Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Leaders Speak About Napster
A huge number of people have been submitting the story
on ZDNet (originally from the WSJ) regarding folks like Linus and others about Napster. Many of the submissions have been along the lines of "Linus Bashes Napster." He doesn't -- he's merely saying that copyrights aren't necessarily a bad thing, and that piracy is a bad thing. As well, there's some good points about the Napster/Open Source relationship -- the article is worth reading in depth.
You are absolutely right...without copyright nobody could stop you from using or sharing software and ther would be no protection against having your hard work stolen. If we eliminated pay per copy, there would be there would be no motivation to not share source code, and no motivation for most people to actually do the work in the first place. Maybe we could start by giving copper cups intead of diplomas to computer science graduates. That way, programmers could sit on the street and rattle their cups for change while they pounded away open source programs on their laptops. Oh...they couldn't afford laptops. Open source software is a great thing and can accomplish a lot in the right context (ie. operating system dependance), but in the end we need pay per copy software. There is more at stake here than software. In the U.S., people work because they get paid, and companies that can't make a profit can't get paid. There has been no long standing evidence that a company can survive on an open source model without huge amounts of venture capital and a ringingly successful IPO. When someone can answer the question of "How does producing open source software fit into the model of capitalism?", then come and talk about eliminating pay per copy licensing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't buy magazines with photos of Britney Spears.
NOOOOO! Whatever will I do without my pinup pictures of Britney Spears in a crop top? How will I survive the day? (Oh, wait. PORN. Nevermind.)
-The Reverend
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
Judging by the rate of technological change, by the time any sane resolution comes of this debate, Napster, the RIAA, the MP3 format and the major record labels will already be nonexistent/irrelevant. The System already is there: we can record and trade recorded music files peer-to-peer over the internet in a largely public-domain format sans encryption and gatekeepers. That's right now, today. Once technologies are invented, they don't get uninvented, so it seems fair to assume that these new channels of distribution are going to only be getting smoother. As a result, the major labels are dead already and they know it. They're just trying to sqeeze out their share for the final inning of their game.
Encryption as a solution? It'll never happen because people aren't going to abandon 50 years worth of stereo infrastructure, and if I can play something on my stereo, I can, in the worst case scenario, record the audio out to my computer (getting a perfectly acceptable d-to-a-to-d) and recompress with the codec of my choice (or not). Encryption can be imperfectly circumvented here, but at a quality good enough for 99% of the music listening public.
So we're left with a world where the major labels are not in control. So what? There have been many fundamental shifts in technology that have ruined a business model; when i started in design ten years ago, my company bought a $2000 stat camera... two years later it was on the curb, worthless. Two years.
What do the record labels do for artists? Promote, record, market, and skim most of the profits. But thanks to the Net, the artist has an unprecedented amount of power to promote THEMSELVES, record THEMSELVES, and market THEMSELVES. Working the angles on the web will be as important for the 21st musician as catchy hooks and a good stage presence. And free distribution to consumers might be a part of those angles.
But none of this changes the fact that copyrights are still sacred to the artist. And I define copyright somewhat loosely as the right to determine where your song is distributed and for how much and why. Free distribution of a song on the Net by an artist does not mean a relinquishment of copyright! Chuck D gets this. You can give something away free to other individuals without losing the rights to control it.
Something no one has mentioned yet is the fact that there are many more ways to make money in the music biz than just selling CD's. The publishing rights are often more valuable to musicians, because even a single institutional use of a piece of music can be far, far more lucrative than selling cd's unit by unit. Chuck D wants his music to travel, he wants people to pass his shit hand to hand over the wires, because, then he can still be the song of the summer, the song that's blasting from the back of every Jeep in the 'hood, and have full rights to it w/no interference from the Man. Then, when Monday Night Football comes and wants to use Chuck's song at halftime under that goofy animation of helmets running into each other and exploding, they come to Chuck, not Chuck's label's lawyers, and he keeps the whole check, which is bound to be a big one. THAT'S where the $$$ is. I know smaller bands like Tortoise and Stereolab have sold the rights to songs for commercials (Calvin Klein and VW, respectively), and that's what made them financially solvent, not 20,000 CD sales on little indie labels. The mechanism for defending publishing rights still exists, still works, even in the Net age. See ASCAP. See BMI. Those are the organizations that cut the royalty checks, and a side effect of free consumer distribution is that those checks would be made out directly to the artist.
And remember that big summer arena tours are largely funded by the T-shirt vendors. Think different.
The current system makes 500-1000 selected lucky people millionaires, and screws everybody else. We need to get over Napster and MP3, and make sure we work on a system that'll turn that figure around, creating a new music industry where a million people can make a decent living making music each year w/o a middleman. As usual, the ones who get burned are the ones dependent on the current system when the system changes, but that always happens. But don't worry, Metallica-- in five years, there'll be a new Net to catch you. And you'll still rock.
"Luck is the residue of design" --Branch Rickey
nuff sed.
www.usamabinladen.net
On the 35-minute ride to work, my girlfriend and I have been discussing the Napster issue. It's been a topic of discussion for the past month or so where we, both groggy and still half-asleep, discuss our differing viewpoint on the issue. I'm blinded by my years of a shareware addiction, she by her budding music career. It's an interesting conversation, where I try to illustrate Napster as a shift in paradigms, a new way to distribute music, or a great 'try-before-you-buy' plan. She'll have none of it. Her standard reply, which she has taken to muttering in her sleep, is simple yet eloquent. "But you haven't paid for it." I agree fully. I try to illustrate that if I download a Yanni mp3, I can decide if I like it well enough to go out and buy the CD. Her obvious reply? "But you haven't paid for it." I realized that it was time for me to shift gears, so I changed my track. "I have no problem with Dr. Dre's suit, but Metallica used to pass out their music for free! It's near hypocrisy! They would give people tapes and ask them to listen." What's the difference, other than now it's being pushed by the demand side? 'Twas throwing words away; for still The little Maid would have her will, And said, 'But you haven't paid for them!'
>Cannot find server or DNS Error Internet Explorer
lame
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
Ummm... Richard the Lionheart (the king to whom Robin Hood was loyal)
was actually a Norman.
Yes, it is so easy to complain about the evils of copyrights when you have none yourself...
I find the whole issue facinating (and the opinions of people like Larry Wall unsurprising) given that of copyright is dead, then it follows that the GPL itself, based on copyright, is also dead.
The cake is a pie
You're just a mindless bimbo.
thank you.
Jewish philosopher/theorist Emmanuel Levinas wrote that "[a]ll generous thought is threatened by its own Stalinism." There is a powerful truth here that could easily be applied to this situation.
Most movements start with a good idea. Communism/Socialism started with the idea that we should share our resources. Capitalism started with the idea that rewards should be based on merit and not family relations. Christianity started with the simple notion that love should be the guiding force in our daily relations. Likewise, open source started with the concept of free software--the idea that code should be free to all so that it can be improved with greater ease. We have to be really careful that open source doesn't turn into yet another misguided holy war or bloody revolution. (I'm speaking metaphorically here.)
The concept of free software isn't the same as free beer. We've all read that and heard that and wrote that. In some respects, Metallica's music is open source. A friend of mine has a book of guitar tablature released by Metallica (or at least their record company). Presuming I have the skill, I could sit in my basement all day playing "The Thing that Should Not Be" (in my opinion the best Metallica song). I could cover it in concert. The only thing I couldn't do is release it for profit (without a law suit).
The minute we start forcing people to be "open source" we are just as bad as Microsoft. We are just as bad as Stalin. We are just as bad as the Christian Knights who killed Muslims just because they couldn't agree on what God's name was. We are just as bad as those freaky people who sit outside of clinics shooting doctors who perform abortions.
Even the best ideas can turn into totalitarianism.
rusty
/mnt/c/windows
fuzzcat@gru.net
http://www.afn.org/~afn51445
root@SavageGarden root!# rm -r
"The further I get from the things that I care about, the less I care about how much further away I get." -Robert Smith
I'm still not sure that the following issues are being put into their proper perspective:
1) The legality of companies like NetPD to snoop a computer in my house without my permission or a judge-issued warrant;
2) The legality of 'tallica to hire a third party such as netPD to compile information about me and my computer uses without my permission or a judge-issued warrant;
3) The legality of 'tallica to coerce a software company to deny me access to their product based on the data aquired in 1) and 2);
4) The legality of the RIAA's treatment of the internet community as a class; specificially with regard to interpersonal peer-to-peer communication .
Traditionally, legal action involving theft or copyright infringement in directed toward an individual or corporation dealing in "piracy" : the unauthorized *sale* of material, not individuals simpay sharing samples of a material.
The idea of corporations or extremely rich individuals manipulating the law against a large number of not-for-profit individuals communicating for any reason, and treating them as a class, is quite alarming to me.
I understand that 'tallica and the RIAA are concerned about the impact of emerging technologies on their revenue stream. They have a point. But they are stomping around in people's living rooms, and decisions made now could have a chilling effect on the future of our privacy on the net.
If a sacrifice must be made, let it be on the against the rich and powerful, and for the freedom of the masses.
Perhaps it is time to consider alternatives, such as overseas connections, certified anonymous servers, port hopping, tunnelling, encrypted streams and the like. If that's what it takes in "The Land of the Free" to get the government, corporations and the rich musicians out of my living room, so be it.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
---
The principle behind it is that artists should be able to make as much money as they want from their product, while everyone else should be forced to pay for it.
---
That's a particularly interesting interpretation of capitalism.
The idea isn't to force anything on anyone - you don't have to have most products, so nobody is forcing anything on anyone (unless you're an abusive monopoly, but that's not all that common).
Second, the consumer has some power as well (once again, unless there is an abusive monopoly involved). You can refuse to purchase a product, and if enough people agree with you, they are forced to lower their price or provide more. If it seems like you're being ripped off, it's either because you expect too much or the rest of the population is too complacent and won't stand its ground.
Either way, capitalism is a self regulating system (albeit with a few bugs).
---
Unfortunately, the principles of geekhood (which are typically not quite as capitalist) support freedom of information in the form of the GPL, copylefting, etc.
---
Speak for yourself. A lot of geeks view open-source in a purely pragmatic way, ie. that it contributes to overall stability, code reuse, and ease of integration - not to mention fun projects to hack on. Not everyone feels that it's a "freedom" issue at all, or that anyone has a right to certain code or information.
And believe it or not, there are lots of kinds of geeks. Some still thrive in the closed-source world, and may not agree with much of the Slashdot party line at all. These guys may not have wandered upon the wonders of the open-source world, but that doesn't stop them from cranking out killer (albeit closed-source) shareware on the weekends more for fun than profit.
[I'm not really disagreeing with you - I think the suit against Napster is retarded, they should instead go after the pirates themselves in they have a problem. I just get frustrated when people assume there is a single 'geek profile' when there really isn't...]
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Since when has Open-Source ever been about stealing IP from others?
Ever notice all those features which originated in commercial software and were cloned in open source software?
Hypothetical situation. I as an independant software developer create a revolutionary peice of software and create innovative new ways of using it. I work my butt off and build a company which is entire based off this sole product. This product is incrediably successful and so easy to use that it requires virtually no support. We charge a meger amount of money for it, $60 which covers advertising, etc. We don't have the money to support Unices, so Open Source developers clone the application and give it away for free.
Open Source developers do this every day. From the point of view of the original developer, you are outright stealing his intellectual property. Because the application is so easy to use there is very little revenue that can be gained via support or documentation.
There is a perplexing moral issue which has to be thought about. Is it ethical to take the hard work and sole means of living of another and clone it because you don't want to pay for it?
Open Source isn't communism or even socialism. Money really doesn't exist in the open source community. It's about sharing ideas and code... a utopian society where money simply doesn't exist.
Adjust your way of thinking.
Look, Napster was created so that it's author and his friends could have an easy way to trade thier mp3's. You know what's gonna happen if they do shut down Napster, someone else is gonna create a similar program. It's too late to stifle the vast amounts of pirated music out there.
It may not be legal, but it's too late. It was inevitable. Once the mp3 format was created people were gonna start to share music with each other, and once people started sharing it, they were gonna find easier ways to do it.
How come no one has yelled at all of the people running ftp sites off of their computers? Those have been around a lot longer than Napster. It's just that it has become too easy in the eyes of some. They have also found an easy target.
Would there be all of these lawsuits if there were a hundred different programs out there?
I'm not saying that Metallica and Dr. Dre don't have a valid complaint. It's just that it's too late to complain. The cat is out of the bag, and they should be spending their time trying to find a way to work with what's going on, not trying to suppress a tidal wave.
Billy S G McCarthy
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
According to the story, Jesus did not "pirate" (aka steal) bread. The loaves and fishes did not exist before he miraculously created them. Having created them himself, they were his loaves and fishes. He (and his followers) then choose to give them away.
In addition, there is no report of him doing this on an ongoing and widespread basis, so it's pretty unlikely that any businesses were affected. And even if he had done this a lot, it wouldn't have been pirating. Tough to compete with, but not pirating.
(Heck, he was supposedly a deity, or at least of divine birth. One could argue that as a deity, he had first dibs on everybody's property. But as far as I remember the popular bio, he never tried to take advantage of that.)
(FWIW, I'm an agnostic. But if someone's gonna use the story to make some point, they should at least try to get it right.)
I find that logic dubious, at best.
Legallity aside, what kind of person are you who disrespects and steals from people he doesn't even know? Yes, it is a moral issue. You don't need it, and if you are not willing to pay for it, you don't deserve it.
I am very zealous on this topic, so I'm sorry if I went overboard. However, not referring to you in particular, I will say it again: I have never met a pirate (software, music, or otherwise) that ultimately was not just a cheap bastard making up excuses to justify theft.
----------
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I feel they are being quite heavy-handed about the whole thing, but as the copyright holder (i.e. its their music), they can treat it pretty much any way they want. If they think of it as a commodity, so what? They aren't breaking the law.
You are correct. But still, it's hypocritical to blast the fans for doing it when they do it too. The problem is, of course, that if they were truly honest about their intentions (making money) far fewer people would care. They have to paint themselves as starving artists who "just do it for the fans" when everyone with half a brain knows that isn't any more true than their accusations that Napster was intended to promote piracy.
So yeah, they have a right to sue pirates. Not under the arguments they're using for suing, but they have the right to sue anyway.
This is a nice argument, but it has a fatal weakness that its proponents overlook. I fully believe that you buy CD's after sampling via Napster. But the only reason you do this is that you are accustomed to getting music via CD's, and you have a CD infrastructure (eg, a CD player).
You're missing the point, i'm afraid.
You say "I fully believe that you buy CD's after sampling via Napster".
Note that this is just your opinion. So let's say 90% of the people do actually buy the CD. What about the other 10%? That 10% is unacceptable to the people who have spent all their time and money to produce their music. It doesn't matter if you KNOW that distributing copyrited material makes more money (sometimes it does), the music industry apparently doesn't like it, have shown their displeasure, and it's wrong. Also, you may not steal the music, but I can tell you first hand that yes, people can and do. Regardless, they don't want thier stuff available, so you can respect their legal standing, or you can force you opinion on the music industry.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
The reason why the RIAA is pissed is quite obvious -- it's the same reason that the software industry is pissed about warez.
I remember when I first heard of Napster. I thought "they can get away with that!?!?" Obviously not. The technology behind reminded me of ICQ, which I think is cool. Napster's downfall was not it's technology, but rather it's business model, if it even had one. I believe there can be a way to satisfy a good percentage of the Napster users while keeping the RIAA pacified. They just need to examine their marketing demographics and do a little bit of law research, which the kid who wrote the original code could NOT afford. After all he was just in college. A middle ground can be reached, just bear with me. It's difficult to disagree with arguements of "it's stealing", but not impossible. I just call it what it is, "piracy". Very similar to stealing, but different...indirect. With stealing, everything is directly traceable. If someone steals something, you can conclude that he wanted it bad enough to risk stealing it and getting caught. Aside from kleptomainiacs, most thefts occur because the perp can't afford to buy it. [Which is where the theory of high crime rates in low income neighborhoods comes from] Perhasp a vast amout of people "pirating" MP3's are doing so because they can't afford to buy the albums? I don't think so.
Piracy in this fashion on Napster is very indirect. You can only GUESS as to what the impacts are. Who's to say that they would have bought a particular album at all just for one song instead of downloading a single MP3 for free. It is a misguided assumption to think that everyone on Napster is downloading songs because they can't afford to buy the album. There is something more going on here. Something deeper. But what?
I've talked with different kinds of MP3 'lovers' and their motives range from "the rabid fan" who HAS to have one of everything his favorite band ever did [BTW, he ownes all their albums, has several T-shirts and hats, and sees them in concert every time they play in the area], the "music appreciator" who trys out different stuff to see what he likes [he'll even listen to a file that's only 10% downloaded just to see if it's worth keeping], "the gold digger" who looks for hard to find artists or cuts that they cannot find in the stores. [they seem to benefit from Napster the most. I've over-heard them saying "My God, I can't believe I found it!!"], "the collector" who goes for specific songs by specific artists [How does he put it..."most albums suck ... they have only 1 or 2 good songs ... rest are crap... end up listening to the one song that I like... I'm not paying $15 for one song..." and they're mostly songs from his childhood], and lastly "the pack-rat" who goes out and grabs just about anything and everything he can find just because he can do it. [I even know one that does it for the purpose of trying to get complete albums.]
So, we have rabid fans, music appreciators, gold diggers, collectors, and pack-rats. I believe an internet business could be designed to meet all of these except for the pack-rat. Once he can't get something for nothing, I'm sure he'll move on and "remember the good'ole days when it was all free". Now, we have it narrowed down a little. An internet service could target these demographics by having different sections and cater to them.
Allowing the purchase of individual tracks, whole albums, or compilations of tracks chosen by each user would work for each one that is left. The rabid fan is the easiest to please because he knows exactly what he wants, it's just a matter of placing the order. Make the price fair and they will come. Not just that group, but all of them. A good search mechanisim will help them find what they want and add it to their "shopping cart" or "compilation disc" which would aid the collector and gold digger. A "sample section" which could rip out random sections of song files, 15 or 20 sec. in length, and send it to the music apprecator to listen to. That way they can judge if they want to make the purchase. They can also spend all day at the site trying different clips all the while staring at the banner adds on the page.
The key to the whole thing is the price of each song. They should be set by the free market, not forced upon them by over-bearing Record Lables. Unfortunately, the record lables will not want to vollntarily destroy their profit margins to run a more "fair" system. Hence the problem...and the reason I'm posting this on /. instead of getting some venture capital together and doing it myself. How can you get the rights to music out of the control of the record labels and put the artists in direct control of their work?? The only answer I can think of is for the government to do their anti-Monopoly thing witht he record lables and somehow give a better more fair business model a chance. Again, how? I have no idea. Any suggestions?
Um.. is it illegal to record a song off of the radio? If not, can't we just emulate that? If the recording industry was smart (they probably *are*, but the executives are also trying to ride out the last two years to retirement) they would consider this: Maka a client themselves that gives access to every song on every album, but also inserts advertizements here and there. They could charge a service fee for it. Say... $10 a month, and people will still be buying CDs to put in their cars and such. The client could also delete the files when they are done being played. Granted it doesn't sound as attractive as Napster, but if they can tweak it a little more to add more value there than Napster, they wouldn't have to use the "rule by fear" method.
I think that I read somewhere that it is easier to beat your enemy at his own game than it is to destroy him.
-Effendi
-Effendi
I think the success of Napster may be in part due to the demand for the MP3 format, for which there are no legal sources outside MP3.com.
:-)
;-)
Huh? You mean the MP3's that I put up for independent bands on my own website World Wide Punk aren't legal even though they asked me to? Damn, looks like I'll be taking them down.
(The remainder of this comment isn't a direct reply
There are THOUSANDS (millions?) of free, legal MP3's out there for all kinds of great artists. Of course this depends on your musical tastes too. It just happens that the most popular use for MP3's is the piracy of over-priced pop music.
I'll admit to using Napster and even having a few illegal MP3's, but the main reason I use it in the first place is to find rare stuff that I can't buy, or to get samples of bands. And I can say this with pure honesty. I had a bit of a Velvet Underground downloading kick a few months back and it caused me to buy a CD. There ya go, I threw some money at a major label because of Napster (as much as I hate to admit giving money to those bastards, the VU is an amazing band).
Anyway, if people are so keen on protesting MPAA or major labels or whatever, what the heck are you doing listening to their bands anyway? It's like saying you're fighting Microsoft by pirating a Win98 disc.
Cheers,
Vic
Since my cd collection is a bit large I don't need Napster that much. Like allot of good people if I like something I will support it by purchasing the cd. Of course the problem is that for every few good people you have hundreds of not so good (bad) people who have no intention of buying anything.
All the people who are pirating the music through Napster are the problem. Thats what makes the record co's and musicians angry.
No point in getting too upset over it, Napster is great. But many of its users are not. Since there is always someone out to ruin and exploit anything (lawyers, polititians, ect), Napster will fall.
I find it amazing that we can have new laws which protect big business and screw the rest of us, and no one takes the creaters of those biased laws to court.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Is this why Larry allows the use of the Artistic License with Perl? Have you ever read *anything* that Linus has said about the licensing of the kernel?
You're a troll, plain and simple.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
I'm disappointed they didn't include a reference to Bruce Perens' excellent comments on the matter. His essay not only weighs what's happening morally, but brings out an important insight: the less responsibly people behave with creations like Napster, the more ammo the greedy have to hit us with. Music Bootlegging with Napster Hurts Free Software. It's a bit frightening....
Tweet, tweet.
When W2K is free & Linux is free - W2K is better.
When W2K is $3299.95* & Linux is free - Linux is the better choice.
*current list price Windows 2000 Advanced Server w/ 25 CAL's.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
That's right! Don't buy it, download it! Let the bastards keep their precious overpriced jewel-cased CD's.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
blessings,
Master Bait
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
If you want to try listining to British radio over the internet, try going to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/ and using the 'Listen' button. You need RealPlayer, and quite good bandwidth if you hope to have any sort of quality but it can't hurt for you to have a look.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
So, just to make certain I understand what you are saying.... the onus is on everyone else to make sure that technology never makes it easy to bypass copyright laws which were put in place because technology made it expensive to publish books.... even if we aren't talking about books?
sigs are a waste of space
"Piracy is a bad thing, from an American capitalist point of view."
It's also a bad thing from European, Asian and African views. And last I heard, the socialists didn't hold truck with theft either.
"The principle behind it is that artists should be able to make as much money as they want from their product, while everyone else should be forced to pay for it."
Absolutely wrong. First of all, the artists can make no money unless someone else first wants their product. The amount of money they make is tied to how many people want it. Sometimes this means that artistic products are more dependent on marketing than talent, but hey...millions of fans still want it. Go figure. Second, and more important, no one is forcing you to do anything. No one. There is no gun pointed at your head. No nazis are frog-marching you into the nearest store and coercing you into purchasing Metallica against your will. Believe it or not, you do have free will. It is entirely up to you, and you alone, whether you will buy that album or not.
In case you don't understand it yet, if you don't like that $15 price tag, DON'T BUY IT!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
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.
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
Collective Soul, Crystal Method, Prodigy.. bands that I had never listened to before. Never had the chance to - I hardly ever hear them on the radio. I own all their MP3s and guess what, I also own their CD's now. I like the music so I want it to play in the car, to have the cd case and lyrics and I want to support the band.
The RIAA has to realize that they have to *work* with these technologies. Don't be fightened.. yes there is *money* to be made here.
Perhaps a Napster like application that only allows you to share MP3s (or maybe not even users sharing, but like that QWest advertisiement contains every recording ever made and users can add to it :) at 56 kbps and has direct links *built in* to purchase the CDs, purchase a higher quality mp3, purchase the lyrics.
First, a quick note: make sure to copy the link into your browser for this article. Slashdot-baiting is for real and should not be encouraged.
... now it is just a chance to negatively stereotype black males, all day, every day, live on your MTV.
I have been watching as so-called open source "leaders" have been speaking out against Napster, including Bruce Perens and now Linus. Of course, there is good reason for this: GPL and licensing is the only thing preventing Microsoft Linux 2000.
But the copyrights-good/piracy-bad dichotomy ignores the real issues at stake here. People are not downloading Metallica MP3s because they are consciously disobeying copyright law. They do it because they don't care about ripping off Metallica. Neither do I. Nor do I care about ripping off the RIAA or just about anyone who is advantaged by the major label industry's position as cultural overlord.
