically?
-L
As I remember, the Napster client has a click-wrap license agreement. (Something like "You are not allowed to distribute illegal stuff")
If Napster loses, does that mean that these licenses aren't legally binding?
No, Napster is NOT just for pirating music.
I never said it wasn't.
Your ignorance isn't your fault. But what IS your fault is the line of thinking that is going to destroy this new way of doing things, as well as some of our freedoms.
I love it. Whenever you are wrong, it must only be that I don't understand your position completely.
If Napster wanted to be a legal service, i.e., one that only allowed trading of music with public trading copyrights, that would be one thing. But that is not what Napster is about, and all the rationalizations on your part doesn't change that reality.
If Napster, Inc. tomorrow made it their mission to proactively stop the trade of all copyrighted material, then you would be right. But they don't. And they won't. Because then nobody would want the service!! And we can't have that, because their Venture Capital funding would dry up.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Sorry - that just isn't true. I can walk outside right now and use a payphone, completely anonymously. I can even buy a prepay mobile 'phone, for cash, second hand, completely anonymously. I can then make any calls I want, again with complete anonymity. Why should ISPs be subject to any greater restrictions?
(example of software piracy using Napster) Clearly a solution is needed and PPI's is a rather good one.
The same thing can be done with FTP servers - do you want to introduce mandatory registration of all FTP daemons out there? Napster only provide a search engine, and some free client and server software. Which part of this are you trying to regulate? Do you want to track the owners of search engine entries, or the users of free (as in either) software?
The problem is, US law just doesn't apply on the Net as a whole. You cannot impose these restrictions, however good your justification may be - a new approach is needed. Otherwise, `Napster-II' can just set up somewhere else - China, perhaps, or Russia - and operate without any restrictions at all.
I understand your desire to stop people ripping you off - but if the only way to do so involves unacceptable monitoring or censorship, then the price is too high.
But it's quite telling that this is the second one on slashdot who fell for it. Not telling about slashdot's reader, but telling about the perception of the RIAA.
Incase there was any confusion. What I meant is. You can legally Sell bongs in ammerica and other "Drug Paraphenellia" Under the assumption that you can smoke Tobbacco out of the products therefore making nothing wrong with its use. If you can do this then why not napster?
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
I suppose copying the other party's product and giving it away for free is 'competition', but I'm not really sure.
.sig
You are making the assumption that an MP3 and a physical CD are the same product, they aren't. This is also a serious flaw in all the RIAA's argument. Unless of course, you got hit by the LoveBug and it erased all your CD's, then your argument would hold.
So then you'll say, "Oh, but it's IP." And I'll say yup, it is, and the only way to fully control IP is with thought police.
The largest part of the cost and price of CD's is promotion. Check the RIAA's "Cost of a CD" for a clue source. This is the "value" that the RIAA is trying to protect. Now whether or not you judge the value of the music you listen to by how much you like it, or how much you are told you like it, is an exercise best left for the reader, err, listener.
If you want an honest suggestion on how to resolve parts of this situation, check the link from my
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+&x
Agreed. Think for a moment about the Microsoft Flap and the DMCA. If that sort of thing went in, Cmdr. Taco et al. would be stuck with personal responsibility for AC posings of the Kerberos specs and could be directly sued for the infringing material. Oh, and they'd have to collect a lot more detailed information about every single one of us, since nothing I've seen in the process of creating a login on Slashdot could pin down anyone's real identity with any degree of certainty (I'll agree that it's doable, but it'd be really hard.) Real names can be forged, and web email accounts are easily available these days...
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I don't know if they were lying, exactly. True the report doesn't come out and say peer to peer file sharing technologies should be illegal, but it is attacking Napster. This sentence is especially leading: Napster is an online service, popular among college students, that allows users free access to illegal digital copies of songs. First of all why single out college students? Just so you can shake your head and say "those damn kids"? It's like saying (don't you love these /. virtual vs. real world metaphors?): Cars are mechanical devices, popular among criminals, allowing them quick and easy flight from a crime scene Defining the product by its most dubious use is attacking it.
come for the naked robots, stay for the zombies
Here's a sample scenario to throw dust in your eye and that of all the other Napster apologists. Let's say Napster expands it's service to include all file types and the same time that a very efficient file compressing algorithm is discovered that can compress files to a 20th of their regular size no matter what type. Now what happens if I start sharing stolen copies of MSFT Win2K, MSFT Windows ME (before it is released), Quake 3, Star Office, Transmeta's patented code morphing software source code etc. With Napster's current argument (and yours) all the affected companies are S.O.L. unless Napster feels like banning my account (which they don't have to by law) in which case I can get another in 2 minutes and start sharing stolen/pirated material once more. Clearly a solution is needed and PPI's is a rather good one.
- Judges should be able to decide whether to give an injunction after hearing both sides of the story instead of trying to write laws for specific instances of copyright violations because there is no way the laws will keep up with technology
Frankly I feel these are all good suggestions and are much better than the copyrights be damned attitude of both Napster and a majority of slashdot users. I plan to work for a software company in the future and I'll be damned if it is deemed OK for people to rip me off simply because it's convenient, thus I support artists in their stand against copyright violation after all it should be their choice how their music gets distributed.Not everyone listens to thrash metal. I heard Metallica when I was in high school 10 years ago, and I own a copy of Master of Puppets, but I couldn't tell an Anthrax song if I heard it.
What if he's some high school kid who was raised on his parent's taste in music? WHAT IF THEY ONLY LISTEN TO COUNTRY? For christ's sake, have a little compassion.
Oh and to answer the $10 question: a lot of CD's are still $10.88 at the Newbury Comics where I get mine.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Actually, I believe you're mistaken about George Clinton. I saw an interview with him once where he discussed the issue of sampling. (I believe this was around the same time Chuck D was still claiming "you can't copyright no beats," BTW.) And what he said in this interview was that, while it was true some artists' music was being used without compensation, he himself had never been sampled without getting paid for it. So he was more or less content.
Breakfast served all day!
I just called my Congressman (Bilbray) in Washington. I explained to them that voting in favor of any more restrictive copyright laws would be bad. Of course mp3.com's offices are just down the street, so they probably have a bit more pull than I do. Good luck fellow /.ers. Ben
Sorry no. Perhaps I wasn't clear. When i 'rip' a CD I do it from an original CD that I've purchased and using my own hardware. That file is then stored on my drive and not shared.
Seems to me that the proposed changes would HURT multi-nationals and international trade -far- more than it would hurt Gnutella or Napster, in reality. And it would also make it effectively a criminal act to not provide multi-point connections.
All in all, it seems to me that if Internet folk played their cards right, this could spell doom to corporate megaliths and -impose- greater freedoms than currently exist.
One thing you have to remember, it's NOT the words that count. It's who can twist them the more convincingly, first.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Would only accelerate the move to gnutella. Counting on it not having a usable interface is a bad business plan. Instead of trying to fight this losing battle (right or wrong, there's no way to win it), they'd be better off figuring out how to profit from the new model. I have to say, I'm constantly amazed at how poorly people understand the implications of the internet. I'm clearly underpaid.
Wouldn't it be a great idea, if, when you hear about these types of hearings you took an active role as a technology advoacate to go to the hill and preach some gospel? Andover's got the money to fly you there, I'd bet. The LAST thing we need is Chuck D presenting OUR arguements about technology. Let him speak about music, and its industry. Let us speak about ours.
Did Napster add advertising space to their Windows client when I wasn't looking? Where exactly do you see them making money on piracy?
Who was it that suggested that members of Public Enemy should be speaking in defense of MP3 and file sharing via Napster? I'm not famaliar with how these hearing typically play out, so I have no clue who's in charge or who to talk to.
What I do know, however, is that I've read a couple of Public Enemy's rants regarding MP3 technology. Call me crazy, but I think at least 1/3 of (non-troll) slashdot posters would be better suited to speak in MP3's defense. When I read the comments here, I see a lot of good, debatable points. Are the decision-makers ever going to see them? Not unless someone prints them out, goes to their little hearing pow-wow and sets them down in the courtroom.
Or is the person running this whole shebang more interested in sensationalism over substance?
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Let's be honest, this country is controlled not by the internet - not by the media, not by even the government but the megacorporations that control everything else. MacAddict had a really good article on this the other day, but corporations such as this tell all their smaller companies what they must think - thus something becomes culturally wrong. Think about it: how often does some issues such as oh... gun control take hold as soon as the media endorses it? Following that thread - MP3 is ABSOLUTELY no different than simple audio tapes, except it is digital and slightly less complicated to copy. Honestly my mother used to copy songs off the radio that she liked and then mix them into a tape (we had good reception at our house ;>) -- however MP3 is higher quality ... more portable. Anything that disturbs how "the company" works generally doesn't fly - and MP3 is something that they would like to combat as a whole. Truthfully napster has issues with the method of distribution - however let's be honest. How many of us have had our CD collections burst out? Since napster came into play I spend sooooooooooo much money on CDs.. and MP3 makes it so easy to keep them w/ me. I just whip up grip and they are in my homedir waiting for me - get on my iBook, copy them over and all I have to do is listen on a trip, or whatever. If we, the consumer to these corporation would write THEM and our respective offices of government then we would DEFINATELY see some action.
We will see what comes..
Well, this IS slashdot...the ignorant hyperbole is part of the atmosphere. It's just nice to see someone actually read the article first, so we all know where the ranting started.
...have you forgotten the poo that ensued after /. tried to publish our comments w/out our permission? Unless /. wants to draft a petition type of letter and then collect signatures from all of us then I'm not sure your idea would work. (NOTE: /. can use my comments, my name, my nude pictures, etc. - anything as long as it helps the cause. Hehe.) /. for them to check out if you like.
If all of us typed up a letter and sent it in to our Congressperson via the USPS, though, THAT would be cool. And you could include a reference to the ongoing debates here at
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
No, he's not wrong. Napster was created to make MP3-trading easier, and we're not talking about people looking for tunes by the best garage band in Punxsatawney, PA. Fanning never pretended otherwise until he had a company faced with lawsuits on all sides. However, many people talk about "Napster" when they really ought to be talking about peer-to-peer file sharing and the like.
The problem is that because of Napster and its creation/use as a tool of/for copyright-violators, the rest of us are going to have to work very hard in what will probably be a losing battle to protect the legality of general file-sharing technologies.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
> Would a sane sysadmin let any luser get the root passwords to his systems?
> Now would you let any of those lusers carry a gun?
Yes, 'cause lusers that they are, if they tried to shoot me, they'd hit their own foot. I'd have plenty of time to draw my own and defend myself.
It's a win/win situation. One less luser for me and the rest of the world to deal with and one more luser put out of their misery.
OTOH, since the world is filled with lusers who can't handle root, and a few nasty hackers that steal root and use it for criminal acts, why don't we require all admins to register their root passwords with the feds? Wouldn't that be great? It sure would stop all those hackers from stealing and abusing root wouldn't it. Or, since lusers can't handle root, why don't we ban root all together and just let everyone have *equal* access to the systems. Can't have any discrimination or heaven forbid a *digital divide* of access privileges that are reserved for the elite can we?
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Well, if the report actually said that, you could be right. But the web site that was linked to in the article says nothing of the kind, and actually describes the report more than once as explicitly encouraging changes that will cut down on piracy without banning legitamate uses of the same technologies. That's the real WTF.
Did anyone actually follow the link before posting this story? The report appears to give recommendations that would change the way Napster does business but they go out of their way to say that they aren't attacking the programs themselves. If you read the article on the linked site, its kinda hard to miss. So why exactly did /. flat out lie about what their "opponents" are suggesting? Is it so hard to argue with a reasonable opponent that you have to strawman them?
I suggest following the link and reading for yourself what the group is suggesting. From the synopsis, it looks fairly reasonable to me. YMMV.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
I don't see anyone asking Yahoo to provide their name and address, despite the fact that they can post copyright infringing material there as well. How is Napster any different?
I'm not so much worried about losing my ability to raid MP3's from other people, I'm worried about free speech. I know this is viewed with considerable skepticism, but...
I like to compare it to the ACLU defending the KKK in court. They understand that if you don't defend everyone's right to free speech, if you allow inroads to occur, then everyone is in jeapordy. Understanding this fundamental truth is critical. To abandon Napster is to denounce this premise outright.
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
I notice (after posting this myself) that Badgerman earlier had picked up on that and some other good points back here.
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Making iDirt 1.82 a safer place, one bug at a time.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Of course ISPs are going to collect identifying information on you, because you have to pay them! How many ISPs are you aware of that accept anonymous subscribers who pay in cash?
Now, I'm not expert on the law, but I imagine if you want to avoid responsiblity for copyright infringment, that responsiblity must be transferred to someone else. You can't just shrug and say, "yeah, I own the server, but someone else is responsible for those gigs of pirated music, and I'm not telling you who."
The problem with that statement in the report, however, is that Napster is not an ISP. They are not breaking the law, because no pirated content resides on or is transferred through their machines.
Because Napster is not actually an ISP, what they're really asking for is the ability and requirement to identify everybody who uses any net service that could potentially be used to break the law. The logical conclusion is really disturbing. Imagine something like identd, but legally required for every ISP to dish out complete identification for a user for any site that asks for it.
As for your comments on slashdot accounts, such requirements would immediately have this account deleted. There may be someone out there named "Jon Kennis," but I sure as shit haven't met him. And anyway, CmdrTaco has the AC account because he thinks it (after moderation) improves the site's quality. Would congress bumbling in and making him take out AC posting be just?
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"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
BTW, there's a big difference now-a-day's between a liberal and a democrat.
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
If it pleases you to believe you "got me", hey, knock yourself out. I aim to please.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
there is a reasonable use for mp3's. that is to rip songs from cd's that you own, and be able to listen to them on your computer or on your own devices. that's acceptable.
/. is saying that every user should have the right to trade these files on the open, but while this is great for the user, nobody has given an agenda that would appease the opposition to this plan. So instead of yelling about how wrong it is for artists and recording companies to ban napster, propose some brilliant solution so that everyone can be happy.
I can understand why people are getting upset on the side of the people selling cd's, the artists, etc. because by users pirating (and that's exactly what is happening with programs such as napster) they are losing revenue.
now, everyone in
the music on a cd is still the intellectual property or copyrighted material of the artist and the recording company. it is illegal, in all senses of the word, to reproduce this material in a way and method intended for users who did not pay for the material.
yes, we should all stand up and say that the actions everyone is taking right now is wrong, but instead of flaming your local congressman, why not propose a solution?
I think of napster more like a "Swap Party" or
similar. Now imagine this....
I setup a "Swap Party" and say "Bring stuff to
trade with people" its the whole point of the
party (I actually went to one once. The Geek Pride
festival one in Boston a couple of months back).
Now, if you bring a whole bunch of CDs full of
music that you copied to the Swap party...is it
my fault as the organizer of the party that YOU
did this?
Add to the fact that its impossible to check and
verify that you have legal right to "swap"
everything that you bring to the party.
Thats all napster really is...a big "virtual
place" where people can get together and share
files.
How can the napster people possibly verify that
NO "illicit trading" is done? They would have to
have someone listen to EVERY mp3 that was
distributed...check to see if it was a copy of
some piece of music that is copyrighted (good
luck on that...how many songs by how many bands
fall under copyright still? Everything made in the
past 100 years or so). THEN see if the person
doing the distribution has legal right (ie IS the
opyright holder...or has permission from the
copyright holder).
In short...it would be like the phone company
moniroting calls to see if people were using the
phone to plan crimes.
As for flea markets setting up a way for people to
be anonymous... they don't exactly take names and
force people to display their real name on their
table. (at least not at any one I have been to)
I also doubt they have any policy requring sellers
to not say, wear black ski masks all day long.
There is nothing wrong with annonymity. If your
not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't be forced
to give out your identity. (hows that for a twist
on the old "if you arn't doing something wrong,
you shouldn't have anything to hide)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
That, plus the fact that they have pretty much established that it was their intent to do this. It's not a general search engine ala AltaVista, in as much as Lycos's image search engine is also not a particularly generic service.
Newspapers can be used to swat flies, but that's not their primary purpose. They're meant to be read. Napster could be fooled into sharing other content, but again, that's not its primary purpose, and they should not pretend that they are of the same nature as, say, AOL or Netcom.
They can fight the RIAA, but they should do so on stronger grounds than the safe-harbor clause.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
In all seriousness, this is a wonderful idea. Especially since individuals weighing in on an issue supposedly means a lot more because it usually means that there are more people on the sidelines who may feel strongly about the issue but are too lazy to actually call the politico's attention to their views. Hey, we have the energy to post to Slashdot, why not use it to get our views across?