Ignoring the context will lead you down the napster-bad path. For years, the major label industry has suppressed and ripped off musicians, consumers, small businesses. They are a key player in Homogenous Media, Inc., owner and operator of every mainstream media outlet in the world. The major label industry has controlled the American cultural landscape for decades, and every attempt to usurp that hierarchy, be it punk, rap, hip-hop, etc is co-opted and turned into a superficial reflection of movements that actually meant something. Hip-hop was once a revolutionary cultural force
So, giving respect to copyrights which are forged in good faith and the public good (i.e. GPL) is definitely something to honor --- but not just because the federal government tells us to. Protecting the precious few bucks that Metallica is losing is not a good faith effort and it sure as hell is not in the public good's interest. The only regret is that the MP3 revolution can still make money for major labels... I won't be happy until their archaic power is utterly destroyed and the entire industry is in ruins. Then we can dance on their graves.
bjord.org
news from the revolution
I was an avid Napster user (my dorm had a freakin' OC-12, how could I not be) and was all about free music. Now that artists I'm a fan of, like Dre and Eminem are speaking out on Napster, I actually have stopped using it. So now that other powerful media figures are speaking their mind on the service, how does the general geek public find themselves affected? I could have downloaded the new Eminem album, but quite frankly, I can wait till tommorrow for the offocial release, so my hard earned money becomes someone else who I respect's hard earned money. Download singles, buy the album is my new maxim.
---
How long have you been listening to the world's famous?
'Bout six weeks.
Six weeks!
I am a open source bigot, working with closed source drives me crazy.
Closed source is a choice, Copyrighted music is a choice. I may not agree with that choice, I might even call the choice stupid, pathetic, insulting, grotesque and completly ineffectual.
But I defend your/their right to make that choice. To ignore it is to deny that choice, and deny their freedom."think of it as evolution in action"
...putting the local bread and wine industry out of business.
Computers. You can't live with them, you can't live without them.
Many will say "I buy more CD's because of Napster", the fact is that a whole lot of piracy is taking place because of Napster. It's too damn easy.
Yes, the artists are rich. Yes the record companies are sucking the artists dry. That's no reason to snag their material illegaly. If you like it, why not buy it?
On the other hand, most new CD's today only have one or two good songs. Why should I pay full price for a CD? Second, I think CD's are overpriced. Drop the price a bit, bite the bone, and instead of making more profit/unit, make more profit/quantity.
Even better, where are the genius record companies when you're looking for a place to _buy_ your MP3's? Nope, I can't find ane MP3's for sale on Metallica's website. Well gosh darn, instead of crying, DO SOMETHING!
If you mean that they make $5- revenue per sale, I believe you -- but it doesn't really prove anything or make any point. Revenue is meaningless if you're not making a profit ( and in their case, they really need a profit per sale ). All it really proves is that the record companies have either high operating costs or high profits or both. If you were to divide the reported annual earnings by the CD sales ( ie profit per sale ), the number would be a lot less. BTW, If you're saying that they have $5- earnings per CD sale, I just don't believe you.
here's also my personal experience that might help slake your thirst for knowledge. My band's CD's cost us, at most, and in small, expensive lots, about $2.50 to press, including a crappy little lyric sheet insert in four colors. The majors press millions for about $0.80 a copy, tops.
I know how much it costs to press. But you're being awfully naive if you think that pressing records accounts for the record companie's entire operating expenses.
Enforcing a copyright involves the use of force to prevent the making of copies. How is arguing agsinst the use of force to prevent an act that does not harm anyone immoral?
You will no doubt counter that copying hurts the artist, by depriving him of his due. I just disagree that a state mandated monopoly on copying is anyone's natural right.
That's right. The idea that anyone can "own" an idea the same way they own physical property is a relatively new idea, not an eternal verity. It's not theft. I take nothing away from the author, he's no worse off than he was before. So we need a new model to compensate authors. Pay-per-copy won't work any more. I have suggested, and will suggest here again, that musical performance royalties are a decent model to start with - I can perform a song freely, but if my performance generates a profit I have to give the songwriter a cut. Similarly, perhaps copyright should be replaced with a royalty-right. I'm not telling the producer how he can use what he creates, I'm objecting to him telling me what I can do with it. Bob Dylan doesn't have the right to prevent me from singing "Tangled Up in Blue" at a party; it's not at all clear that he has a right to prevent me from copying a recording of that song, or giving that recording to a friend.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Would you buy a car from a dealer who locked the hood and kept the key?
Software vendors get away with that today only because of the dominant pay-per-copy model. If that went away and the motive for retaining source code was clearly to extort support fees, market forces and social pressures would crush anyone who tried.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
And by extension...
<Sarcasm>
But here's the problem: far too many people lie to themselves, pretending that they have a "right" to free speech, or to free thought, or to life for that matter. This is a lie. We have no such right. What we have are a bunch of spoiled people, acting like children and throwing tantrums (and doing evil) when they don't get their way.
</Sarcasm>
/Dervak
Of course I was speaking in general terms. Obviously people give things away now: but an economy based upon gifts or charity cannot be as prosperous as ours. It's a simple impossibility.
Sure, there will still be *some* art if no one's paying for it, but NOT in the quantity that we have today. This is not difficult:
At zero price there are very few suppliers of any given economic good.
Those who steal from musicians are not only robbing the producers of music; if a culture of larceny builds around that theft, eventually there will be nearly zero producers of music. It's unavoidable. Very few people are willing to give away the fruits of their labor. This is part of why communism is such an abominable lie.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Creating custom applications is a big business already, and much more interesting (IMHO) than writing another shrinkwrapped bloatware office suite.
On my last few projects, it wouldn't have mattered much if we posted binaries and source to USENET for all to see (other than embarrassment at parts of the source that were poorly written). No one except the paying customer could make much use of them, without hiring someone to customize the code - the existing code would just prevent them from having to re-invent basics.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Heh...
What these so-called coalitions aren't realizing is that they are damning themselves not only morally, but economically, in the long term.
They have a cushy position as CD retailers and other businesses which are currently booming. Thus, they act conservatively in trying to stifle technologies that threaten their positions. However, at some point, they will realize (as they did when they went from cassettes to CDs) that there are media out there that can make them more money via new technologies. However, the piles of laws they wish to create will then come back and haunt them as they try to use the internet for their business.
But I guess you side with RMS, where no one should profit from anything they produce.
If you could post a quote or link that shows RMS saying anything like that, I'd like to see it. You CAN profit from GPLed works... go sell them! Sell other people's GPLed works.. the distribs do it, they profit from the convenience they provide. Not only can you profit from your own work, you can actually profit from others'. Obviously, the freedom makes it more difficult because people can redistribute, but that's beside the point.
-----
you missed the point with that. as someone already pointed out today....
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 !
The RIAA thinks it has the RIGHT to profit.
While the article wasn't exactly news I personally found the article to be quite entertaining. I especially enjoyed the quote by Larry Wall. The Open Source folks come across as pragmatic, intelligent, and law abiding.
As for ZDnet's ad revenues, I don't have a problem with them. If ZD is willing to post content that I am interested in then that is good for both ZD and for me. I actually like targetted ads that don't rely on software that follows me around on the web figuring out where I surf. Matching your advertisements with story content is perfectly acceptable in my book. It should be encouraged. Slashdot is really no different. There is a banner on every page. The difference is that companies that want to advertise on Slashdot generally sell something that I am at least potentially interested in. If ZD were to do the same thing, that would be great.
I wonder how much slashdot.com cost Andover? Until recently, it was owned by an invidual who kept a small page there with a link to the actual /.
Stop watching MTV.
They don't play music any more anyway...
Sent from my iPhone
The author of the ZDnet article is confusing our contempt for the RIAA with a minority view that any kind of copyright is bad.
/.ers contempt for the RIAA has nothing to do with copyright enforcement but rather the RIAA's attempts to stifle technology rather than being creative and embracing it.
IMHO,
Those of us with a keen sense of technology and where it is going know that "resistence is futile" and will laugh at anyone who thinks they can. Just as we'ld probably agree that Amtrak, as a national railway, is obsolete, so to is the physical medium for music distribution.
If the RIAA would realize the tremendous opportunity for profit with all of us having a personal jukebox in our house and charge a nickle per song played, and $1/song for unlimited play, we might actually like them. We'ld save money and they'ld probably pull in twice as much profit as they do now by cutting out the other middlemen and manufacturing costs. This would make everyone happy, I think.
The alure of Napster to geeks is not free music, it's the desire to use the most convenient technology to sample, buy, and store, our legitamately aquired music. Until the RIAA realizes that the FM radio is obsolete and the net is its replacement they're going to wallow in their own self pity, squander their money on legal expenses, and become irrelevant to the next generation of musicians.
--Aaron Greenberg
Giving somebody the opportunity to do wrong IS wrong if that is the primary intent. If I were to toss a loaded 9mm handgun, safety off, into a preschool playground loaded with kids, a prosecutor could make a very strong case that my intent clearly was to see if any toddler would pick up the handgun and "play" with it. Arguably my action is just as morally wrong even if the handgun is completely ignored, or -- more extreme still -- if a toddler picked it up and shoots a perp to stop a violent crime in progress, because the former is so much more plausibly my intent. Note that it's an action that's still taking the blame, not the inanimate object.
On the other hand, if I toss in a stack of comic book, and a kid picks it up and starts swinging them at other kids, I could simply argue that I was simply trying to improve their day, and that the gift was misused.
Intent matters. The people running Napster have to ask themselves how serious they are about obeying copyright law, and whether they are doing enough to prevent it. Are they being dilligent about banning people -- not throwaway mail, but people -- who infringe? Are they taking reasonable measures to prevent? These actions and inactions are what is being questioned.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
A "subscription" model.
I could "subscribe" for X dollars to "CBS records" for every X dollars I'm allowed to download so many MP3 files "straight from the horse's mouth" (straight from CBS). I would think something like 3 or 4 songs per dollar, and becoming a "member" I would be able to download and "preview" as many "low quality" songs from their site as I want (let's face it, those 24K encrypted songs suck ass but you CAN decide "hey I like this" or "this sucks" from those crappy songs).
I would gladly pre-pay about $20 to subscribe to such a service, and that would allow me to download several CDs or just a whole crapload of singles, mix and match, I could then burn these to my own CDs for use in my car, etc, I would still be under the same moral obligation (as I am now) not to distribute these files or burnt offerings.
Maybe BMG could pioneer something like this.
Another idea (which I've seen mentioned) is to be able to select songs (via previewing them by downloading low-bit encoded songs?) and have them make my "own flavor" CD and ship that to me for a price (?$8?) I could put a single from here and a single from there and have a cool CD for my own use.
Use the power of MP3, personally if I had a band I'd put every single song I ever made on a web site, encoded at 56K stream, it's good enough to hear us, but not so good you'd wanna amplify it to 100 watts to jam with it.
--- www.f-theocean.com
Remember that copying songs, or TV shows, or poetry is not evil or, necessarily, illegal. Copyright violation is not murder, theft, bigamy, incest or jaywalking. It is violation of a category of law that society has put in place to foster the common good through creativity. Society has decided that efficiency is promoted by installing stop lights at intersections and creating a crime known as jaywalking. There is nothing evil about jaywalking and there is nothing evil about copyright violation -- it is simply the law.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided that copying broadcast TV shows for personal convenience was noncommercial "fair use" in the Betamax case. For Congress to outlaw, and the Supreme Court to uphold a prohibition on copying copyright music from a commercial CD to your hard drive or from your hard drive to your RIO for your own noncommercial listening pleasure would be a stretch.
Once a copyright piece of music is legally on your hard drive which is accessible to others on the internet, what should be the governing legal principles? It seems to me that while there are two possible outcomes in theory, there is only one practical outcome. The first is that Congress and the Courts decide that noncommercial exchange is fair use, akin to playing your boom box at the beach. There is no way that Congress will outlaw, and the Supreme Court will uphold a prohibition on file transfer software. There are enough files that aren't copyright and plenty of instances where the copyright holders want to do file transfers to establish the legitimacy of file transfer programs. Using legal software for noncommercial exchange of copyright material could, conceivably be found to fair use. I don't think that will happen.
I think that the Congress and the Courts will resolve this by taxing the users and giving the money to the copyright holders. Users of audiotape and audio CDR's are taxed (they call it a royalty) for the benefit of copyright holders. (For example, see 65 FR 19025, April 10, 2000.) Once the RIAA has either driven Napster into the ground with legal costs, or gotten some part of the exchange process declared illegal, they can get Napster to gather information about what is being exchanged that will be valuable both for marketing purposes and for establishing the tax rate. Remember that even noncommercial colleges pay annual royalties for use of copyright non-dramatic music.
The RIAA has managed to get the U.S. government to tax almost everything that moves for their benefit under the name of copyright. They can't get the Congress to tax the digital exchange via Napster, Gnutella, etc. until the RIAA establishes that there is something illegal going on. Hence the law suits. Once they have established, either through a attrition or a legitimate reviewed legal victory, that there is some copyright violation, the problem is to figure out what to tax. Hard drives? DSL connections? RIOs? Any device that plays MP3? All of the above?
The ironic thing is that MP3's and Napster are almost certainly boosting CD sales. MP3's boost the demand for music by increasing the situations where you listen to your own music rather than the radio. Ripping MP3s from your own CDs is so much more efficient than downloading, checking, and organizing that if you have more money than time, it is more reliable to buy a CD and rip it. For those with more time than money, Napster lowers the average price per song which, depending on the elasticity, may actually increase total dollars spent. Increasing CD sales coincident with the increased use of Napster, if sustained, will mean that copyright holders will get increased royalties along with increased sales.
Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years
Ultimatly I think their plan is to nail the 'questionable' MP3 related services (Napster, MP3.com, etc.) till they have established in the public's eye that MP3=illegal.
This is, unfortunately, working. People seem to think that it is some hidden thrill in using an "illegal" format. They get giggly, it's quite funny to watch. Doesn't lesson the power of Napster, but it does add to its appeal. Forbidden fruit and all that.
Ironically, it won't even be a good cause that triggers the regulation of the internet (like protecting the children, or the usual tear jerkers), it will be commercial interests and big money.
I know this sounds a bit weird, but with the direction we're going, I'd almost rather the government regulate the Net rather than the corps. The gov'ts (at least ours) have people to answer to. The corp just have shareholders. Personally I think people have more interest in rights and wrongs than shareholders who only care about the bottom line and rights and morals go right out the window if it means a fatter dividend. Just my cynical perspective of two cents.
--
+&x
hi troll!
What open source software clone/rip off is better?
Here's the same list I gave last week:
http://slashdot.org/comme nts.pl?sid=00/05/16/1512238&cid=62
enjoY!
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
By the way, searches for "Steve Woston", "J-j-j-julius", and "j-j-j-julius software" in the Altavista, Yahoo, Google, Northern Light, Snap, and Raging search engines turned up no matches. I would think a serious experienced high-end game programmer would deserve more attention.
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
I agree. ZD-Net has become a text-book example of what is WORST about much of the news media today. They go where their ad-dollars take them. Part of it I attribute to the overall population, supply and demand only works if there is demand.
It's sorry to see the Internet News go the way of the (local) TV-News...
In the immortal words of Glenn Frey: "...get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry."...
(I'd post the audio clip, but, well, that'd be wrong!
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
I have now started trading CD's with music-addicted friends who are convinced they *need* to get high-speed Internet connections if only for Napster. One friend doesn't even have a computer and he is seriously considering getting one just because he has heard my ravings about Napster.
I know many people may just use the PC and portable MP3 players and therefore rip off music artists, but how many people out there already have CD players and do not want to purchase an MP3 player too? IMNSHO, Napster's technology is inevitable and we may as well put the best face on it we can.
The production or replication cost of a good has little to do with the price of a good. I think this is the way it should be. Is a day of back breaking labor worth more to society than a flash of insight by a brilliant scientist? I don't think so. It has never been about how hard you work, or how much effort you put into something, or how much it costs to make or reproduce. I don't think it should be otherwise, else we will have a society where drudgery, muscle and the ability to mobilize resources is rewarded over talent.
But unchecked capitalism is evil. A starving man shouldn't be denied food. Similarly, the conduct of pharmaceutical companies and first world nations towards medical crises in the 3rd world is reprehensible. But let's not kid ourselves here: software and music are luxury goods. These are not basic necessities. We can go without them. And the people who take/steal these things do so not because they are unable to pay, but because they are unwilling to do so.
the album I tried sucked - so I take it back.
this has admin costs assoc. with it. I'm sure they still make a hefty profit with all that, but the point is, if I can easily preview (at home) music; I'm less likely to have to return an album due to music taste issues.
of course the riaa will never admit to this. in fact, I'm surprised you're allowed to return albums AT ALL...
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
If you overturn copyright then there is no way to constrain your software using the GPL. The GPL puts constraints on the use and propagation of software which is enforceable only under the concept of copyright, which is based on ownership rights.
Don't you see? The Open Source Movement depends on copyright law to enforce the GPL!
So, why on earth would anyone think Linus, Perens, Raymond, et al, would be on the music piracy side of the argument?
While I could not care less about Metallica music (I don't know any of their songs) I have to agree with their position. How can you (who pirate their music) enjoy their work while stiffing them on what's due them? "Render unto" Lars "what is due" Lars. Personally, I'd have a pit in my stomach listening to pirated music -- but, then, I have a conscience...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Spork II was one of the best games ever! And the Nokia games you wrote kick ass!
I love to play those Nokia games on my phone when I'm sitting in traffic. I especially love "Traellern Under the Bridge", it is very whimsical and fresh.
Anyways, it's good to see you're not dead or living on the streets or something. I don't know what these other posters are talking about. I can pull up www.jjjulius.com just fine on my browser.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
This is part of a larger problem in this country (The US). All too often the person/company that gets sued is not necessarily the person/company most responsible. It is far more often the person/company with the deepest pockets, or the one that is the easiest to sue. Napster is getting sued because it would be very difficult to sue the 350,000 people who are guilty of copyright infringment, and unprofitable, given that most of those 350,000 are likely poor college students with no assets.
Juries also tend to be more likely to go against a nameless/faceless corporation that can "afford it" (Actual comment from fellow jurer on a liability case I was on) then they are a real, live human being who they might feel sorry for.
This is not to say that Metallica didn't have the right to demand that Napster follow its own policies, and ban those who infringe. But I can't see how they have any real liability here.
The cake is a pie
Should all laws be permanent?
Do you drive 55 mph in the fast lane?
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Topic Poll:
Would you pay up to $10 a month to use Napster if it would allow you to share and download any and as many mp3's as you want without having the RIAA breathing down your neck.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I am SO sick of hearing about Napster on /. Do you guys have stock in the f**king company? What is it? /. was meant is, from the title, "News for Nerds." It's not "News for people who try to screw over the MAN and get away with it." This really should all go on a LEGAL ISSUES page, that people who are into this kind of stuff can view if they want. Talking about this legal crap is no better than using /. as a place to discuss environmental issues.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
correction: its already too weak. too weakly defined, that is. and very unbalanced.
we need intelligent copyright laws.
intelligent and well-written laws are rarely ambiguous and usually well-followed. its the "hidden agenda" (aka, pork and PAC) laws that have problems.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I feel I must speak out against respect for Eminem. I don't like his music much but since musical tastes are mostly a matter of opinion I won't base my disrepect for him on that. My reasons for not respecting Eminem come from his behavior at one of his concerts. Eminem came to play at our university last year. After yelling at one of his fans and telling her how lame she was for holding too simple a sign, he invited two other girls onto the stage. Suddenly he stopped singing and told them "Show us your tits." He wouldn't continue the show untill they had both complied. Only then does it occur to him to ask them how old they are. When it turns out that they are probably under age (they couldn't produce any ID) did he apologize for being a prick? No! He told them "Get the fsck off my stage. What, are you trying to get me arrested?" Wait a second. If his pedophilic ass hadn't told them to flash the audience there wouldn't have been anything to get arrested over. I hope he does get arrested and when he does I hope a large inmate kicks him in the nuts and "expands his horizons" with a baseball bat.
It is interesting for you to bring this up, because just the other day a sort of similar thing happened to me, but with a totally different outcome. I heard a cool song by 'The Roots' on the radio off their album Everything falls Apart. So I went on napster, downloaded all the songs off the album. I listened to it over the course of a couple of days, and decided I really liked it, so I converted them to WAVs and burned them onto a blank CD. Geffen Records never saw a penny. I even copied it for a couple close friends of mine.
The only reason I could think of that I would have bought the album is sheer laziness, since I'm not ont of those people who is enamored with cover art or anal-retentive about the quality of MP3 tracks. Shit, I wouldn't even mind a tape copy, if tapes weren't so inconvenient. (They are harder to store, can't go between tracks as easily, etc.)
My point is this, that not everyone is like you. Not everyone has money to burn and feels like throwing money at sellout artists when they can have it for free. There are albums I DO pay for however, truly independent artists that are difficult or not popular enough to find on napster. For example, I picked up Marumari's Ballad of the Round Ball the other day. (Listen to some free mp3s of theirs at carparkrecords.com; they sound kinda like video game music.) This is after I couldn't find it on Napster of course.
So I am hope you are happy that you paid for you Moby album. I saw a billboard for him the other day. It was a Sprite or 7UP billboard or something... it's around the intersection of Houston and Broadway in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. He is holding a can and looking all crazy, doubtlessly telling the kids how rebellious it is to drink those soft drinks. Then I come here and read your post, and I have never felt more disgusted and nauseous in my entire life.
-ali
I think I'd prefer if when news from them came out, if it was _really_ necessary to see the article that someone would post the text here, so I wouldn't have to go to their site. Oh wait, they'd probably sue /. ...
/. is akin to buying one copy of the NY Times and photocopying them and giving them away. Better yet, sell 'em for half price.
/. traffic for ad banner revenue, that's racing on by ludicrous catching up to stupid. Your /. ego is getting to big. Of course if it really bothers you that much, then don't read the f'in article.
As well they should. Verbatim copying and pasting to Slashdot would be stealing and most definitely not "fair use" of their owned article. Your desire to copy their article on
As for ZDNet writing stuff just to attract
Don't you see?
The GNU license is based entirely upon copyright law. If it weren't for GNU, Microsoft or any company could take Open Source software, modify it, and sell it without giving away the source code or any documentation or anything. This is based on copyright law.
The record industry's problem with Napster is also based on copyright law, their argument is that Napster is (indirectly) violating their copyright.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
When was the last time you read the GPL?
Without copyright, someone could take the GPL software and change some stuff, and not release the source code. Isn't GPL fanatics up in arms on the BSD license because that license makes this possible.
>>if pay-per-copy were eliminated, there'd be no motive for authors not to share their source code
In your dreams, maybe. They would probably still withhold source code, for no other reason than to get the money made off on support. Who would you trust to support you? The guy with the code or the guy without?
Also, something that never seem to come up in discussions about the GPL: Who are you paying the support for? The author(s) of the software or the distributor of the software? Who is making the money?
Je ne parle pas francais.
The question isn't what the smartest move on behalf of the RIAA is. The question is what are their rights, what should their rights be, and are they allowed to make life unpleasant for others by abusing their rights?
The fact of the matter is that right now, the RIAA has the state given right to try exercise every bit of control that they can over the music that their clients produce to wring every possible penny out of it.
As to what the RIAA's rights should be, well, I don't know exectly what they should be, but whatever they should be, I don't think any of us disagree that the RIAA is over stepping them.
Whole sale copying of CDs (forging is a better word than piracy here) probably should be illegal. Selling someone else's music in general should probably illegal. I personally think that sharing of music should be legal, and I don't think that it will cut into the profits too much. I think much more leaway should be allowed for derivative works than currently is, but I don't know how much exactly.
But anyway, that's dreaming about the future, not talking about today.
Ignoring that right in the name of civil disobedience, or because we know what is better for the RIAA's clients isn't the right way to tackle this. That just makes us look like theives and/or commie pinkos (not to offend the commie flamigos out there).
A good way to support what our rights should be is through artists like Chuck D., Limp Bizket, and Offspring supporting Napster. Another effective move would be to band together as citizens and take back control of the government from big corporations.
Blatantly violating stupid laws is not the answer though.
-- Superlame http://catpro.dragonfire.net/joshua/
Am I the only person put off by the use of the phrase "open source leaders"? As someone who has been working with open source software and basically following the open source philosophy since the 1980s (back even before the term "open source software" was coined), I certainly don't consider these relative newcomers :-) my "leaders".
The people quoted could be referred to as open source "activists", "evangelists", or "reporters". But referring to someone as an "open source leader" is like referring to someone as a "leader of capitalism" - the concept makes no sense.
Think about it - the basic thing that has changed is that the cost of production and distribution of media (be it music, or film/video or books, or even software) has gone pretty much to 0.
But the various media industries still have their existing distribution infrastructure in place (the publishing companies of which the RIAA represents one part) - and that infrastructure is ussed to making big bucks on that flow of information through their hands - that's all changed and they are dinosaurs after the meteorite - they're going to die but don't know it yet - but in the mean time they are still big and have lots of resources and are going to thrash around and make a lot of noise - they aren't going to die quietly.
But I think we (as in 'we the class of techy geeks') have screwed up - we've taken the easy way out and short circuited ALL of the distribution process - but in reality there's another group that WE can't do without - the artists - if we'd started out with a model that provided them a way to make money from their art we'd have them on our side - instead the only people they have to turn to are the people with the lawyers - the RIAA etc al.
So it is in our interest to find a way to distribute 'owned' (ie copyrighted) bits about the net in a manner that allows their authors to make some money off of them - otherwise those dinosaurs will hang on suing everything in sight.
Encryption is a problem. Sadly simple open source encryption/players don't work - they always allow access to the raw bits at some level - I suspect what may end up working is some form of hardware decryption/playback where the bits are lost inside the electronics somewhere before they become analog .... (mp3 decryption/playback hardware anyone?).
Giving someone the opportunity to do wrong, should not be wrong. We have the abilty and the knowlege to chose right or wrong, we shouldn't limit our freedoms, because they could be used for wrong.
i beleive this is called aiding and abeding (lord i spelled that wronge). The point is, giving someone the opportunity to do wrong IS wonge. remember the snake, the apple, and eve?
Should you sue Ford or Budweiser or the City, because a drunk driver using their car, beer, and roads, hit them?
the answer here is, YES if there product is designed to assist in drunk driving.
I agree with the over all point you are trying to make, but the arguments need some work. I think this is the number one problem with napster, and linux, and open-source. too many people fail to make the right points and end up making the argument look bad.
"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
The comments posted here show that the line has already been blurred. Some posters have not been able to make the distinction between Napster and the MP3 format.
"So finally, despite our best efforts, there will be control over the internet"
I think it was inevitable. William Penn wrote that men would either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants. In other words, people will either do right on their own or it will be imposed upon them from an outside source. Once that outside source has been empowered, well, power corrupts.
It seems that there are increasing numbers of people who do not know how to govern themselves. I keep seeing the posts of those who justify their own theft. Al Capone went to prison insisting he was just a furniture dealer too.
1. CD's cost too much. Then don't buy them. Let the people who sell them be the pirates. Once demand for the product dries up those prices will fall (or the industry will hop on the 'internet as distribution channel' bandwagon).
2. Music should be free. Since the creation of music requires, if nothing else, a person's time, then whatever you produce that is of any value should also be free. Shouldn't food be free since it is more fundamental to survival than music? But how will the farmer buy gas to run the tractors (or hay to feed the oxen) if nobody buys the produce? Why should production workers show up on Monday morning to make your automobiles or chairs or appliances or PC's (how many of us can make a computer from scratch? No, not putting components together, but build your own cpu from silicone, make your own mother boards, etc. from raw materials taken from the earth...) once everything is free? And once people stop showing up for work, there is no more being produced.
The fact is that, unless you live totally off the land, the bulk of what you consume is produced by someone else. How many of us are willing to produce things for other people without remuneration?
Hey, I don't much care for money. But everywhere I go other people want it. Went to the grocery store the other day. Told 'em I was a nice guy. Didn't matter. Told 'em I read slashdot. Mattered even less. I can't obtain many of the things I do care about unless I give some money to the folks that have it.
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
People keep trying to make different variations on the point 'artists could use napster as a tool to get people acquainted with their music and then people would by more'.
While this is true, if the artists do not willingly take that step and make their music available on Napster, and instead someone else posts a pirated copy of a copyrighted song, then that's illegal plain and simple. Who cares what you think the artists SHOULD do, it's still illegal until they do it.
On the other hand, people are complaining that Napster is this big haven for pirated MP3s. Guess what, so is the internet. You can shut down Napster and every tool like it and guess what, all the MP3 piracy will not stop... it'll just be on Usenet or FTP or web sites instead of Napster.
Napster is just a tool like an FTP client or a Web browser. The whole idea behind Napster is that it's a tool that users can do what they wish with, and users are connecting directly to other users to do transfers. Why don't people stop pointing their fingers at Napster and start pointing them at the individuals? Or better yet, stop wasting your time pointing fingers at all, and instead realize that the exchange of pirated MP3s over the internet is no more serious than people taping their CDs (or burning them) and giving them to friends.
This is absolutely true, as many people have explained on this thread. And yet RMS continues to trumpet the position that copyright is bad--this shows that Stallman is not motivated by morality but by self-interest. That is, he would like music for free (as in beer) and so he decries copyright, but would like software for free (as in speech) and uses copyright to ensure it. That's hypocrisy.
demi
Of course they have a right to profit. They provide the service of allowing artists to record music to CD, packaging the CD, and distributing them to the stores, that automatically gives them a right to some profit.
Whether or not that means they should get to screw over artists or not is a different story. Dude, if you don't like capitalism, move to China or Cuba or something.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
Think about this:
Before you compare, "stealing" music to "stealing" a car, consider the following:Can you touch a car? Is a car a physical thing, tangible?
Now, can you say the same for music? What's the difference between a $2.50 blank CD from Pick N Pay, and a "%Band Name%" CD ? To me, very little. They are physically tangible only at one layer: the physical, CD layer. The music is just a bunch of ridges and gaps.
This thing is not an issue. Piracy implies pirates, sea rogues who plunder and steal. Please don't call copying a bunch of words and music "piracy". This is not an issue, in my mind.
Just because of your "traditional" viewpoint, that's no doubt inspired by the Corporate Mindset (tm), don't think that I will part with what little cash I have for a bunch of ridges and gaps on an otherwise pretty normal data medium.
Take Napster down by all means, a lot of people still won't waste their money on CD's. The only time I buy CD's are as gifts when I really can't think of anything else to buy. TBH, I don't think that supporting a bunch of snotty shits like these "artists" is a good cause anyway. They're rude and won't even talk to "commoners" like us. Because they have too many "important" things to worry about, is no license for treating the very people who made them rich like shit. Because they've done this since pop stars have been popular is no license for continuing this behaviour. Because they have been able to become ultra-wealthy from the pockets of commoners like us is no license for this ridiculous debate.
"Artists" are arrogant and I have no sympathy for them at all. That current laws defend their "intellectual rights" is a feeble veneer over the truth of the fabric of society. The entire system that supports this nonsense is a thin veneer over the truth. And the truth is that physical things should be priced, no argument, but songs on CD's aren't physical - only the CD's themselves are.
no sig
In other news, AltaVista has filed suit for custody of RIAA untill it reaches the age of majority and can be held acountable for its actions. In the words of one nameless C?O, "We think its terrible that such a cute orginazation is able to run around without anyone taking responsibility to make sure it grows up into a respectable member of society. To that end we feel it is our duty to take it under our wing and provide it with a good spanking if needed. We only have its best interests at heart and promiss to divest ourselves of it, once it has reached the age of legal majority."
Several Social Workers contacted commended the action and hoped that some loving but stern orginization would step forward to help guide both the MPAA and DVD-CCA through their formative years and into productive members of society.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
When the printing press was invented, there was a rather sizeable uprising by the upper class who thought that the ease with which books could be made would make it too easy for the "common man" to learn to read. If the lower class could read, they could, perish the thought, develop their own opinions about affairs of the time, and would not need the resources of the wealthier and more educated to survive.
When the photocopier was invented, publishers were screaming bloody murder because now any joe could reproduce their works and the book author wouldn't receive a dime. Their view was that the only industries that would make any money are the paper manufacturing industry, the toner industry, and Xerox. Some years later, this issue has settled down somewhat. Are we any worse for wear? Not really.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Let me get this straight. You're questioning ZDNet's journalism on the basis that they're publishing news that interests a certain group, and are profiting (sp?) from this based on ad revenue. News organizations around the world make it their goal to "scoop" everybody else to be the first on the story, because it in turn leads to more viewers/readers, which makes their airtime more valuable so they can charge more for commercials. This is the fundamental idea behind network TV, radio, newspapers, and now websites.
/. as a great target market, but there's nothing wrong with writing informative articles aimed at a demographic group.
Now you advocate that somebody should take the copyrighted text and post it somewhere else, allowing a reader to bypass ZDNet's advertisers, which directly costs them money (since higher hit counts = higher ad space prices). ZDNet should allow this?
That's just not how it works. If you don't want to deal with ZDNet, get your news somewhere else. I thought the article was rather good in that it had several good quotes from highly recognizable people, and was fairly objective. There is no doubt that ZDNet recognizes
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
1) Call friend on phone.
:-)
2) Play 'tallica music into phone.
Now, suppose a company listens in and compiles evidence, then sells it to 'tallica. 'tallica, in turn, sues the phone manufacturer, who then takes away your phone.
This can't happen, for a few reasons. AFAIK/IANAL, there are only three ways for any entity to compile evidence regarding your phone usage and use it in court:
a) The FBI, I beleive, can monitor your phone line without a court order or your consent in some cases of national security;
b) Any authority, with a judge-issued search warrant;
c) Anyone, with your permission.
Therefore, the first defense a lawyer would use is : "How did you aquire your evidence?", and then have the case thrown out on the grounds that the evidence was illegally obtained.
Then, I as an individual, could countersue 'tallica and "PhonePD" for unlawful invasion of privacy. I would settle for a resonable amount of their worth, of course
This is a much, much bigger issue than most people, including the Holy Linux Trio (Torvalds, Perens, Wall) think.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
If this was the only thing that changed if copyright law disappeared, you would be right. That would not be a very likely scenario however. How do you think anyone could make money selling binary copies of software if copyrights did not exist? If copyright law disappeared, the way software is commercially written would completely change. It's hard to say what would happen, but maybe people would pay for the actual creation of software instead of the distribution, and then they would probably want the source code as well. In such a scenario, there would be no incentive to keep the source closed anyway.
The fact that programmers associated with free software would take such a strong antipiracy position may surprise some people, who assume that Linux and the like are somehow vaguely socialist. But rather than believing that proprietary, for-profit software should not exist, most open-source advocates are more pragmatic. They believe their software works better than the traditional kind "because more people can collaborate towards its development," says Matt Welsh, a researcher in the computer science department at the University of California, Berkeley, and a long-time Linux user. "But there's nothing collaborative about music or most other forms of content that copyright law is designed to protect."
This guy obviously has no understanding of music. Maybe he owns some Bon Jovi and an Ace of Bass CD??? Music is collaborative and constantly evolving. You can ask any artist this. If i sit down on my computer and write an electronic music track, I am drawing from all the music I have listened to in the past. Music always has ideas from other older artists. How many bands have been influenced by Nirvana, how many draw from Lou Reed and Velvet Underground? Despite their recent actions, even early Metallica I'm sure inspires many groups today. Just go to allmusic.com and look up your favorite artics and see who their roots and influences are for yourself.
Napster makes music from around the world more easily accessible, and lets people discover new musical ideas. This helps music that people make morph and evolve, and keeps it interesting, avoiding stagnation. At least in that respect, napster is doing everyone a very open-source style service. I guess Linus and everyone else in this article missed that point. I respect these people, so that makes me unhappy. :(
-ali
Ok, now, without the personal attacks:
I am being picky about a source of so-called news because I like to try and be conscious of the agendas that people speak from when they attempt to influence my behaviour or my opinion. You have only to watch an hour or so of "Ziff-Davis TV" (is that only in Seattle, or do they actually send that out in other areas too?) before you begin to realize that they are the very exemplar of what another poster above stated: they will give you "facts" that support whoever has paid the ad-bill for the next thirty seconds, and getting technical advice from them, or changing your opinions based on the things they tell you only makes you dumb.
Granted, many other news organizations get paid for what they do, but often there is not so closely knit relationship between the products a company sells and the agenda that it promotes in its "objective" reporting. Who likes feeling like they are listening to propoganda?
You may note that in my post above, I don't really state an opinion one way or the other on the Napster/OS/RIAA debate. I think there are lot of valid viewpoints. How do you know whether or not I agree with the article? If I liked it or not? I wasn't making much of a point on the article, just the organization reporting it.
However, I find your personal attack besides the point, and immature at best. I'm not advocating that nobody make money from reporting news. And I wasn't seriously proposing copyright violation. Just pointing out that ZD isn't a natural "friend" of the average Open-Source person, contrary to appearances.
So grow up...
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
I think it's merely the opportunists out there (or as Larry Wall described them "Persons of leisurely moral growth") who think it's a good thing to pirate music.
;-). No, you do what RMS did: you live as close as possible to the way you want to live WITHIN the laws that exist, and campaign furiously to have the laws changed.
Yes, GNU and people like RMS have serious problems with copyright law as it applies to software, and RMS has said he has similar problems with regard to musical recordings. However, just because you think a law is stupid doesn't mean you break it (c.f. chaos
Let's face it though: copyright law does need to be revised. I don't know if it needs to be thrown out or not, but certainly the terms under which it came into existence don't match those of today. The original copyright law was put in place to protect publishers because the cost of publishing material was very expensive and they simply wouldn't make the investment in the first place if the investment somehow wasn't protected.
Fast forward to today: members of the RIAA are really not "music publishers", at least in terms of what their core compitency. If they were focused on publishing, than things like MP3 and such would be welcomed with open arms because they reduce the cost of publishing. No, the RIAA members are mostly packagers/marketers of music. No slight against them, as certainly there's a lot of sunken costs involved in doing what they do (it's just that actually pressing the CD's is not a big part of it). Certainly THEY want to protect those investments.
However, if we look at the origins of copyright law, when it was put in place there was a net benefit to the public: more books got published because publishers felt their investment was protected. Fast forward to today: more music gets packaged/marketed???? Do we really need that? Do we need it so bad that it's worth giving up some basic rights? I guess the answer is somewhat debatable, although I certainly don't see one side of the debate.
Regardless, the nature of what copyright is protecting has changed tremendously, and to that end it's worth revisiting the whole thing. I guess the DCMA was an attempt to do that, but the problem was that it started from the perspective that these copyrights had to be protected, and it's only real goal was to extend the protection of copyrights in the face of the technilogical "adversity" which was increasingly making them irrelavent.
Technology made copyright relevant in the first place, it's sad that lawmakers aren't recognizing that it's increasingly irrelvant.
sigs are a waste of space
Traditional economics uses supply and demand to set price. Marxist economics talks about average labour time as determining the exchange rate (and profit coming from doing more efficiently than others, and/or holding capital which can get labor our of other people).
In the context of approxinately zero cost of reproduction, then all we end up with is a situation where the value is only created by artificially restricting duplication (subject to laws of monopoly?).
Even the traditional artistic source of value (uniqiueness of a performance or artifact), doesn't apply.
Is there an alternative ? We have a system, where by talented people want to give up their time to create art (or whatever it is that Metallica produces :) ), and should expect in exchange to recieve a reward in proportion to their contribution to society (in Metallica's case, perhaps Naptser is the right approach :)).
Hmm, I'm right out of ideas... what is the value of something that has zero reproduction costs in the abscence of being able to artificially restrict supply ?
ok - how about this -- once the reproducible work has been done, then the stuff is "out there". Perhaps Metallica should pre-auction their next album - "How much would you pay for this album to be produced (or not as the case maybe)". They can then decide whether it is worth their while. If they do, and they produce it for the distributed contract, then the world has a new album, which is now free to everyone. I just realised this is like that open source market place I saw recently.
Hee, I like this one - Imaging bidding to prevent the production of Barney...
Winton
Unfortunately it doesn't look like there's a free link, but I had to laugh when I saw Slashdot dismissed as "a Web site popular among younger Linux buffs". Basically it was a regurgitation of the ZDNet article, quoting Linus & Larry Wall, etc. What I really want to know is "younger than what?" I mean, I'm 34 and most of the people I know who read Slashdot are my age or older.....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
If ZDNet produces a good article, why the hell shouldn't they get money for it? Does everybody think that every non-slashdot commercial news site on earth is evil and sadistic?
I think it is best to read the article, formulate an opinion on that *article* (most of the time) and go from there. How come an article like this one, score 4, which has very little relevancy to the actual topic of this thread, gets such a high score?
-DB
P.S. I will have a non-heated response to the actual article posted momentarily, just had to get that out of the way.
[ a directive occured while processing this error ]
The GPL would not be necessary without copyright law!
The GPL exists to protect your rights to use, share, and modify software. Without copyright, no one could stop you from using or sharing; and if pay-per-copy were eliminated, there'd be no motive for authors not to share their source code, and as more people understand the necessity of open source for quality, every reason for them to do so.
Your argument for the destruction of copyright is intrinsically immoral. It would mean that the producer of a given piece of software, or of a given song, or of a given book, would NOT own what he has produced, because he would NOT be able to retain control of it (unless he kept it as his personal secret, to the deprivation of the rest of us).
In short, your viewpoint would result in the THEFT of these products from those who created them. So what incentive have they to continue producing? ANSWER: NONE WHATSOEVER.
You may suggest that they can earn money by "supporting" their product. Fine. Let's consider this.
How does a musician "support" his music? How does an author "support" his short stories or books? How does an artist "support" his painting? By "debugging" it?
More importantly, who are you to tell a producer how he may use what he creates? It belongs to him, not you! This is why your argument is intrinsically Marxist: you deny that the producer owns what he creates.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Well more power to the gurus for pointing out that community support of napster could be politicaly dangerous for the open source movement.
I haven't bought a CD in ages, but I just recently started pirating MP3's. I didn't buy CD's then because I hoped to hinder in my small way the music maketing industry that sponsers mediocrity, shuns art, and fixes prices. I now pirate MP3's for the same reason. In an ideal world I would be able to use napster to get ahold of legitamately distributing music, reviewed by my peers. Instead
I have to make due with what is passble after my peers have been brain washed by billions(?) of dollars in marketing/propaganda. Well they shot the Tzar, they gillotined the King, and here in the US murderers get electrocuted. Stealing isn't quite as wicked as shooting gillotining or electrocuting,and I feel little remorse given the character of the victems. The RIAA is concerned that some of us don't have respect for their property. In fact I lack respect for their industry, their culture, and their sarcastic,and parasitic world view.
No, the record labels do that. While there is a huge overlap between the record labels and the RIAA, they are not one and the same. I personally don't see any reason for the RIAA to exist.
The only artists who benefit from the system are those that sell massive numbers of albums and, through that process, increase their leverage with the record companies and thereby negotiate higher percentages of the gross income. The majority of artists, however, make next to nothing -- from their meager 8 to 10 percent, the company deducts marketing costs, tour bus rental, etc. etc. In spite of the contract, these bands end up depending upon ticket sales at concerts and shows for income.
So, I guess it's no wonder that it's the fat cat artists like Metallica that have weighed in against Napster. I would guess, however, that most of the artists/bands out there would love to do away with the system as it stands. Several bands took a successful end-run around the record companies in the pre-Napster era -- fugazi and ani de franco come to mind -- but with Napster and Gnutella on the fly, the mechanism is finally in place for artists to connect with appreciative fans without the financially cumbersome middleman of the record company sucking up the profits and working the payola. In other words, I think Nap/Gnu will be a good thing for artists as well as the audience -- only the companies stand to lose...
Not really. If copyrights were not existent, then public domain software would be effectively GPL'd software. In other words, if it were made impossible to have proprietary software, there would be no incentive to have binary-only software. That's the theory, anyway. Note that RMS supports things like the use of software patents when used defensively, even though the famously hates the US patent office and software patents in general.
Does this mean we can stop getting hundreds of top-level posts by people who think they're the only open-source advocates who don't support piracy?
Or will it return to battle of the links? "Supreme Court ruling in Virgina vs. Snoop Dogg declared that anonymity is okay." "Yeah, but in this story, there are quotes from Linus saying it's bad. Ya gotta make a choice: Linus or the Supreme Court?"
Thank god the people who developed HTTP, NFS, AFS, LDAP, and FTP didn't have the same attitude. ;-) Seriously, Gnapster is just a poor implementation of distributed file sharing solutions which have been around for decades. Technologically there is nothing new here. The only thing that's new is how it's being used, so being the clever programmer who said "no, I won't build this" doesn't accomplish a damn thing. Perhaps being the business/marketing person who says, "no, I won't do this" might make a difference, though likely not.
Technology by it's very nature causes change in the status quo. This tends to upset a lot of business, legal, societal, etc. models. To suggest that the fact that the status quo deserves protection of this nature is crazy. As we learn more, we have to change the model of how we operate as a society to match. To do otherwise would bring us back to the Luddites.
sigs are a waste of space
Ah!
I didn't realize there was that much of a difference! I thought the RIAA was a sort of bizzare "record label council" and was, in fact, all the record labels speaking as one. I'll have to do a touch more research.
The main thrust of my post still stands, however.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
What on Earth makes people think that the opinions of a bunch of open source "gurus" has any more validity than the IANAL post of the average /.er? Just because these people have created some software which has become popular with the elite geek crowd, their views on society, the law and everything else is not something that we should be bothered about.
Just because somebody is good at one thing doesn't make them qualified to talk about anything else as if their opinion really mattered to the world. These people may be able to program, but they're not lawyers, they're not politicians and they're just not qualified to share their views on this subject.
This is especially annoying since these are amongst the greatest of the /. "heroes" of open source, and true to form we are bound see /.ers rush in to fill this story with plenty of "I agree with Linus!" posts. When will you zealots learn that just because someone programmed a halfway decent kernel they do not have the answers to all of life's mysteries?
I would have thought that Linus would agree that Napster is not to blame it is the users that are misussing a service.
We all agree that it is wrong to go out and rent a movie tape it off then give copies away. But would we blame blockbuster for it if people were caught doing just that?
Metallica would not bring this lawsuite against it's listeners. The band said as much on its website. Metallica is suing the wrong people. Now that the users that were trading metallica mp3s have been baned I don't see how they still think they have a case. The only people left for metallica to sue are the users and they won't do that because 300,000 people == bad press.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
This argument about copyright is all well and interesting, but it's not addressing the real topic. The real topic is whether or not Napster in and of itself is illegal. Is the sole purpose of the program for piracy (that is, copyright violation)?
Anyone reasonably familiar with past cases will quickly realize that the US Supreme Court has ALREADY answered this question. When the photocopy machine first came out by Xerox, the book industry sued and screamed equivelantly pathetic arguments against it. "It will just be used to copy books, and we'll lose all our revenue..." they cried. The Court said, in a loose paraphrasing, "you're on crack", and struck down an earlier ruling against the photocopy machine. Therefore, we all now know and love our local 24/7 copy store. (See "A Gift of Fire", can't recall the author at the moment.)
How many people do you see out there photocopying the latest Robert Jordan book, rather than purchasing it? It's just not worth it. If the RIAA truly wants to stop this, they'll lower the price of the CD to a more realistic value instead of gouging consumers, much like the issue with books. If a paperback cost me $50, I might consider photocopying it. But it costs $6. (Remember when they were $2.50?) If a CD cost $5, no one would bother with Napster for a full album, the Net's too damn slow. (We all do realize that it costs the music industry about $0.50 to mass manufacture CDs, with pretty inserts and all, right?)
Fundamentally, the program Napster does not violate any laws. It is no more dangerous than a photocopy machine. The use to which it is put by the user defines whether or not the instance of use is legal. This is the same problem as arguments against guns, knives, axes, hammers, etc. The tool in and of itself is not dangerous -- the user of the tool may be. Does that mean that we should have 5-day waiting periods before you can purchase an axe? Or a big kitchen knife?
So what the heck is the big deal? RIAA needs to die, everyone knows that. But Napster is not an illegal program. The courts will bear this out if it goes on long enough, and someone at Napster's legal counsel has a clue.
Of course the kid knew what it was going to be used for, i used to chat with him in #lobby way back in the first versions when there was like 200 ppl at a time online. Go die RIAA.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
What a pathetic story! See http://www.theonion.org/oni on3618/kid_rock_starves.html.
Meanwhile, The New Times reports http:// partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/ar ticles/22tune.html that some guy named Michael Olvitz owns most of Scour.com. And Scour Exchange allows users to trade copyrighted music online!!!
The article goes on to say: "Hilary Rosen, the president of the recording industry association, said the group was aware of Scour Exchange's activities and was considering its options. But she said the organization did not want to rush to file lawsuits against each Napster-like service, hoping the decision in that case case might dissuade copycats. "We don't have any interest in litigating our way through the Internet," she said.
"But in reality the industry association might simply lack the resources to file enough lawsuits, given the boom in these services and the complexity of the attendant technology. Most recently, a 23-year-old Irish programmer created Freenet, which would enable people to share files online directly with one another in a way that would make it virtually impossible for copyright holders to find a central database or hub to blame for the interaction...."
"Brian Transeau [BT] ... said people will inevitably trade copyrighted music on the Web, so artists might as well try to figure out how to capitalize on the sites making that possible. "It's an uncontrollable situation," BT said. "You might as well embrace it and make the best of it, or you're going to go insane trying to prevent it." "
Open software advocates DON'T NEED TO copy from proprietary software--they can make their own, better!