I also give permission for Slashdot/Andover to use any comments of mine to support our views within the Government. Let's get 'em, folks!
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
EXCELLENT point! I wish I thought of it. I may have to steal that in future posts...
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Many FTP servers with, say, writable incoming directories have these same directories non-readable in much the same way that BBSes typically did not make uploaded files downloadable until the sysop had the time to check them, presumably for viruses and, (if the sysop cared), copyright violations. With this system, there's not that much risk for violations, particularly as most w4r3z d00dz probably will not be terribly creative in naming files ("Hmm, somebody uploaded total_annihilation.rar, and it's roughly CD-sized...").
Slashdot could achieve something approaching equivalency by banning accounts using freemail systems which are known to NOT use verifiable information. In a case of blatant violations, court orders could likely be obtained to force divulgence of said info -- for instance, with a valid AOL account, AOL will certainly have such info around, and Slashdot can point to that as long as AOL is not known to be crackable to the degree that random schmos can create mailboxes on AOL without that service's knowledge.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
As best I can tell it has saved no children, and caused a number of sites to stop providing serivces and news to children, outraging hundreds, if not thousands of parents. (And it hasn't even gone in to effect yet? (i think)).
Perhaps we should use this analogy when attempting to help people see the light.
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
7. Only share dirs without Metallica and don't download Metallica. 8. Tell Metallica to go fuck themselves. And never buy Metallica again. 1. Record your own personal version of "Metallica_Ban_THIS.MP3". 2. Make it available via Napster. 3. If Metallica tells Napster to ban you for copyright infringement, sue their butts for slander, tortious interference, loss of revenue (this recording would have been your big break into music stardom) etc.
Yesterday we used the Slashdot Effect to bring down the potato server, today, let's use our power for Good(TM)! There is a phone number attached to the report, (202) 547-0001. I called that number and actually got to speak to the author of the document. I told him that I was an independant musician, who used Napster to freely distribute my music, and that it would be a large mistake to try to stiffle Napster-like technology in its infancy, as, although, yes, today it's being used for piracy, tommorow it will be used for so much more...
My point is this: Read the highly moderated posts, and then call this person, and give him the best arguments we've come up with in a very level headed manor. He's a very easy person to talk to, so be nice to him =)
As a side note, at the end of the conversation, he asked where I heard of his proposal, and I told him "Slashdot.org". He then said, "Oh, isn't that the hacker website?". I responded with "Heh, yeah, but we aren't the evil kind of hackers. We care about open source software, and, above all else, freedom."
--------------------- PeaceLoveUnityRespect ---------------------
> They are not talking about banning file sharing.
Of course. That's exactly the thing they're talking about.
Just because Napster made the decision to only support searching for mp3s (which I quite frankly, dont understand) doesnt make it anything but file sharing.
While I may agree with you that Napster is currently mainly used to trade copyrighted work it'd be dangerous to support banning them. Because if you look at it you really can never be sure that "the internet" isnt mainly used to trade copyrighted material... and pr0n... and copyrighted pr0n...
So you start prosecuting services that index mp3 files. What would you recommend next? I personally have a problem with gif files and think that altavista should be sued for making it easier for people to share them...
Seriously though, I would contact my congressman, if I had one.
One way of regulating it would be for the ISPs to firewall all (non-commercial) customer connections so that no incoming calls are presented to the customer.
This would not be a welcome move.
Of course they understand what's going on. Well, specifically, they don't understand. They don't understand networking technologies, that's for sure. But that doesn't mean they couldn't extend the DMCA to ban things like napster. I mean, there is a line, somewhere, between something that breaks a law and something that doesn't. What's the difference between something like back orifice 2000 and Back Offices Remote Server management? Not much, but anti-virus companies ban one and not the other.
And lets not forget that VCRs probably violate the DMCA somewhere. But you can't legalize VCRs, and the movie industry doesn't even want them banned, they make way to much money off of them.
So, congress could ban something like napster, they were shooting themselves in the foot anyway when they decided to go mp3 only. Really, they should have been allowing any kind of file through, at least then they could claim to have some kind of legitimacy. Don't get me wrong; I believe that Napster is legal under the current DMCA, since they are a service provider. And, I believe that what they are doing is ethically ok, but only because I that file sharing is ok as well.
One would expect that companies like Microsoft and Sun would probably want to weigh in on something like this, after all NFS and windows networking allow sharing of files. Certainly, here at ISU 90% of the file trading happens on the SMB network, but I don't think they will. Because they don't care. They know the government isn't going to crack down on them, and if these new laws forced a paradigm shift from everyone being able to communicate, to only a few who can afford huge ass servers, and expensive windows NT licenses, I'm sure they'd be happy, Just look at the history of radio. It used to be a place where everyone had a voice, but now it is in the exclusive control of major media. I wouldn't be to surprised if that's what happens to the net. Usenet and IRC will become like HAM radio. The rest will be the online cyberspace information super web. And it will be lock-down controlled by major companies.
The ideas being discussed in the house seem aberrant to the idea we have of the Internet. But what you have to realize is the idea we have of the net isn't the same as the one held by the teaming AOL masses. What you have to remember, is that none of these companies ever really even wanted an Internet, it just kind of showed up. They wanted something they could control, and they didn't get it. Does anyone remember the 'information superhighway'? It was supposed to let you see movies on demand, when you paid for them, It was going to be smart TVs and phones and giant servers. And it never happened, because people just sort of noticed the Internet, and how cool it was.
But, I think that if these companies get their way, it won't be the internet any more. It'll be the information superhighway again, and it will be lame. And that is exactly what they do understand.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You quite clearly said it existed for one reason only- to illegaly copy copyrighted material. You've been shown you're wrong. Just admit it and move on like a rational person.
But perhaps there's a better middle ground that we can find here, like "every time a song is downloaded, the RIAA gives $0.25 to the artist" and I pay $0.50. I can go for that.
If it's anything like the blank media tax, it's going to be a scam. Blank tapes and CDRs with the "audio" barcode on them attract a levy for "compensating artists". In truth, the levy goes only to the RIAA's Big Four record labels. Small labels never see a cent of it; they don't matter.
Aside from it being intrinsically unfair (why should the Big Four put a tax on the demo tape your garage band records?), it reinforces the oligopolistic paradigm that the only legitimate recording companies are BMG, Universal, Warner/EMI and Sony. Should these entities wield control over file swapping as well?
"With the help of Chairman Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Vice Chairman Governor Roy Romer (D-CO), the DLC is putting its ideas into action at the local, state, and national levels"
They publish a magazine, The New Democrat, and their leader, Al From, is an old time, connected, Friend of Bill. This is, in short, a Democratic (donkey-style) initiative. The DLC's main agenda points appear to be Gun Control and Internet Control. Here are their stated goals:
"Renewing our democracy by challenging the special interests and returning power to citizens and local institutions."
So remember, as stated above, one of their major goals is to empower citizens to defeat the special interests.
And here, in the case of Napster, is what they think, and what they hope to achieve:
"Digital audio technology and the Internet have combined to take music piracy to a new level. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a music industry trade group, estimates that piracy of physical music products, cassettes, and compact discs costs the industry nearly $5 billion in sales worldwide every year"
Ok, so the special interest (the RIAA) is getting ripped off by people promoting their music, and despite explosive growth, it isn't growing explosively enough.
They continue:
This provision [the DMCA] has been extremely important for phone companies, search engines such as Yahoo, and for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as America Online, which faced the possibility of being sued whenever one of its customers transmitted a pirated song."5" But because Congress suffers from a severe lack of 18-year-old computer whizzes, it could not anticipate technological breakthroughs that have fostered "service providers" such as Napster, whose users must provide their own connections to the Internet and whose "service" is used almost exclusively for song piracy.
To some, it may seem inevitable that high-tech digital pirates will always stay one step ahead of the law, and even countervailing technology to prevent online theft
Ok, so they didn't anticipate peer-to-peer distributed networks (um, the WEB)... that's fine. Here's the change they advocate (remember, their goal is to empower the people:
We believe the DMCA should be amended to hold Napster, its users, and similar services accountable for copyright violations while maintaining protections from liability for service providers that are innocent bystanders to digital piracy. The amendment should:
Yep, that's how they're gonna give power to the people. By pointing the finger at the providers of peer-to-peer distributed networking software. And by requiring service providers to get verifiable information on their users. How you say, um... Anonymous Coward? Slashdot will no longer qualify for DMCA protection.
What's the solution? Make it peer-to-peer encrypted file sharing software open-source (like gnutella), and publish it anonymously. Write your congressman, and tell him you don't feel very empowered by people who don't understand the internet attempting to create policy for it. And most of all, realize that Gun Control and Internet Control are powerful steps towards a police state - and that the democratic party is sponsoring them. I'll leave you with their comment about us:
While some "cyberlibertarians" might think that cyberspace is a government-free zone that can operate without any rules, we believe differently. Theft of intellectual property is just as wrong if done on the Internet as it is on a Xerox machine or VCR.
Do any of you believe what they're telling you you believe? I don't.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
It's obvious you hate to insert reason into the argument...because you haven't.
Napster exists for only one reason: To create an illegal market for copyrighted material
Napster exists for only one reason, for people to share music. The RIAA hates Napster because it raises competition to an unheard of level. One they can't deal with and that will consistently eat into their profits (You mean there are artists that don't get played on the radio or MTV?!?!?). Competition is bad for the bottom line.
I've seen you speak up a lot lately, but have yet to hear a cogent argument. Go wink at yourself, I use Napster to find good music.
--
+&x
Some artists do in fact want to give their work away, for promotional reason or just cause they're great people. Not all file trading is illegal, nor will that ever be the case. In fact, the successful artists of the future will be those that embrace the new model.
So what you're saying is that artists should not have the right to choose whether they want to embrace this wonderful new model you're advocating. You have decided for them that it's for their own good that their material be freely traded against their wishes?
You know, I've been having some trouble making a few career decisions myself. Since you are so adept at deciding what's best for other people, maybe you could help me out as well.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Long Island, in fact, and that's even further East.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
> It's not a generic service that is used for anything the customer desires.
Well, what is then?
Is it not generic because it restricts searches to files ending with ".mp3"? Would they be protected if they just put every kind of file in their indices and let you specify the extension? At which point do search engines as a whole become "generic" enough to be protected from prosecution?
I do buy DVD's but I'm not satisfied with what I get. I pay more and get a meny on the disk for jumping to the exact start of a track. It's a little bit faster but the same thing as having indexes on a tape. Most titles here in europe don't have that much extra on them compared to VHS. In a few years or probably less, I'll have enough disk space at home to put a few films on them too. Why should I be forced to drag out the DVD from the rack when I could conviniently have it stored on my disk drive? Yes, because the film industry is also greedy.
Now the DVD audio format will be interesting. We already have perfect sound on the CD's, what can I gain by getting a twice as perfect sound on a DVD (or the high definition CD's for that matter). It'll cost me a fortune to buy a new DVD player and the even more expensive DVD's. On top of it I wont be able to listen to them as I want to, 500 hours of listening without touching the DVD. I don't think the audio DVD will succeed unless I can play it on what I've got now...but I'm probably wrong, they'll ram it down our throats.
Now I don't condone sharing your files freely on the net but if that's your thing, go ahead. It's no more criminal than my copying of MP3's onto a CD but the gripe from RIAA et. al. is that the copying is so extensive. Is it really? I guess there are a lot of people who download from the net but I also think that most of those people go and buy the CD from the store, I know I would if I'd find a song that's worth it (yes even one song per CD is sometimes enough for me). I'm just not satisfied with an MP3 that is 128kb, I've got a good stereo and I want it ripped at the best possible quality. And if there happens to be some people that don't buy the CD after all, well, I don't think they would've bought it anyway.
So all in all, distribution channels like napster is actually more like a promtion channel. Instead of complaining about lost revenue the record companies should thank napster for god promotion.
Happy ripping.
------------------------------------------
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
Tell me, what if i used an FTPd to share ONLY the mp3s i had? Isn't that just like napster? You're an idiot. I'm tired of pussies like you sceaming 'but its illegal.' Do you even read /. ever? Stories about restricting the internet are always on here.
Mine doesn't. I don't have a credit card and I can't see why I should need one just to get an ISP, if they don't get paid they can remove their service at any time.
Unfortunately, advertising on the Internet doesn't work!
... and advertising on the radio does? Most people just change the station.
or what about TV? Only lately have the commercials started to get interesting... before these, the commercials were an excuse to get up and get food... or go to the bathroom or whatever.
The ad companies don't realize that clickthroughs DON'T MATTER. The purpose of advertising is to get your name known, or convince people to buy something you provide... but not expect them to do it right away!
If you were watching TV and a commercial came on, and it pretty much gave 1 sentence and the name of the company, and told you to change to channel 294 for more information, NO ONE WOULD DO IT. The ad people are nuts for expecting people to do the equivalent of that on their comps.
errr... sorry for the rant.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
It is designed explicitly as a music exchange service
Actually, it's a music indexing service, much like a search engine is a web-page indexing service.
This makes a difference. Under the proposed law, someone could search Google for "microsoft warez", then turn around and sue Google, because under the new law, Google would not be allowed to add pages to their index, or allow people to search their index, without first having "identifying information" on file. In short, the proposal strikes right at the heart of the one thing that makes the web useful -- search engines.
A quick visit to the PPI web page tells you pretty much everything you need to know about them. Their page is saturated with buzz-words like "third way" and "New Democrat". This is the language of the current power structure at the top of the Democratic Party.
I may disagree often with old-school liberals like Welstone and Ted Kennedy, but at least I can respect that they stand for something. They truely believe that the little guy would be better off if America was a little more socialist.
The "New" left, on the other hand, does not give a crap if it is capitalism, communisms, big business, small business, or whatever... as long as they are in control of it. Who benifits and who is hurt is of little importance, as long as everybody is made to bow at their altar.
It is all about power to them, and they look at the Internet with the same lust that Ceaser once looked at the barbarian lands to the north. Until we, the goths, take the fight to Rome, we will continue to be bullied.
End Rant(0)
I know many of you are a little uncomfortable with the libertarian prism that many of us on /. (and elsewhere on the web) view the world through, but there comes a time to recognize that government power is (at best) a neccessary evil, and should be limited to no more power than is absolutely essential to preserving our liberty. The requirements that the PPI would like to impose go far beyond that threshold.
A big thank-you to the earlier poster who gave a link to the House member look-up page. You can be assured that Jim Ramstad (R-MN) will be hearing from me via snail-mail this week.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Most of the MP3s i've heard ARE cd quality (or better).
:P
Mmm, not really. Even if you encode the MP3 in the same bitrate and frequency width, MP3 is a lossy compression in that the algorithm tosses out information that is out of range of most people's hearing or blends similar sounds together. I've just now obscenely simplified the process, but it goes something like that. Don't get me wrong, MP3 is a really wonderful and accurate audio compression technique, but you'll never get a "perfect" copy no matter how high you crank the bitrate and freq.
PNG is to CD audio as JPG is to MP3. Ever encode a Tori Amos song and then play it back on a pair of high-quality headphones? MP3's do not do justice to her kind of music (many pure and quiet tones). However, with most kinds of audio like voice, a rock song, or a techno song, most people won't hear the difference. But I do.
Why is the House Small Business Committee holding the hearing? Which small businesses are involved?
Seems to me that this issue is only really important to some of the biggest businesses on the planet...
Now why the hell won't Metallica answer our questions?!?! Bastards. I think I'm gonna go burn my metallica CD now.
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
------------------------------------------------ -
"If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists" -
Check out this kick ass app www.filetopia.com. It has napster like functionality, but with many more usefull features. There is no global search yet (4 weeks). It uses strong public key encryption for file transfers and chat(!). Guess where people are going to go when the unencryted systems napster, cutemx, imesh, gnutella etc. are shut down ? Now no one can evesdrop on your searches and transfers :) Sweet ...
One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
DOJ vs. Microsoft - Part II
REDMOND - Microsoft today announced that pursuent to DOJ recommendations, they are removing the File and Print Sharing protocols from their Windows OS. This comes because of DMCA, a law that they lobbied to pass. Among the other list of programs affected are Novell Netware, Napster, Apache, FTP clients and servers, IE, Netscape and all NIC drivers.
kwsNI
Because the Progressive Policy Institute is the think tank policy group behind the Democratic Leadership Council. Not that I support Napster, but the DCMA needs to be trashed, not extended.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Ahh...Newbury Comics. That brings back memories. I remember taking the subway into Boston just to get cheap CDs there, back when the only one was the one on Newbury St. Then the Harvard Square one opened, which was much bigger. Also used to be a great place for bootleg video tapes, though i'm betting they don't do that much now. Oh, and t-shirts. I think my entire high-school wardrobe came off their wall. :)
Good to see that even now they're still cheap.