Here's a smart article on Slate by Rob Walker that might give some posters around here something to think about. In particular, it points out who the Napsteroids might be getting into bed with. Worthy crusades against rip-off music conglomerates do not justify ripping off other people's intellectual or artistic work. Which is why OSS works within the framework of property rights and copyright law, and not outside it.
I'm pleased to see ZDNet got several points of view in there, didn't demonize anyone, and had representative quotes from many open source luminaries.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Greetings Yeah even though mp3z might land in jail it made a "better man out of me" and some brit has my money ... violence and misogynist ... not to dis rap but um but I don't refer to mygirlfriend as a gardening tool ... to each his or her own, but rap is not my cup of tea ... so searched for alternatives Ani DiFranco, RATM, Indgo Girls; great vibe but I wasn't to hot on that style of music. ... great beats and great music ... and it was much more positive IMHO than rap. As it is not marketed for the U.S. I couldn't go to my local record store in the middle of nowhere and find any good trip hop as it is mostly from Europe ... I started downloading mp3z figuring out what I liked and what I didn't like in trip hop (e.g. although tricky is big in trip hop he doesn't top my list) ... so 5 months later have currently own 10 trip hop albums which none of them have ever been on the U.S. top 40 and I have no regrets ... I am now a more informed customer, the RIAA had little control over how I like what I like and I don't have to listen to music which demeans women and promotes violence; as now I know there are many options out there. So no more dre and similar negative rap acts ... hello Lamb and Kruder & Dorfmeister
I agree with the poster... I won't listen to Dre. any more and not because of his involvement with napster but because of my involvement with mp3z.
I used to listen to rap and I never agreed with the message it sent
I found the light; I now suck bandwith
I was browsing one day though shoutcast and live365 and discovered trip hop
If the RIAA really wanted to shut down Napster and the clones, they could do it without resorting to the lawyers.
How?
Easy. All they would have to do is have their IT folks burn some CDs with the Napster Client, and 600 megs of what appear to be real songs by Metallica, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Britney, etc. Now, none of those are really MP3 songs by whichever artist, but are, instead, lectures by the artist about how MP3 Piracy is bad, and against the law. Then, they hand out those CDs at the front lobby of all their office buildings along with instructions on to install Napster, and help protect their jobs by sharing these special songs.
Imagine if there were thousands of RIAA and other music company employees doing this. The pool of MP3s would be so polluted with bogus music that people would stop using Napster because it now took 3-4 times as long to get a song they wanted. (3-4 download tries to actually get the song.)
The same action could take place against Gnutella, FreeNet, etc.
The big deal with Napster is that it is easy to use. It's easy for the recording industry to make it hard to use. They have not done so yet. Therefore they don't want Napster shut down.
Or am I missing something here?
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Forty years ago the government stepped in and shut down then practice of "payola." Payola involved record labels paying radio stations to broadcast new songs to the public in the hopes of driving up record sales. The record companies were very angry that the government wouldn't let them pay to "serve" their copyrighted material to all radio "desktops."
The record companies want to hook you with free music. The Napster controversy is about who gets to decide on the bait: the major labels or the listeners.
At that price, it's cheap enough I wouldn't mind, and expensive enough that the artist still gets a similar amount to the figure they'd get if I bought the CD - but without the middleman taking his 95% cut. The `radio sites', meanwhile, could use banner ads, subscriptions, etc. to cover their costs.
You're forgetting that recordings take time and money. Equipment costs money. Studio expertise costs money. Promotion costs money. That's what the labels supply. Yeah, artists like Metallica, U2, Dr. Dre, and Chuck D can all live quite fine without labels at this point in their careers, would any of them have gotten to where they are today without the labels backing and support? Doubtfully.
Yes there is something fucked up about the music industry... But it's not our issue. It's the issue of each successive generation of artists that signs away their lives for a check without bothering to ever read the contract. You're in no way helping the up and coming artists by downloading mp3'ed versions of their songs without their consent and "promising" to attend more of their shows or buy more of their t-shirts. You're just making life harder on them, and in the short term, could even squelch a lot of music that might come out in the next few years...
Just buy the CD's, unless the artists (via their websites, interviews, liner notes, etc...) explicitly state that they are pro-MP3. Otherwise you're stealing from them... And leave it up to them to negotiate better deals.
the people would simply make better music and give it away for free. most OSS authors will go out of their way to remove and replace proprietary/copyright code from their projects - if for nothing other than pride.
stealing really is just stealing. if you like the music, buy the @Q#$@!# cd.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Well, I'm keepin a link to this thread at my account info page; it's just too damn funny to lose track of.
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
Sure, it might be legal for you to copy everything on my hard drive, but if my security settings are correct, you won't be able to any time soon.
The cake is a pie
The GPL draws all of its power from the fact that the person who created a work owns strong copyrights to that work. The owner gets to determine how that work is used, and the owner has the right to put the GPL on that work.
If we weaken copyright law, we hurt ourselves.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Now this is getting a little much. Why would I care what Linus has to say about Napster. What does this have to do with Linux? What will be the headline on Tuesday? "Tell us Richard Simmons, what do you think of napster?"
Everyone can try to sugar-coat napster, but the honest truth is that its a tool for piracy. I would venture to guess that at least 95% of Napster users have downloaded a song, really liked it, and did not buy the cd. Not that I have any moral objection to this. "Rock stars" have become just part of the huge corporate machine that is the recording industry in this country. Most of us do not even really think of big recording artists as people, but more of a untouchable fictional character. Its hard to have any sympathy for people that we all imagine are spending their cd profits on coke and skanky big haired groupies.
www.bleepyou.com
Agreed, the artists don't get *nearly* what they deserve (I heard Tribe Called Quest actually made like $.50 an album for one of their older LP's). I could care weather every A&R, record exec etc "lives dies, or grows hair in their crack". But when my favorite artists (people who's music, and therefor opinions I agree with) express the fact that they are peeved by the potential pirate ship that which is Napster, I am inclined to at the very least, briefly rethink my convictions.
...
And yes, we do have a right to know where all the money from CD's are going, I want to find a breakdown somewhere too
---
How long have you been listening to the world's famous?
'Bout six weeks.
Six weeks!
I think there are plenty of comments here that adress this whole issue pretty well in all.
Copyrights are not always a bad thing. It enables authors to make a living on what they do. That's good for everyone economically wise. The problem becomes some of the stupid things that come of this. The incompatibilities and security issues that have been created by the old vision of closed-copyrights have caused havoc. GPL and some of the other licenses fix this nicely by keeping credit to the author alive, yet allowing others to learn and get more information for competeing or partner software.
This is yet another economic Good Thing. Competition drives quality up, prices generaly down. Partner or complimentary products drive demand for BOTH products up.
Now Napster itself is a GREAT idea, just limited in control by the mp3 format itself. There is no way to know if a piece has been specifically copyrighted or not.
Napster should do the following, if the SDMI shit gets correct for once (none of this one-song for one-device shit - allow each person an ID and have all the devices he uses to read this ID and link it to the copyright of that song.):
1: If there's a copyright on the file, and the owner has the correct CID (copyright ID) allow it to be shared at a low bitrate or allow the user to not share at all. This prevents direct copying of the songs to try to bypass the copyright, but allows others to preview these works (no longer do you have to worry about the artist or record company providing previews, if someone has the real thing, they can preview it on the Napster).
2: If the user downloads a preview, have ready links for the person to download or otherwise acquire the song through the correct channels, and get the real copyright version to work with his CID.
3: Works that are not copyrighted, ie. Live performances, remixes, unsigned artists that want to get out there fast, generous artists that offer to give away a few songs, can be shared at no bitrate penalty or price penalty. Neither can these works ever be copyrighted by anyone - once it's tagged and out there, it's done.
So one can acquire one of these CopyRight ID's (smartcard I'm thinking) for a fee (nominal type - cover the cost of the card and maybe some make-the-RIAA-happy money, US$15 or so) and the card works for any work in any system that can play the work from any medium, CD, DVD-A, Internet, etc.
Now I think this can make some people happy - I think the RIAA can be happy that advertising doesn't have to be quite as big of a deal for specific albums or songs, just artists. The artists also get to control their precious copyright and get a little money for the ones who appreciate their music. Users can get remixes and demos from unsigned artists for free plus preview whole songs or whole albums for the small quailty penalty.
Frankly this is how I justify using napster - if I like a song I hear somewhere - i go and find other songs from that album, if I like em I go and buy the album if it's available, if not, I am perfectly happy with keeping those not-so-legal mp3's, since I had no chance to get them more-legally.
--onyx--
(feel free to moderate 'offtopic', as this is, well, offtopic)
---
I see "piracy" as about as serious a threat to the fabric of commerce and society as speeding on the road.
---
FYI -
"In 1995, 644,000 people received minor injuries in speeding-related crashes. An additional 77,000 people received moderate injuries, and 42,000 received critical injuries in speeding-related crashes."
Apparently, there were 41,798 fatalities in total in the United States in that year.
Source: http://www.nhtsa.dot.go v/people/ncsa/FactPrev/spdfacts.html
...whether or not this is serious is left as an exercise to the reader.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
You have demolished your own credibility. You don't even know how copyright works, and yet you have the temerity to babble about the credibility of those who hold copyrights on useful software.
For your information, O Ignorant One, no lawyer is required for a published work to be copyrighted. A published work is protected by copyright as soon as it is produced.
More, this lame response of yours fails to address the point I made: that one who holds copyright holder on popular software has far more prima facie credibility in speaking about the importance of copyright than does a slashdotter who doesn't. Of course, they may damage that credibility by how they use it, but your weak criticisms (which amount to nothing more than "I disagree with them, so they have no credibility!" Lame) do nothing but destroy your *own* credibility.
Only an idiot would purposefully saddle themselves with Richard Stallmann's viral piece of communist manifesto. Personally I perfer the BSD license
Then you are not as large a hypocrite as others. Good for you. Nevertheless, to the extent that the BSD license differs from releasing a published work to the public domain, it too depends 100% upon the validity of copyright.
Unless you expect producers to release their products solely and exclusively into the public domain, copyright is essential. And if this is really what you think, then you are a nut who wants to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Have a nice supper, but don't complain about your poverty!
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
More likely what happens is that you download a song by Moby, decide you like it, and buy an album. Tomorrow you go and download something by Dr. Dre and discover you like it so you buy one of his CD's rather than buying that second Moby CD (thinking Moby is "safe" since you already like on of his works). Internet music sampling makes consumers less predictable because they can actually make informed musical decesions. As a result the record companies have to work harder (read produce more albums from a larger array of artists) to keep earning your money. This isn't about piracy or artist freedom to RIAA, it's about keeping the consumer where they can market to them more successfully. Douglas Rushkoff outlined this very well when he wrote "Coercion" (before Napster hit the net). RIAA knows you'll buy more albums, they just can't figure out which ones they'll be.
I don't think that a future of napster will be the end of bad, overproduced music. There will allways be postpubescent teens. (Apologies to any postpubescent teens who happen to be reading this) What it may mean is the eventual dissapearance of iconic rock stars like Metallica. A real threat to everyone, not just the RIAA, is that some really good (unknown) musicians may choose not to pursue a career in music because there isn't enough financial incentive to live like a pauper for a few years while you are waiting to get heard. That's a bit extreme, and one would hope that the music industry will be robust enough to avoid it. I blow a bunch of money on cd's I like a year, but I also have a lot of mp3's I've never paid for, due to my own financial constraints and immorality. As my situation improves financially, I attempt to rectify these things. One would hope that this is the norm, as people make the progression from dirt-poor college pirates to proffesionals, but who can say what the next 10 years are going to bring. Change, certainly, but will it ultimately be to anyones benefit?
Ultimatly I think their plan is to nail the 'questionable' MP3 related services (Napster, MP3.com, etc.) till they have established in the public's eye that MP3=illegal. It's obvious they do not like the format, but since they cannot sue a format (I'm sure they looked into it) they will try to hit everything associated with it.
The wierd part will be when they go after "traditional" internet services. I imagine when someone at the RIAA discovers usenet and IRC, they will turn to the government for help regulating the mp3 traffic in these channels, then all hell will break loose.
Prediction: What's sad here is that companies blindly "jumped into" the internet expecting it to play by their rules. When it didn't they raged at the fact that there was no controling authority over it.
So finally, despite our best efforts, there will be control over the internet, perhaps by the UN, or just some international treaty. Sure there will by some renegades and 'black market' ISP's but overall the major providers will comply.
Ironically, it won't even be a good cause that triggers the regulation of the internet (like protecting the children, or the usual tear jerkers), it will be commercial interests and big money.
Finkployd
"Go Metallica, die RIAA"
I couldn't have put it better myself.
--
E_NOSIG
The music industry is a closed market. If I like an artist's music, I am forced to buy it from his contracting company, regardless of the price. This is unlike the software industry, where I have options. The record companies do not have to compete on price. They just have to sit there and squeeze the music lovers dry.
Here's what we can do as music lovers:
Give up listening to commercial music altogether.
Listen only to artists not associated with RIAA and RIAA affiliated recording studios.
Listen only to the music that you already own.
Do not download any commercial music.
Do not listen to any radio station playing commercial music.
Explain your stand to people you meet, online and offine, and discuss these issues.
Personally, I follow all these.
Trade music if you please, but trade the music of new and deserving artists. Artists who share the same beliefs as you; about music, technology, the web and the future that will be.
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
It seems like there's a napster post every day, and all it generates is a bunch of "Napster's for illegal trading." "Is not" "Is too" posts. Could we get this to be a topic , so that those of us who are sick of hearing about it can block it out? Thanks.
Colin Winters
If Metalica, or any other "commercial" band, wanted to give away their Music they would. It's not up to the "consumer" to decide what should not be sold by giving it away. If you think that bands shouldn't sell their music then don't buy it and don't support that bands claim to fame by distributing it.
However, they're going after the wrong culprit. Napster is not stealing the music; the users are. Shutting down Napster would be like trying to shut down Walmart for selling blank tapes and cd's. Just because Napster made a medium available to share music doesn't mean that the purpose was the illegal distribution of copyrighted music.
If I bought a copy of Time magazine, scanned it into my PC and posted it on a web site, did my ISP break the law? Did the Web hosting site break the law? No, I broke the law by putting it there.
Better yet, If I leased a bulding in my home town, opened a bussiness, and called it IBM, would the landlord of the building be at fault? Then why go after Napster? Go after the people that are too lazy and cheap to pay for quality music.
If you don't believe in paying for music then only listen to bands that give their music away. It's not your right to decide if someone elses music should be sold or not. It's their right!!!
Whats really interesting is that years from now the kid who wrote napster will be regarded much like guttenberg as far as releasing music to the masses. Decades from now this will happen, people dont realize history as theyre experiencing it. What a fascinating time we live in.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Most of the comments mentioned in the article went like this: "i don't think copyright infrigement is good, and i think napster should be sued. i also don't agree some of the views that the recording industry holds". These views are everything that we would expect, because these are the views that most of us believe.
I know napster is mainly used for pirating copyrighted music. You know it too. Despite the pedastal that you (we?) hold some of these 'open source leaders' on, they see the picture just like you and i do.
These leaders don't want copyright infringement, they just don't want any copyrights to infringe upon.
OK, yes, RIAA is the Devil Incarnate (TM). Yes, Napster is mostly about stealing music for kids who can't pay the oligopoly prices for CDs (which the FTC just forced to allow lower pricings for). Yes, if I just want one song for a quarter, I'm gonna get it somehow.
But, and this is critical, the point is that an MP3 is mobile. I can pop MP3 songs into my directories for The Sims (which I paid for), recorded from CDs that I paid for, to play in my home as background music. One of the CDs that I ripped has music you can't buy in the US, as the music industry decided that they won't let me buy it. Because Yanks don't buy French techno. And they don't listen to Brazilian electronica.
But they do!
That's why Napster is not bad, it's just not always good. There is music they won't let us hear, music I will get at any cost, and music I am quite willing to pay for. And thanks to sites like mp3.com, I have CDs that I couldn't buy (ok, except for the cool music store in my neighborhood of Fremont, Sonic Boom, located in the Center of the Universe).
Until the music industry gets that paradigm, they will lose.
Will in Seattle
a & b) Laws are supposedly made to support the masses. Perhaps those complaining of injustice aren't vocal enough in the right channels. Laws are/should be changed if that is what is best for the general public.
c)Speeding does not deprive any deserving individuials of compensation for their work. Piracy of someone elses work deprives them of what they deserve. If you say they don't deserve it...then don't use it.
Free as in beer or speech? your choice. I choose speech.
>But would we blame blockbuster for it if people
>were caught doing just that?
Not Blockbuster per se, but...
Our good friends the MPAA DID *try* to destory the entire VCR/Videocassete industry before Blockbuster ever got started and Wayne H. was just another Miami garbageman.
There was a rathar well known case between Sony and the MPAA that went all the way to the supreme court, which basiclly tole the MPAA to stuff it.
The MPAA was claiming that Sony's betamax tapes (and, by extension, everyone else's VHS tapes) were nothing but a tool for piracy and would destroy the movie industry (sound familiar?) and a bunch of other nonsence.
Hmmm, I guess since videotapes were SURE to *destroy* the movie industry, the MPAA that has been persecuting anyone who so much as mentions the word deCSS is just a figment of my imagination, eh?
How ironic that Sony, after taking the VCR to the supreme court, is now in bed with their old enemies and sideing with the RIAA against napster and the MPAA against deCSS.
Those who do not learm from history....
So who's going to take the MP3 format and deCSS to the supreme court so that the RIAA, MPAA, and their stooges like metallica can be told, finally, to stick it?
The ACLU appears to be sitting around doing dick about it. So I guess it's time to cancel my membership with them, and switch over to the EFF, who sure seem to be more on the top of things these days.
john
Imagine all the people...
You're still part of the demand curve. If everyone who copies Metallica et al stopped listening, calling radio stations, etc, maybe you'd be taken seriously (I don't do commercial music anymore). By consuming the products (even if you don't pay) you're validating the RIAA's stand on "lost sales". The only way to prove you wouldn't buy it is not to own it (like me).
I do not see Metallica being better than the RIAA. The RIAA already had a law suit going against Napster prior to Metallica's law suit. Metallica's law suit was more to scare universitys and act as a very good PR stunt. The way I brain it is that the artists pay the RIAA to fight lawsuits like this and the artists (Metallica and Dr. Dre) should wait to see what the courts ruling is for the RIAA's case. Even though I do not agree with Metallica's law suit I do agree with Lars Ulrich. On Charlie Rose a week and a half ago he said that artists should be able to choose wether their music gets distributed by mp3 or not. I believe that any artist should be able to ask a company to ban users that copy their music just as Metallica asked Napster to do, and I was one of the banned users.
-Grant
|grant.henninger.name|
Honestly I don't use Napster to rip off music. I use it to save on the time of riping my CDs. Napster should have a system in which it scans for the first parts data on the CD before it allows you to start a download so people aren't ripping off music. But even if people do rip off music the music industry as we know it is doomed. There is no way they will ever be able to control the pirating of MP3s. People will continue thinking of new ways to pirate it. And as soon as portable MP3 players become common enough people will stop buying CDs.
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. The Party - 1984
But goddammit, snippets suck.
Yesterday evening, I'm sitting at my computer. I get an itch to download some Whiskeytown. So I go to CDNOW.com to see if they have a new album. (A great band, BTW -- sort of like a laid back Son Volt -- if that's possible -- but I digress...)
Well, they don't have a *new* album, but I see an album of theirs that I don't own. I scroll down the CDNOW page and see the ubiquitous Real Audio 'snippets.'
And, WTF? only some of the songs on the albums have snippets -- and GODDAMMIT! -- the snippets are 30 seconds long.
I don't mind the reduced sound quality, but for chrissake gimmee samples of all the songs! What, you're playing some tease -- some game?
"Hey, bud, here's a couple snippets. We can't give you all of 'em, but, um, take a snippet from track 1, track 2, and, er, let's skip down to track 6 and 7 -- here take these. See, if we gave you snippets from all the tracks, you'd probably not buy the album, right? So we gotta control the snippets you listen to. Plus, ya know, we got disk space issues to consider. Imagine the fucking chaos that would exist if we snipped snippets from all the songs!"
This alone gets me a little peeved. But -- there's more! The brilliant propellar head that snipped the snippets decided to start the snippets at apparently random intervals of each song. So instead of just -- for the love of GOD! -- starting the 30 seconds at the BEGINNING of the track (What? At the beginning? You're kidding, right?) Zippy the MSCE/Multimedia specialist decided to, oh what the heck, start the snippets 30,40 seconds into the song during a particularly long silent space so it's virutually imposible to get any coherent sense of the song.
Yes, yes, this, my friend, is what snippets are for! Hell, yes, that's what they're for!
Lets reduce to the sound quality so that you hear more hiss than music and -- lets really remind the consumer who's in charge -- let's rotate the points where each snippets begin and give them, say, 27 seconds of crappy, disjointed audio) and -- wait, there's more! -- let's just give the buyer a few tracks -- not even the good tracks! Let's tease! Yes, that'll rope 'em in! The snippet tease!
A suit in the backroom: "Snippets? I dunno. Give these internet scavengers more than a few seconds and they'll find a way to SCREW us!"
Zippy the MSCE Propellar Head: "Hey, wait boss: we thought about that. We'll just do a tease. Tease sells, you know."
"A tease! Ah! I love it! The snippet tease! Yes! Zippy, that's the way to sell albums! Let's tease the listener. It's like local news, right?"
"Right."
"Is the milk your drinking loaded with lead? Find out at 11."
"Ha!"
"Ha! I love it! Tease, tease, tease!"
Is it any freaking wonder people are sick of the RIAA? Everything is a marketing tease. (Heck, see my other posts about Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, and Lars, but I digress...)
Everyone is trying to control everything I do. Why? In the name of art? Hell no.
In the name of profit.
Profit for the art?
Hell no.
Profit IN SPITE OF the art.
Fuck art. Fuck Lars. "But, um, Lars? James?" -- high pitched whisper of a pimply-faced record company exec worrying about buying his next Porsche -- "Could you boys go and make us another one of your albums?"
"Why sure, Mr. Record Company Suit."
"See, because, um, while I don't really understand your metal, um, your art, we here at the record company sure do like the profit that your stuff -- er, your *ART* I mean -- the money that your art makes."
"Why sure, we do to! Right James?"
"Right Lars."
Gosh.  Good one...  Your insight is truly stunning. < sigh >
Not never, but you should be ready to yank your system if it turns out to be a real problem. Programmers need to take some responsibility for their work. And yes I am a programmer, and i would never have made napster because i'm not an idiot and would have knowen exactly what it would be used for.
I like to buy CD's when I get the money for one. Why? 1/2 of my reason is for the cover art, the jewl case, lyrics ect ect which you can not get with Napster. What I would like to see is the price of the CD's dropped to a fair price. I think a lot of the Napster users would be willing to pay $8.00 for a new CD instead of $11.00 - $20.00. Let's be realistic here. Spend 1/2 hour to an hour downloading a entire CD or pay the $8.00 for it? I would rather pay the $8.00. Also I could easily picture a time when music is released on a pay per song basis. Heck, I wouldn't mind paying $0.25 per song in the mp3 format. Then I only have to pay for the songs I like or want to hear.
You can certainly pay me the $20k or so never to own or drive a Camaro again, if you wish.
There is two points to be made here, what is legal and what is moral?
Under the (USA) law now, even if you disagree with the laws, even if the laws are completely wrong, it is still the law. What the copyright laws say for *most* Music CDs is that you can not redistrubate any content of the CD without permission. The RIAA, Metallica or anyone that has the right to give permission to redistrubate CD content, did not give anyone permission to post them to a large user base (whatever that user base may be, in this case napaster) in any form.
Legally, the RIAA is right. Under the law it, they own the content that is being posted, and it is being posted without there permission.
This (most "commerical" mp3s) being posted are copyrighted, and who ever owns the copyright can basically do what ever the fuck they want to within the copyright.
Hell Cowboy Neil could sell his music on 8 track tapes and have a copy right "you can only listen to this music under Sony 8 Track tape players and the owner of the 8 track is the ONLY one that can listen to the music, you can't even listen to the music when or where someone else can hear it", sure it is stupid, about as dumb as most copyrights on CDs now, but that is Cowboy Neil's right, just like the right the RIAA or who ever can impose any copyright on their "IP" as they want, as long as it doesn't void any other copyrights or break a law... well pretty much you get the idea.