Oops...way off topic...
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
That means that ISPs will be liable for copyright infringement unless they collect identifying data on you. It will be their burden to make sure their users don't violate copyright laws, and their asses if they don't.
The threat to privacy is clear. If this were to become law, ISPs that try to protect your privacy would actually be doing so illegally.
--
Wage Slave Journal
If the DMCA is extended to prohibit file sharing over the net, then ... um, well, I guess *nix is illegal, as well as NT, Win2000, BeOS, SCO, BSD, MacOS X, um ... Palm OS, my Newton, CE, etc. Almost all OSes these days do TCP/IP and FTP. I'm writing my representative about this. This sentence is even more boring than the last one.
Falling You - beautiful
From PPI's Napster proposal:
"It may be impossible to write a law that accounts for every conceivable technological innovations, however a judge will know an illegal act when she sees it."
Um ... is this anything like "we can't define pornography but we'll know it when we see it."
This idea that judges will be able to just tell, upon seeing it, that something is illegal (in terms of the DMCA) frightens me. Government makes the laws, the police enforce them, the judicial system passes down judgement based on them. This sounds like an expansion of the judge's roll that allows the judge to decide what needs policing, in terms of the DMCA.
--
Making iDirt 1.82 a safer place, one bug at a time.
I have a question: Since You can Legally use napster to distribute Mp3s of your own Creation or MP3s that are not protected by any copy right laws....
how is this different from Bongs being sold as tobbacco prodcuts?
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Hear, hear! But don't forget those other 31337 tools of illegality which should be banned too
Obviously no-one trades legal MP3s like bootleg concert copies (which Metallica allow - obviously uncool) or privately produced soundtracks.
In fact, maybe phone lines should be banned too - that would take care of all those nasty 'phone phreakers'.
<Massive sarcasm=off>
That sure is a cute and trendy thing for Bono to say. Does he remember a band named "Negativland"?
Now the whole issue will get so bogged down in bureaucratic gridlock that it will be years before the government passes a law attempting to restrict technology that, by that time, people will have moved well beyond.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
PPI is aware of Gnutella and Freenet, this tidbit also came from the PPI report.
Of course, an amendment will not guarantee an end to online piracy. Cyberlibertarians are hard at work creating new software protocols for completely decentralized file swapping networks, such as Gnutella and Freenet, that connect computer users to each other directly and anonymously without going through a Napster-like searchable database. These protocols would render the DMCA moot because there is no company to sue and no central server to shut down. Because Gnutella and Freenet have no profit potential and no incentive to create user-friendly software, this new technology will probably be limited to a relatively small community of highly-skilled computer operators. If these decentralized software protocols do ever gain widespread popularity, Congress will have to revisit this issue. However, the mere threat of a future problem does not justify forestalling action to stop Napster-like services today.
---------
Interesting, here's hoping these systems don't stay only among "highly-skilled computer operators." Perhaps we need to consider advertising and more publicity for gnutella?
Think of this: Napster has been banned on many college campuses. College campuses are traditionally the place where independent music flourishes. Thus the RIAA has managed to shut down a distribution channel for the independent artists.
.edu pay their bandwidth by the Mb, I can understand their postion on banning heavy-no-scholar-traffic.
Well I'm not sure about you, but I'm pretty sure that the SysAdmins that saw their bandwidth torn out of proportion didn't relly give a rats ass about the RIAA, Metalilica or anything "legal" for that matter.
Since most
Murphy(c)
that way you'll properly be able to pay for Gore's Internet and the government can properly watch its citizens. this is for everyone's good.
if you start using illegal protocols (ones on the internic-banned list), you'll have to Pay The Man come april 15.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
NB: Most congressional offices don't put the priority on email communcation that this community does.
:)
Unless they get 20.000 a day or the subject is "loveletter".
"Of course, an amendment will not guarantee an end to online piracy. Cyberlibertarians are hard at work creating new software protocols for completely decentralized file swapping networks, such as Gnutella and Freenet, that connect computer users to each other directly and anonymously without going through a Napster-like searchable database. These protocols would render the DMCA moot because there is no company to sue and no central server to shut down. Because Gnutella and Freenet have no profit potential and no incentive to create user-friendly software, this new technology will probably be limited to a relatively small community of highly-skilled computer operators. If these decentralized software protocols do ever gain widespread popularity, Congress will have to revisit this issue. However, the mere threat of a future problem does not justify forestalling action to stop Napster-like services today."
I would like to hear how PPI would propose to regulate decentralized protocols. I suppose TCP/IP would qualify as a decentralized anonymous protocol which should be regulated, according to the PPI.
Humh...an interesting philosophical question..is open source a necessary condition for things like napster, or are they ethically untethered?
Bertrand Meyer, "The Ethics of Free Software" certainly would seem to support the view that napster is a logical outgrowth of the moral absolutism of open source. Indeed, the die-hard stallman and raymond seem somewhat ambivalent in the article.
Not Linus though...now that he is in the corporate world that IP seems might important. Wonder how long before we see "transmeta" hooks in Linux?
lets see, Ill pay as much money for a CD
... and then have to put up with it taking up my HD space
Probably. But thats b/c of the RIAA. One of the greediest groups around.
get a lot lower quality recording
Doubtful. Most of the MP3s i've heard ARE cd quality (or better).
wont get a hard copy,
CD Burner. Make your own custom mixes of only what you want to hear, and have a great way to backup any kind of data on your computer.
...people even get on the net. I think all these 40 and 50 year old men and women sit on a committee and choose something to shit on once a month...since "Napster" is so popular right now they need to hold a conference about it....In some way's its "piracy...?" and in other ways its computer geeks and music junkies getting back at the artists and music company's for driving up all the prices....somebody name 10 cd's that you can pop in and listen to the whole thing without skipping a song.....musical quality has gone way downhill....if they have 3 semi-good songs on a cd and one top 20 hit, they are done...throw some other crap on there and box it up....and its funny how all the artist jumped on the double cd band wagon to justify higher prices....basically more money for more crap....im sure that there are 10 cd's out there that you really, really like but not many more....these guy's need to give it a rest and go back to their "Benzo's" and "Phat Cribs"..haha..........Glacias
I heard one of the best quotes on MP3 this weekend from U2's Bono on VH1's "Behind the Music:1999". He said that in the '70's, the Recording industry was saying that home tape recording was killing the record industry. When, actually, crappy music was killing the industry.
He went on to say something to the effect of "And who cares if I lose money? I'm overpaid as it is."
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
I dunno about this. Last night I happened to fire up Napster and search for some fairly obscure artists -- local artists around Chicago, for example.
.mp3s for these folks.
I couldn't find a single mp3.
Now, I fire up "Pearl Jam" or "Metallica" and, yeah, I get hits up to the 100 hit limit -- tons and tons of
As much as I appreciate Napster's attempts to unite the mp3 music community, I do think think they're somewhat disingenuous about what they're doing.
But, on the other hand, I'm all for the free flow of information -- and I certainly don't think it's right for, good god, politicians, lawyers, or lobbyists to come in, slap down money, and start passing nonsensical laws.
But, yes, artists should be paid for their work. And, yes, all this should demonstrate to the music industry that there is an incredible demand for this stuff.
I think the blame -- if blame is to be cast -- rests squarely on the shoulders of the recording industry. They need to put hire some propellar-head consultants who have good thinking caps and start thinking of alternate business models -- quick.
I don't think we should blame the artists for being "too rich" or money hungry (Metallica, for example), and I don't think the finger should be pointed at fans -- the fans (myself included) are hungry for music.
He never said that the bands he had discovered on napster included Selloutica - that's your own assumption.
I persoanlly have used napster, and have indeed picked up mp3's from bands I've never heard of before that led to physical purchases - I'm more inclined to try a tune out from someone I've never heard of BECAUSE it's free, and I won't buy anything on faith - samples lead to purchases.
I agree that 95 percent of the music that is transferred through the napster client is copyrighted, but the onus is on the users, not the software. The implications of this precedent are staggering and frankly terrifying if you just exchange the term 'copyrighted music' to 'copyrighted anything else'... it could literally be the end of the web - no more browsers, since they infringe on copyright laws by their very nature.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
This states that napster is about to be given a large whack of cash ($15million) by the Venture Capital firm Hummer Winblad. So who do you think is going to win, Corporation or Government?
BTW, 'PPI defines Third Way proposals in Napster debate', no, I don't like the sound of that one bit.
It's not an ISP.
ISP == Internet service provider. Napster does provide an Internet service (Napster Protocol servers and downloadable Napster clients). Who said that an ISP has to be an Internet uplink?
It's not a generic service that is used for anything the customer desires. It is designed explicitly as a music exchange service.
The Napster system can be used to exchange any type of file (latest Linux kernel, latest Mozilla milestone, the MS-Kerberos spec, w4r3z, pr0n, etc.) especially when standard (ftp/http) methods can be easily slashdotted. Just use the Wrapster archiver after zipping the files.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If U2 wants to use this channel as a promotional tool, why should they not be able to? Would you take that choice away from them Do they not have the right to distribute their art as they choose? And then there are the regionally or locally known bands that could use this tool to gain wider recognition. A savvy marketer really should have no trouble seeing how to use Napster as a method of making a band bigger (assuming the music doesn't suck, of course, and even then...)
Okay. Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts or what?
Now I understand there are laws that are for expediting procedures to protect humans and freedoms. But to enact a law, or extend them, to not only protect, but expedite the prosecution of those who may or may not have violated someone's PROPERY rights, such as profit, IP, etc... at the expense of due process and other, individual freedoms ... THIS IS NUTS!
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
The proposed "tightening" is merely clarifying the ISP exemption.
The probable INTENT behind the safe harbor provision is that ISPs have no practical means of monitoring all the traffic that their customers generate, since all the ISP provides is the infrastructure. Hence, most ISPs will be at worst innocent bystanders.
Napster is different.
It's not an ISP.
It's not a generic service that is used for anything the customer desires.
It is designed explicitly as a music exchange service. Therefore, logically it does NOT fall under that provision -- except that legally, we must adhere to the letter of the law, and it has not codified that exact intent. Therefore, they request that the law be changed, since under Napster's interpretation, they could advertise a "W4r3z N3tW0rK" searchable by publisher and title and claim safe-harbor.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Freenet, Gnutella -- no centralized server on which to shut things down. Freenet even intentionally hides users' identity. Throw 'em all in jail.
Anonymous NFS -- It's file sharing. 'Nuff said. Throw 'em all in jail.
Anonymous FTP -- More file sharing. Is the scheme of 'enter email address as password' good enough? Nope. Close all the anon FTP sites, they might be used for piracy.
Anonymous PVCS -- Oh, you want to distribute your source code freely so that everyone can look at and modify it? Sorry, you can be required to collect information on each and every would-be OSS developer that looks at your code. After all, they might try to slip a Metallica lyric into a comment line somewhere. Throw 'em all in jail.
Open news/mail servers -- Not a lot of these exist anymore because of security concerns, but there's a few still out there. Can't use them anymore unless they know who you are, sorry.
IRC -- Your handle on IRC can be easily spoofed, there's no central information server (files are DCC'ed between individuals). IRC will only survive if servers A.) Remove DCC capability, and B.) Require lengthy identification surveys when you connect to the system. This is where piracy used to be (and still is) carried out, remember...they'll go after those IRC kiddies if they get a chance. Throw 'em all in jail.
Anonymous Remailers -- anon.penet.fi is gone (and sorely missed), but there's still a few remailers out there that allow people to mail and post anonymously when they feel they have to. It's a vital service; if you don't believe that, then read alt.abuse.recovery sometime. Sorry, the government doesn't recognize that sometimes a person is too scared or shamed to speak publically. They've got to unmask, or we'll throw 'em all in jail.
The DMCA provision for common carrier applies to all ISPs and services on which traffic passes through the net. Forcing all carriers to have information on every message they handle is insane; it will destroy any hope of anonymity and privacy, and make illegal a lot of innocent software. Don't frame this as a Napster issue. Napster is a small part of the big picture to which this debate belongs. Although Napster may be suicidally reckless, the remedies proposed to discipline them may have horrifying effects on the rest of the internet unless we educate our legislature NOW.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
>So by that logic, it's OK to walk into Borders
>and steal "I, Robot" by Asimov if you then go
>out and purchase other Asimov books?
I'll rephrase it in Neal Stephenson terms...
Wheras if you stole "Snow Crash" (or, in metallica CD terms, an album, say... master of puppets), for example, and liked it so much that you went back and bought "Cryptonomicon" (the black album) that WOULD be wrong.
OTOH, The analogy in the first post is more like: You downloaded and read the first few chapters (enter sandman) of "Cryptonomicon" for free over at cryptomonicon.com, and you liked them so much that you went to the bookstore and bought the whole book (the black album).
And you know what? You may delude yourself into denying that it happens, but I HAVE discovered and purchased albums that I otherwise would not have bought in this way. And I know plenty of others who have made their music purchaseing decisions on the "try before you buy" model as well.
Simple fact is, any MP3 thats worth listening to, is worth buying the CD. Because, while you may not be able to tell the difference in quality on the crappy speakers on a computer, when you compare the MP3 to the CD on a REAL stereo, the MP3 (or a red book CD burned from MP3s) sounds like crap compared to the real thing. So any MP3 that's not worth buying the CD, is not really worth listening to anyway and gets deleted in short order.
Is is, as I said, a "try before you buy" purchaseing model. After all, you expect to test drive a car before you buy it. You expect to try out a computer in the store before you commit your funding.
So why should you expect to rush blindly into a music purchase without knowing what you're getting?
john
Imagine all the people...
Write your representative and tell them we dont want to move to Canada, but we will if we have to.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Can you imagine Metallica trying to sue 300,000 fans individually? It simply wouldn't happen. The infringing users would be banned, in accordance with the law, and everyone would be happy.
(What's that? You don't like the law, and you want to be free to break it anonymously?) Why on earth should a for-profit company help you with that? If you're breaking the law to make a point, and you're not prepared to be held accountable for breaking the law, you'd better find some people who agree with you to help you.
Democratise the liability. "Open source" the responsibility --- you're free to pass on copyrighted works so long as you pass the risk of being sued on too.
(But I can't live without anonymity! Coke will buy my data profile and I'll be flooded with their ads!) That's what the Data Protection Act is for. (But I don't have one! I'm a Merkin and have no rights online!) Well, I can't help you there, mate ...
Actually, no it hasn't. It recommends changing the DMCA such that if a service provider wants to claim protection under the DMCA's safe harbor provisions, they have to be able to track users (no more anonymous access), and that there must be a fixed timeframe in which they must respond to a request to remove infringing material once notified (much like we already have in the UK).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
So, obviously, he doesn't care what happens to his copyrighted work.
Certainly, it would be wrong to steal a book, but if Borders were printing extra copies, and giving them away, there would be nothing wrong with you taking a copy.
When you download a song from napster, you aren't stealing it from someone else.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Competition: the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms.
I suppose copying the other party's product and giving it away for free is 'competition', but I'm not really sure.
Oh, shush. The entire point is that you *don't* pay as much. You know how much of the money goes to the recording industry, from a CD sale? Besides, online cd sales places at this point literally sell a cd and ship it to you, and they can sell them for cheaper due to a loophole in the recording industry's pricing scheme (they forbid places that sell their cds to advertise a price lower than X dollars... online places don't advertise generally, so it doesn't affect them) (there's currently debate going on in congress about whether or not this policy is of the recording industry's is legal... it may drop prices for everyone soon)
Regardless, in an ideal online music purchase situation, you have your choice of quality/size/bandwidth, you could download ready-to-burn formats (even use a program which downloads it and burns it for you in one sweep), and, most of all, music costs a *tiny* fraction of what it currently costs, in that anyone can listen to whatever they want, how much they want to, and the more an artist is listened to, the more the percent of some annual/monthly fee everyone pays for this service gets.
Its sort of like the ancient concept of the government funding the arts with tax money.. only this time, everyone in the country can truly benefit from all arts, rather than just the ones local to a particular work.
Look at how much the average american spends on music, videos, etc, and you'll realize what a collossal waste we have with our current system.
- Rei
Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
I've never had time to track down mp3 format music.. I just listen to my CDs. Thanks to all of the publicity by Metallica, et al, I downloaded Napster today and am quite looking forward to taking it for a spin. Thanks guys!
--cyphergirl
--Insert catchy
Does the ban they're looking for apply only to MP3's?
If so, then can I ZIP or TAR up my files and send them that way?