Legally the RIAA has a strong case, but not against Napster. Listen, if you buy 2 VCRs and use them to bootleg porn, can the porno industry sue sony for "helping" prevents bootleg porn? Hell no. You can walk up to any head shop and buy a one hitter or bong, I mean err uh some smoking device or tobaccoo pipe. These bong as sold as tobaco smoking devices, pretty legal in USA, but who the hell using them for smoking tobaccoo? No one, everyone smokes pot or crack out of them, but they (the head shop) still can sell them, because they aren't implying you use them for illegal purposes (pot and crack are illegal in the US)
The Head shop says "Hey man, these are for uh wooow did you see that, *cough, cough* oh head rush, what where we just talking about? oh yea, these devices are not for illegal purposes, you can only smoke legal substances out of them man, like toboccoo or something. If you get busted it is your own fault dumb ass, you got a lighter?"
The same way napser say "Hey man, do not trade illegal or copyrighted files over this services man or we will ban you ass. Oh you are one of the people that got banned for illegal meticalla mp3s? screw off, this is only for legal purposes only"
I seriously doubt anyone can sue napster over copyright, hell if you can sue any service for having mp3s on it, I could sue AOL, newsgroups, irc servers, web sites, ftp operators and about anything on the Internet. Hell I could uuencode a bunch of mp3's and post them to slashdot or wet_and_greasy_used_porn.com.
If they can sue napaster they could sue about any service on the Internet, and by putting all services on the Internet out of business, guess what NO MORE INTERNET. I doubt this will happen, cause it would really piss of Al Gore (since he created and invented the Intenet with his bare hands), and Al can kick some ass when it comes down to it...
I think the RIAA can and has the right to sue the users that where posting or sharing these files on Napaster, will they? I don't know, but they own the copyright, and if they want to, they could.
Point being, right or not, copyrights exists. Right or not, people that own the copyrights can pretty much get anyway with any dam thing they please under they copyright with their "IP"
So we (open source zealots and slashdot trolls) can do a couple things here. We could continue to break the law, even if it is a stupid law. Find a way to change the laws. Work closly with the RIAA to find a "middle ground" that everyone is somewhat happy with. Troll. Only support artists that release their "IP" under freindly copyrights (check mp3.com). Bitch about it or go view some porn...
I don't know about you, but I am dam hungry, haven't eaten all day, I am going to grab some dinner, what where we talking about?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
If I had mod, you'd be going up. Very good point.
Paying per song is ideal. However, how do you figure out cost/song? For example, I listen to alot of progressive rock music: some Yes albums have 3 or 4 songs on an album. Should the cost of one of these songs, which is say 1/3 of the entire album length (say 20 minutes long), be equivalent to a song off a Beatles disc (one of sixteen 2 min 30 sec songs)? Should the cost be based on time, or whatever the recording artist deems appropriate. For example, on some albums there are small intro tracks of 30 seconds or less, maybe of someone talking or whatever. Should there really be a set fee for all songs, where I have to pay the same price for a 30 sec as for a 3 min+ song? I am just curious about how to go about this.
I agree with you wholeheartedly unfortunately I do not believe that this is going to happen any time soon. Personally, I listen to local artists who haven't yet hit the big time and I love their music. However, how are we going to convince the millions of people in North America who subscribe to pop culture to boycott what they love to hear? As much as I agree that we should "fight the power," the RIAA knows that it will always have millions of people who will come to them to buy music. It's almost like they're drug pushers in our society.
I would pay a lot more then 50 cents to never hear N'SYNC-Backstreet Boys-Britney Speers again.
Can I pay per song anywhere on the net? For anything, I don't care, doesnt have to be a band I've heard of. I want to see the "pay per song" model in action. If it's not, why not? Micropayments an obstacle? Attention all VC- here's a killer app waiting for someone to get rich off of.
"And then they have the gall to use the holy word 'copyright' to try and maintain their slipping control," Torvalds says. "That, I consider to be immoral. Go, Metallica. Die, RIAA."
/. poster's comments, is, IMHO, shaky at best.
:-)
And you gotta love Larry Wall..
"Persons of leisurely moral growth often confuse giving with taking."
And (to add in a nice way) people who confuse stealing and sharing have ceased any moral growth whatsoever.
To base the whole thing (connection of Napster and Open Source/Free Software) on a Katz(?) or any other
The ideas cross but they are not exactly parallel.
--
+&x
The other great thing about this solution is, if you lower the price of CD's that much, people will be much less inclined to steal what they can easily afford to buy. Loss of profit on margin will definately be made up in volume.
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.
Chill, no big deal. Most all of us use banner blockers of one type or another. They're not getting a cent. But they are periodically getting flamed to a crisp and being made to look like the incompetent fools that they are.
Phobos - Greek word for fear or flight
I love it how everybody is justifying their use of Napster or showing how pirate MP3's actually increase CD sales. The Rock says: It doesn't matter what your candy ass thinks. If MGM releases a CD and says you may not share the songs with your friend then you can choose to play by those rules or not buy the CD. You can't set the rules later on it just doesn't work that way in the land of intellectual capital.
I don't think the recording industry is so much against digital distrobution I think they just fear formats that can be distributed over and over. Mp3s are scary to them because the same file can be distributed a 1000 times with no loss in quality. If someone could make a format that couldn't be copied by every day users but that they could distribute in a controlled way for a price on the internet. (probably at close to the cost of a CD, greedy bastards,I don't mind paying a fair price but $17.00 ?!? When the price of manufacturing media has gone down as drastically as it has with CD's the consumer should see SOME of that reflected in lower prices ) they would love it. That would be the only way they will gracefully accept digital distribution of music. Before that comes however expect a lame attempt at a DSS type protection scheme, because now thanks to the new laws that prohibit the circumvention of encryption/"delivery systems" they can stop us from ripping the song from the original in the first place.
Insert pithy comment here.
Wait, didn't the article originally come from the WSJ?
A real threat to everyone, not just the RIAA, is that some really good (unknown) musicians may choose not to pursue a career in music because there isn't enough financial incentive to live like a pauper for a few years while you are waiting to get heard.
Possibly, but unlikely. Some friends of mine are in a band called Mycroft Holmes. They make a few bucks playing clubs and parties, but not a whole lot. MP3s have nothing to do with the problem, either, as they were distributing them for (I think geocities didn't go for it though [even though they _are_ the copyright owner])
And they seem willing (if not eager) to be poor if they have a chance at making it big and getting famous.
One band is not particularly staticstical, but OTOH it's basically impossible to get any kind of hard evidence about something like that either way.
There's tons of free music you can download on Napster. Lots of old music that isn't copyrighted anymore. Lots of live concert recordings that the artists have consented to distribution (even Metallica allows recording and distribution of their music. Not everything on Napster is a copyright violation.
Burris
It may an outrage, but the law, the way it currently stands (the DMCA) _does make Napster illegal_!
Think of it this way...
Gun are inherently bad. They don't kill people by themselves. They can have good uses, self-defense, sport, hunting, etc. But guns can be bad. Very bad. Thus, they are regulated. You need a permit to have a handgun. A felon can't buy a gun, etc.
Napster is similar. Inherently, it doesn't make people pirate music. But honestly, 99+% of its use is to pirate music. The DMCA explicitly forbids this. Napster makes no attempt to regulate it. The key here is that the majority of its use is for illegal purposes. There is no legitamate use for Napster, and Napster does not enforce coypright laws itself. I won't be surprised if I see the courts rule against it.
Now whether the DCMA is legit is another matter entirely.
It's legal under current copyright law, RIAA may not like it, but they can't have half a loaf in this circumstance.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
An analogy is not an argument. Your analogy not only doesn't make your point, and is severely flawed. Of course you don't mind that someone copies your computer, provided that you don't lose income as a result
A better "analogy" would be theft of services. The services may not be tangible ( and it might in some cases be difficult to argue that the service provider actually "lost" anything ) but that doesn't justify stealing them.
You're right, it would take considerably longer than a couple of hours.
If they can break 56 bit des in a couple of hours, then simply double it 72 times and thats how long it would take (assuming that the brute force attack is the most efficient and they could scale their special purpose crackers up to 128 bits with some arbitrary algorithm.) It's bleak.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
He's saying that piracy is a crime against the author, and that the Open Source movement does itself a disservice when it allows its name to be wielded and its goals perverted by those seeking a justification for their crimes.
Do you have a source for your $5- figure ? Thought not. You are using ficticious data as a foundation for an attack. I find it very hard to believe that most record companies record annual earnings of $5 x the number of CDs they sell. It may not have occured to you, but they do have these things called "operating costs".
in a country where the average yearly income is 40k, how can these suits justify making $5 million from a few months worth of work ?
Why ? Because CEOs usually get paid more. Because the record industry needs to offer competitive salaries to their executives.
didn't Joe construction worker spend so much of his time to build the studio in which the band made it's recording ? how much money went to him ? NONE.. >
This is a flat out lie. Joe was paid a salary, and that salary is directly or otherwise one of the many operating expenseses ( which you seem to have ignored ) of the record company
don't we have a right to know why we're being charged so much for a music cd ?
What does "charged so much" mean ? Why do automoblies "cost so much" ? Why does food "cost so much" ? What does "cost so much" mean ? Many of these companies are publically traded -- the publically traded companies have to release quite a lot of information. You can probably obtain their shareholders report or something similar if you really want to know.
and i've looked in the wrong place..
L:ooking on slashdot for information ? Yeah, you've definitely come to the wrong place.
Like anything, a revolutionary solution comes out which solves the majority of the problem until the exceptions become larger than the original problem was and a new solution comes along to overthrow that. At that point is when the bloodiness begins.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
I'm not an NSA cryptographer, but unless the NSA knows of some magical math, I don't think the NSA is cracking 128 bit RSA keys (for example) in a few hours, no matter how much computer resources they have.
I can factor a 128-bit integer on my TI-89 calculator in just a few minutes. The TI-89 is not a supercomputer by any standard: it uses a 10mhz m68k CPU and has just over 1mB of memory. If you can factor the public key, you can decrypt any messages encrypted using it.
I think you're confusing symmetric cypher key strength with asymmetric key strength. While a key that is 128-bits is considered strong for the latter, it takes roughly ten times that length to be good enough for use with the former.
Most of the people creating these lawsuits and complaining about all this "horrible evil technolgy thats going to destroy our lives", are all still thinking in terms that just don't apply to the digital age. Stealing a cd from a store causes a loss for the store that bought the cd to sell. But what does copying an mp3 from someone cause? It just creates one more person with that mp3. The real problem lies in whether or not the person that copied the mp3 would be willing to buy the mp3 if they couldn't have copied it. I've downloaded lots of mp3's that were just plain bad and would never have bought, or would have returned if I did. But then again, I've also downloaded mp3's and found new forms of music I've liked that have caused me to buy cds in a store.
So what I want to say is, even though there's thousands of people copying mp3's left and right, how many of these people are going to actually buy a cd if they can't copy it? I'm willing to say only small percentage of these people.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Unfortunately, the principles of geekhood (which are typically not quite as capitalist) support freedom of information in the form of the GPL, copylefting, etc.
These two things are not compatible. People are forced to choose between two things that are acceptable to varying degrees by different people.
Got Rhinos?
Since when has Open-Source ever been about stealing IP from others?
The thing I've always thought was the best part of the Open-Source mindset, is the fact that it's set up to help you learn, not to give anything to you. As put by some wiseman, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime". Just because you have the source, does not necessarily mean you can do anything with it unless you're willing to take the time to figure it out.
Pirating MP3s has nothing to do with Open-Source. It's just stealing fish.
That said, I still disagree with Metallica's lawsuit against Napster. It's like trying to sue a hammer manufacturer because some psycho used a sledge to kill one of your family members. You have every reason to be upset, but it's hardly the tool's fault.
Ban Napster and you've laid down the groundwork for the government to shutdown/regulate the entire Internet. It maybe a tool that is primarily being used for evil, doesn't change the fact that it's just a tool.
-Tommy
------
"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
He's right, the system is fundamentally flawed. The existence of the Internet, and digital copying technology in general, destroys the utility of copyright law as it stands.
Some new system needs to evolve. Some guy up above ran an interesting thought experiment to try to determine the price of a song. I'd prefer to go about it from the other direction.
How much should a top artist be paid?
As a means of sort of arriving at a number in a vaguely plausible fashion, try this: A top programmer (who's not the owner of a business with employees besides themselves and their immediate family) can make as much as, say, $200k per year. Lets say an album of 12 songs takes about 3 years to produce. Lets say that music is twice as valuable to society as the program the programmer would produce. And, lets say being a 'top artist' means they're popular. Say, selling above 1 million albums qualifies you as a top artist. And, finally, lets say a band is on average about 5 members.
Working through the numbers on this looks like this:
($400k/yr * 5 members * 0.25yr/song) / (1e6 copies) = 50 cents / song
Hmm, and songs cost about $1.25 apiece on a standard CD. That can't all be production and distribution costs. There's a whole HUGE amount of money going somewhere it shouldn't. Over the net, I would guess that product and distribution costs would add at most 25% to the cost.
The $0.50 result was not a target. Perhaps, subconciously that's what I was doing, but I think the number just fell out. Of course, I don't know how much an artist who sells a million copies makes from the album. I'd be interested to know though. I bet, despite the incredible price, that the artist actually makes a lot less.
As I said, I think the system is broken. I don't know exactly how to fix it, I just know that RIAA needs to die, and for me Napster is a means to that end.
Although, strangely enough, Napster has also induced me (against my better judgement) to buy CDs of interesting artists. :-)
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Little did they know Jesus used Napster. All he needed was Bread'n'Fishripper and a static FTP server (Food Transfer Protocol)... wait, he didn't even need that. He had waitapostles.
I mean, come on. If you're gonna throw the Big Book at us, at least know what you're talking about.
This thread is so offtopic... but the worst part is that it's also mostly inaccurate (if you can call the Bible accurate).
[|]
So, the question is not `how can we stop these evil people using Napster and make them buy more CDs instead?', but `how should the artists/labels adapt?'
Personally, I can think of two approaches: take a radio-type approach (WWW sites pay the authors for hosting their files), or sell the files for download. If I have a choice between paying $21 for a CD (UK prices) or spending an hour or two sifting through the (often corrupted or incomplete) files on Napster, the Napster option is quite appealing. If, on the other hand, I could download the `authentic' MP3 files directly from the author's homepage for $1 or so, I'd probably go for that.
At that price, it's cheap enough I wouldn't mind, and expensive enough that the artist still gets a similar amount to the figure they'd get if I bought the CD - but without the middleman taking his 95% cut. The `radio sites', meanwhile, could use banner ads, subscriptions, etc. to cover their costs.
If a song it the writer's intellectual property, why mustn't I pay him to play it myself, say on my piano? Because it's not practical to enforce such a restriction. Our intellectual property conventions have arisen in accordance with technology and circumstances. Once upon a time, printing recordings of music was an expensive undertaking, and thus centralized and easily controlled. Technology dictated ethics: copyright laws were deemed good, at least in part, because they were enforceable.
Now things are different, and intransigent souls, predictably, are demanding that ethics dictate technology. I cannot imagine them winning. What I can imagine them doing is making random people's lives miserable by sporatically attempting to enforce an unenforcable law.
Say Metallica wins their law suit... what does that change? Is there to be an unending string of reverse-class-action lawsuits by every musical group? At least by those groups who can afford to defend their intellectual property...
Or say Napster gets shut down. What about Gnutella and Freenet, not to mention tomorrow's God-knows-what super-sneaky encrypted system? Can they be stopped, short of shutting down the Internet?
I was quite young when I learned an unpleasant fact about property: if you can't enforce your rights, you haven't got any. Now in most matters we depend upon government to protect our property rights, but the same rule applies... if they can't enforce them, you haven't got any. What we need to be considering are practical plans for a sustainable system, not pie-in-the-sky discussions of what's right.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Do I think that the age of copyright as we know it, as applied to recorded music is going to have to change? yes. Do I hate record companies? Yes.
Do I think that people have a right to share music? Kind of.. but I also think artists themselves have a right to their material.
Let's face something here.
1) Pirating music is *ILLEGAL*. It doesn't take any bending or twisting of the law to make it illegal..it's plain and simple. This fact may change in the future, as technology changes... but right now, the law is very clear. It is ILLEGAL.
2) Two things really bother me here in this lawsuit, and they contradict one another if not seen in the right light. Look at it this way.
a) Firstly, as probably many others feel, I am angry that napster is being prosecuted based on technology. I see it as technology being prosecuted.. because to those of us in-the-know... ftp servers as well as napster. Irc. Everything else.. the net already allows us to transfer data around.. napster is just one way of organizing that data for retrieval. So from a pure technology point of view... well.. law has no place in pure technology!
b) From another point of view though... consider napster again. These people, napster, have tried to get FAMOUS and SUPER POPULAR, and to make MONEY (well.. they are a corporation, no? it must be in the plan somewhere) by starting napster, a tool that they KNEW DAMN WELL would only be popular because it empowered people to PIRATE MUSIC. Please. Spare the tripe about legal music. yes. I agree. TEchnically napster can be used for trading legal music. The fact is.. these poeple tried to become famous (and have succeeded) by helping people break the law. Period. Crappy software. Shitty interface. not really very sophisticated at all...
if I contrast this to gnutella.. the principle is different. Gnutella is not designed specifically to share music.. but it'smore than that. What they were trying to do was create a flexible way to share and search data that would be free of censorship, period. Yes, the undertones are that it is for doing illegal things.. but the principle is different, more noble. Gnutella tried to give people freedom. Napster tries to help people steal music.
Ok maybe I'm a bit naive but how is this for a solution -
The record companies (or cdnowm, amazon, tower, etc.) set up a site where anyone can download any MP3 for a small price ($1? 50 cents?).
Thats it, nothing more really. Most people don't what to do anything illegal and will pay a small fee for an MP3. Napster, Gnutella, or some varient will still exist, its inevitable, but the record companies will still be making bank.
I'd be willing to spend that much just for the ease of use of knowing that I can go one place and know that what I want is there, hosted on a fast server, properly labeled, and won't cut off mid song. Napster's got none of this and most likely never will. Its design ensures there is no standardization of quality. Throw in the fact I get a legal copy and boom the record companies make even more profits then they do now.
Of course the record labels need to come to terms with the fact that people can easily make perfect copies. God knows how long it will take for them to realize that people already can do this by ripping a CD.
But nah this is way to simple of a solution. Guess Im stuck with the illegal version of hearing new music now. Probably spend 1-2 grand a year on cds, but I'm still a villian in the eyes of the record companies.
Abstract Dynamics
Just because you can shoplift doesn't mean everyone should. We're going thru a massive public education program right now and every ip worker needs to try every chance they get to enlighten folks to the rules, risks and punishments.
In fact, the more OSS advocates stand up for copyright protection the better oss projects look - I mean, if someone can rip off a copy of W2K it's way better than any Linux distro - but when you force people to factor in the $799 or whatever price tag per install then Linux et al are clearly the better choice. You either have to pay someone else (Msft) to do all your work, or you can do some work yourself and save a bundle.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Liken this, if you will, to organising a method for importing and distributing goods. Surely there's no harm in that?
Now, let's suppose your distribution methods could be used to import and distribute, say... alcohol, as Prohibited in the US during the Interwar period.
Of course, you could always claim that you never knew your outfit would be used for illegal purposes: Your sole intent was to provide a service to the masses, or to interested parties. However, if you knew you'd be responsible for the trade of illicit goods and services, well then that's called trafficking.
Of course, you could always put the shoe on the other foot, and argue the VCR side of things (fair use, and all that), but I dislike contradicting myself in the space of one post.
-- The One and Only NotMike.
Doom heard Lars Ulrich of the repugnant band, "Metallica" speak last week on the Napster issue. It was clear to Doom that this insolent rock star was completely ignorant of the situation at hand, with no prior knowledge to the workings of the program. If you desire to listen to this interview, along with questions and answers from the insipid audience, you should point your browser to KROQ.com. Doom has spoken....Sharkey
www.badDOOMassmofo.com
(Not free as in beer, necessarily, just free)
Got Rhinos?
I think this is a very interesting comparison - these artists are established, and they're using copyright law to their advantage, which it's tough to fault them for. But no one involved in the lawsuit seems to be addressing the question of whether this system of distribution is healthy for artists and music as a *whole*; instead, a few rock stars are complaining that they're getting robbed. Well, yes, they probably are, under current law. But maybe they should take a step back and recognize that the primary beneficiaries of the system they're defending are the RIAA, and NOT the artists. Bearing that in mind, they should maybe think real hard about whether they want to do their part to continue propping up the system.
I'd like to think that Limp Bizkit, Chuck D, and some others are doing it for that reason.
-brennan
Over the years, I have invested a great deal of time and money into the skills needed to pursue my chosen career. That's probably true for most working /. readers as well. I know that most professional musicians have made the same, if not larger, investments in learning the skills that they need. In all cases, be it music or software development, some creative talent and a lot of hard work produce something which (at least some) other people find useful.
Artists (and other creative people) are entitled to receive a monetary return on their investment in acquiring valuable skills and creating useful stuff, if they so choose. Copyright is about protecting the creators' rights to such returns. Some creators don't want/need to make money and distribute their creations freely -- I've done that in at least one case, but not in all cases. My choice, not anyone else's.
To those who believe that using Napster to distribute copyrighted material without permission of the creator is okay, put yourself in the artists' position: spend years acquiring the skills, lots and lots of hours and effort producing the work, and now someone claims that you're not entitled to compensation for any of that work. I'd certainly be pissed off about it!
Should the Internet be a platform that allows an artist to distribute his/her work and receive fair payment (as determined by the artist) for it? Absolutely! But that's not what Napster does, is it?
If there were no copyrights, and say IBM tried to do that, then some employee of IBM would more than likely slip the source code out to the community and IBM couldn't do a thing about it.
Ah I've thought about this many times before.
50 cents would probably be a fair flat rate. The thing is, musical tastes are so different between many people, you can't really asess a "quality" value to music.
For example, I bought Radiohead's OK Computer, and listened to it non stop for months. I still love it. I would probably put it's value to me at $100. My Beatles cds will probably give me thousands of dollars worth of enjoyment over time.
However I can't begin to name all the cd's that I have that aren't worth anywhere NEAR the ~$15 I paid for them. (how I wish I could somehow transfer the money to the artists that actually made music I liked)
If you have to take a chance at getting a load of crap, then the price per song is going to be lower across the board....even though you might come across a few gems.
Well, then, by that reasoning, let's sue Microsoft because of the "LOVEBUG" virus. Even though it's a user that wrote the virus, it's Microsoft's fault, right? Then we'll sue the makers of FTP programs because they have people who upload and download illegal software. After that, let's sue the store owner that sold the guns to the guy who went and killed his family one night. And then we'll sue McDonald's for making hot coffee that a customer spilt on herself. It's not the individual's fault, right? It's the people who provided the opportunity to do wrongdoing and didn't take you by your little hand and tell you step by step what is right or wrong, smart or stupid? The fact is, the users who shared Metallica mp3's knew right from wrong. THEY did the illegal thing. What the FUCK does Napster have to do with the people who committed wrongdoing? Lars actually said on MTV that he felt that Napster "encouraged" downloading of Metallica songs. How the fucking hell did Napster encourage downloading of anything illegal? By providing the means? Give me a fucking break. How stupid and illogical can one get? Besides, everytime you start up Napster, ever since the first version came out, there has always been a big red warning that tells you not to use Napster for illegal means. It says quite clearly that if it receives reports of any wrongdoing it will gladly take appropriate action. Napster actually DISCOURAGED illegal use. It's not Napster's fault the users did anything illegal. Geez, think of how many people would get sued if we held them responsible for whatever illegal activity took place by users of their services or products, be it a piece of software, a gun, an automobile, beer, cigarettes, computers, phones, credit cards, cameras, knives, cassette decks, VCRs, and much, much more. What if you held a concert and was sued because some drunken idiot in the mosh pit got a broken arm? Is it his fault for making the choice to mosh, or is it your fault for creating the environment that caused his injury? Who really caused it? This country is getting so fucked up because of this ridiculous kind of thinking. YOU are responsible for your OWN actions. And you're NOT responsible for other people's actions that you had no part of. Napster had NOTHING to do with what their users did. Imagine how fucked up this country would be if this mode of thinking took over. I have an idea--let's sue Metallica because a few kids back in the 80's killed themselves after listening to "Fade to Black". Anyone else remember that issue back in the day? Ironic that Metallica argued the same thing I am arguing--they weren't responsible for what their listeners did, much the same way that Napster isn't responsible for what it's users do. Napster isn't a mommy, it doesn't need to teach you right and wrong. It is simply an excellent music distribution method that I use for my own band. If users use it illegally--fine, go after them (although the way Metallica did go after them is a whole other discussion itself). I'm appalled Metallica is trying to shut Napster itself down, but also not really worried because Napster is a dead issue anyway, Gnutella is where it's at--it can't be sued because it's not centrally controlled. My band is taking full advantage of the internet medium to distribute its music, and no misinformed, technologically-challenged Lars Ulrich is gonna stop us. Fuck the RIAA; hell, even the government has realized how money-grubbing this organization is. As stated in a story on E!Online earlier this month (I submitted the story but it never got accepted), the prices of CD's were ordered to be lowered, due to findings showing that despite the ease of production and the fact that cassette equivalents have gone down in price, CD's have gone UP in price, by several dollars in fact. Remember buying CD's for 9.99? Even 12.99? Forget it nowadays. Everything boils down to money; it explains the motives behind this whole issue, behind everything. It all leads back to the greed of the RIAA, the record companies--and now, Metallica...protecting their "art" from being "commoditized" by freely-trading Napster users, so that they can instead be commoditized by being sold in a mega-mall for $20 a pop. That is art to Metallica.