If it doesn't, then how does this make sense (obviously does not)? What if I made such a program sole for the distribution of background images? How is that wrong? Their case just doesn't seem to me to stand a chance, there cannot be such a ban on peer to peer file sharing, and even if they did, where do you draw the line? If I ICQ or LICQ my files to someone else, does that count as illegal? What if I wrote a plugin to ICQ and LICQ that people can share files automatically in a napster like way, using ICQ and LICQ's file transfer protocol, does that count as infringement of this law?
There needs to be a definitive line drawn here, and there are only gray areas between no file sharing and unrestricted file sharing. The line must be drawn on either side, but there cannot be a middle ground, the middle ground is infinite in size.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Hmmm. You would think so, no? Perhaps this was true back in the '80s, but these days colleges are a huge corporate-rock bastion. Except for college radio geeks, the student body has been corrupted by the cultural maggotry of Generic Lite Beer/Generic Lite Rock. Spring Break! Par-tay!
Bring me the head of Dave Matthews. On a fucking stick.
Colleges rock about as hard as nursing homes these days.
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I'm assuming the HSBC is holding the hearing on this because, when you get right down to it, small businesses are who stand to lose the MOST if services and technology like Napster and others are banned or restricted. The only argument keeping Napster and other new distribution channels alive at this point is the fact that it can and HAS enabled small-time artists (aka small business) to distribute and profit on their works when, in all likelihood, they would not have had the opportunity otherwise. You can't get much more pertinent to small-business than that...
Actually, the Negativland thing was U2's label. I believe Bono personally approved Negativland's use of U2 material.
It's not a generic service that is used for anything the customer desires.
Hmm... what if they modified it to be more than just a music exchange program? What if they kept all the stuff that they had now, but added the ability to transfer any type of file? I imagine that it would make it MUCH harder to 'squash' because it would open up many many more legit uses for the program.
any thoughts on this?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
I thought the constitution was designed to limit the powers of government. I thought the democrats were supposed to be in favor of the little guy and not big business? Hmmm funny how people are showing thier true colors. Who tells the government when to stop limiting peoples rights when they can just right a new amendment and change what is legal?
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time.
"If you only knew the POWER of the DARK SIDE!"
I therefore propose, as a political position, that the non-commercial distribution of any material older than 23 years be legalized.
Key points:
Anyone involved in Napster-related legislative activities should put this into the mix.
Yes, I think we should also extend this to real file sharing. I mean, we all KNOW that sharing files is just a front for piracy. I mean, just the other day I photocopied Webster's Dictionary and sold copies out of my garage. Once I even read a second-hand newspaper (yes, I admit it) that I didn't even buy myself! And just think of all the awful violations flea markets are promoting. We should just ban all trading in general. But wait a second...I'm trading electrons with the slashdot servers right now! Oh no...and these bits will be reproduced and distributed worldwide without a penny coming to me! I have to call my lawyer...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
service providers whose services mean serious risk of copyright infringement (i.e. Napster) should be required to get solid identifying information for users
The problem with this is, that not allowing anonymity is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. You are supposed to have the same rights and priveleges as a nobody as you are a somebody. That way, you can use anonymity to avoid persecution.
If you take this idea away, the effects on freedom would be immense. What we are looking at here is sacrificing the freedom of many for the greed of a few.
A note: If you don't want to give your e-mail address to Napster, it automatically accepts "anon@napster.com" as a valid entry. Neat feature.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
How come the only place that I see anything about these issues is online? We are never going to win this war unless we get others involved. Sure, we can contact our representitives (in the US) but why should they care when less than 33% of the population is online and probably less than 5% of those speak up. Unless Joe Public knows about these issues and what could happen as a result of passage of these laws we (and society as a whole) are going to lose.
So when you fire your email (or letter) to your representitive, send a copy to all your local newspaper editors. And anybody that might have contacts with other news groups (TV in particular), try and get them involved. Above all, do all in your power to attend any public hearings on these issues - if you get a large enough crowd together the media will follow (it's the nature of the beast).
LRJ
We organize a grassroots level campaign...
Hmmm...
My lobbying group is "grassroots populism" and your lobbying group is "scumsucking special interest lobbyists". Right.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Besides, online cd sales places at this point literally sell a cd and ship it to you, and they can sell them for cheaper due to a loophole in the recording industry's pricing scheme (they forbid places that sell their cds to advertise a price lower than X dollars... online places don't advertise generally, so it doesn't affect them) (there's currently debate going on in congress about whether or not this policy is of the recording industry's is legal... it may drop prices for everyone soon) Actually, I believe the Supreme Court recently took up this issue. If I recall correctly, they said that such practices were illegal. However, I cannot say that for sure, so if anyone has better information they can cite, do post it.
--
Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
Hmm, I'm not sure how to respond to this extremely cynical post, other than to say that some of us (living in the Gibson novel) see the laws of the land, and the people making them, and know that they have no idea about what the laws they are writing mean or how they will effect our society as a whole.
/. is a place for like (and unlike) minds to gather and discuss some possibilities. The debates here have solidified and enforced my stance immeasurably. Don't attribute the logic of some pissed fourteen year-old to the rest of the people here, each has their own opinions.
The important thing is to fight for what you believe, and believe what you fight for.
--
+&x
Read this to see how your darling band crushed the small guy who stepped on their copyrighted toes.
How soon people forget.
CmdrTaco sez, "Yeah, we should definitely ban peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet, and NFS pisses me off, too. And Web pages: Ban Port 80! Does anyone out there understand what they're saying?"
Frankly, Rob, you don't understand what they're saying. How about cranking down the shrillness 5 notches and apply logical reasoning?
They are not talking about banning file sharing. If anything, it would be a narrow ban restricting companies from aiding criminals who move around copyrighted material. Right now there is a gray area in the law where a service provider can claim they are only providing a service, and it's the users who are breaking the law (Napster, of course, is appalled that anyone would use their service to break the law, *wink* *wink*).
I know it's unpopular here on Slashdot for musicians to actually get paid for their work, but a lot of people need to get a clue. Napster exists for only one reason: To create an illegal market for copyrighted material. All the rationalizations in the world ("Hey, I already own the material, man!") don't change the fact that Napster only exists by a loophole in the law.
P.S. Gnutella is not an argument that technologies like Napster should be allowed to aid criminals.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Washington DC - The house held hearings monday on the contraversial technology of conversation. Leading companies have objected to so called "bad publicity" which has been costing them millions of dollars a year. "My company went bankrupt after people started spreading rumors that my product was unsafe" said Mike Lorig, former owner of the now defunct Child Bags Inc. which manufactured plastic bag helmets in many different styles for children. Other key speakers included Bill Gates who demanded "an end to public opinion". Gates testified, "Microsoft lost millions when people heard what kinda crap MS Bob was. People shouldn't be able to give opinions on products without the producer's opinion! It violates everything this country was founded on!"
Click here to read too much about my personal life
Will legal precedents that get set after this have an affect on other custom internet apps, like iMesh, Hotline (different but strikingly similar), and gnutella? Napster is NOT the only app of this type, so the law will have to be broad enough to outlaw all of these services, or everyone will just jump onto some other bandwagon and use that until the gov't bans that as well. A currently posted article about moving a site offshore to avoid legal troubles is sounding like a pretty damn good idea. FreeNet, hurry the hell up!! Fortunately this is only US law. Unfortunately that happens to be the law by which I am supposed to live.
click here to incinerate homeless people
I skimmed through the dlcppi dissertation on napster and I didn't see anything about restricting peer to peer file sharing. Did I miss something?
The report recommends that the digital copyright law be amended "to hold Napster, its users, and similar services accountable for copyright violations while maintaining protections from liability for service providers that are innocent bystanders to digital piracy."
Yoiks! So, they're trying to define 'service provider' in such a way that includes anyone who provides access to copyrighted material. I think Taco's comparison to nfs and port 80 is, (surprise!) uselessly inflammatory, but the change in the law could lead to a UK-ish sort of 'fear of liability' in service providers.
Interestingly, it seems weighted toward punishing companies, and does not mention person-to-person file transfers..
Short-sighted and useless.. I say, let them pass it, then use it as fuel to repeal the entire morass of crap that is the DMCA.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
I'd love to hear of a way for Independent artists to distribute their music without throwing the RIAA's right to the wind. Either way someone rights are getting trampeled on. So tell me why the small minority of independent artists distributing their music on napster have more important rights than the RIAA.
Anonymouse hosts an anonymous Internet proxy that can be used for web, mail, and news.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Despite a study that seems to show naspter actually INCREASED cd sales?
Oh please, quit speading FUD. All those numbers show is that CD sales increased from one year to the next... nothing about the effect of Napster. In all likelyhood sales would have increased even more if it wasn't for people stealing music with Napster.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Sadly, very often (or should I say mostly) I only think that one or a few songs by the artist qualifies as good enough. The rest is just crap. So I end up deleting everything. If I do like what I hear, then I go out and buy the album.
This is what I mean by pseudo-ethical use. It's like listening to music in the CD store before you decide which one to buy. This is considered legal, and I think that the Napster equivalent should be considered legal too.
So, what do I sugest? Well, I definitely don't like the pay-per-song solution. Why not? Well, the less mainstream your music taste is the more crap you will have to listen through to find the good stuff. I'm not going to say what genre(s) I listen to, but I'm sure that there are more people than me who feel this way. A simpler solution could be to limit the quality of files allowed to be spread via Napster. I know that this can be faked, but if the Napster network randomly downloads fragments of songs and simply bans users or IPs who have songs with too good quality, then it could work. Anyway, it's the "best" online music scenario I can see right now.
Finaly, I must add that I have bought more CDs so far this year than the latest 5 years combined because of mp3s. All except for one CD were bought because I had heard the entire album as mp3 first. Personally, I would accept lower quality mp3s as longs as they are freely available ala Napster. Oh, by the way: the CD which I hadn't downloaded in mp3 format first is the only CD I regret buying.
AC
Napster has been banned on many college campuses. College campuses are traditionally the place where independent music flourishes. Thus the RIAA has managed to shut down a distribution channel for the independent artists.
Yes, some universities block Napster. But it's not the copyright; it's the bandwidth. Web surfing and FTP downloads tend to be twice as fast on a non-Napster campus than on a Napster campus, especially when some schools only have two T1s going to the Internet. And the admissions department would just hate to have a slow-loading, easily-slashdottable homepage to turn off potential students.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This is a lie and you know it. Let's look at this post in a little more detail:
Never heard of Metallica? Since they are one of the most well-known thrash metal bands out there, that someone who likes that style of music would not have heard of them is laughable.
Perhaps that is not his style of music, and he only stumbled upon it. But he's probably refering to other bands that most people really never have heard of (b/c of the way music distro in this country is), and found them on napster. Then dug around and found the cd. Personally i never would have heard of Grave or Opeth if it hadn't been for napster.
Their CD cost only $10? What planet do you live on?
Ya, thats low, maybe he meant used, but who knows...i've never found one that low.
The result is that this post is just a futile attempt to justify music piracy by attempting to show a "genuine" example of how piracy actually helps the bands that are being ripped off.
Despite a study that seems to show naspter actually INCREASED cd sales?
Get real.
Yes, please do.
im wondering if they bann peer-to-peer file sharing how will they enforce it? ie this would only be law in USA. and the net is everywhere....
so what would they do, if i use a proxy (in another contry) to hid my gnapser use?
just not geting how the US, thinks they can stop, or censor the net.
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Chuck D and Shawn Fanning should write a quick pro-Napster bit and sing it for the Small Business Committee. They (of all people) should appreciate the theatrics. Then distribute the song (well, I guess it would be a bootleg) on Napster.
Imagine the changes!
Got Rhinos?
I think this is where the problem in perception is. Let's take a hypothetical situation:
I have a computer. I have Napster. I look on Napster, and I see a song that I sort-of like.
I don't like it enough to buy a whole CD - as I may not like all the songs on it, and I don't want to pay for things I don't want.
Let's say it's not a "popular" song from that particular CD, so it's not available on single.
So, having little other choice in how to acquire the song, I download it from Napster.
Immediately, the RIAA brands me as a criminal, saying exactly what you said - that they lost a sale. Bull. I already said that I wasn't going to pay for the entire CD. I never had any intention of paying for the entire CD. Without Napster I wouldn't have the song to begin with, unless I did something else "illegal" and taped it off the radio.
Bottom line: The RIAA lost NO money from my use of Napster - they would not have gotten my money anyway
Now - the solution could simply be one of allowing the end-user to acquire ANY song they want (and only that song, not the entire cd, not only the songs some company decides will be "popular" enough to release as singles) for a reasonable price.
By "reasonable", I mean $1-$1.50 or so. Since there's no actual MEDIA being used (no CD, tape, vinyl, etc...) there's little in the way of material costs to cover. In fact, since the transaction itself is being handled by a web app, and the download is across the 'net, there's little in the way of "shipping/handling" to be incurred.
I'd be even more amenable to this if I knew the artist was getting a decent ammount of that $1-$1.50, rather than the tiny ammounts they get from the sale of a CD today.
Did anyone read the paper? There's one choice nugget:
"There appears to be a growing belief that consumers should not have to pay for music at all, that the very concept of intellectual property should go the way of the horse and buggy."
Yup. They at least got one thing right.
They even take a swing at deCSS:
"A Norwegian teenager has already cracked the encryption code for Digital Video Discs (DVDs); though the average movie file is too large for widespread trading, increases in storage capacity and bandwidth will make movie piracy (using Napster-like services) feasible in the near future"
You can't say these people can't jump on the bandwagon.
Think about it. Chuck D says, "MP3s are good!" Slashdot says, "Hey, Chuck D like's MP3s! Lets go out and buy his CDs so that we can show everyone that a band that supports MP3s makes lots of money!"
;)
Chuck D gets rich, and says, "haha! Gotcha, suckers!"
Okay, I admit that this is pretty unrealistic, but hey
-- Dr. Eldarion, wearing his "I want my MP3" shirt --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
Though Dr. Dre wasn't specifically mentioned in this story, the reference to rappers involved in the Napster discussion makes this at least partially on-topic.
Has anyone considered writing Dre and informing him that he's a downright cheat himself? As far as I'm concerned, Dre's done nothing original himself, he's just laid tracks over top of Parliment Funkadelic time and time again. Unless things have changed since, I saw an interview a while back with George Clinton where he acknowledged that they just sample his ass off. The interview also implied that there weren't any royalties paid.
Now, if rappers want to sample the efforts of others and consider it "their" music, that's their own decision. I don't necessarily agree with the practice, and don't really even like how it sounds most of the time. However, for a genre that blatantly duplicates the a bass line from The Police, The backbeat of P-Funk, or even a riff from Mellencamp ("Jack and Diane", for goodness' sake!), I feel it's pretty shady for them to go on the record as being against apparent 'piracy'.
I applaud Chuck D. He's always been on top of the game.
That's what technolust is all about. No matter what they do, we'll always be free because we're always one step ahead of them.
Got Rhinos?
Unfortunatly, I have found this to be very true. But...There are a lot of services (most of them free) that will allow you to send an email that will be faxed (like http://www.freefax.com.pk) If our representives are so set on paper, let's give it to them. Frank
So what you're saying is that artists should not have the right to choose whether they want to embrace this wonderful new model you're advocating.
That's exactly the point! They should be able to participate instead of being limited to business models that work for the RIAA. You do realize that most artists are independent artists and need these distribution channels to spread their music, right? You can't honestly believe that the RIAA represents the bulk of musicians out there. You do realize that there are a lot more artists that want to be able to distribute their music online than those that don't, right?
numb
I'm willing to believe that Napster could be used by bands that want to get their music out, but I'm not hearing how it can be accomplished on Napster, and what makes Napster better than web-based distribution. Why force people to install a proprietary client to get at your music, when you could place it on a web page, accessible to anyone with a browser?
Now unless it was just the NY Times article spin on the issue, I read that the report and proposed meeting that will take place has already assumed that this technology in question is wrong and the meeting is to scold and restrict napster soley based on the fact that it was simple file sharing.
Now I agree with the previous post about "Oh ban or restrict some technology because it's first use was piracy". But aren't other solutions possible like having Napster and/or and other ASP out there provide the Music INdustry with extremely discounted royalties (that actually go to the artists, i mean Digital takes the Retail stores, production and warehouse distribution out of the picture) I would think that any song that is downloaded using napster could have a small royalty (that the user pays, sort of like Ebay, a very small amount) tacked onto it that is paid for by either the User or Napster Inc itself (with ad space or however the business model revenue generation works). Maybe this is where they are going with this Credit Card Verification gig ("Oh, we have your CC, why not charge you, you're not anonymous anymore"). At the least you'll wipe out the 50% (my own estimate of Napsters role in piracy) of the facilitation of piracy by Napster Users. Surely there are other issues, but hell if you dig it, you're going to buy the CD and support the artist you're digging anyway. And if an artist wishes to choose MP3 as a major medium in thier own product/art distribution ("Well as an artist I either sign a contract and whore myself at the whim of the record company, or Damn, just go mp3 and cut out the middleman and recieve some profit off my work!") then the should be able to. I'm seriously fearing that these battles are between the insudtry and People, where the chain is really artist ---> people, right?