Geez, what would you people do without me here to keep you in line?
Mike,
I read your article with great interest.
Personally, by applying 128-bit encryption to audio, video, and book text files, it will be just about impossible to break the encryption. People forget that 128-bit encryption is a VERY tough nut to crack--even the National Security Agency, the largest user of supercomputers in the the USA, can only decrypt a single 128-bit "key" at a rate a once every several HOURS. That means that it will take a hugely-massive Beowulf array of Linux workstations working in a single-room LAN to seriously consider breaking 128-bit encryption, and frankly, most of the world's hackers cannot do this quite yet.
I would charge a this rate:
Audio albums: US$4 for full album, and US$0.40 per song.
Video movies: US$6.50 per movie.
Book text files: US$4 per full book text for "hardback" releases, US$2 for "paperback" releases.
With these very low prices--reflected to consider we no longer have to pay for media and packaging costs--the incentive for piracy will drop to near zero.
(As an aside, I'm surprised that someone has not considered taking the DiVX format and converting it to a 128-bit encrypted format as a medium for direct-Internet sales of movies. Given that most movies are around 650 MB in size in DiVX format, anyone with a broadband Internet connection can download the movie pretty quickly.)
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
You see, just as there is a True and a False, Left and a Right, On and an Off;
There is also a Right and a Wrong, and a Legal and Illegal.
It isn't Them against Us, it is Us against Them.
Do you think you have a Right to other people's music? No, you are Wrong!
If they wanted to give it to you, they would---but they don't. They only give to paying customers.
It hurts you not.
That is all I have to say. That is all that needs to be said.
Can we say TRACKING SCENE :-) Check it out at www.traxinspace.com if you're not familiar with it. BTW its kinda hard to open source someting that doesnt have any source to open ;-)
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. The Party - 1984
The music companies seem to think it's okay to sell something with the following properties:
Copyright is an interesting beast, and as the RIAA would have it practised, it breaks the legal assumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty. If you buy a disc, don't like it, and want to return it...generally, you can't. If there are 3 good songs out of 20, you're out of luck. If the disc was only 25 minutes long (Hello, Beatles), you're out of luck.
And they're complaining about being ripped off?
How about using the technology to stop ripping off consumers, instead?
>Before you compare, "stealing" music to
>"stealing" a car, consider the following:
>Can you touch a car? Is a car a physical thing,
>tangible?
>Now, can you say the same for music? What's the
>difference between a $2.50 blank CD from Pick N
>Pay, and a "%Band Name%" CD ? To me, very little.
>They are physically tangible only at one layer:
>the physical, CD layer. The music is just a
>bunch of ridges and gaps.
Quite right. But I'll use computers as a better analogy in this instance.
I would actually be quite pissed if someone were to *STEAL* my computer.
But if anybody out there would like to build their own COPY of my computer, I would be more than happy to provide you with the specs. Hell, I could even give some of the part numbers in addition to brand and models. You could make an exact DUPLICATE, and I wouldn't give a damn. Good luck finding some of the parts tho... there's some OLD stuff lingering in there.
But I would still be quite mad if you were to STEAL it.
john
Imagine all the people...
Linus himself chooses to license Linux under the GPL. He expects people to honor his choice. He also expects people to honor Metallica's choice to release their work under the terms which they choose. I would expect Linux to sue someone who violates the GPL with Linux (Corel's beta program). As for Stallman, he has fundimental flaws in his argument. Most musicians do NOT make enough money touring to put food on their tables. It would be nice, but it is not the case. He really pisses me off, always threatening people who look at the GPL in the wrong way, but so quickly dismising anyone else's rights to determine the terms of their work. Also he is suddenly an expert in an industry he has absolutely no experience in. Shame on him.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Consider that the RIAA loves to market shitty bands to you (the 1 hit wonders). They have one good song on their entire album. They release this song (and no others) to radio stations. People hear it and think "ahha - this band is cool I think I'll buy the album".
:) A "standard" ...And Justice For All song price (9 songs on the album, so let's say $1.50 each). The song "One" might cost you 6 bucks, since it was heavily promoted on the radio and MTV.
Soon they learn how worthless this band really is. But it's too late, the consumer has already spent his $15+ on the album. Which is exactly what the RIAA wants, and exactly why they oppose mp3 trading.
Because of this attitude, the big labels probably won't adopt a pay-per-song system anytime in the near future. However, if they did, it's very likely they would have a "standard" song price for a particular band/album, plus "premium" pricing for popular songs.
For example, take... oh... Metallica
So overall, they could make more money per album, if people bought all the songs. What scares the RIAA is that people will only buy a few songs because most bands they promote these days are utter crap.
Best regards,
SEAL
You know, it's awefully weird to have ZDNet posting something about "moral compunctions" that is obviously slashdot-bait.
/. just like MS. Just like the RIAA.
I don't like the oily feeling I get when I read their articles, knowing that their idea of news is tied directly to their revenue from ad-driven articles aimed for specific audiences. They obviously by now have identified slashdot as one of those target markets, and makes news stories that specifically "bait" everyone here into clicking onto their page.
I think I'd prefer if when news from them came out, if it was _really_ necessary to see the article that someone would post the text here, so I wouldn't have to go to their site. Oh wait, they'd probably sue
Don't be fooled by this non-freind of Open source, and don't be baited into silly anger at their statements...
("slashdot, a site for novice linux enthusiasts")
(WTF? No bearded smug people from VAX days read slashdot anymore? Silly ZDNet!)
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
Don't buy magazines with photos of Britney Spears.
:) OK, I'd take SMG over her, but whatever...
No way. I'm cool with a boycott on RIAA/MPAA, but give up my little Britney? Uh-uh.
Funny that the Natalie Portman trolling hasn't extended to other stars too... (maybe I'll start trolling about Shirley Manson).
[Yes this entire post is ridiculous and offtopic and quite possibly a troll as well - if I could post at 0 without being anonymous I would do so]
RMS is the only one here who seems to have it straight. The existing system is flawed, and the only way to work it out is to, as Chuck D of Public Enemy put it, "Fight the power! Fight the powers that be!"
If you want to "Fight the power" you should stop listening to RIAA-pimped music altogether. Stop watching MTV. Stop listening to commericial radio stations. Don't buy their crappy CD's. Don't buy magazines with photos of Britney Spears.
Otherwise, you're just as clueless as all the people that complain that Microsoft is a monopoly, while using a pirated copy of MS Office. Using Napster is the moral equivilant to giving the RIAA the finger. They might not like it, but it sure as hell doesn't hurt them. If you're gonna be a tough monkey boy and "Fight the Power", then fight it in a way that hurts them. Hurt their influence and pocketbook -- stop giving them any money at all, either directly through album sales, or indirectly through advertising revenue.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
I was speaking to a friend of mine about this topic and we covered some interesting ground. I don't much listen to music of any kind, let alone pirated MP3's, so I was trying to understand from him exactly to what extent he was really being honest with himself and me about the ethics of copying.
/. referred to an article by Bertrand Meyer in which he argued (fairly cluelessly I thought) that this was only a difference in degree, not in quality. But he failed to reflect that the reverse of the same argument can be used to examine the ethics of charging for physical commodities. Maybe it is only "just" to charge for an apple or a hard drive because they are so expensive to reproduce. If apples materialized out of thin air at the whim of a hungry man, would it still be true that the original breeder of that particular apple variety could ethically charge a price for the long-past labor of creation?
:)
We all have grasped by now that electronic information (from software to music to books, and so on) differs from physical commodities in that the replication price is virtually nil. Yesterday
In the MP3 discussion, my friend commented that he would gladly charge for music if it were valued at something closer to it's "true" value. Leaving aside the confusion of a line of argument that tries to assign some kind of intrinsic value outside of a free marketplace, I asked him what that fair price might be. He said 50 cents per song would be just if that meant he could download the song quickly and hassle-free.
Well, I respect my friend but frankly I thought he was lying. It's easy to say that you would pay 50 cents for something you can currently get for free. I might agree that 50 cents is a reasonable price to get a Camaro delivered to my doorstep if all I had to do otherwise was walk down the street and take the keys out of the glovebox.
So I tried to reverse the situation, to find out what he really thought a song was worth. He thought of a song he liked, and I asked him how much he would require me to pay him in return for a promise that he would never choose to listen to that song again. Of course, he could listen to it if someone else were playing it, or if it happened to be on the radio, but he could never again decide of his own volition to play that tune.
He thought about it for a bit, and then *still* said 50 cents. It may be that the didn't really like the song that much, or it may be that he was still fudging the truth, but I'll take his word for it. You may come to a different answer, and if you do then perhaps you haven't been completely honest with yourself about your motives. It *is* possible to believe you're serving the side of virtue when in fact you're only looking out for your baser desires. I hear it even happens on slashdot
So the next time you assign a value to a commodity that you can get for free, ask how much it would be worth to you to go without it. Think of it as an exercise in self-inspection.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Record companies get radio stations to play one or two songs off the latest CD as bait. If you want to hear more, you have to pay them for it.
MP3 traders let you get all the songs for free. In RIAA's mind, that means that, since you've already got (MP3s of) the CD, you won't buy it, where before you would have.
It's not just about who picks the bait. It's also about whether you get one song free or all of them.
I think the success of Napster may be in part due to the demand for the MP3 format, for which there are no legal sources outside MP3.com. Encoding their own might beyond your less technically literate Windows user, as used as they are to the point and drool convienence to which Microsoft has accustomed them.
Of course the RIAA and the MPAA would like us to move over to a pay-per-view world where you have to give them money every time you want to listen to a song or watch a movie. To that end they'll need to outlaw every format that might allow for free viewing and free distribution. Napster is not a threat because their copyrights are being violated. Napster is a threat because the distribution model might give people ideas.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Guns are not inherently bad or good. Guns are inanimate objects. When you're on the wrong end of a gun your situation might be bad, but the gun isn't bad or good. Whether your situation is bad or not depends entirely upon the person with the gun. The gun is a tool that can magnify the severity of the situation you find yourself in (or if you have the gun it could greatly reduce the severity).
Technology is neither good nor bad. Technology is a tool. Whether your situation is good or bad depends upon how the technology is being used (against you or to help you) and often whether or not you wield the technology.
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Working within the realms of the law is as important as anything. The moment you become a criminal you taint your appearance to outsiders. The general public does not listen to the ramblings of criminals...no matter how great your ideas may be. Like it or not as Open Source advocates we are forced to work within the realms of the laws. Those are the laws that protect us...and our freedom. We are free to do a lot of things. Pirating is illegal. if you want to use software or music that people want you to pay for...then you have to pay for it. That is how they make a living. If you don't like it...write the software or music yourself.
Just because I support Open Source software, does not mean I take everything as free and noone can/should make money for it. At least not for me. That is borderline socialism. I don't think people shouldn't make money for their hard work.
As for music...the honest only time I have ever done much MP3 stuff is to preview music and see if I like it enough to support the author by buying his/her album. Same reason i download evaluations of software before I buy it. This is why, for me, Napster is alright. And this is why I believe it should be legal. But..if everyone took it like I did...I don't think we'd be having these problems right now.
that's my $.02
I don't pretend to believe that trading MP3s is legal, or should be. But when there are lawsuits against companies like Napster or mp3.com it outrages me. These companies are not breaking the law, they are providing a service that can be used for good or not-good.
It is legal for me (or you) to have mp3s. I have almost every one of the Beatles' songs on mp3, I also own every albulm. I made most of the mp3s myself, but occasionally I didn't have the time to make my own and I set up a program to download a copy. Is that illegal? I still own and paid for the CD. I literally have gigs of mp3s and an entire box of CDs, it's much easier for me to set up a list of songs off of xmms then on my stereo. But if they keep suing compaines that provide a mp3-related service I'm not going to be able to play those files (then what would I do with that 20gig drive?) because there will be no WinAmp or XMMS.
Fine let everybody pretect their copyrights, but I must protect my rights to use this file format!
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
I can hear the clamoring of the /. hordes now: "Of course shoplifting is wrong, but copying music is different! Nobody loses anything when you copy music!"
Consider, though, what makes up the cost of a CD. Conservatively, let's say a particular CD costs $16, and again, conservatively, let's say that the cost of burning, packaging, distributing, and retailing the CD is $2. You shoplift this CD. Is that wrong? How much have you stolen? Have you stolen $2? Of course not! Anyone will recognize that you've stolen $16 - you walked out of a store with an item that had a price tag on it, declaring its value to be $16. So where does the other $14 come from? Simple: the value of the information on the CD. Monetarily, nearly all of your crime is stealing information. And the music industry still has that information - chances are, even the store you swiped the CD from does, too.
So what's the difference between the scenario above and fetching a copy of the album - maybe not the same bits, but largely the same information - over the Net?
$2.
Now, why is the one considered unethical, and the other considered "sharing" by so many of us? I'm about to turn quite cynical. It's because you're far more likely to be caught and held accountable for shoplifting. That's it. That's the only reason why many people who wouldn't dream of running from the corner record store with a CD in hand spend time grabbing copyrighted music over the net.
So what's the solution? Lower prices, for one - any retailer, even the owner of a CD shop, knows that items which are more valuable are more likely to be stolen. More importantly, though, catch and hold accountable those who are copying music without permission.
Anything that a teenager can find on the Net, a professional can, too. Contrary to what a bunch of people have been posting, there's nothing wrong about having a few officers of the law cruise the Net looking for unlawfully copied music being offered to the public. This should be obvious - if a policeman drives by your house and sees you sitting outside, having a garage sale, with a giant "STOLEN CDs" sign above a stack of boxes, then probably you've stolen those CDs. Similarly, if your list of files offered on Napster contains listings for files which purport to be songs not released freely to the public, then it's likely you're in violation of the law. Anticipating an objection - of course heightened enforcement will only drive illegal music copying underground. This doesn't matter to the music industry; they're not trying to totally wipe out the practice, just to cut it back to acceptable levels. If unlawful music sharing is reduced to the levels of, say, three or four years ago, the industry will be happy.
And a happy copyright industry doesn't lobby Congress for ill-advised, unconstitutional laws. It doesn't try to squash technology flat because of its potential for cutting into profit. It doesn't abuse its wealth and the legal system to try to hold progress right where it's at, its lawyers straining at the heels of tech, as hard as they can.
I'm not defending the music industry - they're an oligopoly, using their gargantuan market power to rip off both artists and the public. Their marketing degrades the music taste of the world. They charge too much. And they don't care one whit about individual rights - censorship of legitimate technologies (Think Rio. Think Napster. Think, peripherally, DeCSS.) is preferable to losing a few measly thousand dollars of profit. They are Evil.
And if copyright infringement by individiuals isn't slowed by real enforcement, against the individual purveyors of stolen goods, they'll Win. And that will be Bad.
If it really bothers you set up an ad-free mirror on some free webspace and post it here. I'd rather go to the rogue site than keep lining ZDnets pockets.
>But what inspiration does a person have to go and
>buy a cd when they could download and burn the cd
>in much less time than they could go to a store
>and buy it?
Actually a couple...
1)
Convinence: I can take a CD with me anywhere. My car (no in-dash MP3 player in my budget yet, but plenty of CD options), the bus, the subway, the beach... pretty much ANYWHERE that I do NOT have a high speed connection to my MP3 archive at home, or to napster.
2)
The big one.
Compared to real CDs, an MP3, or an MP3 converted to red book and burnes to a CDR, SOUNDS LIKE CRAP!!! Even @ 196 conversion, there's still a noticeably lack of quality. Sure, you might not be able to tell the difference on those crappy computer speakers, or on those $2 headphones on your discman... but on a GOOD stereo, with REAL speakers, MP3s sound like CRAP compared to the real thing.
And #2 is the big reason that, while I have a hefty collection of MP3s for convinence and previewing, I also have a huge CD collection. Any MP3 worth keeping is worth buying the CD, partly for the convince of listening to my music at work and school, but especially for the quality. And if it's not good enough to buy the CD, it's not worth listening to, or keeping on my HD when the next cleanup day comes along.
And I can't help but wonder when the RIAA and their stooges like metallica, dr dre, et al. are going to realise 1 and 2.
john
Imagine all the people...
I'm not an NSA cryptographer, but unless the NSA knows of some magical math, I don't think the NSA is cracking 128 bit RSA keys (for example) in a few hours, no matter how much computer resources they have.
Am I wrong on this? After all, RC5-64 has taken distributed.net a couple of years of distributed calculations across the Internet to get, what, 15% of the keyspace exhausted by now?
And 128 bits is 2^64 times harder than that.
Once you get the keylength high enough, it quickly becomes pointless to try to do a brute force key search. At that point, you do whatever you have to in order to get your data tap inserted into the processing stream at a point in which the data has already been decrypted.
IANAC, of course.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Remember what DB released his Hours cd on the net? Yeah, pretty cool until you saw the price, 17.99. You get no case, no liner notes, no CD, just some data.
Maybe the record companies have learned from it, maybe they haven't. Especially when you consider how inflated the price of a CD is. I'm sure the RIAA is busily trying to find a way to sell MP3s online with an even bigger profit margin than normal CD purchases. A simple how-much-are-you-willing-to-pay vs how-many-are-willing-to-pay equation will decide the new inflated price.
In the U.S. we don't hold a referendum for every single law that gets passed. Not even close. You elect representatives to stand up for the things you believe in. If they are passing laws that you disagree with, then vote them out, live with it, take up citizenship in another country, or become a criminal. Those are the choices.
I don't think the DMCA is good law. I also think our government has serious corruption and bribery problems. But I care about my country, and I strongly feel that we should work within the law to change it.
Fantastic Ideas, and I believe that the $1 mental cut-off would work on the consumer's end. However, this $1 would in all likelihood be paid by credit card, in which case the credit card industry takes 25 - 35 cents plus 2.5% of the transaction. The outcome is for a $1 transaction the receiving party only gets about 68 cents. People still might pay $2 for the same services, however, in which case the artist/online distributor gets $1.65 to go crazy with.
C'est pas apres qu'on a fait dans son pantalon qu'il faut serrer les fesses.
I wasn't trying to aim my post as "pro-Napster", more along the lines of "what RIAA really is concerned about". RIAA promotes ideas that make marketing easier (top forty lists based purely on record sales, not on listener requests) and squashes those that cause them to work (early electronica music sans "stars"). The whole IP and piracy talk is just the spin machine in motion. Do you think law makers would give a damn if they raised the banner of more difficult marketing?
It's still a big game, and the record industry will always be winning, I think.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I think that very few people would argue for piracy. It is generally accepted that copyright holders deserve to receive some financial benefit from the work that they produce. However, that is not the issue that is relevant to the Napster fiasco.
Napster never encourages or acts as an accomplice to music piracy in any form. It is simply an open forum that allows for the distribution of music files, plain and simple. Since none of the files that are exchanged ever reside on Napster's servers, they are in never in possession of pirated music. While some users utilize Napster's network for legitimate MP3 distribution, some abuse it and pirate music. The fact is that Napster, who is merely providing a service that can be used for legal, ethical, activity is being blamed for the abuse of some of its users.
The RIAA should pick a fight with pirates directly, not use Napster as a convenient scapegoat.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
I am not that familiar with how succesfull the shareware system is, but would it be plausible for artitists to market their music this way? Personally I would have no problem sending $5 to some guy if I downloaded and liked his music. This would also be a lot more than they would normally make selling an album.
You know, for some unknown reason, my browser can't seem to find/connect to http://www.jjjjulius.com. Care to enlighten me any on what the reason for this may be?
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
What color is the sky on your planet? As much as Napster tries to blush and flutter its eyelids and say, "Golly! We never intended our service to be used for illegal MP3-trading! We thought there were enough people out there who wanted to trade only legitimate MP3s that it would be worth writing software and forming a corporation!" the idea is just so ridiculous that a judge would have trouble controlling his laughter enough to render a decision.
Their are legitimate uses for napster and people who use the service for legal files. That their are legitimate uses for the service is enough to warrent its continued existance. Maybe you would like to make IRC illegal since it can be used to trade files. Or maybe we should make FTPs illegal because many people use that transfer protocal to trade warez?
By your definition we also need to make it illegal to own a vcr because it is mainly used to make copies of copyrighted content. We also need to throw all the people who sell ciggarette papers in jail because we know that most people use those to smoke pot, not tobacco.
Think about it would you want to own an ISP that had to fear constant lawsuits because of what its users might be doing? Napster is a service, yes it can be used for doing things that are illegal but so can a hammer. Like a hammer napster is just a tool. Blame the people who are misusing it not Napster.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
>How long has Napster been out?
Dunno, exactly.
>How long have people been trading CD-quality
>MP3's via it?
It's never happened. Even at the 196 bitrate (the highest you regularly see on napster) an MP#, or an MP3, converted to AIFF and burned to a CD, will STILL be inferior to CD quality. That, and convinence, is why I have an extensive CD collection backing up my MP3s with high-quality audio.
I can understand the clueless, such as the the RIAA, metallica, dr dre, et al. not getting it, but you, as a slashdotter, should know better. The MP3 format purposely excludes part of the audio from the compression. And no audio compression scheme yet invented, not even the highest bitrate MP3, will decompress to a red book track equal to that from which the MP3 was ripped.
Sure, you might not be able to tell the difference on the crapy speakers hooked up to your computer, or the $2 headphones on your discman. But on a REAL stereo, with GOOD speakers, I GUARANTEE thae there's a difference.
Which is why CD sales are STILL increasing, in spite of napster "destroying" the industry. MP3s are no threat to any band that gets it. It's just too bad that there is such a seious clue shortage at the RIAA.
john
Imagine all the people...
There seems to be a certainty in degradation
The principle behind it is that artists should be able to make as much money as they want from their product, while everyone else should be forced to pay for it.
This is way out in cuckoo-land. If artists could make as much money as they wanted, don't you think that
1. They'd want much more than what they make now?
2. Everybody would become an artist?
you only think those are mobile "phones"... how can you be sure who you're really talking to?
lf.o
MP3 = Not as good as CD = People go out and buy the CD.
This isn't about piracy, it's about MARKETING. Period. This is no different than the Beta/VHS debate.
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
Very good suggestions.
/L
But before this is possible I think we need a way to pay small amounts of money over the Internet.
A secure, anonymous, fast and cost free way to send $1 online.
I don't want the hazzle, risks and currency exchange fees involved in sending my creditcard number everytime I want to buy a single.
Yes! There is justice in the world.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Your basic point is correct, of course -- the MPAA does want to control the movie biz. But DVD encryption isn't part of that plan.
MSK
Here's a weird-sounding paraphrase of your post: "I'd love play you a song, but my shareholders are afraid that I give a shit about music - even more than them."
I wish that we were talking about "JOY" instead of "JOB"...
Those kinds of musicians - the kind who don't like music anymore - produce a product which actually *harms the environment*, and they should pay *us* for vibrating the air with it.
In that vein, I'm waiting to be paid my fair share of reparations from the record companies. You know, kinda like the pollution permits that utilites have to buy from the Feds? Sorry, but Epitaph has to pay a little, too...
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot - copyright is dying. It's too bad that we're being caught up in its death-throes, and that silliness like the DCMA (and even the GPL!) have to be written and forced upon society. Don't you think so?
Hey, I stole "Mary Had A Little Lamb" out of my piano today - here it is (you'll have to reverse-engineer the rhythm, and Lordy, watch out for the Feds):
EDCDEEE,DDD,EGG,EDCDEEEEDDEDC
That'll be $16, please - I'm signed to a label!
More Than piracy . I've been thinking about the 'copyright' debate because some aspects of it really bother me. Consequently a few questions come to mind. First of all, have either Metallica or any of the others claiming copyright infringement even acknowledged the past authors whose copyrighted works (at least those not owned by lyric mills) were the source of 'inspiration' (I use the word inspiration loosely here) and from whom bits and pieces were borrowed (or possibly just stolen)? Further, have Metallica or any of the others opened their wallets to offer payment to these authors? Finally, are not new ideas and concepts merely recycled, reworked, and in some cases rejuvenated old ideas and concepts, particularly in the case of music and lyrics? . I pose these questions to highlight the hypocrisy that is plainly evident in the machinations of Metallica and other such greedy pukes who would use the money they received while using the works of others (laughably as a source of 'inspiration') to enrich themselves and who make no mention of these authors and their products nor make any effort to pay them for the time and effort that went into producing their products (which probably were also the results of un-reimbursed borrowings and similar such thievery), so that they could be inspired and later reap huge profits. But there is a larger issue here. . With the advent of digital encoding and highly sophisticated encryption technology the concept of 'copyright protection' is entering a new and troubling era particularly with respect to information development and dispersal. Not only can an author now request and receive payment for his work, he can also conceivably dictate where, when, to whom, to what degree and for how long his work will be accessible. Fair use is now moot. Reverse engineering is moot also. Through the use of licensing and similar such schemes an author can force compliance with his wishes as there are many who are looking for a payday and so long as there are deep pockets there will be a day before the bar for the unfortunate as judges are predisposed to look favorably to the claims (some being specious) of authors and they take pains to ensure that lawyers get paid. . Microsoft has given us a peek at just how perverted our world will soon become with what it did with Kerberos taking the work of others, giving it a superficial treatment, then placing it out on the internet, as its own, hidden behind a fig leaf click through agreement, offensive to all, but perfectly legal. Has anyone heard Microsoft offer to pay the open source community for its work? Would MS object if the shoe were on the other foot? Silly question. . Historically Kings and Clergy controlled the development and distribution of information as they owned (and could afford) the scribes. The printing press changed all that and later recording machines and copiers (as well as other technologies) further propelled the dispersal of information to the masses. The internet vigorously pushes the limits of information distribution yet again. . But now technology seems to promise to closed the door or make it difficult for information pass through. For some like Miscosoft who are positioned with deep pockets the new technology is a boon, but for others it will prove a bane as they will no longer have the free and unfettered access to information they once had. Just imagine if you had to pay each and every reference you used for your last term paper. It gets worse. . Imagine you had to pay each reference every time you presented a paper or gave a presentation. Or each time you made a back-up (a new copy of an original). It's now possible to monitor the copies you save to disk for later reading. How about paying each time you open the file? It can become bizarre. . With the wiring of homes to the internet and the development of smart appliances inventors can now entertain the possibly of requiring a fee/royalty for each usage. For example each time you open a smart refrigerator, use a toaster oven, microwave, even flush your crapper information regarding your usage can be passed out over the internet to the inventor's (or copy right holder's) computer where an automated billing program will present you with a monthly bill. Imagine the crapper's inventor sending his goons to your door to reposes you crapper because you're three months in arrears paying him his royalties on his 'invention'. This notion may seem ludicrous to most but the possibility exists only because it can. . In a more serious vein, some who can afford to pay will have limited access. Market forces will dictate the development, availability, distribution and even quality of information going through cycles of growth and recession. Information will be developed for markets complete with quality grades like so much merchandise marketed to segments of the population always with the maximization of profits (what ever the market will bear) and the bottom line in mind. Gone will be the days where we can merely go to a library or to our computers where we can after a long and arduous process synthesize new ideas. We will have to pay each source the fee they demand. Of course we will want to (have to?) pass the additional expense on to our consumer/users. . Needless to say the argument that we should be paid for our work is an oversimplification and those who proffer it are disingenuous. Payment is really not the major issue here, it's control, absolute control. If payment were really the crucial issue then the matter could be settled quite easily by protecting an author's copyright for a fixed period, with critical points of contact collecting fees or royalties on the basis of a decreasing ratio after which time his ideas would become public domain and available for fair use, research and other uses. Depending upon the ideas three to 21 years would be a reasonable span of time as most ideas are out dated in that period of time. Pressure to produce and innovate would always be present. There will always be a tendency on the part of inventors and copy right holders to position themselves as Microsoft has to impede or control progress to the detriment of its competitors. . No the real issue relative to the copy right debate is absolute complete control over the storage and distribution of information. The stakes loom larger the more powerful the stake holder. Men like Gates and Jobs were initially admired for their pluck and tenacity, seen as innovators and visionaries. Now Gates is just another greedy puke like Metallica. The only innovation Gates and Microsoft have seen these past ten years is what it purchased. Probably the same for Metallica. Phil
I have to agree with the stance taken by Linus T. Although Napster is a usefull program, it's users for the most part are kidding themselves - Napster is about trading copyrighted music. OK so technology advances regardless of the law, and in this case the law is miles behind. The RIAA do have an ulterior motive in shutting Napster down, and the motive is the same as most lobbying groups - maintaining the balance of power to ensure the income of the people they represent. Napster may get shut down, but in the long term, the RIAA are fighting a battle they can't win. Good thing too IMHO.
Pity my tastes are somewhat broader than the range they cater for. Metallica et all, & The clueless wonders that make up the RIAA are missing a golden oppertunity, If I could go to Metallica.com & dload (not that I would e.g. only!)my favorite ditty for $.99, albums for $5, & "best of's" for $7.50, I would, & so would millions like me.....
HMMMM, I wonder if this is Napsters ".plan" they can't have been clueless enough to think they'd get away with it.......
Give 'em 6-12 months & they could be the Search Engine frontend of the RIAA - after all, they've already shown how well they can do it...
Watch out for that IPO...
--
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
There goes the argument that data/code/music should be free and unfettered by copyright/patent/trademark laws. I mean, Linux is the GOD of this community right ... and even though he protects his trademark (using *linux* in a domain name requires his approval, reference slashdot search) and is in favor of copyrights, the majority fight to keep Napster a float.
... especially when you KNOW the data they are exchanging is protected by copyright, hell you even CATALOG it for easy searches.
... how much cash are YOU willing to part with for that MP3 you just pirated off Napster ... thank you, you just proved my point.
So this means that the zealot thieving masses who feel they are above copyright/trademark/patent law because they are fighting the "good fight" have two options, WAKE UP and smell the rights of content owners or continue to fight for piracy tools such as Napster and discredit yourselves even more.
Sure, peer to peer file sharing is not a crime, but creating an environment to where 95% of your users knowingly break the law is
I see Napster as an arrogant attempt to "challenge the status-quo" in the music industry but unfortunately the "status-quo" they are challenging is long standing copyright law, and they will and deserve to lose.
I support MP3 as a format and an artists right to distribute music they create and own any way they see fit, and for those who wish (or are bound by contractual obligation) to remain part of the juggernaut that is the RIAA, they too deserve the same copyright protections as any other copyrighted material which is published regardless if you agree with how they choose to publish.
Those who fight for Napster are only hurting the cause of "freeing content", and they know it but the ability to get free music that they would otherwise have to pay for clouds their vision and shortens their perspective. And they claim the RIAA are money hungry greed hounds
They are monstrous hypocrites who use Napster to steal while raving maniacally about the importance of the GPL.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Notice that the majority of these legendary open source speakers are rather wealthy or at least very well off. This backs up some ideas of basic economics...
Why do people trade in MP3s? For a greater part, because Napster makes it free (like beer). Now this freedom comes with a price in time and effort. You have to go to the effort of downloading the songs, ensuring the rips sound good, and ensuring that there are no distorted or incomplete areas in the file. Additionally, you may consider the legal ramifications which can be viewed as an "expense" of risk and conscience. This can amount to quite a bit of effort, and for someone with considerable wealth, it is just not worth it.
Enter the record companies, marketers, distributors, artists, and middlemen. They have raised the price of a CD enormously over the last 10 years. Everyone with a brain in their head knows that the actual production costs associated with manufacturing CDs have dropped considerably. So the money now gets divided among more parties in greater slices than ever before.
Is it not obvious to them that the act of raising CD prices will naturally drive up the number of music pirates? That is the nature of the system, and not only do they (the bands and RIAA) largely oppose it, they largely create it.
One would hope that some crackerjack entertainment sector economists have worked it all out and figured out the ideal (realistic) selling price, and if so, they have set the price to be where it is today. I would suggest that a very simple market analysis will tell you that these current CD prices may maximize profit under the current market constraints, but they will also escalate piracy far beyond what it would be if the prices were lower. (aside: remember the old joke - if you laid all economists end-to-end, they still would not reach a decision).
That being said, I agree with everyone who says that MP3s help the music industry. It just stands to reason that as people's income rises above a certain threshold, it is no longer worth their time to collect illegal MP3s when they can simply buy the CD. If MP3s were legal, the companies would have less piracy to fight, and could charge a slightly lower price for CDs. This would in turn decrease the number of "free music" users in favor of conveniently buying the music since it would be more affordable. They would have to use some sort of copyright that would only allow not-for-profit distribution so as to keep their advantage (a form of open source?).
Moreover, a bunch of affluent guys (whether gods of open source or not) telling those less fortunate that they are doing wrong is ludicrous. A marginally-employed high school kid who listens to MP3s today will buy CDs (or whatever medium is popular at the time) tomorrow.
-L
Hmmmmmm?
With the advent of the internet, many of the current media providers have found themselves on the defensive. Newspapers and magazines feel threatened by the web; movies, television, radio, and music distributors are lashing out against filesharing of their content; software companies are complaining about rampant piracy of their products.
This situation is deteriorating with the addition of new legislation and new lawsuits to the scene. The Motion Picture Association of America is suing the makers of DeCSS (a tool that allows DVDs to be read to a file for viewing or copying), the Recording Industry in general seems to be suing Napster, MP3.com, and anyone else that they see using the MP3 music codec, and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has basically criminalized "fair use" for anything that uses encryption to prevent copying.
The Problem
Most traditional content providers make their money by charging consumers for their products based on the media that they buy. Book publishers sell printed book, newspaper companies sell newspapers, record companies sell CD, tapes, or records. For most of our lives, this has been the only way to do it. If I want the latest Terry Pratchett novel, I have to go to the bookstore and buy it. They even make additional money by releasing hardbacks first, so that the devoted fans will have to pay 2-3 times more than the paperbacks will cost if they want the books in the first few months after release. The internet challenges this entire revenue model by offering an alternative distribution system. Traditional media is based on the sale of the physical medium. Since most types of content can now be digitally encoded as files, the physical medium is not a limiting factor. 100,000 recordings of a song can be copied with no degradation, no media cost, infinitesimal distribution costs, and no additional sales commissions attached. This sounds great, doesn't it? Economics 101 says that demand will always exceed supply, and drive the price up. Well, the supply curve just went through the roof, so shouldn't this mean that the price should go down? The problem is that the sale of items cannot be mandated for copying to take place. Simply put, there is no way to physically make someone pay for items that they have copied from another person. Legal requirements against copying protected materials will be about as enforcable as the 55 mph speed limit has been on metropolitan interstates in the long run. :)
What's At Stake Here
Many computer users may feel that this is fine. "The music will always be free" proclaimed one in a recent article. That very well may be true, but musicians will continue to have to pay rent and buy groceries. Therefore, some method needs to be found to allow them to make money from their efforts.
On the other hand, groups like Metallica and Dr. Dre can only lose by their lawsuits and intimidation tactics. The word "Boycott" may not hold the threat that it once did, but their fans will remember their actions for quite some time. Many people are simply tired of the inflated prices for movies, CDs, software, and other items that are now media-independent, and are taking things into their own hands. They know that they're not stealing, since the "injured" party has not lost anything; they simply haven't gained anything either. The net outcome to the artist is the same as if they had simply not bought the album at all.
While each of these viewpoints are correct, a solution must still be found for each. If prices aren't drastically lowered for media-independent content, many computer users will simply stop buying movies, CDs, and other items they can "pirate" for free. But if revenues diminish for the artists, the content will suffer (as many would argue it already has for television).
Fortunately, there is a solution. I'm not the first person to have thought of it. I doubt that I'm even in the first thousand to have thought of it. I just haven't seen it in print anywhere yet in it's entirety.
The Solution
Lower the price for file-based media content. Drastically.
Yes, I know that this is a blinding flash of the obvious, but it's well overdue. How much does an album really need to cost, once you remove the cost of the media, the shipping, the warehousing, and the retail markup? How much would you earn in additional sales?
The key to defeating piracy is simple. Reduce the price and piracy goes away. Downloading a CD from the internet on a slow connection might take up to two hours, depending on your speed and if you get disconnected from your (often unreliable) source. Software often takes 4-6 hours and movies could take days. This assumes that you can even find what you're looking for, which can be a hit-or-miss process for many items. Even a straight CD-to-CD copy will often take an hour if you have a CD Burner and may not always work.
If companies were to reduce their prices and make their content available for paid download online from high-speed, reliable servers, they would not only stop the vast majority of piracy, but they would increase their own revenues fairly substantially. Copying would still be possible, but the effort required to do so would not be worth it.
The model I think would work best is along the line of "Everything for a buck". Why that amount? Because one dollar represents a psychological cut-off point in most people's minds. It is throw-away cash that can be spent with no guilt. How many people do you think would have paid $1 to download WinAmp? How many would have downloaded the Matrix Soundtrack for $1? I'll bet that it would have amounted to more money than was earned.
I sincerely doubt this would affect the current market for conventional media either. People will continue to buy CDs, DVDs, and books if they have no computer, have no internet connection, or simply don't wish to be chained to their computer to enjoy these items. In fact, people who download these items onto their computers will often buy the media afterwards for the convenience, if they enjoy it that much. In the case of television, this may inject some life back in the media, if broadcast companies would allow download of old shows and episodes (and we mean complete series, not just snippets).
Specifics
CDs - Allow download of complete CDs for $1 ideally ($2 if necessary), or $0.25 per song. Royalty is paid to artist, company pockets the rest. Could also profit from banner ads on download page.
Movies - Allow partial download of movie (first half) for free to get people hooked. Require payment of $1 for download of entire movie. Link to sale of physical DVD or VCR tape. Make money on banner ads.
Television - Allow download of TV shows at $0.25 per 30 mins. This includes shows that are off the air, as well as previous episodes of currently showing series. Include commercials, which can be fast forwarded (but often aren't; people have gotten used to seeing them and often forget when they can fastforward). Make money on banner ads.
Books - Allow download of first half to 3/4 of book for free (many publishers already do this.) Allow text, HTML, or word doc download of entire book for $1. Link to sale of physical book. Make money on banner ads.
Software - Allow download of popular software (games, common apps, OS's, other "must-have" software) for $1. Sell printed manuals separately (this is commonplace). Have easy on-line registration. Make money on banner ads.
Critical to this is the ease of payment. All payment should be through credit card or some equivalent secured online payment. Note that this will make the credit card companies very happy and would make for excellent partnerships with them.
Don't worry about encryption or copy protection. Encryption cannot succeed, since the final product must be decrypted to be used. DVDs could have unbreakable encryption, but all that a viewer needs to do is set up a video camera, point it at the TV screen, and digitize their recording. Same with audio. If you sell your products at a reasonable price, most people will have no problem with paying that price. Some unauthorized copying will still take place; simply point out the ultra-low cost of legitimately purchasing the product to flagrant abusers.
What I have suggested above is one of the better ways to go. I would urge media executives to consider this and implement it. A few final points should be made, however.
If companies continue to try to enforce their inflated prices by lawsuits against companies like Napster, MP3.com, and individual users, they will rapidly find themselves running out of targets without solving the problem. New technologies are being developed specifically to mask the identities of users and decentralize the location of the files. Who will you sue when the program has no controlling company? Who will you finger when the users and file sharing are anonymous and encrypted? How will you block their access if the software can jump ports or sit on port 80 (requiring Web Access to be blocked in order to block the program)?
The business of media content is changing. The dike is leaking and the industry is running out of fingers to plug the holes. The rewards for adapting to this new reality could be enormous; if you lower your prices by 90%, but have sales increase by ten fold, you can come out ahead. But if you don't change, you may find that you don't have a industry anymore.
Mike Dickinson
meridun@templeton.gt.ed.net
Notice: This article may be retransmitted freely, but only in it's entirety and with credit for authorship given.
Donovan-
The record companies make *more* than $5 on a $16 sale. There's a whole slew of people in the food chain between you, the sucker^H^H^H^H^H^Hpurchaser, and the innocent, slightly naive artist, dreaming of his own tour bus, cowboy hat, and personal "Joe-C" midget sidekick...
There's an interesting breakdown by Steve Albini, and of course I don't have the URL which you're so impatiently demanding, but do a Google search for the title - "Some Of Your Friends Are Already This Fucked."
There's also my personal experience that might help slake your thirst for knowledge. My band's CD's cost us, at most, and in small, expensive lots, about $2.50 to press, including a crappy little lyric sheet insert in four colors. The majors press millions for about $0.80 a copy, tops.
I, too, wonder what those "competitively-paid" record company execs do to earn their millions, but I don't begrudge 'em a penny. (However, I am a little jealous that one of them, Mottola from Sony, I think, got to screw Mariah Carey every night for a couple of years). They'd better enjoy feeding at the trough while it lasts, though. The world is catching on to them, and we've got tools to force change. I'm comin' for ya, Mariah, daddy's comin'....
The article suggests that readers may be surprised by Linus/etc's reaction, because of an assumtion that free software is "vaguely socialist".
Since when has socialism meant "stealing is OK"?
--
Well, first off, I apologize if you took my "you"'s to mean you personally. When I say "If you do this", I meant it in the general sense of "If someone does this". I never meant to accuse you of being a pirate. Also, I quote here: "The legality of companies like NetPD to snoop a computer in my house without my permission or a judge-issued warrant". See, you were doing it yourself. Finally, you're jumping into an argument about something that you just admit that you don't use (and your lack of knowledge there backs up that claim).
Now, second off. Who's the ass here? I never resorted to name calling or bashing, yet you feel that you must do that to win the argument. Try winning with facts and for bonus points, don't make them up...
When I invite a police officer into my house for a cup of coffee, or as a friend/neighbor, that's completely different from that officer entering my house on offical business. The courts have already decided that.
Ah, but do you think that if you posted a classified ad in your newspaper for 20 kilos of heroin, that the police would be coming over for coffee? That's exactly what you're (in the general sense in case you didn't catch that) doing when you post the list of songs that you have available for download on Napster's service. You're basically posting an ad for your songs. That's public info there buddy and it's not illegal for someone to use that in the legal system. I can't say whether that info will stand up in court, but it's sufficient proof for Napster to ban those users.
The phone company can monitor my line -- only for the purpose of "quality testing" -- and for no other reason. The courts have decided that as well.
Yes, well there is a little bit of difference between you calling somebody and posting a listing of your songs on-line.
NetPD, 'tallica and the RIAA have done far more damage to the public's right to communicate that the public has done to their revenue stream. It has to stop. Can't argue with that. I think so too, but you're own arguments are about what's legal. Does the public's right to communicate mean that they can communicate illegal info? NO. Therefor, whether what they are doing is good for the public or not, they are doing what they are legally entitled to do.
Your accusion of my criminal behavior, without any facts, proof, or evidence, when I have violated no law, is exactly the point I am trying to make. Thank you for making it for me.
Heh, after you go off calling me a fool and an asshole for "assuming", you assumed that I was accusing you. If you've read this far, you'd realize that I wasn't doing that and I've already apoligized if you mistook this for that.
People are innocent until proven guilty, and that proof must be obtained legally, or at least that was the case until morons like 'tallica, the RIAA, and you spewed their dollars and/or idiocy on an ignorant legislature and judicial system.
Tell you what, let's let someone with a little more intelligence try to make that decision. How about the courts? That's what we pay them for.
Well, I'm sorry that I just wasted my time preaching to a troll. You quote a lot of laws and then try to compare something totally different with them. This isn't a little kids game where you get to try to shove the square block through the round hole with a hammer. I can't argue with the laws you post but I most certainly wonder how you think that this case has anything to do with them. Oh well, you can flame away at me if you want. Just remember, every name you call me just detracts from your message. Calling me names just makes you look childish and says that you don't even think you could win this argument without being abusive. Well, I deal with you people all the time, it doesn't work. But you've already proven that :)
kwsNI
Taken from the GNU website:
No, I do not copy illegally or advocate such (nor does RMS, BTW). But I resent the insidious implication that publishers are getting away with here--even Linus uses the term! This is just one more reason to boycott even beyond MSFT.
Let's assume that you have encrypted your content (audio, video, whatever) in a way which cannot be broken.
Whoever wants to copy and distribute it illegally, does not need to decode the content. It can copy the media, encryption and all, and then sell/give it to other people, which then will not buy it from official channels.
Moreover, in order to be read/played, the contents shall be decoded at some point in the process. Applying a bypass after that point and sending the output to a recording device, it should be possible to make unencrypted copy with little or no loss of quality.
Sure, encryption may prevent common user to easily make copies on its own. But it would never stop the determined 'pirate'. And once the contents are decoded, with Internet it will always be possible to distribute them.
This is why I believe that the best solution for 'piracy' is social engineering, not encryption.
Ciao
----
FB
Especially the part about his site not being registered.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
I was wondering if it was possible, since NetPD came up with the 350k or so "names" who "illegally" traded, or downloaded Metallica's music, for at least some of those people to sue either Metallica, or Napster for slander...
I'm no lawyer by any means, but, I do recall the copyright law stating that copies can be owned and maintained by someone who owns a bought and paid for original copy.
The copyright law says nothing about format, which is all MP3 encoding really is. I've checked out the legality of scanning and storing on my Hard Drive several books that are rare, and it looks like the law is in my favor.
At least 1/5th of those people on the listing didn't "Pirate" the software. They obtained a copy of the music, and owned the actual music CD.
What that amounts to, IMO, is that Metallica, and NetPD is responsible for labeling around 1/5th of their list improperly as pirates, or thieves.
Napster, if they were smart, would query their own customers with an honest to goodness questionairre, and present the findings in court. Couple that with the possibility of a multi state, multi person slander suit, and perhaps the big labels, and finger pointers will look harder the next time they want to mislabel someone.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
In this way, even if someone steal it, the loss is bearable.
This is not my idea. I read it on-line some time ago. Possibly, someone already patented it :-.
Ciao
----
FB
I've often wondered why the music industry, in their quest for total control of the distribution channel, didn't fight very hard against the used cd shops around the country... I remember a slight murmor when one of the big chains began carrying used items, but it dissipated quickly. Hopefully this will be the case with Napster, and definately Gnutella. I've heard the quote on several news stories, "the genie is out of the bottle" and that seems to be the general opinion (except in the heads of record execs).
I also buy most of my music used, but offset that by purchasing as often as I can from local artists who sell their own works. I don't think I'll miss having the hand-picked stars of the year on the top 10 lists when I can be turned on to the vast amount of beginning artists I have found online or thru college/pirate radio.
"I have a cunning plan..."
Your average 13 year old Napster user is likely stuck with a 56K modem, far too slow to effectively download much in any reasonable amount of time. And aside from that, he doesn't have the discretionary income to buy the CDs, anyways.
When it comes to the record company's primary concern (profit), there's just one question to be answered: Does using Napster / gnutella / whatever cause people to spend less money than they would have without it?
I'll let you guess my answer to that question from this tidbit: Last week week I downloaded gnutella and started using it (I've never used Napster). The next day I went out, went to 3 different music stores and spent a total of $70 on CDs. This was the first time in at least 6 months I've spent any money on music.
Of course, you can argue that it doesn't matter how I or anyone else behave when we have these tools available: It's morally wrong to 'steal' intellectual property, you'll say. But the wording of the US Constitution on this matter makes it clear that IP law exists for practical, not moral reasons: "to promote progress in the useful arts", not "to protect an author's natural right to control distribution of his writings", or somesuch. Therefore, the fact that I spend more money after aquiring gnutella means that enforcing copyright law in this case would have in fact contradicted the spirit and intent of that law.
Or at least, the spirit and intent of the original copyright laws. The spirit and intent of the DMCA is to put as much power as possible into Disney/Sony/TW/et al's hands.
Because, unlike the average /.er, Mr. Torvalds and Mr. Wall have created copyrighted works that are enormously popular.
Are you a GNU zealot? You do realize, don't you, that the GPL depends solely and completely upon the validity of copyright? That without copyright, the GPL is so much toilet paper?
These people may be able to program, but they're not lawyers, they're not politicians and they're just not qualified to share their views on this subject.
And I suppose that you *are* somehow more qualified than they to offer a viewpoint? Has it escaped your notice that any copyright holder has an obvious interest in seeing the copyright protections of all copyrighted works upheld? Today, the RIAA; tomorrow the GPL. You can't have it both ways.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
well put. Thanks for chiming in on this subject. I was on the fence, actually leaning towards Napster prior to reading your treatise on this matter. In retrospect, I don't know what I was thinking. But isn't it always that way -- like the work of Einstein and Hawking, once they have shone the light of insight in your direction, you are forever changed.
I speak for all of Slashdot when I extend our hearty thanks to you for enlightening us.
Timothy
timothy@monkey.org
Actually, Betamax's superiority was only a myth. It wasn't any better than VHS in reality.