Anyway. Word.
The Face -= o_O
-.Shaun.-
I keep hearing that Napster is a tool for struggling artists. If that is the case, I'm looking for the search tool that says 'Please enter search terms to look for a struggling artist playing the kind of music you like' and you know what, I don't see that feature.
You know what I see? I see my girlfriend searching for 'Britney Spears'.
A sample of 1 isn't good statistics, but I suspect if we do a larger survey, the results will be strikingly similar.
Jeeezus, when are Slashdot's editors going to actually fact-check before posting these crap stories?
I don't agree with the PPI's position, but i at least *read* it. They aren't saying modify the DMCA to ban Napster and peer-to-peer file sharing. What they're saying, if Slashdot's editors and the foaming-at-the-mouth crowd would bother to read for content, is that service providers whose services mean serious risk of copyright infringement (i.e. Napster) should be required to get solid identifying information for users, should have to respond to challenges in a timely manner, and that judges should have broad powers to grant injunctions against them - and that THOSE things should be written into DMCA.
The problem with this approach, which PPI fails to understand (and Slashdot doesn't dig deep enough to understand) is that peer-to-peer data sharing doesn't require a company to centralize the information. Gnutella and Freenet technologies, as well as whatever comes next, allow such sharing with no central control. That sort of thing is pretty much impossible to regulate by law without stepping on the First Amendment in the US (depends on local laws in other countries), and is practically impossible to regulate *regardless* of laws, short of unplugging the 'net.
Napster will probably die. And as far as i'm concerned, they *should* die, because they really are attempting to make money on piracy. But the technology that spawned them will not and should not die, and the PPI (and probably Congress) can't understand this.
--
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
I think you're a little off-base with that comparison. I think if you went to a site, and downloaded a chapter, or partial segment of "I, Robot", and then went out and bought it, along with all Asimov's other works, then you'd have a better analogy. Napster users rarely download whole albums (Unless they're taking money from burning fake CD's, in which case they're hardcore pirates, a minority that has plagued the industry since taping and CD duplication was possible. Losing Napster won't stop them).
Those Napster users I know who download copyrighted works only do it either for archival purposes, when the recording is of something they already own, or to try new music before they buy, because they can't really afford to purchase a CD they won't play more than once (remember, a CD in the UK is roughly double the price of the equivalent US product. Tell me how that's fair!).
I will defend artist rights to the death, being a musician myself, but what irks me is the probable fact that it isn't the artists who have come down on Napster. Most smaller-time musicians I know love the fact that their stuff can whizz around the globe unconstrained by a physical format. What I suspect is that Metallica/Dre's shtick is nothing to do with the smaller, struggling musicians and bands. They're basically being hired goons for RIAA. I highly doubt they actually knew about MP3, much less Napster, until their attorney (read: RIAA affiliate) clued them in on it. On top of this, they're generating more publicity than they've managed to over the last three years in the last month. RIAA wins, MetalliDre gets new publicity, and the attorney walks away with a fat pay cheque.
Anyway, that's largely irrelevant. What irks me is the fact that whether the piracy possibilities of Napster were considered when it was written or not, Napster is an invaluable tool for aspiring musicians to swap demos freely. To destroy Napster could destroy one of the most significant leaps forward for the little guy in music. You record a demo for a few hundred (insert relevant currency). You hawk it on Napster, and people can hear it. Then (if you're good, and reasonably clued in to the beast that is the record industry), you have proof to give to record companies that there is a market for what you're playing, and that is a ground to fund you to record more. That, I believe, is strong grounds for Napster to be considered a useful piece of software.
OK, sensible part over, it's conspiracy theory time. As I said earlier, very few download whole albums from Napster. The bread and butter of the RIAA's sales though, is pop pap like Britney, Billie, 5ive, N-Sync et al, who are not what are termed 'album-oriented' artists. The bulk of the millions they earn the suits comes from CD single sales. To download a Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, or (and I include them as a reference) a Metallica album, even with a broadband connection, would probably take upwards of an hour. The latest Britney single, however, can be down in a few minutes. They've lost a significant sale there, probably to those who they consider the 'spotty girlfriend-less nerds' they thought targeted with Britney's gyrations on MTV. They changed their sales strategy a few years back. Before, a record would move up the charts before moving back down. Now, with in-your-face marketing, records generally crash in at the top, only to be gone in a couple of weeks. This works great if CD singles are your only source for a Britney-fix, but Napster can circumvent singles sales. It's therefore a problem that they created with their manipulation and greed, as much as those who brought Napster to the fore.
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
"It is rare that a regulation restricting speech because of its content will ever be permissible. Indeed, were we to give the Government the benefit of the doubt when it attempted to restrict speech, we would risk leaving regulations in place that sought to shape our unique personalities or to silence dissenting ideas," Kennedy wrote.
In brief,
PPI proposes the following changes to the DMCA:
Require internet service providers that wish to qualify for safe harbor to collect personally identifiable and verifiable information from their users. Napster currently allows its users to sign on anonymously, making it impossible for rights holders to track down the infringers.
Establish a time frame for the "notice and take down" process for removal of infringing material. The law as currently written has no set time table, consequently service providers with a vested interest in the infringing activity of their subscribers, like Napster, have no incentive to act in a timely fashion.
Give judges the flexibility to grant injunctions against service providers whose services are substantially used for copyright infringement. It may be impossible to write a law that accounts for every conceivable technological innovations, however a judge will know an illegal act when she sees it.
Let this be a warning to all who think that Democrats (and PPI is centrist, "New" Democratic think tank) are better (or noticeably different) than Republicans or other politicians.
Major problems with these proposals, such as privacy implications, are left as the exercise for the reader.
And was it just me who found the argument "we don't know what we want to criminalize, so let the judge put into jail everybody he doesn't like" to be particularly pathetic?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I strongly suggest that a quick look at the list of committee members.
It includes one Mary Bono (R-CA), widow of Sonny Bono.
Readers who follow developments in copyright law will understand the significance.
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I'm not sure I like it, but it seems at least more rational.
Contrary to claims made by some people that music does not fit the open source model, a visit to a local bluegrass festival has left me convinced that it does.
A group named "Spontaneous Combustion" is essentially a novelty act, performing bluegrass versions mainly of Beatles songs and of other rock & roll standards. But while the first time you hear a rock song done as bluegrass it may seem to be a radical innovation, listening to a concert set of them quickly shows how old the joke can get.
These songs are copyright, fixed-interpretation songs, and they don't adapt to different formats well.
Listening to the wealth of musical invention and co-operation happening around the rest of the festival, you hear songs that have been passed on by ear for hundreds of years. Connie Dover performs versions of ancient Celtic songs, then segues into the Appalachan versions. These songs are truely alive, being modified and interpreted, adapted to the modern ear by each performer.
Even more vibrant and creative are the jam sessions, where artists who have never played together before play musical games of follow-the-leader, and call-and-response. True inovation happens here.
By contrast, the world of studio recorded, copyright protected CD music is dead as a doornail.
Napster, however, allows this dead music to form a fertile ground for new innovation. One can think of a song heard years ago, and have a listenable copy in fifteen minutes. A single song covered by a dozen artists over the years can quickly be collected and compared.
The RIAA has no clue what's reall happening on-line. Two thirds of the music I've "pirated" would never be found in a music store, even an on-line one. Untill I can go into a store and get a copy of any recording ever made, on any lable, at any time, Napster and it's decendants will continue to be a completely different world, one they'll never catch on to.
...is that they are fighting a no-win battle.
The pure facts is that if you are to fight a battle and win, you must know more then your opponent, be much stronger then your opponent, or have a better strategy then your opponent.
In this case what they don't realize is that it is true hackers who are the geniuses behind all the little things that end up being banned. Take a look around in the piracy world and you'll realize that the people who make things happen aren't just some joe shmoe idiots who are on AOL.
Before they even get around to banning one thing, another will have become into existance and will take the original's place, making that old ban ineffective.
Now granted, this futile battle will be a never-ending one that will just cause more and more advanced solutions to problems. This is actually a Good Thing though because it promotes thinking and creativity so that things we never would have dreamt of being done years ago are no possible. For example, you know what it would have taken to transfer a whole audio cd over the net to someone 6 years ago (pre-MP3)? A good several days of straight transferring of wav flies. Now you've got a 10-12:1 compression for audio files that cuts transfer time down VERY significantly.
Now that you know that MP3's are "illegal" take into consideration all the streaming video codecs that learned from MP3 technology and now deliver extremely rich content to users who would have never thought they'd have seen something like that on their 56k or even 28.8 modem.
It's give and take, don't get into too much an uproar, just fight back silently.
Since you feel so strongly about the point, clearly I have missed something basic, which I am hoping you could answer for me, which is:
Where do you draw the line?
If you could be so kind as to provide me with a definition that will satisfactorily categorize file transfer tools into the two categories "legal" and "illegal" then I will agree with your point and forever be on your side.
But if you fail to provide that definition, then I consider your argument null and void, since there would be no clear way of determining which file transfer tools are "OK" and which are not (in which case we would either have to ban all of them (remove the Internet, in other words), or none of them.)
No matter how you look at it, Napster can be used to trade mp3 (and other) files legally. And no matter how you look at it, http, ftp, nfs, smb, gopher, nntp and smtp/pop (I've probably left out dozens) can all be used as a conduit for illegal trade of copyrighted material (and in fact are on a daily basis all over the world). So please tell me where the line is drawn (a concrete definition plz, not just something vague). Since you seem so sure of yourself I am assuming you have an answer.
Can someone w\ some law knowledge clear up a misunderstanding for /.
To the best of my knowledge copyright law was established so that ideas enacted for profit from one entity cannot be used for profit by another.
If an idea is made available, any party has the right to assimalate that knowledge.
However if the party uses said idea to turn profit then the party has violated copyright.
Hence defending (or adding to) the profit of the publishing party.
As far as I am aware -no- sharing services are currently making profit.
Now if there was verifiable proof that a user of a service sold the shared information then that individual would be held responsible.
Copyright holders better start looking at those they are trying to prosecute.
"You can only govern the people as much as they wish to be governed" -unknown author
One good thing about music... when it hits you, you feel no pain. So hit me with music. -Bob Marley
When I first read this, I thought that you were using very good logic here. On second thought....
College campuses are traditionally the place where independent music flourishes. Thus the RIAA has managed to shut down a distribution channel for the independent artists.
If your independent artists are using Napster as their distribution channel...I'm gonna bet that they stay independent for a long long time. Who looks for indie music that they haven't heard of on Napster? How would this happen? They look at someone's list and think, "Hmm, that's a damn spiffy song title, I think I'll download it." And people don't chat on napster. They search. They already know what they're looking for, before they even start the program.
I can't say that it was intentional, but it certainly will be a nice side-effect for the major labels. Of course, the RIAA says that "piracy" is the problem, costing them billions of dollars a year, yet at the same time they brag to their stockholders about record earnings this year.
This is certainly the part that I could agree with, if it were truely that meaningful. Yes, they are putting a stop to something. But really, how useful is that something to the indie artist?
Anything that allows the RIAA more control over online distribution takes away from the freedom of independent artists to distribute online.
True, but how useful is that particular freedom? This doesn't stop them from putting their mp3's on a website, or some other creatively useful venue.
I understand what they're saying.
The thing I'm saying, if 1 million moms can get together to protest for gun control, can't we get our own march to the capital? Seems like we have a great organization place on slashdot, and gee...maybe some of you successful geeks would use some stock options to fund us....
Just an idea...
I'm tired of pussies like you sceaming 'but its illegal.' Do you even read /. ever? Stories about restricting the internet are always on here.
here's the thing,for you to violate other people's rights, it's "free speech". When someone violates the GPL, pussies like you scream "it's against the GNU license".
>I'd be fascinated to see early automotive legislation, as a comparison.
:-)
All motorcars must at all times be preceeded by a man carrying a red flag.
When driving a motorcar, upon reaching an intersection you must honk the horn twice, and wait for any response. If no response is forthcoming, a large bell must be loudly rung. If no response is heard, a rifle shall be discharged into the air. If no answering report is heard, the driver may proceed across the intersection.
I'm not making that up. I can't remember where these were law (or for how long ), but there is a whole lot of similar examples at
http://www.strangelaws.com/
(Some of which are still in the lawbooks
Um isn't someone supposed to make a profit from copyrighted material to be classified as piracy? I don't see how people using napster to swap digital recordings of songs is making anyone a profit. As far as infringing on someone's art and making it a commodity... Lots of bands got their fame and fortune from people trading tape-recordings of songs recorded at shows or off the radio or even cheesy tapes from MTV. History will show that such free trade actually drove sales up. Banning napster and other technologies like it is just like saying I can't tape a radio show and give it to my best friend! Or even more to the point, that I can't record my favorite songs onto one tape and give them to my best friend! Anything that would limit that kind of freedom of expression is clearly opposed to the good of the people.
Does anyone out there understand what they're saying?
No, they don't. All they need is a group of people screaming about how BAD it is, people that have enough money to get heard, and who have enough money to insure that the opposition doesn't. Chuck D has always been anti-establishment, and you can't get much more establishment than the RIAA and Congress. (Full disclosure: I'm white and found out about Public Enemy from listening to Anthrax.)
The PPI probably has very few tech wonks on their list of 'people we consult', and therefore doesn't understand how the concepts behind Napster are just the concepts of the Web taken a step further. If everyone has a small web server (Apache, MS Personal Web Server, Xitami, whatever), and someone runs a dynamic web page we can register on so people can run searches on our personal web pages... All Napster does it streamline the process.
Of course, you all know that. I'm just tossing thoughts together, so bear with me.
I hope - correction, I expect that Chuck D will have the kind of mind required to research the tech implications as well as the social ones. He's an intelligent man, and we could do a lot worse than him helping the fight. (come to think of it, we already HAVE had worse than him...)
----
Brazil has decided you're cute.
Hmmm. You would think so, no? Perhaps this was true back in the '80s, but these days colleges are a huge corporate-rock bastion. Except for college radio geeks, the student body has been corrupted by the cultural maggotry of Generic Lite Beer/Generic Lite Rock. Spring Break! Par-tay!
To be honest I haven't really hung out on a campus in 4 or 5 years. Damn I'm starting to feel old. Some bands that I heard first on college stations in the 90's: Alice in Chains, Janes Addiction, Camper van Beethoven (now known as Cracker), to name a few. And I heard them years before I heard them on the radio or MTV.
I'm assuming that you are correct and that times have changed--all the more reason to keep distribution channels open. If not for the artists, do it for the children. Don't want them going to college and being stuck listening to DMB.
numb
How did napster violate anyone's rights?
Tell me, if i pull out a gun an shoot and kill you did the gun kill you or did my act of pulling the gun's trigger kill you? well being that the gun is inanimate and only fires when i pull the trigger any logical person can see I killed you not the gun. (Would-be philosophers who wish to argue this may suck my right nut because you'll only make asses out of yourselves.) So should we ban the gun? Ok fine. Now we've also elinated firearms for self-defense. Not mentioning that a criminal would still have a gun because they're criminals they commit crimes...now i can just take a knife and kill someone...this time did the knife commit the crime of murder? How about the manufacturer? Obviously, no. But let's ban them anyhow...well you're going to have a hard time killing someone with a knife now (not really...criminals wills till have them...cause they are criminals!) But you'll also have a hard time with buttering bread, cutting steak...GETTING steaks. Now well I'll just kill someone with a rope...when that's banned i'll use a rock, then my hands. Do you see the point? The tool is just a tool it can be used for good or for bad, it's the person that chooses.
Derek Greene
--
--
Just lurking, thanks!
I see nothing wrong with a law that explicitly states how long service providers can give users to remove illegal material (especially since it would take 5 minutes in front of a computer to do this) as long as the time frame is suitable.
I once got a cease and desist for a TV show fanpage I was doing (corporate "remove this infringing material within 5 days" bullying like what happened to aolsucks.org) back when I wasn't checking my email daily. Those five days passed while I was away from the Internet. I did take the stuff down immediately next time I logged on though.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm not sure how I'm the cynical one. I'm arguing for understanding what other peoples' concerns are, acknowledging them when they're valid, and working with them to come up with a best-case solution. To me, the attitude that anyone who disagrees with you* is clueless, out of date and beneath your notice is cynical. It's also counterproductive and doomed to failure once the courts get involved.
* By you, I don't mean you personally.
The important thing is to fight for what you believe, and believe what you fight for.
Absolutely! And think before you believe! I've badmouthed Bruce Perens here on a couple of occasions, but on this issue, he's the one prominent Open Source (tm) figure who is being consistent. I give him a lot of credit for that.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Two things: First, Athrax Rocks - or at least they did. Must, must buy them.
Second, I haven't purchased many CD's lately, but I can honestly say that I have first downloaded at least a couple songs from each CD I have purchased lately. And these groups are well known groups. When you are as broke as I am, you can't trust the radio and MTV2 anymore.
So, you are 100% right. I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't use it that way, but it just comes with the territory. People steal the product I sell, too - but I don't cry over it. That is just life.
How about sending the house a well written piece showing the opinion of the slashdot community? It should at least make all of us heard out there, and they should start taking notice... slashdot is no longer an obscure web site.
My recommendation: Get all the higher moderated posts, thread them into a coherent paper, and ask for slashdot community approval before sending it.
That ought to get them to think twice about what they are REALLY trying to do.
The actual hearing is discussing how small labels and indie groups can gain wider audiences via the internet. The summary can be found at SBC's website
Interesting to note that the hearing will also be streamed using Quicktime.
There are two trends though that give me cause to be hopeful. First is the way that the judicial system has been behaving: responsibly, with eye toward self-education before ruling. Which is really supposed to be how it is. Congress spews out a whole lot of detrius, the President vetos the worst of it, and the really sneaky stuff gets cleaned up in the courts. The result is that the US winds up with vaguely reasonable laws.
The second is that our culture as a whole is becoming more techical as various aspects of information technology become more widespread. As a result, representives in the US and elsewhere will have to speak to a more technical constituent and therefore be more knowledgable. Result: less idiotic detrius.
I'd be fascinated to see early automotive legislation, as a comparison.
Ushers will eat latecomers.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
Maybe we should get presidential candidates for a /. interview!
Got Rhinos?
wait - you're going to 'steal' another user's comment? and use it in a slashdot post?
/. just became your method of transport for stolen material, and should be immediately shut down a la napster.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
So they're greedy, they are protecting the rights that they hold. It's intellectual property. It's just like this: say you have a software program you care about. Let's say you wrote it. Now you find out that instead of people selling it, they're giving it away left and right using Napster. You'd be pissed, simply because they're taking cash from your pocket. Now you understand Metallica. They're greedy because they want to protect their rights? Bullshiznit. Come on, man, get a clue.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
I'm not going to respond to the bulk of this article, but you could go down the street right now and buy a prepaid phone card, and they wouldn't have a clue who you are. Or you can get prepaid home phone service without an ID. So its possible to be a more or less anonymous member of the common carrier world. Of course, everything leaves cookie crumbs.
If MP3's seriously make a big dent in CD sales (say 20%), two businesses will be hurt the most:
(a) Record stores
Most record stores are small businesses, and independent. These record stores will go out of business, and only the super-mega-stores such as Tower and Virgin will exist if there is a downturn in CD sales.
(b) Independent record labels
These are also small businesses. Most survive on razor thin margins, and if a large dent in CD sales is made, only the Big 5 (or whatever it is this week) record companies will exist.
History shows that when a market shrinks, the big players are profitable enough to miss a few dollars, but the independents aren't (c.f. the computer industry in the 1980's). Anybody who is suggesting that people buy fewer CD's and pirate things off napster is promoting a musical world where only boy bands exist, only major record companies exist, and only big record stores exist.
Did anyone else catch the line:
The report proposes that services like Napster be required to collect identifiable and verifiable information from its users, such as addresses and credit-card information. -- Progressive Policy Institute.
This one hand of the government saying to protect online privacy, now the other is saying be big brother for us!
I think it's time to start bugging the hell out of my Senator/Representives.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
You are receiving a biased viewpoint on every topic. On /. it's fairly obvious what the bias is, it's places where you're not aware of the bias (eg your own head) that are dangerous.
Life's just like that, I'm afraid.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
And, there is no good way to block porn from homes. If that's ever going to happen, maybe the providers could use one of the existing standards, like PICS, to mark porn. As they choose not to, there is no way to decide what is what, and the tech community is aware of this, and chooses not to waste its time upping the filters from 50% accuracy to 60%, or whatever.
And, like you pointed out, most of us could give a flying fuck whether kids can see porn or not. We do hate to see people defrauded by products, like blocking software, that doesn't work.
All in all, devising products to block certain information that certain people want to make public just gives most of the tech community the willies. Yesterday, it's illegal porn, today, it's illegal mp3...tomorrow, it's illegal movies...the day after that, it's illegal libel, and in a week, it's offensive comments, then in a month, it's illegal opinions.
Basically, 'information wants to be free'. It sounds silly, but most of the tech community is of the opinion that if X has information they're willing to give away, that Y wants to know, Y should be able to get it. Period. No exceptions. Allowing all information exchanged between two partys to be filted by Z is just horrible to think about for most of us.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
He never said that the bands he had discovered on napster included Selloutica
metallica = sellout, only if you include Korn,Seven Dust,tool,(put any new-age rock band here)
The most important point that needs to be made is that there is no way for the RIAA to control online distribution of music without taking away the freedom of independent artists to distribute music.
Think of this: Napster has been banned on many college campuses. College campuses are traditionally the place where independent music flourishes. Thus the RIAA has managed to shut down a distribution channel for the independent artists. I can't say that it was intentional, but it certainly will be a nice side-effect for the major labels. Of course, the RIAA says that "piracy" is the problem, costing them billions of dollars a year, yet at the same time they brag to their stockholders about record earnings this year.
I'll say it once more just to make sure: The RIAA can not completely control the distribution of music online without controlling the distribution of ALL music online.
Anything that allows the RIAA more control over online distribution takes away from the freedom of independent artists to distribute online.
It's time to start thinking about the original intent of copyright law and work from that. The intention of copyright law has been to foster the arts, not to guarantee revenue for entertainment cartels.
numb
Software doesn't "pirate" files, people do. When file exchange software is outlawed, only outlaws will have file exchange software. (And isn't that mostly what the internet is? Like, banner ads.
*** "It's only trivia until you need it." JMR ***
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
Ok, we have a west coast rapper on our side, and they have....a Government Policy Institute.
I think we're okay.
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
I think your right on target there. Just for example, I heard a song on the radio that I liked a lot so I went to CDNow and ordered the CD single for $2.99. About two weeks later I got an email saying the item had been removed from their catalog? (as if that told me what the deal was) So I tried ordering it from CD Universe, Tower Records etc. and within a month I got a notice from all that the item had been discontinued by the manufacturer. So what did I do, installed Napster of course.. and there you go. Some people here would brand me a thief but what other choice did the recording company give me? Buy the whole album for $12-$13 just to get one song? Like you I'd be happy to pay $1.50 to be able to download the MP3, but if this ever happens it's going to be a long time coming.
Just thought of something-
Didn't we go through a lot fo this a few years back when hotline was getting nailed in every hole from legal systems?
Whatever happened there? Hotline is still around. I'm not sure what the results of the cases were. Anyone have a clue? i just wonder how that info might apply to Napster.
For those of you who don't know, Hotline is a (relativley old) file sharing/bbs type system. It showed up three years ago or so on Macs and includes file transfer, news, chat, etc. It was evenatually ported to Windows, and clones are available for BeOS and Linux. In essecnce, it allows peer-to-peer file sharing. Hotline differs from Napster in two main ways:
1. It does all file types, not just MP3. 2. The client and server are seperate applications (although it should be noted that the server was every bit intended to be run on PCs but Everyday Ordinary People (TM))
Anyway, just wondering what bearing these previous preceedings might have on Napster...anyone know?
----------
Jeff Croft
http://jeffcroft.com
http://industrystandard.org
http://newbeetle.org
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Jeff Croft
http://jeffcroft.com
Almost any protocol that is usable on the internet can be used to transfer files in some way or another. (FTP,HTTP....). You can also use ICQ or IRC to get your music and other stuff. If they forbid napster, there will be another. At this moment, there are already other alternatives, like Gnutella, cuteMX, and so on. What napster does, is giving a front end to users who do not know how to transfer MP3's over the net, or like me, who are to lazy using alternatives. The technical implementation of napster with a central server, gives those who are against some way of control. Other alternatives let you stay more or less anonymous. MP3 can not be banned. It's to much of a standard nowadays.
Because a free society must go out of its way to protect the "small minority", since the majority will otherwise ride roughshod over it without regard to right or wrong?
Because the RIAA's tactics lead to chilling effects, stifling, legislation-through-litigation, and a throttling of creativity?
Because copyright exists "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", not to secure the bottom line of certain cartels?
Because First Amendment trumps just about anything? (And should!)
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
We now can choose between Al Gore, champion of the DMCA, or Gorege W, who I'm sure isn't exactly against it.
I don't really see how this helps us out....
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The DMCA passed in, what, 1998, under figurative cover of darkness before anyone quite knew what was going on. (I think. My history is shaky here.) A lot of people are suddenly getting bitten by it and are surprised to see it applied in the way it has been. But, alas, it's a done deal ... changing the law would involve deflecting a lot of momentum.
Now we have industry-friendly groups calling for revising the DMCA. Oh, sure, they want to tighten it up. But who cares what they want? The key thing is, they've made it a possible topic of debate again and this time, we are not asleep at the switch. Suddenly, it's not completely "out there" to talk about copyright and DMCA and so on.
Used properly, this might be a tremendous do-over. Maybe we can do it right this time around.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Get over it.
I eat the flesh off the living, and I vote!
This is a direct quote from PPI's report at http://www.dlcppi.org/texts/tech/naps ter1.htm.
The whole point of MP3's is that they eliminate the middle-men. In this case, the middle-men are the RECORD LABLES and the record stores. Two tiers in this industry are being ripped away (no pun intended.. really!!). That's what the RIAA is so afraid of. No more records, no more RECORDING. MP3's allow a direct channel (crap, another pun) from the artist to the end user. There is NO NEED for a record company in this model, except for artist promotion. None. Zip. No need.
The second paragraph turns right around and contradicts this. Sure, the artists need some kind of protection. But the record companies? They're loosing their jobs. There's no longer a need for them. Their place in society is deteriorating.
Where was congress to protect the Blacksmiths and Wheelrights and Saddlemakers when Henry Ford started selling cars? Entire industries died as a result of the invention of the car. Horse-drawn buggies were no longer needed. Horses were no longer needed. Horseshoes, no more. Did congress step in and say, "But what about the rights of the people in the horse industry??" No! It was considered progress, and a large bunch of horse people had to find new jobs as the years eliminated the need for them.
What Congress needs to understand is that by voting for this, they are STOPPING progress. The record companies are fighting not for a few dollars lost (and that question is up for debate) but for their very lives. If laws like these are put into place, the lables will keep themselves a niche, just another 75% stack of profit on top of an intangible item you buy. Right now, they give you a CD for that profit, and a nice store to buy it in. In the future, what would you get for that markup? Nothing. Personally, I don't want them in that position. If I'm going to pay for a song in MP3 format, I want the majority of the profit to go to the artist, not a middleman who is providing no added value to me, the end user.
I also noticed the footnote on this report, in the first page, where it talks about all the money the poor record companies are loosing. The footnote says they don't have any hard figures. Feh. All the recording industry figures I've seen have said their earnings increased 6% last year. I still say music piracy PROMOTES CD sales. I sure know I've bought more CDs (and enjoyed them more because I liked what I bought) since I started downloading MP3s.
Oh yeah, and one more thing! (hehe) Billions of dollars in damages?? $100,000 per song per infringement? That's looney! Their losses aren't that much -- they don't even make that much!! Damages in any suit like this should be a SMALL percentage of the industry's money, not a LARGE percentage. To say as much money is being "stolen" as is spent on the entire industry in a year is beyond reason.
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
http://www.dlcppi.org/press/release/napster1.htm
This is all about accountability, not outlawing any technology at all. They want to hold users/ISP's accountable for illegal actions (we have heard this many times before). You could use Napster all you want, but they can bust you if you trade illegally, or if youre anonymous they bust the ISP. I guess its hopeless to ever ask /. to be the slightest bit non-inflammatory when discussing serious issues.
I think that this entire process is fundamentally flawed.
/.'er owns, the majority owns a large number of cd's. Napster can be used in a "good" (by RIAA standards) way.
"Piracy" Sure, Napster traffics in huge amounts of illegal mp3s, but wait a second to examine the process a little more. Most people (or at least myself and others I know) don't rely on Napster as their sole source of musical income. As proven in the previous poll on how many cd's the average
For example, I went down to the store and bought Play, Moby's new album. After buying this, I was really pleased with Moby's music and I wanted to see if I should buy any of his other cds. So, I went on to Napster to demo some songs. The next week, I ended up buying another Moby album, Everything is Wrong, based on the one or two tracks I previewed on Napster.
Napster doesn't have to serve as a means to illegal music. In my own opinion, I think that RIAA and the government shouldn't be trying to get rid of Napster. Instead, they should be trying to work in concert with Napster to fundamentally change it. Wouldn't you enjoy a free service where you could download the latest popular songs in mp3 format, in order to preview the cd? Or how about a fully downloadable album at reduced sound quality? Napster could even retain the free trading system by letting users trade only certain "accepted" mp3's, or by imposing a lower sound quality (say 56kb/s) on each downloaded song. If this were the case, you could download and then buy the cd, helping Napster and the RIAA thrive.
There are many alternative solutions, with shutting down Napster not being one of them. I only hope that the Government and RIAA would look into these, instead of blindly charging ahead in their "anti-piracy" jihad.
--------------------------------------------
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"
The recording industry forces artists to sign restrictive contracts that take the rights away from the artist. All the money from these albums goes straight into the pocket of record executives, not the musicians.
This was easy to sustain as long as recording and distribution were expensive and complicated processes. With cheaper electronic and recording equipment, it became easier to make high-quality recordings of your music independently. However, until the MP3/Internet distribution channel came along, the record labels still controlled sales in stores and airplay on radio.
Now, musicians can write music, record and produce it themselves for low cost, and distribute it over the Internet with out even seeing a restrictive license. This is what the record labels fear, not some loser pirating a Metallica song.
If they can squash independent distribution channels, they can guarantee a monopoly.
http://www8.50megs.com/walker/index.html
----Quid
Less talk, more caffeine
How can we maintain the Internet free for the years to come? That is the issue that needs to be dealt with. The sooner, the better.
This isn't meant to flame anybody, but what is Napstar's purpose anyway?
I have it installed (v 2.0 beta 5), and I admit, I've downloaded music from it, usually stuff I can't get (like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy music, I'm a game geek, so sue me.) I know that it's a chat room/music downloading program. Fine, I get that as well.
But what is the point of Napstar? How does this company expect to make money, or is it a volunteer effort? Do they expect to sell the search lists (so somebody at RCA can say "Hey, check this out, people love this Final Fantasy Music CD! Press another 50,000 copies and send them all to Salt Lake City")?
I love my .MP3's, and in the words of Charlton Heston, "From my cold, dead fingers RIAA." But it seems that Napster is providing a service that could only be described as illegal. Again, I admit I use the service, and perhaps I should try and find out where I can purchase the music I am downloading. I'm just as guilty as everybody else.
But I still have to wonder: what is the point of Napster? In all reality, it appears to be encouraging piracy, and for all the arguments of "music companies pay too much for CD's", I don't see how using this service will help the situation any. It doesn't give money to the artists (who deserve the lions share of the money rather than the publishers), and it doesn't make it any more legal than if I went to a friends house and copied his songs onto a CD.
Like I said, I've used Napster. And I'll probably use it again to find songs I can't find anywhere else. And I'll keep ripping CD's from my personal collection. But perhaps there's a better middle ground that we can find here, like "every time a song is downloaded, the RIAA gives $0.25 to the artist" and I pay $0.50. I can go for that. To be honest, I don't have a good answer. But there must be a better one than "Napster is cool! MP3's rock! RIAA sucks ass!"
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
We don't just like games, we love them!
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I think that you mean the Edge, and at any rate IIRC I've also heard that he was just being friendly to maintain U2's image, but that they really don't like Negativland at all.
-- 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.
What this boils down to is this: the Progressive Policy Institute, is a lobby group, and gets its money from big business. The amendment to the DMCA is nothing more than the RIAA pumping funds at a bunch of lobbyists to protect itself from what it missed the first time through the legislative process.