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
Speaking in terms of simple economics, there was almost no demand for a means to trade legal MP3s back and forth like that. If they were legal, then you could just put them up on a plain and simple webpage or FTP for people to download, with no fear of legal repercussions. Illegal MP3s, on the other hand, had to be hidden behind multitudinous pop-up-window-spawning sites, or IRC 'bots, or other means, to prevent the legal people from finding them, and there was simply no good way to swap them back and forth easily. So, there was plenty of demand for an easier way to trade them. When someone produced a way to supply that demand, naturally everybody hopped on it.
That's a straw man. Unlike Napster, those items have legitimate uses that make up a substantial fraction (e.g., more thanNews Flash. If something is used for illegal purposes 99,999 out of 100,000 times it is used, it is perfectly justifiable to ban it on the strength of that 99,999. The one legitimate user can find other means. (And yes, I admit to making those numbers up. They're conservative estimates, I imagine the actual truth to be at least a couple more powers of ten in my favor.)
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
My question to you is how can you like rap??? Nevermind, I am sure that many people have pointed this out, but is it actually the artist speaking out or the artist reading some nice neat notecards that the nice old lady in PR wrote out for them? I personally don't care what music artists says about music piracy but I respect the fact that you are inclined to buy the entire legit album.
Its a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field...
Then why aren't the artists or the industry loosing money?
Napster, and Usenet both expose people to music that they then go out and buy - period.
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
Don't worry about it. Regardless of how much legal action there is or how many laws are passed about it, nothing will stop the current process in which people are rediscovering their freedom to communicate peer-to-peer.
The corporation-centric and government-centric world is dead. The noises and thrashings coming from that quarter are the death throes of dinosaurs, nothing more. They can still kill you with a bite or a swipe of their tails if you're within reach (the moral is, don't be), but their days are numbered.
Short of the net being shut down, this process is unstoppable, and it'll lead wherever technology allows it to go, not where money, power, nor yesterday's perceived notions of right and wrong say it should go. The future is no longer in the hands of men bearing robes or commanding armies, because they won't (apparently) cut off the communications that would put them back in the driving seat. Real power has moved.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
And thus another debate begins.
Look: copyrights are, in principle, good. The fact is, everyone has the right to share his stuff on his own terms, so long as said terms are fair. Copyright is a balancer in that. It defines some things which must be included for the terms to be considered fair (fair use, and expiration after a set time). But it also makes sure those terms are kept. It's used by the GPL to enforce its terms (I'll share this with you, but in return you have to share it too.)
This is why UCITA and DMCA are bad; they allow corporations to set unfair terms (no negative reviews, no reverse-engineering for compatibility, no right to see the terms before agreeing with them, etc.)
However, that's a double-edged sword. Look at the standard terms for a CD. OK, you've bought the CD. You can play it as much as you want. You have the full terms of fair use. You can even play it for your friends, so long as you don't try to make money off of it. You can even lend it to a friend. The only thing you can't do is make a copy of the music and give it to a friend (or give said friend the original and keep the copy for yourself). This seems fair enough; you paid your dues, they should have to pay theirs. Now, the price-fixing the RIAA does is highly unethical, and they need a DoJ slapdown in the worst way because of it, but that's another issue that this post isn't meant to address.
This said, I don't like what Metallica is doing. They certainly have the right to be suing over piracy, but the arguments they are using are extremely hypocritical (saying they're disgusted at the fans "treating their music as a commodity" when that's just what they do themselves). Let's face it, it's all about the money, and they ought to be honest about it. Of course, that'd be terrible PR, but it's still the truth.
As for RIAA, MPAA, etc, they're just plain scared. The Internet and computing technology, particularly as the infrastructure thereof matures, is going to render them obsolete. Right now, software exists that allows a person at home to theoretically make movies with special effects surpassing what many Hollywood films had not even ten years ago. Sound processing software exists for recording music, and CD burners and duplication firms exist to distribute it. With a decent Website and e-commerce software (some of which is Open-Source), I could publish and sell a book without ever going to a major publishing house.
That's why MPAA is so worked up. They aren't afraid of people using DeCSS to decrypt DVD's; they're afraid of people doing the opposite: making their own DVD's. Without going through them. It's why RIAA is so worked up; artists could use MP3 or related formats to distribute their music. Without going through them. In short, they're very quickly becoming obsolete, relics of the past which will die out as technology evolves and "natural" selection drives them out. They had a chance, once: had they embraced the technology early on they could well have enjoyed their dominant position even as smaller companies and individuals came into their own. But this can't happen; they sat on their hands for too long and now it may well be too late.
People have said in defense of piracy that "you can't stop the technology." They're not right to defend piracy with that argument, but the statement is still correct. You can't stop it. All you can do is embrace it. Problem is that RIAA pushed MP3 away for too long, and MPAA is doing the same with similar technologies. It may well no longer embrace back. And that's their fault, not that of the technology. The corporations had their chance. They blew it. And now they're going to reap what they've sown, and it won't taste good. I only pity the innocents who had nothing to do with it, but are going to feel the fallout because a few fatcat execs were too scared to take the plunge.
I personally don't see anything intrinsically wrong with copying stuff. I see "piracy" as about as serious a threat to the fabric of commerce and society as speeding on the road. We have built for ourselves a Star-Trek-style replicator for digital artifacts, and I think it's quite silly to pretend it's wrong to use it.
However, I think Linus et al recognize that respecting duplication/distribution restrictions is the only mechanism by which the GPL survives. The GPL says you can make copies, but only if you do certain things. The music publishers say you can't make copies at all for any reason. This is an extremely childish point of view, and we must work to help them realize this. Nevertheless, until they make a different decision, we must observe their wishes, however strenuously we may disagree with them.
So while I would very much like to see all the spoiled brats at RIAA sealed in a pit of their own filth, I must reluctantly conclude that we need to observe their distribution restrictions. Ethically, we must do this if we realistically expect them to observe the redistribution conditions in the GPL.
(BTW, it's interesting to observe that Open Source works, which derive considerable independent value from your ability to make copies -- in addition to being of generally higher quality -- are generally distributed at no cost; whereas closed-source works, whose value is diminished by prohibitions against copying, costs money.)
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
just because you were intelligent enough to have formed the fundamentals for the linux operating system, doesn't make you necessarily a good policy maker or wise for the matter... I have bought more cds within the last couple months, based upon the sole fact that I've heard some good MP3's which were sampled. You tell me what's better for the industry- having bought nothing?!? Stay in your own realm- that of programming...
I have well over 3000 MP3's, many of them by artists such as Dave Matthews who promote live recordings, and I also own over 350 cd's. I am a big fan of music, and work at a radio station. My point is that Napster allows me to get rare live shows, or artists that I can not purchase locally. I can honestly say that I have purchased CD's from artists that had songs on Napster, and that if anything, Napster has caused me to increase my spending on music, by assuring me that I will enjoy what I purchase.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
I don't use Napster. I've never used it, in fact. I think the people who say that Napster won't cost the music industry money are kidding themselves. The music industry will lose money if Napster or one of its cousins works. A lot of money.
However, the idea of the music industry losing a lot of money is, in my mind, not necessarily a bad thing.
I just can't help but wonder if the people who use Napster understand that the music industry could be radically changed by their actions. I mean, I've heard that most of the stuff on Napster is crap - Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, etc. If Napster/GNUTella/FreeNet really take off, to the point where Big Music just bites it, it will mean no more Britney, Backcrap, etc, forcing Napster-ers to listen to music that isn't overproduced to the point of being bad.
I can't condone the actions of people who illicitly copy information across Napster. It is illegal. It will hurt those companies. And that's (as Stuart Smalley would say,) okay. I do believe in the free exchange of information, and I can acknowledge that Big Media is against the free exchange of information.
Alright, I seem to have forgotten my point. I guess it's this: I wish people would choose a side other than "Napster doesn't hurt anyone". Either pick "Napster hurts people and I'm okay with that", like I have, or "Napster hurts people and I'm not okay with that".
Choose! CHOOSE!
it was originally at www.campchaos.com, but the page there seems to be down. Baiting has the downloadable .exe version mirrored on the front page.
:-)
you're welcome
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
I don't understand this.. the artists work countless hours makin their music, then the editors/sound producers work their hours.. a lot of work goes into the publicity.. and a lot of money too.. in the end .. an individual
.. sometimes wrongly.. for not paying me as much as I'd like to get paid.. (health insurance, building maintenance, the company isn't profitable yet... etc etc.).. but what about the RIAA ?? don't we have a right to know why we're being charged so much for a music cd ? if there is
buys a new cd for $16-$18 (go to any CD store in new jersey).. how much profit did the Recording company make from that one sale ? atleast $5..
now imagine selling 1 million of these cds..thats
a $5 million profit. How much money do the artists get from this profit ? I don't know.. but I would wager to say not very much..
How much of this profit goes back into giving the
secretaries,agents their money ? not very much again.. yet the RIAA has everyone thinking that they need these high profits to stay in business or their artists and the execs will die of starvation.. in a country where the average yearly income is 40k, how can these suits justify making $5 million from a few months worth of work ?
Didn't I work 70 hours last week ? just like the artists did ? didn't Joe construction worker spend so much of his time to build the studio in which the band made it's recording ? how much money went to him ? NONE.. How much money did I make for my 70 hours of work ? none compared to these artists..
my point is that for everything I do, my company can justify
a good explanation for these high costs and i've looked in the wrong place.. please direct me..
But you don't get to control which songs you hear snippets from. They'll give you the best off the album. Napster allows you to demo the good and the bad. I don't know how many times I've bought an album b/c the song that got radio play was great, but every other song sucked. They aren't going to stream the sucky songs to you on the web.
Sorry. I don't want to flame, but why exactly are you blocking ExecDSL?
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
Yes, copyrighted music is being transferred over Napster.
And though I may agree that the uses mentioned so far don't hurt anyone:
ie using to sample songs to buy later, or saving the time to burn from your own CD's
They are still illegally transfer copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder.
But the reason Napster should be protected, is just because a technology can be used to break the law, the technology, should not be illegal or banned.
I think Metallica sounded like idiots in there sound bite about napster, but it is their music, and they have the right to say what can be done with it.
But they shouldn't blame Napster for it. Giving someone the opportunity to do wrong, should not be wrong. We have the abilty and the knowlege to chose right or wrong, we shouldn't limit our freedoms, because they could be used for wrong.
Should you sue Ford or Budweiser or the City, because a drunk driver using their car, beer, and roads, hit them?
And don't whine, that when you get caught doing something wrong, that its not illegal, because you feel it shouldn't be.
This Signature does Not Exist !! FNORD
After reading this article, I began to feel a little guilty. I mean, I use Gnutella, which, if you don't know, is like Napster, but reliable and professionally constructed, to pirate CDs. I realize now that by downloading hundreds and thousands of mp3s, I have been doing a horrible disservice to the record companies, whose business it is to distribute this music. It is easy to criticize them, but we must realize that record companies provide an essential service. Without them, who would there be to exploit the artists who produce the music we listen to? Who would there be to force us to pay for packaging and take most of the artists' profits? The job of the middleman is to exploit both producer and consumer and that can't be easy. Still, the record companies manage somehow, and for that, they deserve our support! The people who deserve our support are the artists whose music we enjoy. Now that we have easy electronic distribution of music, I think that the time of big record companies is past. When they are not needed anymore to press CDs, their only function will be to provide publicity for their clients and take their money. The problem of finding a secure way to distribute music online, protecting the artists' rights is a complicated one to which I can't pretend to have a solution. For me, I am not going to start buying CDs again and I am not going to stop downloading entire albums with Gnutella. What I am going to do is this: for every album I download and keep on my hard disk, I am going to send a check to the artist who recorded it for whatever it would have cost to buy that album at Best Buy. Shareware worked pretty well with software. I am fairly certain I am still committing a crime, but at least this way, my conscience is clear.
I dont get the whole thing piracy has always been around and very accepted. Those who buy albums are going to buy albums those that don't will pirate. so who is looseing? the album that is pirated most likely would not have been bought in the first place(no money lost), now all the pirates friends can be exposed to the music and some of them are album buyers and wala free advertising. I mean is there realy that much scare that napster is going to destroy this balance? I mean come on some people still want the fancy packageing and others like to support the music they listen to. and pirates I mean the realy hard core ones with 10 gigs of mp3s could never have bought that may CDs anyway. anyway BLA BLA BLA
Did you make them up? Guess? I know of many mp3's that are traded on napster that are public domain. You can get the same files off of mp3.com but it's more of a hassle.
Have you ever used the service?
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
You cannot create a service intended primarily for illegal uses and then defend it by claiming that it could be used legally. That won't fly.
Guess what? When the RIAA comes across websites where people have posted MP3s, they inform the ISP under the DMCA to take it down or they will sue. Back before the whole Napster thing, there were articles about how they were starting to use web spiders to try to track these people down.--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Unfortunately, because of the way the internet and personal computers work, there will always be a way to hijack "preview" media. If RealAudio wasn't possible to save to disk, someone would write a utility that would, and distribute it to their friends, who would... Well, you get the point. The technology we have now doesn't allow anyone to keep information locked down. Even encrypted channels can simply be recorded via packet-sniffing and repeated as desired.
As far as truncated-length samples go, that's great and all, but there will always be a way to get/distribute full-length audio. Even if MP3 were to get abolished (highly unlikely, it's become a de-facto standard compressed-audio format, and will likely stick around, much like cassette tapes do today) someone would write a format, use this wonderful network we call home to send codecs for it to his friends, who would... Once again, the problem comes back to the ease of use of the internet -- it's impossible to fully control it, no matter how hard you try.
(And for those of you who think that corporate control is possible, sure, AOL/Time-Warner/Nullsoft/what-have-you can control the content for the 80% of people out there who are connected through their service because it's easy to use -- and it is, regardless of how badly it fucks up your system. But people with some technological savy will always find another way. TCP/IP is an open standard, and I can't see any way to force the internet away from it (look at the trouble IPV6 has getting implemented anywhere) and there will always be a loose hub somewhere.)
/rant.
BoneShintai
Just because Larry Wall or Linus takes a stand on this doesn't mean Metallica has justice... Larry and Linus are spokespeople and political leaders in the Open Source movement. Since Linux=Free and Napster=Free people are making the connection between the Linux community and MP3 'piracy'. I don't think that they want this comparison while there is controversy.
pronoblem
I feel they are being quite heavy-handed about the whole thing, but as the copyright holder (i.e. its their music), they can treat it pretty much any way they want. If they think of it as a commodity, so what? They aren't breaking the law.
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
Linus: 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
Hemos: he's merely saying that copyrights aren't necessarily a bad thing, and that piracy is a bad thing.
Sure, that's merely saying that. He obviously agrees with metallica, but we can't bash him beacuse he's Linus, and Linus can't be wrong can he? Of course not, thanks for clearning that up Hemos.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Thank you for pointing this out. I didn't really take it into account.
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
"
Heh, you know what the funny thing is? I bet that when good ole Linus gets a tune in his head that he has a hankering for hearing, he goes and opens up his copy of Napster or gnap or gnapster or what have you and starts downloading away... It doesn't have to be napster, either, mp3s can be found by using your favorite web browser just as much as by using napster.
Gives new meaning to free speech, eh?
I think Andre said it best: "sin all depends on what you believin in"
Personally, I use mp3s to find out if I actually want to buy the CD. If at least one song is good enough, I might shell out the $15 to buy the CD.
I own the respective CDs of most all of the mp3s I have.
I don't think Napster should go down for this. I mean, if you're going to point the finger at them for being a medium, you might as well sue AOL and Microsoft. Hell, they make the two most popular web browsers and you can download mp3s using them. Sue them! Burn them! Evil! Money good! We're greedy bastards!
</rant> =)
Oh, and die RIAA. =)
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet, tasty beer."
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp.html
The above is a good example of the possibilities for new thinking with regards to the proper use of copyrights. Copyrights exist ostensibly for the benefits of the artists whose works are copyrighted. Beneath the auspices of certain organizations, such as the RIAA, copyrights have been turned into a mechanism for extracting higher gross profits in an attempt to "offset" the "losses" which are said [by the RIAA!] to accrue from the illegal use of DATs, CD-R and even cassette tapes.
These profits are not, however, returned to the rigthful artists but are used by the industry to offset losses from less successful artists and to cover other similar "costs"!
This is essentially a CYA tax for artists who aren't very good and the industry executives who are foolish enough to sign artists who can't sell.
You are paying for artists you probably never even cared to listen to, much less purchase.
Basically, the incredibly high profit margin associated with the sales of CDs is used to fund the industry and its tight grip upon the profit making potential of signed artists. This is neither in the true spirit of copyrights nor is it to the benefit of the vast majority of artists.
In short, the RIAA is complaining because they cannot directly control a distribution mechanism like Napster. Venues such as orangealley.com, candaentertainment.com and rapstation.com are aware that technologies such as MP3 level the playing field and obviate the need for hard media such as CDs. By cutting the costs of traditional distribution, artists are, in fact, easily able to distribute their music themselves. Promotion and management can now become the specialized focus of companies which would previously have been unable to compete with industry heavyweights. None of this makes the RIAA very happy and given the history of abuse which the music industry has heaped upon its many artists, this could be termed the wheel of karma coming back with a vengeance.
Copyrights are a valuable tool when they are not subverted and it is important that the wishes of artists be observed with regards to their works.
If Metallica does not want Napster users listening to their music then Napster users should listen to other bands who have no such feelings. That is the beauty of MP3 and Napster. This is also the surest way to subvert the attempt by Metallica [and the RIAA behind them] to defame a perfectly valid means of communication.
Napster is not the problem.
Rather than attack 300,000+ users and alienate a large number of fans, Metallica would have been far more prudent to simply let people know that they did not want their music traded in such a fashion. That would have been the polite thing to do. This would have kept a much larger percentage of people in their corner and would have opened up the possibility for a much more reasonable debate on this issue.
Linus is right, artists have the right to control their copyrights, but the real question is if any but the most incredibly successful of artists in fact control anything at this point. The RIAA has been excruciatingly effective at taking control of art from the artists and they are not in any sense seeking to discontinue this practice. The current attack on Napster is not so much about the copyrights of artists as it is about the industy profiting from the copyrights of artists.
Support the movement, free the music.
-DB
[ a directive occured while processing this error ]
I mean, think about it: What here is news? Did something happen somewhere, did some fact that the slashdot population needed to know come up?
NO! ZD was probably just looking through their quote file for Linus Torvalds, and found something off color. They call him to get a juicy quote, and then bounce that on over to the other "OS gurus" to get their reactions. Post em all up, with a headline that's guaranteed to make a slashdot reader twitch, and BAM! You got yourself 500,000 ad impressions, with little-to-no effort. Sure, Linus hedges his statements at the end so that the actual quote isn't really all that inflamatory, but they seperate that part and put it down into the bottom. And what goes at the end of a story? The junk they don't care if you read it or not! They've already downloaded 50 ads to your screen by then...
(sigh)
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
If everybody became an artist, chances are that 90% of them would suck. (Law of averages. Some people just have no ear/talent/imagination.)
The artists COULD charge whatever they want, they could do that now, except - If another band underprices you, you don't sell as much (unless you just really rock). And then it's back to where we are now - Band A charges $25.00 for their latest 2 CD album - man, that's more than my lunch money for the week - hey, let's go get it from Napster instead!
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Linus did NOT say that he didn't like Napster. What he said is that Metalica's suit was the only one that he saw as having anything approaching moral ground under it (my personal spin). Lee Gomes then used that quote out of context to support a spin that almost nobody in the Open Source community supported things like napster.
THAT is why people were confused into thinking that Linus didn't like Napster.
Spin, baby, spin! It's what the media industry does best.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
But hey, it's ZDNet, so what do you want? I'll also state my opinion right off that Linus, and Larry are great programmers, not gods. Anyhoo:
...
.mp3s? Radio stations aren't going to play it (particularly if it's not a single), and it's not going to be on MTV. The INDUSTRY doesn't care if you like it or not, so long as you buy it. However, I don't want to buy if I'm not going to like it.
Indeed, those lost sales
And where are the stats on that? the record industry was UP last year. I'd like to see a comparison of downloaded songs versus an individual artist's sales. How many metallica songs were downloaded compared to how many albums were bought? and how do the sales trends measure up against the last 5-10 years?
specifically, music that might otherwise cost $15 a pop
If this were still the case, then it wouldn't be an issue. But mainstream music costs $18-20 per cd these days. Less used, but the band doesn't make any money there either. You'd be best off trying to sue all the used music stores (which I'm afraid isn't far off).
what I DON'T see happening is anyone proposing a solution. How do I hear new music if I can't grab the
my fucking lord, I agree with RMS on this one.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
The existing system is flawed, and the only way to work it out is to, as Chuck D of Public Enemy put it, "Fight the power! Fight the powers that be!" - no offense to the D man who I hold in awe above any rapper on the planet but have you ever checked out who they are distributed by
Ever heard of Rick Rubin, Def-Jam records. Are these people small backdoor operations I think not.
As a proffesional musician (eg. I make more than 70% of my income this way whilst studying at University) I have always found it funny that people believe there is such a thing as non-commercial music. Come on! How the hell would they ever have been heard in the first place. Even PUBLIC ENEMY distribute their albums through the major players in the music business. Yes for the fans you might believe their is some small backyard operation but really this small company is being financed by a major player eg. SONY, ROADRUNNER,GEFFEN etc.....
As far as I know you can buy PE - posters, t-shirts and albums at large COMMERCIAL venues such as HMV etc. I know I have a PE poster on my wall and a t-shirt and all their albums.....
No disrespect to your comments but it is about time people realise that if you want to be an "entertainer there is a price to be paid. If you are really playing music for yourself sit in a garage and be really "alternative" (that title makes me laugh) you don't need people to listen to you or appreciate you but if you want your music heard bite the fucking bullet.
Once again back is the incredible
Rhyme Animal
the uncannable
D - Public Enemy Number 1
NO TRUER words have ever been spoken)
Peace!
Man sorry if I sounded like I was ranting
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Your avrage 13 year old isn't likely to be a Napster user...
Napster is not any easyer than IRC with DCC or doing a WebSearch...
Napster is basicly a new RealPlayer type system.. It can be abused by people who have the bandwith... Both...
What keeps RealPlayers audio from being CD quality is the bandwith... A person can offer CD quality over real player for DSL users...
You could also just offer mp3s on your website..
(It would be FAR more effective.. thow up some banner ads to pay for the bandwith... then your making a proffit...)
It's theft but blaming Napster is a kin to calling a magnifying glass a tool made for arson...
It'a a populare arson tool for 13 year olds but not anywhere near as effective as other tools..
The same with Napster...
It takes time to download stolen music and the user is likely to leave before your done...
I've done quite a bit of experements in this area reguarding Napster... Initally by mistake... grabbing commertal music by mistake.... eventually with intent to test to see if the conditions are continuous...
They are...
I have a humble radio modem..
It appears that for Napster to be of any use you need an ISDN or better...
At that point you don't need Napster...
You could just download over a website or from an FTP or on IRC...
Napster is just a service for the free stuff...
It's like an MP3 that is on Napster... a commertal...
It educates parents and teachers to make sure kids don't pirate software...
Thats noble...
The solution? Stop the kid form stealing commertal software? No stop the kid fron using ANYTHING free. Copying = Theft...
The music industry is going the same way...
All music is commertal so anything that makes it available is theft...
I can see the addatude of some free software advocates (NOT RMS sorry people... but he isn't the only free software advocate...) they are a bit off kilter... but not totally wrong...
For them it's like whores proclamming unpaid sex as rape. Now I have no problem with "The oldist profesion" but you know if anyone tryed to call consenual sex between lovers rape they'd be laffed at. (Not to be confused with forced sex between lovers...)
Now lets back it down a notch... Trying to sell software isn't whoring... But the anolog otherwise remains valid..
I knew a music artist whos band never did a single profesional recording in there lifes....
They never make money.. They record in the bathroom (The second one... "Happy otter" don't ask he never explainned) and give tapes away.
It's all for fun...
No doput now a days he'd use Napster (if the band is still together)...
(I should check)
There was a time when Xmodem and BBSes were for piracy... that the only use of a home computer was to break into busness and government systems. That BBSes were all about pedphiles.
And on.. and on.. and on...
Someone sees something they dislike and then the computer world turns into the work of satan...
Someone included the image of a nade girl (woman?) in a software demo...
There was a big stink about it being "pornography"...
The image quality stunk... The programs greatest achevment.. you could accually tell she was nude...
Byond that.... forget it....
Someone finds out you can pirate music vea Napster and rases a stink... a bunch of people try it...
Hay... You know what... you can steal free music and sell it to the music industry...
Is the music industry a system of music theft?
A conspericy to repacage hobby artists work?
No...
But the logic applyed to Napster would provide a diffrent answer...
I don't actually exist.