Law is being written more and more by the corporate entities that are more worried about the bottom line than anything else. In the long run, this will lead to stagnation as change costs money, and that decreases the bottom line.
Let's face it. There's nothing we can do to slow down these lobbyists. These are the same people who lobby against alternative fuel sources in automobiles -- they don't give two shits about the long-term. As long as their profits continue to grow they have nothing to worry about. They just keep buying votes in Congress to ensure that their desires are enacted.
When did shit like this become acceptable? Sixty or seventy years ago, a Congressman that let his vote be swayed by money would have served his last term in Congress. Now, it's pretty much a given that anyone on the Hill is in the pocket of special interest groups.
So what will it take to end this? Ideally, it would be easy -- just put a legal end to campaign contributions (in ANY form), crush the bejesus out of lobbying groups, and slap term limits on Congressmen and Senators.
Will that ever happen? Not likely. What it will take is an all-out rebellion by the people. I'm not talking guns and bombs or violent uprisings.
What I propose is this: VoteGeek! We organize a grassroots level campaign to put people in the government at EVERY level that have NO previous experience in government, and no connection to big money. Generations X and Y have a lot more voting leverage than any other group, when you look at the numbers.
This is our future that the Baby Boomers and Big Money are fucking with. What are we waiting for?
blog |
The "House Small Business Committee"? Doesn't this seem to be misplaced? Shouldn't it be the "House Huge Corperation That Payed for Our campaign so We'll Favor Them Committee"?
My email is real.
Follow this link
http://www.msnbc.com/news/410556.asp?0m=-11J
and you will read these quotes:
"Piracy is bad," says Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, when asked about the matter. "Of course you should be able to sue over copyrights.The one good lawsuit in the whole Napster case is the one by Metallica: a suit by the actual authors. While it's probably motivated mostly by money, I can still at least hope that there is a strong feeling of morals there, too"
Larry Wall says:
Larry Wall, developer of the Perl language, has a similar perspective. "Open source should be about giving away things voluntarily," he says. "When you force someone to give you something, it's no longer giving, it's stealing. Persons of leisurely moral growth often confuse giving with taking."
I'm still working on a clever footer.
#software solutions for a post-butler-jihadian age#
Number one on their list:
require service providers, as a condition to qualifying for the liability limitation under the DMCA, to collect personally identifiable and verifiable information from their users;
Wow. Just look at that. Not only do they wish to threaten free transfer of information over _ANY_ service/provider but they want to go after anonymity also. Think for a second. What is a "service provider"? If Napster counts, usenet must count. FTP must count. Slashdot probably counts (hell, any message board).
So you have two options. 1, be liable for anything and everything posted/uploaded/distributed/cataloged etc on your service/wwwwboard/FTP site/SMB share or 2, collect and database personal information of every user that connects.
You don't pirate though, right? So give us your name. You don't have anything to hide, do you?
brave new world indeed...
This is ridiculus. How much longer are we going to let stupid old men decide what is happening with technology when most of them can barely turn a computer on! How can they even think they know enough about these topics to pass judgement!?!
Case and Point: Anyone read the Findings of Fact from MS vs DOJ?! I can't count the number of falsities and contradictions about basic computer function in that document.
Arg...I think I am just going to go start my own country somewhere.
Can Napster be used right now to trade other (non-copyrighted) types of files. Like family pics or personal HOWTOs on a variety of subjects? If not, how long would it take to allow Napster to let you do this? The problem with the "Banning Napsters is like banning FTP" arguement is that Napster is currently only used for trading mp3s. Just a thought. -Bill
-- http://GatheredTogether.org - Ministries Helping Ministries
Maybe a better question to ask would be :
Why go for one way of distributing our material rather than two?
You can download a song from a band's web page, *and* the band can release it to Napster. Seems to me that you'd get a much wider audience that way. Remeber also that the Web is a primarily visual medium at the moment. You can advertise on the Web. The guy or girl who sees the ad is going to go to the site, maybe the site is bogged down, but if you tell them that it has been released to Napster, then there's another way they can get your stuff. Say (if you're lucky) they like it a lot. Remember also, that the 'net is a very vocal environment, so they post to newsgroups, and e-mail their friends, telling them you're great musicians, and not just that, but that 'They released it to Napster! They're 'net junkies just like us!'. They share the songs, their friends share the songs, and before you know it, you've got a little community that likes your stuff. Good music should be about inspiring a community spirit between people using music as the bond. Personally, I can't think of a better way to do it. For years now, music made by those that like music for whatever reason has been cast aside by the industry (who find it cheaper to mass-produce 'pop stars' and pay them as employees. Hell, they're even trying to create 'virtual' pop stars where they don't have to pay them anything!), and they brushed it aside with 'That music has no appreciable market'. Now, here's the clincher. With Napster, you can log on and SHOW them that there are multiple copies of your song floating around all the time. You can show them the website logs. You can PROVE to them that there is a market for what you do, and that you created it without having to spend millions of dollars on marketing. They will see you as a lot more committed as a result. They may not sign you, but they will *respect* you, (And *may* pass you onto a little indie subsidiary that their friend runs). Before passing sentence on Napster, it may be an idea to at least acknowledge that it can be used for as much good as bad. Metallica, Dre and even Britney, for that matter, don't need any extra money, and if you look at my earlier post, I explain that it probably doesn't do much harm to non-manufactured artists. I don't know how you could, or if you should, enforce proper use (There will *always* be troublemakers), but think of what you're shutting the door on before you shut it.
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
I'm not American, but seems to me that most of this stuff (DMCA in particular) is unconstitutional. In that case, if this continues, maybe civil disobediance is the answer. If a law doesn't fit the majority, then the majority can just reject it.
sounds to me like the US government is just ASKING for trouble. dont they know it doesnt pay to piss the citizens off??? -james
Thanks for the response Otter, loved you in the "Funniest college movie before Road Trip!" ;)
/. collective) are advocating (which I dare you to pin down, there's a lot of people screaming around here ;)
.sig for a bit more extended defense of my theory.
A few things...(quotes from the link you gave me, or your own reply)
Richard doesn't believe in ownership of intellectual property.
I do believe in intellectual property, but only when it crosses into the real world. That is, I believe in the protection of the implementation rather than the idea itself. There is also a fundamental difference between what I, personally, am advocating, and what *we* (the
One must also keep the conversation in the correct context, that is "Cyberspace", where, as a fundamental point of my argument, scarcity does not exist.
The important part is finding the right balance between the rights of the copyright holder and the good of the general public.
Which, in all of the cases we are discussing, is between *we* the people of the U.S.(i.e. general public) and "they" (the copyright holders, the RIAA/MPAA, in the current situation). I think this balance of rights, given our current context, is way out of whack. So I think we should whack it back. With a big cluestick. (the clue being that we are, in fact, people out here and we do, in fact, have opinions on how your business is run, and yes, we can tell the whole world about it from the comfort of our bedrooms.)
Many of us percieve the corrupt nature of the music industry: they do have a lock on the business of distributing music, and the artist is often taken advantage of by the mega-corporation.
But the Internet will solve this problem, because it lets the artists distribute directly to their patrons. Those artists still need to be able to be compensated for their work. Widespread bootlegging deprives them of that compensation, whether or not the mega-corporations of the music industry are involved.
I disagree with Bruce here. I think widespread "bootlegging" or "sharing" as I prefer, will replace what the RIAA sees as the most expensive, and thereforce valuable, part of the music industry....marketing. I feel quite strongly about this. Read the link from my
Bruce goes on to talk about a 1984(ish) scenario that I can see too. But unlike him, I think the battle has already been joined. Raising awarness of these issues NOW, is the biggest concern. Getting people online to research before making an opinion has been my biggest goal, it's what I tell people on the street (if the subject comes up). Once enough people know and DO SOMETHING about it. the danger may be averted. Either that or in 10 years $19 of the $20 a CD costs will be to make sure they still cost that much.
And from the Free Software/Free Music angle. I think they are different forms of IP and should be treated as such. But that is a whole 'nuther discussion.
And think before you believe!
I'm a big believer in thinking. And logic. Unless I get some new sources of information that totally contradict pretty much everything I think I know now, my position won't change. And yes, I am the(a) cynical one.:)
--
+&x
I'm also trying out Freenet, which at the moment is very much incomplete - but we all know that. I had to try 5 keys before I finally could retrieve something, and that something was porn .. *sigh* I must also voice the doubt that Freenet won't be Freenet, since they readily admit that you will give your IP away to the first node you connect to. It _will_ be possible (but hard) to track people down even on Freenet.
Gnutella ... there's just something about it that I don't like. Dunno what it is, but I got the feeling after reading their webpage.
Napster. Like it. Too bad the recording industry actually lost a few quids there. I had plans buying an album I've seen the commercial before, but after downloading it with Napster and listening to it, I decided not to.
It sucked.
it's in my head
Ok first off the quality of a 44.1khz 128kbps mp3 is the same as a cd. It only takes up HD space if you leave it ona cd. Being most people these days have a zip drive, superdisk or a cd burner (most people i know anyhow.) That elimnates that question. Now, since when did i say sell a whole cds, i just said the tracks you want. You want all the songs go to frigen borders or best-buy or where ever you buy your cds and buy it. i think Courtney Love however, has the best solution to all of this...just say fsck major-labels.
Derek Greene
I think that is actually a joke. Cleverly disguised though. I searched their mailing list and nothing was in it about the suit. Also you would think they would post some of the letters from the RIAA if it were true. I was fooled too but after trying to dig deep into it I couldn't find anything substantial.
"What are the three words guaranteed to humiliate men everywhere?
In Republican America phones tap you.
so according to current government thought a gun is a morally neutral "tool" but; a distributed file sharing system has inherent criminal intent. conclusion : napster should hire the NRA as their lobbyist.
earlier post
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
As a side note, I found a text by the same author against patents, but one for copyrights (none on the 'Net in english, AFAIK). Not that I agree with him on the latter point...
-- Faré @ TUNES.org
-- Faré @ TUNES.org
Reflection & Cybernet
The answer is and unfortunate, yes, they do understand what the internet is capable of, and are scared stiff. Peer to Peer networking eliminates the need for an expensive physical distribution network. That means that no one has to go to the record companies/movie studios/publishing houses to have their artwork shared. Heck, they could have their thoughts shared, or their ideas and values... Instead of having them imposed from above. I mean, what if young teenage pop icons actually thought it was OK to have sex? Or that drugs may be not all that bad? or... maybe someone will promote a music that is truly positive and uplifting instead of depressing and debilitating... If Congress tries to do this, the law WILL be struck down in court, as a violation of : 1. Free Press 2. Free Speech Why first Freedom of the Press? Because everyone with a computer is NOW a publisher. If I publish a song/treatise/poem/whatever on my computer and allow for it to be "shared", then I am a publisher, and therefore I am the press. I now have the power to reach millions of people, just like the traditional media outlets. They are scared of losing the power that they now have. Like other truly world-changing events, no one can predict the changes that will come from this "new" invention of the internet. Look at the Printing Press - such as "A Modest Proposal", The Industrial Revolution, The Prevalence of the Automobile, Radio, Televison - no one, and I mean no one could predict the profound impact that these technologies have had on our society, and with every one of them, the current powers that were, were diluted, but not without a fight. The constitution does not just apply to big companies, established media outlets or big govt. It is truly meant to PROTECT us from them, because Alexander Hamilton knew that there are always groups that will erode these god-given and natural freedoms for their own cause, in the name of "protection" or "for the good of all"
... hi bingo
"Napster exists for only one reason: To create an illegal market for copyrighted material. "
You're simply wrong, and there's no getting around it. You assume that all copyrighted material in unavailable for legal trading, and that's just not true. Some artists do in fact want to give their work away, for promotional reason or just cause they're great people. Not all file trading is illegal, nor will that ever be the case. In fact, the successful artists of the future will be those that embrace the new model.
Are you drunk?
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
First of all, I hate to be teh one to break it to Metallica, but they are turning a LOT of fans away from themselves through all this nonsense. i own a mere six Metallica Albums and I believe I have EVERY right to make an electronic backup of them. If I don't sell copies then how are they hurt by this? If they have ever even used Napster, and were in the room while their big-money lawyer was having his twleve year old son to install it on his "work" laptop they would know that it can share stuff you didn't intend it to. Next, how about the RIAA? It was only two weeks at most that the FCC was busting some CD sellers balls for illegal pricing schemes. They say *WE* are stealing? $20 US for a CD? It cost about 5 cents to make the things!!! That doesn't even go into the fact that artists are traditionally given ten percent of the PROFITS! you know profits, the money left over after those 5 cent pieces of platic and (I'll make a VERY liberal estimate) $1.50 US for the packaging. WHO is a thief???? In conclusion the RIAA can make it's mouth like a donut hole and swallow when instructed. I must hear bullshit about "reparations" to one black community or another for all the terrible things done to them two hundred years ago (don't mean to offend any black /.ers out there), so I say we have the RIAA pay reparations $8 Us Compact discs, and give artists 50% of the profits for a decade to repay all of us for the corporate buttfucking we have recieved over the past decade. DISCLAMER: THIS POST IS PROBABLY VIOLATING SOME ASS'S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OUT THERE, BUT SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND THINK ABOUT THIS. I WAS VIOLATING YOUR MOTHER AND DAUGHTER LAST NIGHT WITH AN ELEPHANT DICK.
I think you got me all wrong...Napter isn't at fault (When did I say it was??). The people pirating(or stealing) the music are. No-one here sees it as bad, though. Everyone tries to justify it as "free speech", but when the same thing happens to something from the GNU/GPL license, the opposite effect occurs.(they want whoever is violating the license to stop)
BTW i am strongly against Gun control
Here is a contact form.
Also, there is an email: smbiz@mail.house.gov.
Dear Sir or Madam:
As a citizen of the United States of America, I am concerned at the short notice given to the internet community of the "Internet Music" hearing to be held this Wednesday, May 24th. I only heard about the hearing today, via the following website (http://www.slashdot.org)
I am also concerned at the small number of participants invited to speak at this hearing, especially as the topic and proposals are in no way restricted to small business or the music industry.
I am requesting that before any hearing be held on this matter, the following two organizations be contacted and allowed time to present their points of view on freedom and the internet : The Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) and the Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.org).
I am not of the opinion that restrictions on the internet affect only the music industry. To me, such a view is dangerously shortsighted.
Your cooperation is this matter is appreciated.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Cylons wrote:
Besides, online cd sales places at this point literally sell a cd and ship it to you, and they can sell them for cheaper due to a loophole in the recording industry's pricing scheme (they forbid places that sell their cds to advertise a price lower than X dollars... online places don't advertise generally, so it doesn't affect them) (there's currently debate going on in congress about whether or not this policy is of the recording industry's is legal... it may drop prices for everyone soon)
Actually, I believe the Supreme Court recently took up this issue. If I recall correctly, they said that such practices were illegal. However, I cannot say that for sure, so if anyone has better information they can cite, do post it.
===
There was a similar case within the last 5 years called 44 Liquormart . In that case, Rhode Island statutes prevented the advertising of alcohol prices except in the form of price tags on the actual merchandise. RI's rationale was that the supression of advertising discouraged underage drinking. The court did strike the statute down as anti-competitive. A similar case from Virginia some years back dealt with banning advertising of perscription drug prices - I believe the result was the same, but I don't have time right now to look it up.
While I'm not advising the RIAA (or anyone suing them), they could make the case that these are apples and oranges. 44 Liquormart was a state statute, and theirs is an industry-based self-regulation. But it still stinks of anti-competitiveness... a cartel setting prices.
Actually, I just poked around and found this story (which I actually submitted a while back. That wasn't a Supreme Court case, but just an FTC settlement.
Anyway...
==
"This is the nineties. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first."
If my company could get investors (you don't know how hard it is to get the kind of money we need
;-) that would be the type of thing you'd see from our label. Major-labels are really screwing themselves here by not following the consumers. It's going to end up with them not making any money...that is if they keep their current course of action.
Derek Greene
The "Negativland thing" he was referring to was the lawsuit U2's label slapped on Negativland. The band didn't sue, Island Records did. When the band learned about it, they pressured the label to ease off; Island decided to "only" sue for what they paid their high-priced lawyers, not for any alleged damages.
And the album had a blatantly misleading cover. U2 was about to release a new album, and Negativland releases a CD called "U2 Negativland". If this was widely distributed, it would have caused a lot of mistaken sales to U2 fans.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson "I know a genuine Somy when I see one!"
The really dangerous fact is that as cable providers and other numbnuts protect their corporate hosting fees and other nonsense by having "no server" rules and other skullduggery, we are creating a two-class internet; the server haves, and the have-nots. Only so-called professionals will have servers, or access to the services thus provided. So individuals are being gradually forced back into their passive shell. Sooner or later they will be initimidated, secret API'd and legislated out of doing anything except sitting in front of the screen, letting the magic box it do what it wants. Sound familiar? Great, now stick your head inside and welcome to the Matrix.
The laws protecting ISPs are supposed to ensure open access. But a free, unclogged pipe is useless if it's blocked at both ends.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
yeah..
The "news" in "news for nerds: stuff that really matters" is topics of interest to a very specific group of people who started /. in the first place.
Your (conventional) use of the word "news" is not quite what may be going on here..
Here, "news" is more likely to mean "Wow! I hadn't heard that before" or "That's really cool" -- not quite the sort of meaning that is given to the word by those putting out the biased pablum that comes out of CNN/API/BBC et al.
Here, you're gonna get a definite bias, and here you're gonna get to support or attack any issues as you will.
And "trust"? What's trust got to do with it? Do you "trust" your sources of conventional news?
Personally, I "trust" the people here at /. a helluva lot more...
So /. "news" is not quite what you get with your average "news" -- but then /. is not average.
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Err, so you can't fill a cup completely full unless you fill the cup ALL the way up?
Sorry, that statement was just too incredibly inane and stupid for me to pass up.
Heh. Are you refering to your own argument? Do you know of any software that can distinguish between music that the copyright holder wants distributed and music that the copyright holder doesn't want to distribute? If you have a method of getting rid of the stuff the RIAA owns without preventing independent artists and their fans from using the software then I'd love to hear it.
numb
I'll answer that one actually. 1) You can determine the IP of the server and the IP of the receiver using Napster. Usenet can be completely anonymous. 2) You don't have to sift through 50,000 "live goat porn" images to find what you want on napster.
The only way to stop the trade of MP3 files on the Internet would be to shut down the Internet and outlaw computer to computer communications completely. I think we should stop beating around the bush and face that fact head on.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Require internet service providers that wish to qualify for safe harbor to collect personally identifiable and verifiable information from their users. Napster currently allows its users to sign on anonymously, making it impossible for rights holders to track down the infringers. .
Well, thats not too darn much of a safe harbor in my opinion.
Establish a time frame for the "notice and take down" process for removal of infringing material. The law as currently written has no set time table, consequently service providers with a vested interest in the infringing activity of their subscribers, like Napster, have no incentive to act in a timely fashion.
Now this is kind of cool. It shows a real flaw in the DMCA, though this paragraph doesn't adress that having no time frame makes it hard on the people accused of aiding piracy as well.
Give judges the flexibility to grant injunctions against service providers whose services are substantially used for copyright infringement. It may be impossible to write a law that accounts for every conceivable technological innovations, however a judge will know an illegal act when she sees it.
. . . reminds me of the old "I know pornography when I see it" line.
Overall, not a heartening article. Not lockstep cyber-fascism (really, the blurb for the article overdid it), but also not that helpful and with a chance to be very harmful, and this shows some definite ignorance about Netculture and technology.
You think people who made "policies" would sit down and really think over the repercussions before spitting them out.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ This address will let you enter your zip code and contact your local representative. Send them a pleasant email explaining that you want the Digital Millenium Copyright Act erased from law or at least revised to that it does not walk all over the previous rights we are supposed to be guaranteed. Let them know the goverment should be making laws to protect and serve the people, not large corporations.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
If they stup down napster, freenet or others will be left. If they shut down them, more will come...
Hey also did you look at the previos article about offshore hosting?
Instead of dealing with copyright violations in a responsible way, the tech community basically took the view that it's too cool and modern to have to live by everyone else's rules. And you know what? In the real world, it doesn't matter. No matter how many posts declare "Let them make money from T-shirts!", no matter how much karma people here give each other for shouting the party line, now matter how many words Jon Katz can drag out of a topic, none of that's going to do any good in front of a judge. Napster is going to be toast, and now we're going to get legislation that's going to interfere with legitimate network use.
Personally, I don't care about Napster either way. What does concern me is the same approach being taken about web filterware. Again, no matter how many +4's I read saying "When I have kids, I'm going to let them look at all the porn they want!", however many sneering articles Jamie and Michael write every time a software package blocks something they think it shouldn't, none of that's going to affect the real world. In the real world, libraries and homes are either going to have filters or have no net access at all. Once again, the tech community is going to have itself to blame when lousy filters are in universal use. But, hey, the important thing is to act like you're living in a William Gibson novel, right?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Napster is a music-sharing service. It could be used for good (distributing MP3s of artists who recognize the validity of that distribution service) or for ill (violating copyright). I will set aside any issues involving the highway robbery scheme that is referred to as CD pricing and the ethics of music piracy.
If these extensions to the DMCA are passed, it will be the moral equivalent of banning paper clips because they can be used to pick locks, or banning cars because you can run from the police in one. Legislation against Napster and similar software with dual use is not the correct solution.
The government (and, by extension, large corporations in general and the recording industry in particular) knows that music piracy is a large-scale phenomenon, with hundreds of thousands or millions of people involved in it every day. To pursue legal action against these violators on an individual basis would call for a massive restriction of what we recognize as civil rights today.
Therefore, under the guise of convenience, the government and the recording industry lobbyists seek to restrict the tool, not the criminal. These restrictions, as they become more common and far-reaching, will slowly be crafted into a set of fetters and blinders for every citizen of the United States, a way to keep the populace under control at all times in the name of "freedom" and "protection." If they have their way, then the entire human race will one day be in these shackles, not just the unfortunate 280 million who live in the United States.
www.alarmist.org
Listening to music over the net is a great start, but does not address the more complex copyright issue.
Buying a CD should be buying a Restricted License giving me permission to copy the songs to my hard drive. If the CD breaks, under the license I should be able to download and burn a new copy for myself. If I am at a hotel room five thousand miles from my CD collection, I should have the license to stream my songs through the net to my laptop. If I am at my friends house I should be able to download the song through Napster to his hard drive. He should also be required to delete the song after I leave.
The license should NOT allow me to listen to a burned copy of my CD while my room mate listens to the mp3's I made on my computer. The license should allow copying, but only one copy can be in use. If I sell the CD the license gets transferred to the buyer.
Most if not all of this is technologically feasible. There are weaknesses in this system for abuse and copying, as there are in the current one. There will be piracy and abuse of any system. My solution encourages the spread of music to new ears, which will increase sales, while preserving the control of artists and labels over their property.
_
Everyone is getting all hot and bothered about this issue, but in the end, what does all of this political harranging really matter?
The genie is out of the bottle. Period. No matter what laws are passed, what short-sighted companies do, or what Lars Ulrich says on late night TV, it doesn't matter.
MP3s are here. There are hundreds of software packages out there, in all shapes and forms to rip them. No one can stop that now. And even if they shutdown Napster, and Nullsoft, people will just write more software to take their place.
File sharing will continue to happen. Heck, even if point to point communication is banned, there are still tons of outlets for this stuff. People are social animals, and will create their own networks regardless of what happens.
I think if the RIAA and the government want to do something, they should be proactive at looking at the FUTURE instead of the past. Think about it, if the RIAA had jumped onto the MP3 bandwagon instead of fighting it a few years ago, 1) they could have secured the format a lot faster, before it spread like fire and 2) they wouldn't have HELPED MP3 use spread by publicizing its existance. By granting interviews on Dateline or in Newsweek, they make a whole new audience curious about it and start using it. (I can't even count the number of people asking me about napster after that newsweek article...)
So for all of you zealots out there ready to stop buying records and start burning down your Congress, cheer up. The genie will not be put back into the bottle and will continue on in some form or another, whether sanctioned or not.
Information yearns to be free, regardless of what we sacks of water do.
Vulgrin the MAD
I sig, therefore I am.
just posting here a letter I sent Rob. feel free to flame as you see fit.
1 4&mode=flat
2 14&cid=507
1 333214&cid=514
--------------------------------------
hiya rob,
I am reading through the story on the House proposal to hold hearings on Napster
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/22/13332
And wanted to write to you with a possible Idea that you are free to run with as you see fit. Now I'm sure you are aware of the fact that the best way to fight something like this is by making sure that congress hears all the voices. Despite what people think, most congressmen still want to protect the rights of the people. The problem is that when there is a dispute over right, they don't always agree on whose rights are more important. The solution is, of course, to make them aware. Now, to that end, I am proposing is that you chooose the best 20-30 posts on this story and submit them to members of congress. The goal is to choose enough to make the variosu points while not choosing so many that it never gets read. Now by best posts, I of course refere to the ones that point out things like the following.
1) The overagressive nature of the DMCA.
2) The way the RIAAI has been suing everyone in site that they percieved to be a threat.
3) The fact that the previous two points only make for a more closed internet which is a direct contradiction to the point of the internet.
4) The value of napster in letting people hear music so they can judge it before they buy it.
one great sample post is here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/22/1333
I think this really sums up myself and most other napster users I know.
You may choose to make other points, or leave some of these out. But, the fact is this is an issue that is only going to get worse until congress and the courts finally realize that people had had enough of large business taking away their rights so they can simply charge more money. I have said for a long time now that the threat to privacy isnt the government but business. Well, I leave this in your hands, and Im not going to give you a lecture about how you have to do it. You don't. But I am asking because the simultanious submission of several voices can cary far more wieght than any one voice.
Well, have fun what ever you do.
-Blast
ps
any thoughts to this http://www.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/22/
"I mean, All you can definately say about a fellow who thinks he's a poached egg, is; He's in the minority." James Burke
I can't say I find this very persuasive, a pragmatic politician will realize that corporate "donations" produce the means to get visibility, slick campaigns, talented writers, and paid-for party favors.
Even if you find a politician who takes on the Napster battle, the second it becomes econmicaly unfeasible to do so it will be dropped. Sorry, but politicians look after #1 first.
And it will become unfeasible, he'll be pissing off a very powerful group, these are the guys who put a corporate tax on blank tapes because everyone who buys one is a guilty pirate who must pay a fee, screw due process.
I like that. Computers are not meant to be networked. They are for
doing desktop calculations.
Granted, certain military and academic institutions may have the need to
share large amounts of data that could not be easily shipped via US Mail,
and they may still be connected over a govermnet approved
network. However, the general public has not proved worthy of the ability
to network computers.
Look at what 5 years of public Internet has gotten
us: Melissa. ILOVEYOU. Michelangelo. Pr0n. Napster. BackOrifice. Internet
love affairs. Stalking. AOL. Columbine. Addiction. Chat-rooms.
I see no good reason to continue to allow the plebeian populace access to
this network. Therefore, as of September 30, 2000, the Internet will be
turned off. Ownership of all fiber, transmitters, cable and routing
equipment will be assigned to the Defense Department. Universities and
research institutions needing network access will apply to the Pentagon
for time-shared access on the military network.
In addition, telecommunication carriers will apply a filter to the voice
channels that will prevent analog modems from connecting over voice grade
networks. High-speed in-home delivery such as DSL or cable modems will be
allowed to only connect to read-only television distribution points under
the control of the data-provider.
All data providers will be registered
with the FCC and all content and programming will be reviewed quarterly
to ensure appropriate family and American values are being
represented. This shall include traditional print and television media as
well. These traditional data outlets could be compromised by
anti-capitalist forces and used as distribution of copyrighted or
subversive un-American work.
All data receivers, such as televisions, cable modems, DSL routers,
etc. will be registered with the FCC. No user-initiated upstream traffic
will be tolerated. However, the data-source providers may upload limited
demographic information about the data-browsing habits of their
customers. This data will be available to the FCC and other government
agencies under the Emergency Powers act of 1999. This data will be kept
confidential in and among the various federal agencies who require access
to the data.
Also, all private radio transmitters and receivers will be licensed and
inspected by the government. All HF receivers will have a blocking coil
installed to prevent their use as a high-speed data receiver. New digital
data RF relievers will have, prior to deployment to civilian markets,
reporting capabilities built in. This will allow for ease of accounting
tamper proofing of the digital data RF receivers. All HF data
transmission companies shall be under regulation by the FCC, and shall
report back all data gathered from the customer receivers.
Finally, taxes no less than $1,000 and no more than $5,000 per
data-receiver will be implemented to cover the costs of re-educating and
providing for the safety of American's data.
The most likely outcome is that with systems like Gnutella in existence, ISPs will be required by law to keep detailed records, there will be sting operations, and people will get identified through their IP addresses.
The next stage of retreat is to go to something like AT&T's Crowds system, but most likely, if you participate in that kind of system at all, you'll simply be considered guilty by default. Ditto for Freenet.
Compared to on-the-air broadcasting and interactions in the real world, just about anything on the Internet can be tracked, logged, and analyzed with exquisite accuracy.
There are only limited things users can do. You can exchange information with people you know through cryptographic channels (arguably, fair use), and steganography will provide some way for some information to get out. But widespread anonymous file sharing ala Napster and Gnutella will likely be a transient phenomenon.
So tell me this. So far I've only heard Metallica and Dr. Dre bitchin' about the whole Napster deal. Why haven't we heard about any other artists protesting Napster? Also, if an artist does not want there mp3s distributed, why can't they protest to Napster to have their names removed from the distribution data base? I relize that the peer 2 peer technologies will make this option obsolete, but at least there will be a better idea of the majority opinion.
----Quid
Less talk, more caffeine
it seems like the recording industry, and much of the us government is falling into the convient hole that people in power often sumble or jump into head-first: taking money rather than earning it. it must be simply easier and cheaper for the recording industry to hire an army of lawyers than to innovate a solution to the problem.
-james
Just a thought...
Could the RIAA cartel/consortium/oligarchy be justifiably accused of price-fixing?
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Yes! Let me say it again:
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
And by the way... screw this god-damned lame-ass lameness filter. Maybe if it used some decent algorithms it might be useful. Next time you're bored, program a smart ad banner picker instead (you know, so the slashdot pages don't sit there for 45 minutes waiting for a lame ad banner to load from the remote banner server because it won't allow you to view the page you wanted to see until all the friggin' ads are fully in place on it because it was designed that way???)
"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."
I'm not a yankqui so some of you have to do this...
1. record a song called "RIAA are lusers"
#include
"Metallica is cool, man!;
Rightous in law, man!;
I'm a stoolie for da Man;
Now my fans are Banned!"
or perhaps...
"DMCA, yo DMCA!,
Yo: I gonna sue ya,
Napster's gonna pay.
DMCA, yo DMCA!,
Call myself outlaw at night,
but wear a suit all day.."
2. sell a copy to your sister for $1.
3. have Sister rip & post on napster.
4. get Mom to download it.
5. Submit to Napster inc. that under DCMA that Mom & Sister should be banned!!!!!
6. everyone can laugh at the idiocy of it all.
I'm a musician and a tone freak (i walk into a guitar center and without realizing it will adjust amplifiers i dont even want to play on to the settings i like ;-) and i'm not as obsessed with sound quality as you are. Also...face it, if it was a band who's sound you were that entralled with you'd just buy the cd and not bother with downloading one song!
Derek Greene
Why does this make me think of Dee Snider at the PMRC hearings? Ah well, at least it's not Flavah Flav.
I have to say it: "Get up a get-get-get down. RIAA is a joke in your town..."
_______
2B1ASK1
Never said I havent heard of Metallica...I am a Closet Death metal fan...I'll give you a perfect example though...I heard a band was playing at a club and the band was called Mr Bungle. I decided to get a sample from Napster..well..they SUCKED. True...their CD sales may have gone down because I heard them first. You expect me to blindly buy a CD when I never heard them? True..most music is known by word of mouth..but most people my age don't listen to my taste of music :)
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
So exactly what "protection" does a "traditional copyrighted work" -- book, artwork, or musical composition -- use to protect itself from copying? None. Because that's not what "traditional copyright protection" does.
We must not let them confuse these terms! Unlike the great debate over the usage of 'hacker' , the "protections of copyright" are spelled out explicitly in legislation and case law. Those protections are primarily: 1) the right to litigate and collect damages for violations; and 2) the right to apply for pre-emptive relief (by court-order) to stop on-going violations before more damage is done (if you can convince a judge)
We often let the software industry use the term 'copyright protection' when they really mean 'copy protection', but we cannot allow this confusion to be codified into law or fossilized as a centerpiece of the larger intellectual property debate.
Copyright protection means The Law allows the copyright owner to control their own works (or work they have purchased the copyrights to). Copy protection simply blocks any non-revenue access without regard to whether it is legal or not.
'Copyright protection' specifically allows 'fair use'; 'copy protection' intends to prevent 'fair use' -- or any use, other than the 'minimal intended use' (e.g. viewing DVDs on MS platforms)
_____________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime